Vital still deserves to start?

[Hey Adrien!]

Yes, Vital's mental mistakes can be frustrating, but with our lack of frontcourt depth, his rebounding, energy, defense and tenacity is so valuable. You can't teach what he has.

However, you can teach better decision making on offense. His first two years on this team was perhaps the worst climate for young players to learn how to play team basketball properly. Hurley's coaching will help correct his mistakes while still celebrating what he does so well innately. Remember that corner 3 on Sunday when there were three passes to the corner and the ball never touched the ground? That's something that never happened with KO and Vital will learn from smart plays like this.

Also, the new guard depth of Smith and a healthy Gilbert provides exemplars of how to correctly blend assertiveness without sacrificing the possession. Gilbert and Smith are tonics, they play it safe and limit mistakes and they can handle more of the distributing and ball handling duties while Vital is on the floor.

When does Vital fail? When he overdribbles. No need to do your best Kyrie impression when you have four other really good guards on this team, plus a developing handle from Polley and whatever Sid can bring to the table.

Bottom line, be patient with a kid as passionate as Vital. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't put it all together this year, and he continues to give us headaches, but he has a chance to be a really good two-way alpha guard.

 

[A10 fan]

This makes sense. Duquesne must have had some really good guards for Tarin not to start.

They basically rotated the two guard spots among 3 players who were pretty much equal. Smith could have easily started, but the three pretty much got equal playing time, and had similar stats. They're very deep at guard this year, which likely led to Smith deciding to grad transfer.

 

[Waquoit]

He'll get there. He's in his own head right about whether to shoot or not.

I just wish "not" was taking up more head space. It took Taliek 3 years to realize he was a lousy shooter and in the 4th year they won the title. Maybe he can help Vital here.

 

[CL82]

I just wish "not" was taking up more head space. It took Taliek 3 years to realize he was a lousy shooter and in the 4th year they won the title. Maybe he can help Vital here.

I don't think CV is lousy shooter. He just needs a little time set his feet to shoot. To me at least he looks like he's rushing. He just needs to relax and, to your point, only take the shots that are there.

I worried about his buying in under Hurley. I think that he has. With time I think he'll figure out how his offense fits.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

CV can help us, it will work out.

yes. yes he can help us, and yes it will work out.

 

[microfich]

I don't think CV is lousy shooter. He just needs a little time set his feet to shoot. To me at least he looks like he's rushing. He just needs to relax and, to your point, only take the shots that are there.

I worried about his buying in under Hurley. I think that he has. With time I think he'll figure out how his offense fits.

Agree, sure, but CV views himself as more than that and just isn't yet. Until that 'more than that' happens his minutes will reduce against better teams. He will spend less time bringing it up and more time standing behind the 3pt line, crashing the boards and giving it up instead of over-penetrating.

We've already seen that Hurley will not let players continue to fail - notice when Rique choked up his dribble twice toward the end of game one - he ended up off the ball for the rest of the finish.

 

[CL82]

Agree, sure, but CV views himself as more than that and just isn't yet. Until that 'more than that' happens his minutes will reduce against better teams. He will spend less time bringing it up and more time standing behind the 3pt line, crashing the boards and giving it up instead of over-penetrating.

We've already seen that Hurley will not let players continue to fail - notice when Rique choked up his dribble twice toward the end of game one - he ended up off the ball for the rest of the finish.

I don't disagree. I think he'll figure it out though.

 

[MuchoDogYears]

CV's just putting up shots. Anyone can put up shots. Putting the ball in the basket requires more focus on shooting technique than he's giving.

He's capable of making those same shots if he'd slow things down and focus on actually putting the ball in the basket. Can't just launch the ball at the basket and expect it to go in.

Hopefully he figures it out before he gets his butt seated at the end of the bench. He's a big asset to the team in so many other ways. Let's hope he corrects the sloppy passing and shooting because we need him on the court.

 

[RichZ]

Hurley said he wants CV to use better judgement in his shot selection. Easiest way to do that is to lay down the law with him. consecutive misses on shots early in the clock and he sits. For the rest of that half, ideally. I suspect that would put some conscience into CV's eagerness to let fly.

 

[jibsey]

He had a very quick in the offense 3 and no one was under the basket but he was very wide open. he has to make those.

 

[ctchamps]

My favorite things about fall (no order):

1) crisp evening air
2) turkey stuffing
3) "Should [player who had a mediocre game] be BENCHED?!?!!?" think pieces from the reactionaries on here.

Check out peoples comments about CV when Hurley took over. You know comments like the guy who hustles, never quits, and the fear Hurley might lose him.

Two games in and now he's expendable even though his play is the same as when most people were saying positive things about him. The difference is now we have two additional capable guards that we didn't have the past two seasons in Gilbert and Smith. It remains to be seen if both those players performance remains better overall than CV's. Personally I hope they do because that increases the number of player available to Hurley but there are no guarantees.

Every season posters join the bandwagon of the hot hand only to quickly discard the player when they fade in performance. That is the only predictable thing imo.

I still admire CV's hustle. He's the prototypical JC blue collar player. Sure his offense makes me cringe. But he's a streak shooter and I predict before the season ends he will be the player that helps win a game or two that shocks the basketball world. Hurley, like JC, values hustle, defense and rebounding differently than the majority of fans in this thread. Scoring will always take a back seat to those three aspects of the game. He'll remain a starter as long as he excels at those three things.

 

[Hi-Low]

Vital is not expendable & is an important part member of the team....he just needs to stop taking bad shots.

The last 2 years his "bad" shots were the best options on some possessions, but now we have more & better options so nobody really needs to take bad shots & waste possessions.

If Vital has a good look he needs to take it otherwise keep the ball moving.....Hurley thinks every possession is life & death so if Vital waste possessions Hurley will let him know that needs to stop.

 

[WrenchFan69]

Yes

 

[ctchamps]

I stand by what I wrote 3 posts above.