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BASKETBALL 2018 Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis

I'm not seeing it with Crump. Great size yes, but can he play Basketball? He doesn't have the fluidity and coordination of a guard in my opinion. Guards need to be quick and shoot the ball well. I don't see anything of the sort from him. I do like Farquhar and Johnson though.
 
FWIW. Virginia covered the first half line (-12), second half line (-8), and game line (-19.5)
 
I'm not seeing it with Crump. Great size yes, but can he play Basketball? He doesn't have the fluidity and coordination of a guard in my opinion. Guards need to be quick and shoot the ball well. I don't see anything of the sort from him. I do like Farquhar and Johnson though.
I love Johnson, Junior is good too. I think Crump needs to put on some weight and play forward. I would start Johnson over Crump. You lose a few inches, but gain strength and right now ability.
 
Defensively, we can't guard a corpse. I'm shocked we kept them under 75. Until we get some legit big men who can play D and run a real defensive scheme, we will be open 24/7 like a Wal-Mart in the paint and on the perimeter.
 
Even though we didn't cover, I wasn't overly disappointed tonight. Cutting that lead to 8 took some moxie and hopefully regardless of how this trip to the Bahamas turns out, we'll gain some chemistry like our teams did when we'd play in those exhibition summer tournaments. With the talent we have coming in next year, and the experience these guys are gaining this year, we won't be down for long. And I think CUSA will be very close to being a multi - bid league... hell, I think we're already close. By next year hopefully, we're a solid two bid league.
 
Virginia has only scored 80+ points five times since the 2016-17 season, and generally those games are against the dregs of the D1. It’s not that they aren’t a great offensive team, but they just play so slowly that there usually aren’t enough possessions in the game for them to reach 80. It will be interesting to see how many possessions this game has tonight because we have so far been an extremely fast paced team. My hope is that we can score 60 points in about 65 to 67 possessions against them. That will be tough to do.

The game had 66 possessions. We were averaging 82 possessions through the first four games. Virginia has averaged 62 possessions in their first three games prior to tonight.
 
It was my 1st time seeing the 18-19 version. My observations, athletic...

not sure I viewed a game tonight to get a good feel for our offense... not impressed with out shot selection... not impressed with our floor spacing when we shot, in many cases... not impressed with our defensive rotations...

Impressed with our busting it for 40 minutes...

At one time in the 2nd, we had the chance to cut it to 7....

Regardless of my negatives above, I still like this bunch and think great strides will be made throughout the season...
 
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Even though we didn't cover, I wasn't overly disappointed tonight. Cutting that lead to 8 took some moxie and hopefully regardless of how this trip to the Bahamas turns out, we'll gain some chemistry like our teams did when we'd play in those exhibition summer tournaments. With the talent we have coming in next year, and the experience these guys are gaining this year, we won't be down for long. And I think CUSA will be very close to being a multi - bid league... hell, I think we're already close. By next year hopefully, we're a solid two bid league.
Yea the talent we have coming in and the three guys sitting out this year. You may have meant them too, but even Butler who we submitted a waiver for would be a huge help right now.
 
I thought we played really hard, with great effort. To stay in a game with a team like UVA you have to hit three's. Green is the only guy that can get these shots but damn that UVA D, there were very few possessions where we could find a guy with a really good open look. And we must take better care of the ball, there were 4 or 5 times where we got a turnover and within a second or two we turned it over. But the effort was there.

We were simply over matched last night.
 
Can't fault the effort. Agree with previous poster's implication that Johnson should probably be starting over Crump.

And it was great to see McDevitt show a little emotion (anger) during a quick time-out after a defensive breakdown (Shades of Kermit - LOL).
 
I think we are asking Crump to play out of position...bottom line, he is a guard not a PF. He handles the ball well, he can drive and penetrate, I just think he isn't confident yet on his shot - be interesting to see how he develops. He has only shot 1 3 pointer on the season. Obviously, coach is seeing something in practice. The good news is we have 3 good young F guards. I think with PT they will grow.

Big problem for us is our long game. As a team we rank about 250th in the NCAA. Right now we only have 28 made 3 pointers on the season at 31%...we need to be up around 37-38%. Just 3 guys have made three's, Green (16), Sims (8) and Gamble (4). I think this is a big part of our problem...do to our size we need to spread the floor more to create space.

If we can more successful from the perimeter I think this will open things up for Scurry...he is shooting 63% and when he doesn't make the shot he can get to the FT line (he has shot the most FTs on the team, making 20 of 26). He simply is not getting enough touches.

In a perfect world we start Gamble with Scurry if Gamble could play the PF role and let Scurry stay in the post. Gamble may be our most productive player per minute played so far this year. But then we have NO one to back them up.
 
Yea I agree on needing more shooting. Why it would have been nice to get a waiver for Butler. I hope that it is still possible. Not ideal he is missing games right now, but I think if we had another shooter last night it would have been a closer game. I think Crump will be just fine and may end up being a really good player. I agree he is not a PF and we should not expect him to be, but right now we really don't have a lot of choices. When we go a 4 guard lineup he will have to guard bigger players. Although Johnson may be better at that because of his strength. At the very least this team has shown it can beat 75% of CUSA and a winning record in conference is attainable.
 
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I would agree with most assessments on here. While we lost by 20+ points, there were some encouraging signs.

Also, we have to get more production from Crump. He seems to have the intangibles but doesn't really seem to get it yet. Fortunately he is a Freshman.
 
Jeez... Why would you be surprised by that?

Especially given you’re the most pessimistic about this team..

I didn't think Vegas would be so quick to adjust to how bad we are. I thought I would be able to get some juicy lines early in the season with Vegas still giving MT credit based on the last 7 years. I guess the cat is out of the bag. Vegas didn't even give us time to suck. They knew right off the bat.
 
Y are we so careless with the BALL! I don’t understand IT!


Well, I tried to explain this and got jumped on. It's style of play - for which we don't have the players to do. And Coach McD won't adjust his philosophy to match his roster - which would give his team a better chance to win.
 
Don't know but Butler is gonna be covering by half time at this rate. If we didn't turn it over so much we'd be right there with them. That's a big if though.
 
Nevermind. Butler hitting their shots now. We couldn't hit the ground with a rock. Offense sucks, defense sucks, if there was special teams in basketball we'd suck at that too.

We have 11 turnovers and 4 made baskets. LOL

Nearly averaging 1 turnover per minute.
 
I don't know what the future holds. But I'm not convinced street ball is going to work in C-USA. It might work fine in low-major basketball. But the level of discipline that is required to effectively do this in our league and levels above our league is hard to recruit to. I do know it won't work this year. Just not enough quality bodies to throw out there.

Have to give him a chance to get his players in over the next year or two, but I remain highly skeptical. Will have to be proven otherwise to me. But I'm definitely not impressed with the coaching so far - particularly the lack of discipline and his unwillingness to say hey you know what I don't have the horses to run helter skelter so I'm going to slow them down, play half court and execute on defense. Only chance we have a decent season this year, but so far we have yet to see any evidence he will do that.
 
Well, I tried to explain this and got jumped on. It's style of play - for which we don't have the players to do. And Coach McD won't adjust his philosophy to match his roster - which would give his team a better chance to win.

If you were actually watching the subtle changes being made in the game I would give you some credit... switching defenses, slowing tempo, running some half-court sets, etc.. it's not all pick up style ball...

Right now style of play and pace of play has very little to do with players lobbing a ball into Scurry who is triple teamed (Jr), airmailing the ball 15 feet high from the top of the arc to the corner out of bounds (Hawthorne), not catching simple handoff pass (Sims), passing the ball to a trailer who is covered (Green).. these are just a handful of simple, bad basketball, low bball IQ plays that this team continues to make.. unforced errors mostly.. some of these TO's occurred when CNM slowed down the offense and had the guys walk the ball up the court.. these are adjustments that are being made if you're watching closely.

Right now I see players that just don't have the skillset, IQ, and/or chemistry to play the style that I know CNM wants to play- he doesn't have guys who look like they are capable of running high execution half-court sets, he doesn't have guys that are matching up in defensive transitions- especially the freshmen- but Sims & Green also get lost a lot on defense.. so I think when you have a truck with only 2-3 gears you have to play with what works most of the time.. but it's not always going to be pretty
 
Well, I tried to explain this and got jumped on. It's style of play - for which we don't have the players to do. And Coach McD won't adjust his philosophy to match his roster - which would give his team a better chance to win.

If you were actually watching the subtle changes being made in the game I would give you some credit... switching defenses, slowing tempo, running some half-court sets, etc.. it's not all pick up style ball...

Right now style of play and pace of play has very little to do with players lobbing a ball into Scurry who is triple teamed (Jr), airmailing the ball 15 feet high from the top of the arc to the corner out of bounds (Hawthorne), not catching simple handoff pass (Sims), passing the ball to a trailer who is covered (Green).. these are just a handful of simple, bad basketball, low bball IQ plays that this team continues to make.. unforced errors mostly.. some of these TO's occurred when CNM slowed down the offense and had the guys walk the ball up the court.. these are adjustments that are being made if you're watching closely.

Right now I see players that just don't have the skillset, IQ, and/or chemistry to play the style that I know CNM wants to play- he doesn't have guys who look like they are capable of running high execution half-court sets, he doesn't have guys that are matching up in defensive transitions- especially the freshmen- but Sims & Green also get lost a lot on defense.. so I think when you have a truck with only 2-3 gears you have to play with what works most of the time.. but it's not always going to be pretty

Don’t debate MT01 - he was singing this tune since the very start.
 
If you were actually watching the subtle changes being made in the game I would give you some credit... switching defenses, slowing tempo, running some half-court sets, etc.. it's not all pick up style ball...

Right now style of play and pace of play has very little to do with players lobbing a ball into Scurry who is triple teamed (Jr), airmailing the ball 15 feet high from the top of the arc to the corner out of bounds (Hawthorne), not catching simple handoff pass (Sims), passing the ball to a trailer who is covered (Green).. these are just a handful of simple, bad basketball, low bball IQ plays that this team continues to make.. unforced errors mostly.. some of these TO's occurred when CNM slowed down the offense and had the guys walk the ball up the court.. these are adjustments that are being made if you're watching closely.

Right now I see players that just don't have the skillset, IQ, and/or chemistry to play the style that I know CNM wants to play- he doesn't have guys who look like they are capable of running high execution half-court sets, he doesn't have guys that are matching up in defensive transitions- especially the freshmen- but Sims & Green also get lost a lot on defense.. so I think when you have a truck with only 2-3 gears you have to play with what works most of the time.. but it's not always going to be pretty

I noticed but it's clear how we come out of the tip that is not how they are being coached in practice. So, it starts there. Asking them to slow down a time or two in the game during the first half is not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at begins well before the game. We've seen the style of play in the first five games. This is instilled in practice how they will attack the game. He has to modify there not wait til gameday.
 
Our problem isn’t our pace. Our problem is young talent making mistakes. A lot of our turnovers happen because of bad decisions. We can’t play a half court game with these better teams anyway - we simply don’t match up.

No style of play is going to allow this group of players beat UVA or Butler at this point.

Give them time.
 
I'm not going to get too down on McDevitt this early in his tenure here. I'm going to give him a free pass on year 1. I do expect us to be very competitive in year 2 and winning CUSA in years 3 or 4 though.

I'm also going to call things like I see them. If we suck, we suck. If we play well, I'll give credit where it's due.

I've seen bits of both. We need to be more consistent with our good play and get away from the whole sucking thing.

We seem to be okay when we are not turning it over. And I really have to wonder if this 100mph all the time is causing all these turnovers.

I understand the philosophy McDevitt is trying to instill here. It's somewhat similar to what Golden State is doing. Take a bunch of shots, score a bunch of points, and win games. The problem is, you absolutely cannot turn the ball over if you want to play that way. There will also be nights where the shots are not falling and you've gotta fall back on solid defense.

Like MT01, I do remain skeptical of his approach. It can work though. Marshall has a similar style of game, but they can play good defense and grind-it-games if needed and be really good at it. As another poster noted in a previous discussion, I believe it was Randall, he explained that Marshall actually had an incredible per-possession defense despite giving up a good chunk of points.

If we are going to be good and continue to compete for titles, I know 2 things must happen.

1. We have to be able to play good defense. This is not optional.

2. We cannot turn the ball over at a high rate if we are running a fast paced offense. This is not optional.
 
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