HCJB
Matt Park told the coach “USF gave you all you wanted, didn’t they?” JB: “Obviously we got off to a slow start and that’s not good. What you have to understand about their team is that their didn’t have their point guard, (Anthony Collins), for 5 games. They didn’t have Gilchrist for 2 games. They didn’t have Poland. That’s why they started 7-6. What if they get to 12-6? They aren’t in the tournament? If their name was Villanova, they’d be in. I don’t think that a 12-6 major conference team has ever failed to get in.“
Matt credited the two seniors, Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine, with making the big plays down the stretch. JB: “The history of this season is those two guys making big plays. You don’t want (to depend on?) freshman or sophomores making big plays when you’ve got those guys.”
They talked about the 26-0 run. Coach wondered if that was a record. Matt said we’d had a 32-0 run vs. Maine, (12/5/09: we won 101-55). JB: “That doesn’t count.” He did say that we have had an unusual number of long runs this year. Matt said we’d had four runs of at least 19-0 and had a 14-0 run or more in “all but 8 games”. That is remarkable.
Jim from Cleveland (NY) had a rambling quasi-question about point guards. He wasn’t sure what the term meant but thought Bob Cousy was one. He said that Coach was “trying to figure out how to play four guards” and wondered if Michael Carter-Williams was only a point guard. JB: Michael can play both guard positions and so can Scoop, Brandon and Dion. We are fortunate to have them because they make us more versatile.”
I called in and attempted a joke about everyone worrying about the uniforms but the game turning out to be about streaking that sounded better in my head than it did on the radio. I then asked my question about how much our record is attributable to the team and how much to the league as it is this year. “We had good teams back then but there were weak teams at the bottom of the conference. All conferences have weak teams at the bottom. This one has Pittsburgh and Villanova at the bottom and Connecticut in the middle. All leagues are weaker than they were 20 years ago because of guys leaving. Matt Park offered that there is more overall talent today and that more schools make an effort to compete. JB: “There’s a bigger depth of talent and more (good) teams. It’s more and more difficult to figure out who should be in the tournament and where to seed them. There used to be 2-3 teams really close to getting into the tournament. Now there are 8-10.”
Jim in Central Square wanted to know why we don’t use the high post-low post game more. JB?: “It’s not our best weapon. Two years ago we had Arinze who was a great scorer down low. Fab is getting there but his defense is way ahead of his offense at this point. Right now our offense goes through the guards.” Matt noted that Fab had a bad turnover trying to pass form the high post. JB: “That was right after we told him not to pass it there unless it was wide open. It wasn’t even close. We have another option coming off that play. Baye made a couple of big plays off that play that won the Cincinnati game.”
Matt asked what was going through Jim’s mind when CJ Fair went down. “I don’t think about those things.” Matt: “He slipped on a wet spot and bounced back up like a deer.” JB: “CJ is much like Kris as a sophomore. Back then the defense had to concentrate on Wesley and Andy and Kris was able to slip in the cracks. Now they are concentrating on Kris and Scoop and our guards are doing a good job of finding CJ. But he’s still got to finish.” Matt noted that Kris had had a ’bad’ game because he shot only 5 for 17. JB: “He wasn’t finishing early because they were being physical with him. But he made two huge plays down the stretch.”
Matt noted the seniors had vowed “not to leave here without beating Louisville and Pittsburgh.” JB: “You want to go out the best way you can.”
They discussed Connecticut. “We played really well for 35 minutes and were up only by 2 points. Then we played unbelievable for 5 minutes. That tells me that Connecticut can play with us. They were 9-9 in the league last year and wound up winning the national championship.” He thought Villanova “played really well vs. Marquette and Connecticut. “They just needed to play with more poise. That’s always true with young players.”
Josh in Manlius noted we hadn’t “had one of those perfect games where we shoot 55% in a while.” JB: 55% isn’t perfect. You’d like to shoot good all the time but you never do. When you don’t shoot you have to do something else- play defense, turnovers, drive to the basket and get to the line, etc. “ Matt had some numbers: We’ve shot 50% ten times had held the opposition to 40% or less 20 times. We are 28th in the country in offensive field goal percentage and 12th in defensive field goal percentage. We are first and third in the conference, respectively. Coach, ever thinking about the next game, noted that Connecticut was in the top five. “They are a good team with tremendous talent that’s struggled with chemistry.” (He used to hate that term- he prefers “balance”. He used to suggest that the Washington Generals had good chemistry- but they never won.”
Steve in Aurora suggested that Scoop and Dion play well together and ought to be out there as a team more. JB: “Our guard play has been tremendous. It‘s hard to get somebody else in there. You can‘t give up on them. They might have a great second half.” Matt said that “Sometimes it’s not Brandon’s week or Dion’s night. Brandon might be 0 for 6 in the first half and score 12 points in the second half.” JB: “He’s done that.”
They talked about Jim Calhoun. “He’s having some kind of surgical procedure. It must not be very invasive: they are talking about being back the following weekend.”
Coach noted that we’ve never defeated the Huskies at Gampel Pavilion, only in Hartford. “They will shoot well there. It’s a smaller building.”
A caller wanted to know what the rules are on wearing colored uniforms at home. “I don’t think you can do it at home. You can in the NBA. In the NFL the home team has the choice.” Matt noted that some teams with the right colors have worn colored jerseys at home- Illinois, wearing orange, Michigan, maize. He then announced “That is all the fashion talk we need on tonight’s program.” I’ve always thought that teams should have the option of what uniforms they wish to wear so long as there are contrasting colors. If you look at old college football newsreels you see a lot of games where both teams are in colored jerseys. I think it much have changed with black and white TV. Both teams wearing colored jerseys would be fun, IMHO, providing there was sufficient contrast, (which was lacking last night).
Len was a big Brandon Triche fan but felt that he was “thinking too much”. JB: “ He sometimes does that a little bit. He’s really not sure he should take over in games. He had two really good drives but just missed them, (the shots). He’s a huge key for us- a tremendous player. We need him to perform at a high level. It was just one of those nights. If he gets his rhythm he’ll be fine. He’ll have a big season next year.”
They discussed the fact that any games we have until the NCAA tournament begins will be rematches- is there any advantage to either team? “I don’t know. There’s a lot of variables. I’ve seen teams turn it completely around and I’ve seen the games be the same. Teams can become different teams as the season progresses. Last year Villanova made everything up here and nothing down there. It was the same with Georgetown.”
They talked about Pittsburgh’s problems. “They lost some tough guys. Their defense used to shove you around, steal the ball and wear you down.”
A caller wanted to know how many NBA players were on the team this year. JB: “I wish I knew. Nobody thought Jeremy Lin was an NBA guy. I scored 20 of 30 points in a scrimmage but the team I was trying out for had 12 guys with guaranteed contracts so I didn’t get the job. Isaiah Thomas of Washington was a guy who wasn’t expected to be an NBA player but he’s started for the Kings. Gary Neal, who went to Towson State, is playing for the Spurs. You have to get into the right situation. I don’t think that fans or players appreciate how hard it is to make it in the NBA.“
Another wanted to know why Rakeem Christmas isn’t playing more. “He’s going through a learning experience. The prep school league he was in wasn’t very physical. He’ll be fine. He’s trying to get it. It’s just taking a little more time than we thought. CJ’s comfortable coming off the bench. Rak has to make something positive happen when he’s in there and not make negative things happen. Thomas Robinson of Kansas only played 14 minutes a game as a junior last year. (Actually, he was a sophomore. He averaged 14.6 minutes and 7.2 as a freshman.)
Dan in Rome wondered if it was more difficult to coach a talented team like this one. JB: “All our teams are talented. We were very talented two years ago. We had a lot of good players. Our bench play has dropped off in recent games. Our experienced talent has done well.”
Chris McManus sat in for Gomez for the second hour. Duke was up 7 on Florida State. Chris suggested they were a bit different from Duke teams of the past. JB didn’t think so. “The guards still control the ball. They’ve got a couple of good guys inside. People expect a little too much of Duke.” Chris said that ESPN’s “rivalry week” double-header was quite a show with SU- Georgetown going into overtime and Rivers hitting the buzzer shot to complete the comeback vs. UNC. JB: “That was a crazy night.”
A caller wondered if Jim liked coaching players whose father’s were coaches. JB: “They think they know about basketball. Sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous. Players understand the game from their own, limited, perspective.” (I remember reading that Ben Schwartzwalder liked to recruit coaches sons because they knew what it took to be successful and they would be the leaders.)
Chris asked the coach what his perspective was as a player. “I had a little more of a coach’s perspective. I had a great high school coach, (Dick Blackwell). Players are better off if they come from a great high school program.” They talked about Doug McDermott of Creighton who transferred there to play for his father. “He doesn’t want people to think he’s a great player because of his father. He became a great player by working out in the gym for hours. That’s how you do it.” He also said that “Great players tend not to make good coaches. They wonder why their players can’t do what they did. It’s because they can’t. A lot of the best coaches were not great players- Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Red Auerbach. Eric Spoelstra began as a film guy. Great players often don‘t want to do that.”
“Naz” in Clay noted that some teams change their defense in the middle of a possession. “Since teams have a blue print of waiting until late in the shot clock to try and score, maybe we could switch to a man for man for the last 7-8 seconds of a possession. “It’s not a crazy thought. The problem is, when you switched you might have a guard on a big man or a big man on a guard. A couple of teams switch if you make a certain cut. 7-8 seconds to go is not a good time to get a good shot. 4-5 possessions a game they don’t get a good shot and a bad shot can help us.”
Chris added “You’re not going to lose to a team scoring 48 points. JB: “You don’t change your defense because your offense is bad. Nobody ever asks a man to man coach why he doesn’t switch to a zone. If we played all man to man, we wouldn’t be 28-1.” Chris made the mistake of jokingly asking, “Would you be 29-0?” JB: “I’d like you and all the people who think we should play man to man to stand on a bridge and jump off and tell me if you enjoyed it. We played man to man early in the season and it didn’t work. We use the zone because it works. It bothers teams.” Chris assured the coach that he was not an advocate of SU using the man to man defense.
I called in at this point and made reference to the Sports Illustrated Article from last week in which Jim said that he “Wanted the guy ahead of him to play bad so I could get in the game.” he laughed and said that maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “You can be too honest sometimes.” I asked my question about what Rak, Baye, James and MCW had to do to get more playing time. “James and Baye are getting opportunities. James played 22 minutes vs. St. John’s and 20 vs. NC State, (actually 17 and 18). If he struggles, Kris has to come in. (interesting that he sees Kris as the alternative to James, no CJ). James can make steals and he sometimes rebounds but he needs to make shots. He should stop thinking of just making threes. He’s a very good shooter from 10-12 feet. We run plays for him to set up threes. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Sometimes it does put a little extra pressure on him. But he’s a college player and he should be able to handle that. He’s confident. He’s just missing shots.
“Rak plays- not always a lot. He said that MCW is playing behind three great guards. I asked him if the incident in the Connecticut game had an impact on Mike’s playing time. “I hold grudges for 30 seconds. I get upset with players and they get upset with me. That does not affect his playing time. He’s made a bad play and made an excuse about it and then he made another bad play.”
We’d like to see if we could manage to get them more minutes. It’s not anything different. It’s what we have been doing.”
Chris asked about Connecticut. “They are as talented as any team in the conference. JB: “As any team in the country. Boatwright and Napier are getting more comfortable. Marquette was playing as well as anybody in the country when they beat them. This will be our toughest game of the year. We’ll have to play at a very high level. They have the #1 rated schedule in the country.” They discussed the rating of schedules. “Different information produces different results.” Chris said that he just uses the eyeball test. JB: “Some eyeballs are better than others.”
Chris is from Binghamton and want to congratulate the college there on finally winning a game after 26 straight losses. JB: “They can’t recruit off campus. It’s too bad. It’s a good town and they’d just built a new arena. They could be successful there. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through that.”
They talked about Kansas State’s two big wins over Baylor and Missouri. “K-State has big men. That hurt Missouri. They are small. I don’t think they will beat Kansas in Lawrence.”
Chris played a sound bite from Chris Bosh, who said of Jeremy Lin that “Some people will praise you this week and curse you next week.“ JB: Chris is a little negative. He doesn’t seem to have good relations with the media. He’s a great player who can do a lot of things. He helped us win the Olympics.” Coach thinks “The Knicks will be fine. They’ve got some nice pieces. They needed a longer season to get used to playing with each other.” Chris asked if the next Olympic team will have sufficient leadership without Jason Kidd. “We’ll have some great players who will be great leaders because they are older. They were young guys 8 years ago.”
John in Syracuse asked where JB developed his preference for the ‘up tempo’ game. Coach said that’s the way they played in high school and college. “We pressed every game- we were short. Our center was 6-6. We ran out of the zone. We scored 99 a game my senior year which was the record until Vegas broke it. That’s the way we would like to play- up tempo.” Why don’t we press more when we get off to these sluggish starts. “We want to protect Fab from getting into foul trouble on those 2 on 1’s. Also you expend energy you need for your half-court offense. How many teams do you see pressing today? Louisville uses it. We’re one of the few others. None of the top teams do it. They put all of their energy into their half court defense.”
Ed in Syracuse wanted to know if basketball had the equivalent of baseball’s ‘sabermetics‘. “Do you have your own Theo Epstein?” JB: “there are little things that matter: charges, screens, loose balls. They are all a part of winning. I don’t need a study to know that. We’ll have tapes on anybody we might play in the tournament. Todd Blumen handles that.”
Chris asked what games the coach tends to watch. “It’s mostly for entertainment rather than to get ideas. I watch games involving former players. I watch the Knicks. I’ll watch a late game from the west coast.” the coach DVR’s his favorite prime time shows. He said the list is “secret” but with minimal pressure revealed that he watch both NCIS shows, House, Grey’s Anatomy and Person of Interest. He doesn’t watch reality shows or comedies. Chris says he’s into “Breaking Bad”. JB was unimpressed.
There will be one more show this season- next Thursday.
