HCJB
Matt congratulated the Coach on getting Fab Melo back. JB: “It’s good to get the big guys back, although he’s not in game shape yet. He missed 4-5 practices and it’s harder for big guys to get back into game shape than to is for guards. .” Matt wondered, “Perhaps we’ve been assuming that he will play Saturday.“ Jim: “Hmmmmmm….let me think about that…..” I got the impression there wasn’t all that much to think about.
The first caller was John in Syracuse, whose priority, for some reason, was to find out how good Winfred Walton might have been had he stayed here. JB said that he had “tremendous talent but didn’t have the work ethic to succeed” and pointed out that he went out to Fresno State and “never made it out there”.
They briefly discussed football recruiting. “Alabama got 24 guys with 4 stars or better. I guarantee you 8-10 of those guys will never play for Alabama. Most 24 man recruiting classes have 8-10 complete busts. So much of it is about development. With basketball players you can see them in AAU games against other top players. But with football it’s always guesswork. A player might put on 50 pounds and become a different player. Nobody knew who Marvin Harrison or Donovan McNabb or Art Monk were when they came here. “You never know until they get here.” He didn’t think the ACC tie-in made much difference at this point but it could in the future. He didn’t think much of all the coverage of signing day, calling it “foolish”. They talked about the crazy reasons kids choose colleges. One kid chose Auburn over Clemson because it was closer to a Chik-Fil-A. Others choose because of school colors or where their girlfriends are going to school, etc. “I’ve heard reason like that for years.” Jim was asked how binding a letter of intent was. “You could get out of it with a lawyer but it’s pretty binding.”
I called in and told the coach that I had a strange feeling of calmness all through the game, as if I somehow knew we would win no matter what was going on the court. He laughed and I told him that I tried to mentally transmit my calmness to him but either we weren’t on the same wavelength or he was moving around too much. JB averred that he felt he was pretty calm during the game.
I asked my question about Keita’ hands. He said that most people have the same hands. What it’s really about is hand to eye co-ordination and that can be improved. They have drilled where they fire passes “machine gun like” in different set-ups and from different directions and Baye gets 100-200 passes thrown to him at every practice. “He’s working very hard and is getting better. It would help to get stronger but it’s really all about the hand to eye co-ordination. It takes constant work on all the individual skills- dribbling, pass catching, shooting etc. You have to learn the complete game of basketball.”
A caller wanted to know what JB thought of the goaltending non-call and “the hack on the elbow on the final three point shot by Dion.” JB remembered CJ Fair was guarding the shooter “and it wasn’t even close” (to a foul). “It was a goal tend but that’s the hardest call to make in the heat of a game. You could see it was goaltending in slow motion. There were a lot of bad calls at the game. That one came at the end. People think we would have lost. But we had the ball with a chance to score or be fouled. And they got the ball with six seconds left.
The caller said he was “glad to see Huggins mad”. JB laughed. A later caller asked if “there was anything between you and Huggins”. JB: “We’re good friends. I told him after the game ’You guys could easily have won.’ Jay Bilas interpreted that. I wasn’t referring to the goaltending call. I was talking about how they played….West Virginia is struggling. They lost a lot of guys and their young guys aren‘t quite ready. But they’ve had some great wins.”
Matt suggested Huggins may have been mad at his big man, Deniz Kilicli, (pronounced Kilitchla), who “has come up empty vs. SU”. He didn’t play two years ago. Tin the last two years he’s scored 8 points and grabbed 11 rebounds while shooting 3 for 17 from the field and 2 for 8 from the line. Matt also said that Brandon Triche must like to play against the Mountaineers. In three years, he’s scored 54 points on 20 for 32 shooting, including 6/12 from the arc and also 8 for 9 from the line. “Brandon’s best game ever was down there was a freshman. They had a great team and he just took over. When he gets offensive-minded he can be a great player. He thinks we have other people who can do it not. He should be great next year.
“There’s always going to be missed calls. You want them missed both ways so both teams have a chance to win. And that’s the way it usually is in most games. Against Notre Dame the referees didn’t cost us the game. In the West Virginia game it went both ways. It’s a losing game to worry about the officiating.
Matt noted that Jim had lost a button on his blazer during the game, (while he was being calm), and that referee Gene Steratore had returned it, for which Jim was appreciated.
George called to ask why we were playing fewer players. JB: “We have played 9-10 guys all year and still are. We are probably playing the most people of anybody in the country. George wanted to know why Michael Carter-Williams wasn’t playing. “He has three veteran guards ahead of him. He’ll be a great player someday.”
Another caller asked if when the ‘poplarity’ of the school is such that we have multiple players at one position, does he tell recruits that a player might be leaving early? JB said he did and that if no one leaves, they redshirt the recruit. That’s what was done with Trevor Cooney when Dion Waiters didn’t leave.
Matt Park referred to the recent newspaper article on Cooney and how hard he was working in practice and in the weight room. JB: “He’s really working hard. He plays the most minutes of anybody in practice. Since he doesn’t have to play, he can spend more time in the weight room. He’s using the year to get better.”
Matt asked “what kind of bounce we’ll get” when Fab returns to the team. JB: “Six rebounds a game won’t make up for a 20 rebound deficit. Everybody has to do that. That position is not the problem in rebounding in the zone. We really didn’t have a lot of balls bounce to our guards in that game. It was a crazy game in the way the ball bounced.
"Fab can block shots and get the fast break going. We don’t know what would have happened if we’d had him against Notre Dame. Everybody likes to guess what would have happened….Cooley wouldn’t have had the game he had vs. Fab. But we missed too many shots and didn’t rebound. A caller later asked if he’d “like another shot at Notre Dame.” He didn’t specifically respond but said that we were getting good shots against them. “It’s quality looks vs. shots not going in. I don’t think we rushed our shots vs. West Virginia. We had 20 wide open looks. We have to make 7 of those- that’s 35%. Three more threes and that’s a different game.”
They discussed St. John’s. “They play like a veteran team. They don’t play like freshmen. They attack you all the time. They know what they are doing and are executing.” Matt noted that God’sgift Achiuwa was 6-8 and very athletic. Jim said he’s actually closer to 6-10. Matt noted that Gene Keady is on the staff as a sort of advisor. Jim noted that when the Fab Five was at Michigan, they never won the Big Ten title. Purdue won it. (Matt later looked that up and Ohio State and Indiana won the tiles. Purdue won in their third year when Chris Weber had jumped to the NBA.)
Virginia Tech was playing Duke on TV- and losing. “They are desperate. They need a few wins. They’re 12-9 and 1-5 in the conference. I’ve watched quite a few of their games and the best game they’ve played was their game against us.
Linda called in from JB’s home town of Lyons, NY. He had read Scott Pitoniak’s biography of JB, “Color Him orange” and was so pleased to hear so many local names in it. Jim again said Scott had done a good job chronicling all the details of his career, (Linda said there were “too many stats”). “I just didn’t wan to write that kind of book. I’m not sure I want to write any kind of book.” When I called in during the second hour, I noted the book had one of those shots they always have in books about SU basketball- JB as a young player, all elbows and eyeglasses, with a caption that said, “Despite how he looks, he could play”. Jim said he didn’t know that how you looked mattered. I said that the book as a picture of the Lyons High school team that went 20-0 and they all looked like that- but they could play. That got a big laugh.
Jim talked about Tom Coughlin and aid that he’s played against Tom in high school- Waterloo is about 25 miles southeast of Lyons. Per Pitoniak’s book, Waterloo was in the same league as Lyons but was “an easy victory”. Jim was a senior when Tom was a sophomore. Later Jim was Tom’s resident advisor in their dorm. “The quietest most mild-mannered guy I’ve ever known- the last guy you’d think would be a tough football coach. The last guy.”
A caller said “I don’t see a team that could beat this team.” JB: “One already did. You might get one easy game in the NCAA but after that they are all tough. Last year Ohio State and Kansas were easily the best teams in the country and neither made the Final Four.”
Matt noted that Connecticut was 2 for 20 from the arc vs. Georgetown.
“Its’ very difficult to win in basketball when you don’t make shots- everything falls down”. They noted that Seton hall and Cincinnati had been playing well and now have lost 5 and 3 straight games, respectively. But they also noted that South Florida “is not going away” and is 6-3 in the conference. Providence: “I’m not surprised when they win.” Pittsburgh won vs. West Virginia because they’ve got Tray Woodall, who scored 24 points. “Their other guy would have scored 4 points and where would they have been?”
Matt wondered what Jim thought of Charles Barkley saying that the quality of play was down in college and in the NBA. JB agreed and said that the reason was guys leaving early. “It hurts the college teams and it hurts the NBA as well.”
Gomez took over for the second hour. He asked JB if he was going to the Harlem Globetrotter’s game. He said he had a conflict of some sort and couldn’t make it. Gomez then asked him if he’d “been in” on the first public offering of stock in Facebook. He stays out of the stock market. “I’ve got a bunch of paper at home and it isn’t worth anything.” Gomez noted that a guy who had painted their offices and got paid in stock rather than cash was now worth $200 million dollars.
Frank in Syracuse asked for a Super Bowl prediction. JB again said he’s been a Patriots fan “for a while” but would be rooting for Tom Coughlin as well. He feels that the Giants are playing the best right now and should be favored. “But Belichek and Brady can figure out how to win.” Gomez asked about Belichek’s timing of everything and simulating crowd noise. JB: “It’s good detail.”
‘Naz’ in Clay asked about going with Dion at the end of the West Virginia game instead of Scoop. “Brandon was playing the best by quite a bit and Dion was a good free throw shooter. You always feel Dion can get it going. It’s a close call. There’s no right or wrong. If you win nobody questions it. As a coach you don’t get second chances. T’s not ever because this guy shouldn’t have played or this guys should have played. It’s because the guys in there didn’t play well enough.”
Derrick Coleman had said that the problem with rebounding is not the zone but rather just the desire to get the ball. JB: “He had a rebounding mindset that we don’t have. Derrick and Rick last year wanted to get every ball. Of course it doesn’t hurt to be 6-9 and 235 pounds with long arms, either. Derrick Coleman is still the second greatest rebounded of all time.”
Dave in Liverpool asked about the Notre Dame students doing the “Over-rated” chant. JB: “Nobody ever accused Notre Dame students of being intelligent. They are taking credit away from what their players accomplished on the court.”
Dave asked him how he handled all the bad calls and what he told the players afterwards. “You tell the players to forget it- it’s my job to react to it. You tell the refs what you think and then you move on. It’s a quick thing- get over it and go on to the next play.”
Jim in Oneida talked about the NBA All-Star game and suggested it might be better to see a one-on one tournament like they had at halftime of NBA games in the early 70’s. JB said he didn’t recall that and didn’t think such a thing had ever happened. I remembered it and when I called back in, I referred them to a U-Tube clip called “Bob Lanier vs. Jo Jo White:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk9WhHFhLus
Jim thought the other Jim was referring to a competition done at half time of NBA games but it was more like the old “Home Run Derby” baseball show- something filmed in the off-season with all the stars at one arena and edited to be shown at halftime of the games that season. Bob Lanier won, because it proved to be an advantage to be a big guy who could rebound and shoot jump shots.
They discussed Murray State, (who beat SE Missouri to go 22-0) but who ahs a game coming up vs. 22-2 St. Mary’s on February 18 that will be a big game. “There’s a lot of good teams at that level this year”.
I called in my second question about giving up so many shots at the end of the shot clock. JB felt this was just a result of the prevailing strategies of the other team to use the whole shot clock. “we try to play the whole possession. We tend to push our defense out in the last ten seconds. Our field goal percentage defense is very good in that situation. Past 20-25 seconds the players on the other team says ‘we’ve got to get a shot off’’ and they don’t have the same rhythm. What’s really frustrating is when they miss and they get the rebound.”
A caller asked what targets he’d set as goals for the season. “I just take each game as it comes. Some years are disappointing. Against Kentucky, (1996), and Michigan State, (2000), we played well.” Gomez heard Mateen Cleaves said that the Spartans had a fight at halftime and they “got it out of their system”. JB: We were up 12 at halftime and got it up to 17 or 18, (16 as I recall). There were two horrendous calls and they got it down to 12, which made it doable. Two years ago I’d have been very disappointed if we had AO and had lost to Butler. At the end of the day, we are what we are. In this profession everybody is always watching you and so you get judged. In most professions they aren’t watching so you don’t get judged- you have to judge yourself. And that’s what you have to do- judge yourself. Everybody thinks you can coach. Fans always think you can do better. Very few fans think you could have done worse.”
A caller asked how often we change the set plays we use. He noted the success we’d had with the high pick and roll in the 2006 Big East tournament. JB: “Connecticut didn’t defend it so we kept running it. You keep running a play until they stop it.” The caller praised Jim for his team scoring about 80% out of time outs. Jim didn’t think it was quite that good. “You have to have something you can give them so they’ll believe in it.”
The caller also offered the opinion that free throw shooting was “the most over-rated stat in basketball.” JB agreed, pointing out that in a typical game you have about 20 free throw attempt. If you hit 70%, that’s 14. If you hit 60%, that’s 12- a difference of two points. “It’s no different than missing a jump shot.”
Gomez asked if there was an unranked team he didn’t want to face. “There’s a lot of pretty good teams ranked near the bottom. (?) Indiana State played us close least year and they’ve got a lot of guys back. Wichita State, San Diego State and Wagner are all good.”
JB found “no positives” to playing without Fab. “Rakeem and Baye played a little more but that’s insignificant compared to what we lost.”
They talked about referees. “They are independent contractors who don’t work for the NCAA and can work for any league they want. They referee 5-6 games a week, which is too many. The NCAA doesn’t want to take over and make them employees because they’d have to pay them benefits.
Someone said that the Toronto Raptors were so bad Kentucky could beat them. “People are always saying things like that. The Raptors have really good professional players, many of whom were All-Americans in college.”
