The Downside (Colgate)

[SWC75]

- We should have a great season if we keep playing Colgate. This might have been a better Colgate team than the one we had been beating by 50 points a few years ago but they weren’t 25 points better.

- We won the game by hitting 14 treys. It’s good we can do that but 30 of our 51 shots were from outside the arc. Typically, we had four guys at that distance and one guy within the arc. We got only 9 offensive rebounds because we had only one guy going after them,, surrounded by Colgate players. If the ball didn’t bounce right to him, (or if it did and he was DaJuan Coleman) we didn’t get it. If Colgate, who had a significantly smaller player at position, could break even on the boards against us, what will North Carolina do? Heck, what will St. John’s do?

- A guy like DaJuan should have Colgate for lunch. He did get a couple of late baskets to reach 10 points but he had only 2 rebounds in 20 minutes and negated that with 2 turnovers. He still holds the ball low or dribbles to gather himself. He tries lay-ups when he could dunk, (although he final threw one down in the final minutes). He never seems to come up with loose balls because he doesn’t get low enough to retrieve them. This year is his window of opportunity to make something of his once promising basketball career. Next season we’ll have Chukwu. There just enough signs of progress so far.

- We made 14 of 30 three pointers, an excellent 46.7%. Those shots were wide open. We should have made that many. Why is that on the downside? Because against a good defensive team, those shot aren’t going to be open.

- The big story of this game is that Mike Hopkins stuck with his top guys throughout. Against Colgate, in a 27 point win Michael Gbinije played 39 minutes. Trevor Cooney played 36 minutes. Malachi Richardson played 34 and Tyler Lydon 32. Franklin Howard, Kaleb Joseph and Chinoso Obokoh played a total of 16 minutes. I’m not saying that Hopkins was wrong to do this. The point is that what the players who played so little show3ed him in practice and in the game was not enough to convince him that we could afford to have them out there against Colgate.

- And this is the difference between having 9 scholarship players rather than 10 or 11. Yes, we normally play no more than 7-8 players against good opponents. But if you have 10-11 guys competing for those spots you have a better chance to make that 8 and you have a better chance to make it a good 8. If Howard, Joseph and Obokoh weren’t doing enough, they’d be a couple of other guys competing who might be giving us more. But this year, those guys aren’t there and we have four guys playing 32+ minutes against an over-matched team.

- Of course it could also mean that Mike isn’t satisfied with the was even those 6-7 top guys a re playing and wants to give them the time to get their game up to speed.

 

[br801]

Nine offensive rebounds off 26 missed shots is not an unreasonably low percentage.

 

[Nicknack]

Great write up once again, SWC. What bothered me last night was not seeing more Joseph and Howard against a team like Colgate. I really liked what I saw in Howard last game and was surprised and disappointed not to see more of him last night. This is the time to develop some players we will need later in the season. I trust Hop knows what he's doing but it must be a bit of a challenge for him to do what he wants vs. doing what he knows Boeheim would want. I'm sure those aren't always the same thing, hence the challenge.

 

[pfister1]

I agree with Nicknack, I was disappointed that we didn't use last night's game against maybe the weakest opponent we'll face to do some specific things to develop the team for the go forward.

- use more Frank and Kaleb. It shocked me that we played the starters & Lydon almost the entire second half. I don't think Gbinije & Cooney finally came out of the game until about 2-3 minutes to go. G played 39 minutes, Cooney played 36 and Richardson played 34.
- what happened to Roberson last night...only 22 minutes?
- work harder to get more inside. It was great that we made a lot of 3s, but if we can't work harder to get more varied offense against Colgate, who can we get it against.

The substitution pattern (or lack thereof in the second half) had me wondering if Hop was coaching to make sure of that first win and avoid a close game against Colgate at all costs, rather than coaching with confidence.

 

[RF2044]

Great write up once again, SWC. What bothered me last night was not seeing more Joseph and Howard against a team like Colgate. I really liked what I saw in Howard last game and was surprised and disappointed not to see more of him last night. This is the time to develop some players we will need later in the season. I trust Hop knows what he's doing but it must be a bit of a challenge for him to do what he wants vs. doing what he knows Boeheim would want. I'm sure those aren't always the same thing, hence the challenge.

Agreed. Including last night, we have 5 tuneup games to get some of the bench guys some minutes before the ACC schedule begins. Now is the time to force feed those guys some developmental PT, to get them prepared to help the team during the conference portion of the schedule. In that regard, last night was a missed opportunity vis a vis developing bench backcourt depth.

Playing both of those guys play 15 minutes was far more important outcome IMO than beating Colgate by 30.

 

[SoBristol]

Seemed like Mike Hopkins did not want to take any chances -- needed to get his first win. Now that he has that, I hope he shows more confidence whenever he has his next cupcake game.

SWC is right -- we don't get those shots against better defenders. Disappointed to see our inside guys struggle that much against an unimpressive Colgate frontcourt.

 

[Sgt Cuse]

I am hoping things settle down now coaching-wise. I think the turmoil has taken its toll the last 3 games. I think JB coached his worst game of the season against Wisky. I wonder when he was told of his suspension. In retrospect it looks to me, like he knew before the Wisky game and he changed his ways. For the Wisky game he played KJ2 way more than he had all season, and I think it cost us. But if he wanted to get a 7th player he may have felt pre-game that he was going to do it and not saddle Hop with that problem.

The Gtown game was a disaster from the start. SU looked intimidated and lost. But Hop did substitute and it looked like a change had been made on the designated backup guard over to FH.

Now against Colgate, FH (and Kj2) barely played. Bizarre. I thought FH looked good against Gtown and had moved ahead. I thought Hop would give FH more minutes than usual (more than what he would even get as the 3rd guard in ACC play). Didn't happen. Maybe Hop tightened up in a kind of must-win game for him. I don't know.

 

[Townie72]

I agree with Nicknack, I was disappointed that we didn't use last night's game against maybe the weakest opponent we'll face to do some specific things to develop the team for the go forward.

- use more Frank and Kaleb. It shocked me that we played the starters & Lydon almost the entire second half. I don't think Gbinije & Cooney finally came out of the game until about 2-3 minutes to go. G played 39 minutes, Cooney played 36 and Richardson played 34.
- what happened to Roberson last night...only 22 minutes?
- work harder to get more inside. It was great that we made a lot of 3s, but if we can't work harder to get more varied offense against Colgate, who can we get it against.

The substitution pattern (or lack thereof in the second half) had me wondering if Hop was coaching to make sure of that first win and avoid a close game against Colgate at all costs, rather than coaching with confidence.

Or how about if he was trying to develop the starting 5 into a more effective unit before starting to develop the subs? I think that ought to be the priority.

Shooting all those 3's against Colgate is a very bad sign. It demonstrated just how dependent we are on outside shooting and how few alternatives we have.

 

[Madbiker]

When you get a slow unathletic team like Colgate and you can get 3 feet of space to get off mostly uncontested shots, the perimeter barrage is great. Against teams that match up size wise and play good defense, and defenders are in your grill all game (hello Wisconsin and GT) ...well not so much. The fear is that the ACC part of the schedule will be a whole lot of the latter. There was no semblance of an inside game last night which doesn't bode well.

 

[Gonzo]

this was simply a decision to prioritize getting the core rotation back into groove over developing Howard or Joseph. I thought Hop would have played them more. I particularly like Howard and his ability to break down a defense and penetrate. This is something really need more of. That and rebounding. But this team will go farther with is core than on the reserves, so maybe it is understandable. As it stands now, we have to hit threes to win game. And we really need to beat St. Johns.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I don't have a problem playing are main people the whole game like someone else said we really need to get them ready and playing together. This is not a team that has been together for a while and are comfortable outside of the backcourt and one of those guys was a forward last year. My biggest concern is why we are taking so many 3's in a game like this. If we can't score inside against Colgate, if we can't penetrate and take it to the basket against Colgate. I don't know what to say somehow I feel worse than I did before this game. We will not be able to win this way. We need to spread people out and drive as well as shoot the 3. We are not going to hold anyone down defensively with the back court we have. We are a good passing team but we can't hit 3's in transition and from amazing ball movement every time.

 

[tbonezone]

playing your starters up 20 under 5 has a far bigger downside than upside.as thin as we are we're one ACL from disaster.
secondly ask yourself if our subs are better than colgates 1st team ? the win shouldn't be in doubt. they only recruit our bench in their dreams. not giving the bench more play in that hostess hoho homer makes me wonder where hop's mind is.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Agreeing with Nicksack. Joseph should have been back in much earlier. We should have been putting the walkons in at the 2 minute mark when Joseph re-entered.

Don't know what to think about Dajuan. He does shoot from such a low point despite his height. And everything just gets so contested, despite his bulk. The other teams just know he can be attacked and they take nothing for granted as they might with another player. Not sure why people say he's slow of foot. I often think his feet are too happy. I'd want to see much more economy on offense. And, seriously, coach him up to just elevate and shoot as soon as he catches it. If he is in a position where he needs to drive to reach the hoop/get up a good percentage shot, forget it and pass out. I want to see him scoring without dribbling or making any spins, juke, feints, what have you. ZRandolf style. He already catches it deep. How close do you have to be? His conversion percentage has to be higher, even from slightly further out, if he doesn't give the defender a chance to make a play.

What's the story with JB saying we don't run ANY plays for Lydon? Isn't it time to exploit his talents? In the past, JB has said our playbook is much thinner than most other teams ("15 plays?") because the kids can't remember them. Just our kids? And just our kids can't shoot free throws? Anyway... get TylerL some sets, please. He's earned them already.

 

[Ghost]

If we need to get our two fifth-year Seniors into a groove for this stretch of games we should just forfeit the season. Not sure G could be in more of a groove anyway. Shouldn't we be more concerned with getting Roberson into a groove? He could use some groove.

So, we're going to develop Howard or Joseph when we're getting taken to the shed against another upper-tier opponent? We don't need them to be ready for when we substitute?

Our guys run a pretty simplistic offense, our two guards are by most accounts on the forum super-good defenders, we're not working on pressing, sooooo.....we're accomplishing what? Developing the starters? Up 25? Against Colgate?

I think (hope) we see the bench more going forward, I'm not sure why we ran those guys out for 18 second half minutes - it's illogical (Hop overly focused on winning?)

 

[br801]

After reading this thread, it seems Hop has already proven himself as stubborn, short-sighted and incompetent as JB.

We should be so lucky.