We’ve got to make shots…

[Jake]

Expecting this team to rebound is lunacy.

The bigger issue is Buddy and Cole missing shots and Joe giving away 2-3 possessions without being presssured.

Every offensive possession with this team hs to be productive.

 

[JOC44]

Our defense is not constructed for the center to get a lot of defensive rebounds. On a high percentage of shots, Jesse is flying toward the corner to contest the shot. Our defense moves the center to the corners and (prior to going to the 1-1-3) stepping up to the foul line to contest shots there. We depend on the forwards to swoop in to rebound while the center is swooping out to contest. That's why our most productive defensive rebounders are usually our forwards, and why a ridiculous percentage of Jesse's rebounds are offensive rebounds.

 

[charleston]

Cole Swider has be a disappointment in all facets of the game.

It's early but Benny Williams does not look like a 5 * ...shot is face high and low trajectory... he gets pushed around under the basket ...tries high school moves on experienced D1 players and either gets a charge or loses the ball...really dissapointed!

 

[jec1521]

Jahvon Quinerly is a better example. (Antoine’s lack of production can be blamed on injuries.) Nova has had 5-star recruits that don’t pan out, similar to just about every D-1 program out there. For some reason it seems to make some SU fans feel better that ‘only JB/Cuse’ has a specific flaw that actually is pretty common.

True. But we also get much less of them, and JB acts like they grow on trees and he can replace them with someone he thinks is just as good. And here we are.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Jake setting this thread up as a poll is totally throwing me off.

That’s all I’ve got.

I agree we need to make shots, but I really don’t understand how our offense is intended to get our shooters clean shots. Cole crouches on the wing like hes pretending to hide from his defender. Then no one drives and kicks to our shooters. Love Jimmy attacking the basket, but he’s not capable of driving without shooting. He’d be even more effective if every once in awhile he hit a shooter for a three.

 

[Dick_in_MI]

One additional problem is that we have a bench that is almost entirely devoid of scoring potential. Sure, they give you things in other areas...sometimes...but when you have two of them on the court at the same time then 40% of your scoring potential disappears. Even when a starter is having an off night, you know that he is still capable of going off at any moment. That's not the case with our bench guys.

We have no sparkplug off the bench. We have guys who can...again, sometimes...give you some other things, but not every night, and are merely placeholders in the scoring column. As an example, we scored 112 points against Indiana and in 36 combined minutes our bench gave us 6 points. Last night in 19 combined minutes our bench was held scoreless and only even took two shots.

 

[Melancer46]

Obviously spacing and movement need to improve but mindset does too, especially in 2 area.

We rarely make a second pass and hardly ever make a 3rd pass to get defenses moving. Nova put on a clinic as to how spacing and sharing can improve shooting. They missed wide open looks in the 1st half, we didn't shut them down. They were mentally tough enough to understand that their system works - trust it, execute it and it will pay off. Our guys get too hero/iso driven when shots don't' go in, or defense makes them work. This results in dry spells and worse bad shots that often lead to easy buckets.

Nova's other mindset that we lack - if you miss GO AFTER IT HARD - especially sensing/knowing/seeing that SU's kids don't pursue anything with a physical presence. We have a soft mindset and it needs to change. Nova smelled blood on the glass and attacked it like a shark.

Usually teams decide between staying back to secure rebounds or leaking out in transition to quickly capitalize when they get the ball. We don’t try to rebound and also don’t try to run. And that allows our opponents to crash the glass with reckless abandon because we won’t make them pay if they don’t get it.

 

[Sherman20]

I don’t really care what the numbers are right now. I don’t believe having guys that can’t create for each other and can’t get past their own man just isolate all game is sustainable long term. Anyone that comes into it with a game plan to stop us just needs to stay home on shooters and we’ll probably be done (barring changes to the system we’re running). The closest we have to someone that can make defenses pay for not sending help is Jimmy but even he is relying on floaters and running hooks. We desperately need someone that can get all the way to the rim and force the defense to collapse on them. All we have is trying to shoot over people. We have some good shooters but nobody that’s shown the ability to stir the drink.

Edit: to be clear, the defense and particularly rebounding are obviously larger issues than the offense. I just think our offense essentially boils down to whether or not we make relatively inefficient shots on a given night.

I hate the endless iso offense. I want to see more movement and more screening actions. But I do think you’re overstating the offensive issues. We can def improve a bit on offense and need to get Buddy going again and Cole to play with consistency. But the main problems are rebounding and defense. I thought the defense looked a bit better the past 2 games. There was def more activity.

 

[rrlbees]

Last nights game got away from us for two reasons. Giving up 27 offensive rebounds which is a ridiculous number and Buddy/Cole shooting 5/22 including 1/8 from 3. We aren’t beating any decent team like that.

 

[Orangezoo]

Nova +21 in rebounds is the game. End of story.

No. I explained in the other thread the five possessions that decided the game. When a good athletic team misses 52 shots the rebound margin will never be in our favor. We know what we are on the boards. We simply missed 3 important good looks, had two awful turnovers by Joe, and two key missed FTs by Jesse. Rewatch the game

 

[AZOrange]

No. I explained in the other thread the five possessions that decided the game. When a good athletic team misses 52 shots the rebound margin will never be in our favor. We know what we are on the boards. We simply missed 3 important good looks, had two awful turnovers by Joe, and two key missed FTs by Jesse. Rewatch the game

Look man I like your posts but the game was not 5-6 missed plays. The game was about getting absolutely destroyed on the boards. How big was the rebounding differential vs FLST? They missed a ton and are bigger and more athletic than NOVA

 

[rrlbees]

Buddy needs Lehigh and Cornell if nothing more than to find his stroke and build some confidence.

 

[Cuseball]

Buddy needs Lehigh and Cornell if nothing more than to find his stroke and build some confidence.

Yep the next three (Gtown, Lehigh, Cornell) are big games to obviously win but we need Buddy and Swider to find their shooting strokes. It's also very important for Benny to play some decent minutes and make meaningful contributions. Benny could really help us on the boards and defensively if he can play 15 good minutes each game.

Cuse!

 

[Horn88]

No. I explained in the other thread the five possessions that decided the game. When a good athletic team misses 52 shots the rebound margin will never be in our favor. We know what we are on the boards. We simply missed 3 important good looks, had two awful turnovers by Joe, and two key missed FTs by Jesse. Rewatch the game

I don’t know if it works like that by saying 5 possessions decided the game. Couldn’t Nova just as easily pick 5 possessions of their choosing and turn it from a 14 point win to a 20+ win?

They shot 5-28 from 3 in the first half. A chunk of the missed 3fg were open looks. They make 5 more and go 10-28 (a rate still well below their season average) and we’re down 12 at the half. And we know they outscored us by 17 in 2H.

And as far as glossing over them beating us up on the boards and “we know what we are”, they didn’t play a guy over 6’9. Our starting front line goes 6’8/6’9/6’11. They out rebounded us 57-36. I would be shocked if the staff is conceding that just is who we are.

 

[SWC75]

He did get a few that he had to battle but that 12 isn’t what it seems.

He got 10 defensive rebounds in a game where we didn't get many of them.

 

[SWC75]

Benny could really help us on the boards and defensively if he can play 15 good minutes each game.

Yes, he could - if he could.

 

[OrangePA]

Cole Swider has be a disappointment in all facets of the game.

Except rebounding

 

[CU44SE]

The reality is we don’t have an offensive system. Our offensive system is iso basketball. We have guys on our team that are catch and shoot players. We don’t have a PG to dribble penetrate and then kick out. So making shots is much more difficult then it needs to be because we have players that are asked to create, when that is not there skill set.

Bottom line, our offensive system is like taking square blocks and trying to put them in circle holes.

 

[SWC75]

Our defense is not constructed for the center to get a lot of defensive rebounds. On a high percentage of shots, Jesse is flying toward the corner to contest the shot. Our defense moves the center to the corners and (prior to going to the 1-1-3) stepping up to the foul line to contest shots there. We depend on the forwards to swoop in to rebound while the center is swooping out to contest. That's why our most productive defensive rebounders are usually our forwards, and why a ridiculous percentage of Jesse's rebounds are offensive rebounds.

35.5%.

Jesse Edwards Career Stats - NCAAM - ESPN

Complete career NCAAM stats for the West Virginia Mountaineers Center Jesse Edwards on ESPN. Includes points, rebounds, and assists.

www.espn.com

 

[gmoney44]

No. I explained in the other thread the five possessions that decided the game. When a good athletic team misses 52 shots the rebound margin will never be in our favor. We know what we are on the boards. We simply missed 3 important good looks, had two awful turnovers by Joe, and two key missed FTs by Jesse. Rewatch the game

No need to watch the game again. The silver bullet is being -21 in rebounds. Yes we are a bad rebounding team but getting beat by 21 boards and giving up 18 offensive boards is beyond bad. You can over analyze every play all you want when you get crushed on the boards as badly as we did you have almost no chance to win.

 

[SWC75]

No need to watch the game again. The silver bullet is being -21 in rebounds. Yes we are a bad rebounding team but getting beat by 21 boards and giving up 18 offensive boards is beyond bad. You can over analyze every play all you want when you get crushed on the boards as badly as we did you have almost no chance to win.

And giving up 27 offensive boards is even worse.

 

[Goin' Deep]

Both teams shoot 33%...
One team goes 15 for 45.
The other goes 22 of 66.
Who wins?
There's the impact of + 21 boards/possessions.

 

[Scooch]

One additional problem is that we have a bench that is almost entirely devoid of scoring potential. Sure, they give you things in other areas...sometimes...but when you have two of them on the court at the same time then 40% of your scoring potential disappears. Even when a starter is having an off night, you know that he is still capable of going off at any moment. That's not the case with our bench guys.

We have no sparkplug off the bench. We have guys who can...again, sometimes...give you some other things, but not every night, and are merely placeholders in the scoring column. As an example, we scored 112 points against Indiana and in 36 combined minutes our bench gave us 6 points. Last night in 19 combined minutes our bench was held scoreless and only even took two shots.

It may be the worst SU bench since I started following the team 30 years ago, in that regard. I can't recall a year where we didn't have at least one guy who could come in and score a little. Doing hockey line-style substitutions with a crew like this seems like insanity to me.

 

[djcon57]

It may be the worst SU bench since I started following the team 30 years ago, in that regard. I can't recall a year where we didn't have at least one guy who could come in and score a little. Doing hockey line-style substitutions with a crew like this seems like insanity to me.

Remember the preseason posts suggesting Chaz Owens could play some mins? Fun stuff

 

[SUbear]

... and 3 blocks. He needs to shoot better, though.

The main issue in this game was Buddy missing a lot of open shots, we can not win if we do not make open shots,

 

[SUbear]

Nova has superior athletes and yiu have to tip your hat to the effort Nova gave on the offensive glass….they were relentless.

There you have it, rebounding is 90 percent effort and desire. We do not seem to put in that effort for rebounding.