Peafoul ThoughtZ™

[RichZ]

1. 92.5% painful to watch this game. It was not pretty and it was not fun.
2. I wish we wouldn't have games on "New Whistle Day" for the officiating crew on duty. They just can't resist repeatedly trying them out at the expense of the game flow.
3. And yet despite calling 38 total fouls, they missed so many totally obvious ones! And fouls aside, the # of "out in the open" travels they missed was absurd.
4. What interrupts flow worse than whistles is turnovers. 51 combined turnovers in this game. Sickening. The most unwatchable part of this difficult to watch game. WooHoo, we forced 25 turnovers. But we committed 26.
5. Our guards were once again turnover machines. 18 of our 26 TOs came from the back court. I believe that is our most serious issue going forward.
6. At half time, I was looking forward to something around 75 to 48 or so for the final score. I'm hoping that our drop-off in the 2nd half was because we spent much of it with mostly bench guys on the floor. But still...
7. AG's 5 TOs and 5 steals kind of balance out, so his 6 point, 6 dime night was a plus in the end.
8. As much trouble as we have scoring, I think we should be using Polley's 3 ball a bit more. We should be getting 16 a night from Tyler on a regular basis, with an occasional 20.
9. Josh's forearms must have been sore last night, because the fancyazz birds pummeled his arms every time he got the ball. But as big and strong as he is, he should be holding onto it better, too.
10. Our ball pressure was effective, but I think we need to develop a trap off of it every now and then.
11. 10 blocks! Boy, that sounds great. But it's a misleading statistic. I tried to keep track, but I kept getting interrupted by my wife who just came home from the hospital yesterday and was kind of dependent on me. Anyway, to the best of my recollection we got possession of four of the 10, and only scored on one of the possessions gained via the blocked shots. Of the other 6 blocks, I believe three were converted into 3 pointers for the opponent. That's a net negative right there, where the blocked shot basically traded a two point attempt for a made three. Another one was a wash as the fancy birds got possession of the block and scored a 2. The others resulted in either a TO or a missed shot. There is a bit of a demoralizing factor involved in a block and even more so when you block more than just the occasional one or two. But I'm guessing that converting a few of them to threes kind of offsets that.

 

[uconngb]

Good call on the travels. Every one of the "Euro-steps" that Welch kept referring to was actually a blatant travel. But they did manage to call approximately 76 moving screens. So good job on that.

 

[krinklecut]

AG's 5 TOs and 5 steals kind of balance out, so his 6 point, 6 dime night was a plus in the end.

6pts, 6 assists, and 5 steals is a good line, but I find it hard to consider our starting PG having 5 TOs a plus, no matter the rest of the line.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Can't argue with any of that Rich. I feel like this team is finding its way and trying to understand what works and what doesn't. The guards haven't been great, but I don't think it's all on them. So often I watch AG or Gaffney dribbling and trying to do something and the other guys are standing around. So what do they do? They penetrate and hope something happens. Too often that's a turnover or bad shot.

Is that all on the guards? Watch them and think about the options they have. Many times there is nobody open. Nobody making themselves available for a pass. It's a bigger problem than just bad guard play. Ooooh...Polley needs more shots everyone says. Sure. But he doesn't work to get open. He hits lots of those shots on the break. In the half-court he isn't putting himself in positions to score. Nor is Sid, Adams, Bouk and even Josh....who Hurley runs outside needlessly for some reason.

 

[UKemba15]

1. 92.5% painful to watch this game. It was not pretty and it was not fun.
2. I wish we wouldn't have games on "New Whistle Day" for the officiating crew on duty. They just can't resist repeatedly trying them out at the expense of the game flow.
3. And yet despite calling 38 total fouls, they missed so many totally obvious ones! And fouls aside, the # of "out in the open" travels they missed was absurd.
4. What interrupts flow worse than whistles is turnovers. 51 combined turnovers in this game. Sickening. The most unwatchable part of this difficult to watch game. WooHoo, we forced 25 turnovers. But we committed 26.
5. Our guards were once again turnover machines. 18 of our 26 TOs came from the back court. I believe that is our most serious issue going forward.
6. At half time, I was looking forward to something around 75 to 48 or so for the final score. I'm hoping that our drop-off in the 2nd half was because we spent much of it with mostly bench guys on the floor. But still...
7. AG's 5 TOs and 5 steals kind of balance out, so his 6 point, 6 dime night was a plus in the end.
8. As much trouble as we have scoring, I think we should be using Polley's 3 ball a bit more. We should be getting 16 a night from Tyler on a regular basis, with an occasional 20.
9. Josh's forearms must have been sore last night, because the fancyazz birds pummeled his arms every time he got the ball. But as big and strong as he is, he should be holding onto it better, too.
10. Our ball pressure was effective, but I think we need to develop a trap off of it every now and then.
11. 10 blocks! Boy, that sounds great. But it's a misleading statistic. I tried to keep track, but I kept getting interrupted by my wife who just came home from the hospital yesterday and was kind of dependent on me. Anyway, to the best of my recollection we got possession of four of the 10, and only scored on one of the possessions gained via the blocked shots. Of the other 6 blocks, I believe three were converted into 3 pointers for the opponent. That's a net negative right there, where the blocked shot basically traded a two point attempt for a made three. Another one was a wash as the fancy birds got possession of the block and scored a 2. The others resulted in either a TO or a missed shot. There is a bit of a demoralizing factor involved in a block and even more so when you block more than just the occasional one or two. But I'm guessing that converting a few of them to threes kind of offsets that.

Hope your wife is doing ok, Rich.

 

[RichZ]

Hope your wife is doing ok, Rich.

Thanks. It appears to be a bout of BPPV. Scared the hell out of her when she woke up the other morning and couldn't stand up without something sturdy to hang onto. It's a lot better with the meds, and hopefully the Epley Maneuvers will work soon.

 

[ctchamps]

Thanks. It appears to be a bout of BPPV. Scared the hell out of her when she woke up the other morning and couldn't stand up without something sturdy to hang onto. It's a lot better with the meds, and hopefully the Epley Maneuvers will work soon.

Glad she’s doing better.

As far as point six goes I’m happy we didn’t start off slow.

Polley should be getting more shots. He moves fine without the ball. We are a bad screening team made worse by the moving screen calls.

For nostalgia sake someone should write Polley’s playing time should be limited because of his rebounding. I can’t do that because I never agreed with it before.

Speaking of rebounding if we could only combine the rebounding skills of CV with Tyler and Tyler’s shooting skills with CV and add in a dash of Kemba’s ability to drive to the basket we’d have a pretty decent player. Maybe one or both of Bouknight and Akok can be that player. Of course they would have to be good at FTs as well.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

1. And fouls aside, the # of "out in the open" travels they missed was absurd.
   
2. Our guards were once again turnover machines. 18 of our 26 TOs came from the back court. I believe that is our most serious issue going forward.
   
3. AG's 5 TOs and 5 steals kind of balance out, so his 6 point, 6 dime night was a plus in the end.
   

Again, I enjoy your Thought.

It was as though Holloway told his team, "Let's see how far we can get in bringing the Euro-step to the MAAC."

I spend some decent effort here arguing against harsh criticism of the players on the message board. That does not mean that I don't yell at my TV or angrily txt during the games.

Inside of the first 5 minutes, I blew up on 2 terrible passes and 2 missed free throws by AG. To my mind, the point guard sets the tone for the others. Yes, his stats and performance evened out, but those early, unforced errors may have been contagious.

 

[August_West]

If Hurley doesn’t start running pick and pops for polley or even better teach Carlton how to diagonally pass out of double teams it is coaching malpractice with the current make up of this team.
Polley is a shooter. He ain’t going to get his own but he willl make anything you get him.

The point about josh is even more important. I really like how they are force feeding him down low but that ( especially against Indiana) accounts for a buttload of to’s because we are weak on entry, and josh doesn’t receive great either and if he does receive he’s not quick with decisions. If we are going to run through post, josh needs to play diagonal hot potato at times. It would keep d’s more honest and not only polley, but vital would benefit too , as he’s a much better catch and shoot guy than he is off bounce or contested.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

Polley is a shooter. He ain’t going to get his own but he willl make anything you get him.

Can I second this? Twice?

 

[coachn]

Let's hope for fair consistant officiating at Cincinnati. We better be UP FOR THAT game and make up for IU.
Do a better job of passing to the post. No more passes to people at there ankles who are posting or looking to shoot.