Duff Man
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Posts posted by Duff Man
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The frontcourt combo of Barnett/Ellis/Loe cannot be allowed to happen again.
Offensively you end up with a bunch of guys hovering beyond the arc and nobody even threatening to draw a double team in the low post, so either Jett or McCall end up dribbling into traffic and forcing a tough shot.
Defensively I'm not going to criticize Barnett or Ellis for their effort, but they are not shot blocking threats or physical intimidators while Loe is playing in slow motion. We need either Evans, Remekun, Manning, or even Glaze (once he returns) on the floor at all times.
Sure you might be able to steal a possession or two with that soft frontcourt - especially when Loe is hitting shots - but once the opposition has identified the weakness, don't wait for the next whistle, CALL A ###### TIMEOUT and get a proper forward in there.
Crews nearly cost us the game with that ######.
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Larry Brown made 3 Final Fours in 7 seasons, won the title as a 6-seed in 1988, and never missed the dance.
Aside from the fact that they're both over 70 years old, and each lost to Phil Jackson in the NBA Finals (of course, Brown subsequently beat Jackson to win an NBA title), Larry Brown and Jerry Sloan are not fit for comparison.
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http://deadspin.com/...ust-four-points
Mention on deadspin about a previous board meltdown...
Bryce Husak is immortal.
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Manning hasn't shown the ability to play defense any better than RL. In fact he was much worse last night.
Loe is a 6'11" streaky 3pt shooting freak who cannot defend good players in the low post. He should get 8-15 minutes a game. I've lost patience with him. He's still getting pushed around like he's a skinny fresh fish. Loe has been given tons of minutes and has not developed into even a competent defensive low post player.
Manning on the other hand has upside as a low post player but has not been given an adequate chance. 73 minutes played in his entire Billiken career. When he's played, he's looked competent on offense (certainly more competent that Remekun looked at any point in his first 2 seasons) and unlike Loe, he looks like he might actually be able to play his position on the defensive side of the ball.
I get that Manning is still very much a work in progress, but all we really need from him is 10-15 minutes as Remekun's backup.
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Washington is KenPom 78 and RPI 20. This was always going to be a tough game even with Kwamain.
The Santa Clara loss was MUCH worse for the following reasons...
-we were double digit favorites against a non-BCS opponent
-we were playing at home
-we trailed by double digits for the bulk of the game
-we never looked like we had a shot at any point in the 2nd half
Every loss - even going back to last season - people act like the sky is falling. LMU. New Mexico. Dayton. Temple. UMass. Rhode Island.
The season is far from lost.
That being said there are a few things that stand out as recurring problems that Crews needs to address.
1) Rob Loe's role needs to be reduced. He cannot be allowed to guard the opposing teams first low post option. Let him start, fire up some 3s, and either ride his hot hand or sit his cold ass down. Remekun and Manning need to be guarding the opposing team's best low post players. Loe was eaten up by SIU's 6'5 power forward from Wentzville, I don't understand why he was allowed to guard 7'0 Aziz N'Diaye.
2) Cut down the undisciplined dumb fouls. Evans especially, but Jett and Remekun too. There is a fine line between aggressive and undisciplined play. Also - and this won't come up for a while - having the awareness of how games are called on the road. Evans and Jett are not going to get the calls on the drives on the road that they get at home. Going strong to the hole and waiting for the call is not a good plan against athletic teams - especially on the road. There needs to be a dump off pass to the open man in order to 'earn' the whistle.
3) McCall needs to be more assertive on offense. It's unrealistic to except him to step in and take over Kwamain's role, but he's shooting a high percentage from 3 and he's quick and good with the ball. TAKE MORE SHOTS!!! If he missed badly, so be it - but until Keith Carter gets healthy and shows he can do it - McCall is the best candidate we have to fill Kwamain's offensive leadership role.
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Brad Stevens - without question.
Self or Izzo would be in the picture if we were a big-time BCS program.
Definitely not Perma-tan Crean. Aside from 2003, when he rode an all-time great baller to the final 4, he underachieved in the dance with Marquette. He won't get the caliber of players here that he has currently at IU.
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I like how ESPN.com's box score is refusing to acknowledge Manning ever got into the game.
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At this point, my greatest concern is that Kwamain will commit multiple homicides before the night is over, and spend the rest of the season in prison.
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Really, the game was lost between the under 8 and under 4 TV timeouts in the first half.
It's 28-21, McCall has an awful turnover that leads to a 3 pointer 31-21. Glaze turns it over and it leads to a layup 33-21. Evans grabs a huge offensive rebound on the next possession and feeds Jett for a layup to get it back to 10. Jett then gets a steal and feeds Evans on the break who just completely loses control of himself and falls out of bounds under the basket and throws it right to the other team, and Jett picks up his 2nd foul going for a steal out of frustration.
Crews needs to understand that Jett and Evans need to be protected (from fatigue with timeouts and from foul trouble with substitutions). We cannot survive with either of them out for extended periods of time.
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What do you call a racist wifebeater who can't get over the election?
A Trainwreck
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They're overhauling the stats program so they can get a 0 instead of 00 to appear when Carter is in the game.
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That Mike McCann kid looks like a player. Is he a walk on? He wasn't even on the printed rosters but he hit a nice shot in the 2nd half.
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There was a pre-scrimmage story that was also published, but the post-scrimmage one that includes the excepts above explicitly says...
With the big men, Crews said both Rob Loe and Cody Ellis need to get the ball inside more and get to the foul line more often.
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it would be like Willis Reed hobbling out of the tunnel to take on the Celtics in the championship.
Lakers.
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The issue with the loss of Mitchell is one of leadership, not skillset IMHO. You lose a 5th year senior and guy who has the ball in his hands when the shot clock winds down to be replaced with a freshman in the rotation (albeit a very talented freshman). Mitchell never plays 3. That's not the problem.
Agreed.
I'm pretty sure Jordair can bring the ball up the court and guard the oppositions' 1-3s. McCall can play 1 or 2. Evans starts every game at 3. Barnett can play 2 or 3. Drew can play the 3. Kwamain's role as the go to guy in crunch time is the most significant role for the team to fill.
The most prominent news is the Carter isn't 100%...Maybe want to clarify that point? Is he sick? Nursing an injury?
I concur this is a ridiculous article that misrepresents how Kwamain's absence hurts the team and completely whiffs on explaining why Carter is not 100%.
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Based on this article it doesn't sound like Willie is seen as a contender for a roster spot, but is merely there to battle Cousins in training camp
www.cowbellkingdom.com/2012/10/14/sacramento-kings-roster-nba-training-camp-roster-contract/
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Guy is an unfunny wisecracking aging boomer media personality with zero self-awareness.
Guy seems himself as the witty professor who can get away with poking fun at students. It was awkward because he wasn't funny and he has zero authority (in any form) over this team. I didn't even grasp the context of the "we won't go into the scandal" comment to Crews in regards to IU, but it went over like a Holocaust joke.
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Is he going to put up worse numbers in the 2nd half of his career than the first half? Of course he is! That is just a fact of life. His numbers are going to slowly degrade. However, the way I see how this season played out, he looks to still have an MVP-caliber season or two left in him. He started off this season terribly, and was below .200 into mid-May. However, after May 15th, he put up the following line:
.312/.374/.589/.964, 42 2B, 29 HR, 93 RBI, 75 R
Extrapolate that over an entire season, and you have the following:
58 2B, 40 HR, 127 RBI, 103 R (along with the same average marks as above.)
Pretty much a typical Pujols season. And despite the slow start, he still finished 3rd in the AL in extra base hits and 2nd in doubles. He ended up with 14 more extra base hits than he had all of last year. And, he started off slow and finished up strong.
Pujols hit .269/.315/.420 from Sept 1 onward. How is that finishing strong?
You can ignore his atrocious start if you want, but those games counted - and his awful April was a major reason his club fell short of the postseason. He's done this now 2 years in row mind you. There is a pattern developing that he's going to have 1 or 2 months each year where he's not the superhuman hitting machine he used to be.
None of this proves he's lying about his age or suffering from a league-wide crackdown on PEDs. He's a great player in decline. He could be 32 or 36. There really aren't any good comps because his first 10 years were unprecedented. The stats are never going to convict him (or vice versa). You either believe him about his age or you don't. Both sides interpret the stats and see what they want to see. Arguing about it is akin to arguing about religion.
At this point he's the Angels' problem. He might age better than A-Rod, but he's still 4 seasons away from the midway point of the 10 year deal (i.e. the point where A-Rod is with the Yankees). I think we all agree that his decline phase was not worth a 10-year 200M+ contract
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I believe he got an entry-level job in ticket sales.
He's listed here
http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=stl
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http://www.nba.com/k...ing-camp-roster
Willie is on the training camp roster. I think most NBA teams carry 12 guys maybe so I'm guessing 6 guys will be cut.
I would love to see how Willie measures up in camp playing against the likes of DeMarcus Cousins and Thomas Robinson.
I think the best case scenario involves Willie snagging the 12th man role. He could be the black Paul Shirley.
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Go back to Brad as our HC. If only he could have landed a good JUCO to play with TL and KL... If only RM could have done the same early on...
Brad didn't need to land a JUCO to play with TL and KL, he simply needed to build on that class with another solid class of incoming freshmen. That was his make or break point. Don't chalk up Brad's recruiting failings to lack of viable JUCO transfers.
Also, on the 2010-11 season - from the recruiting standpoint, they had the open scholarship for Kowal and that fell through, but it's unrealistic even under the old rules to expect a coach to be able to find players to replace Willie and Kwamain on such short notice. Remember KM and WR were not suspended until mid-October (the timing of which is a whole other discussion). Majerus was never a JUCO fan anyway, preferring to develop his guys over 4 years (e.g. Conklin).
Even if those guys were suspended over the summer, and it was possible to find JUCO replacements (although you had to at least keep 1 schollie open for KM to return), by 'avoiding' the 12-18 season (highly doubtful we were going to the dance with a bunch of freshman, improving but pre-BEAST Conklin, plus JUCO transfers) we'd be compromising the long term development of the roster. Conklin, Evans, Jett, and McCall all play fewer minutes alongside the band-aid JUCO transfers and who knows how the 2011-12 season would have turned out.
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clearnliness n. clearn'li·ness - the false appearance of cleanliness made possible by Mike Krzyzewski's master of hypnosis
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I can't think of another program that doesn't have a big enough strike against it in my mind that I'd rather have. I'm a SLU fan. I like underdogs. I worked for SLU's program for 4 years so I'm too attached to it to want to see anything in its place. It's no fun to root for Kentucky or Duke or UCLA. They're too established and powerful and corrupt and don't appeal to me in any way. I guess the ones I found myself rooting for once SLU's season ended each of the past years were teams like Butler, VCU, Xavier, George Mason- the ones that weren't huge programs but that made runs anyway.
seriously?
Just off the top of my head, here are 5 schools that are relatively respected academically, have spent part of the last 25 years in the same conference as SLU, to my knowledge have not been sanctioned by the NCAA in the last 25 years, and have accomplished much more than SLU on the court (also, I'm not sure how Rick Majerus assistant coaching the 1994 FIBA team 13 years before arriving at SLU really matters, nor am I sure how to compare our 5 vastly different coaches to other schools' coaches)
SLU
5 NCAA appearances, zero Sweet 16 appearances, zero conference championships
3 players drafted, 2 first round, 1 lottery
2 extended NBA careers*, no all-star appearances, no championships
Majerus was awesome.
Butler
10 NCAA appearances, 4 Sweet 16 appearances, 2 National Final appearances, 10 conference championships
1 lottery pick, 1st round pick, 2 drafted overall
no extended NBA careers, but Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack are active
Brad Stevens is awesome.
Marquette
13 NCAA appearances, 4 Sweet 16 appearances, 1 Final Four, 2 conference championships
1 lottery pick, 3 1st round picks, 11 drafted overall
7 extended NBA careers, plus Lazar Hayward, Jimmy Butler who are still active, and Jae Crowder Darius Johnson-Odom who were just drafted
11 played at least 1 NBA game
1 All-Star (Dwyane Wade x8)
2 total NBA Championsips (Dwyane Wade)
Kevin O'Neill came off as a man of integrity in Hoop Dreams.
Temple
18 NCAA appearances, 5 Elite 8 appearances, 8 conference championships
3 lottery picks, 6 1st round picks, 9 drafted overall
10 extended NBA career, plus Lavoy Allen who is active
16 played at least 1 NBA game
1 All-Star (Eddie Jones 3 times)
Jon Chaney threatened to kill John Calipari (add or deduct points accordingly)
St. Joseph's
5 NCAA appearances, 2 Sweet 16 appearances, 1 Elite 8, 6 conference championships
3 players drafted, 2 first round
2 extended NBA careers, 3 players played at least 1 NBA game
Phil Martelli told Billy Packer to kiss his @$$. (add or deduct points accordingly)
Richmond
7 NCAA appearances, 2 Sweet 16 appearances, first ever 15 over 2 upset, 4 conference championships
3 players drafted, 0 first round
1 extended NBA career, plus Justin Harper who is still active, no all-star appearances, no championships
Chris Mooney is an excellent coach who spurned bigger opportunities to stay at Richmond.
*extended NBA career defined as 165+ games, i.e. > 2 full seasons
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Modern Era is a relative term...you can draw the line in any number of places
1975: NCAA Field expands to 32 teams
1976-77: Dunking is once again legal in NCAA basketball
1979: Magic vs Bird
1980: NCAA field expands to 48 teams
1982:
1983:
(granted they lost on a miracle play, but their style left a permanent mark on the game)1985: NCAA tournament field expands to 64
1986-87: NCAA adopts 3pt shot
1995: Kevin Garnett drafted #5 overall out of HS
Modern Era or not, 1976 IU have to be up there with the best of the best. Over 2 seasons they went 63-1, with the only loss coming in a 92-90 loss to National runner-up Kentucky in the 1975 Mideast regional final. They followed that loss with a 32-0 season and won their games by an average margin of 18 points.
The crazy thing is that over a 21 season span from 1956 to 1976 there were 7 undefeated NCAA tournament champions. Since 1976, only 2 teams have come close (1979 Indiana St lost in the Final, 1991 UNLV lost to Duke in the National Semifinal), excluding Calipari's national runner up Memphis team that had it's entire season retroactively vacated.
10 day break- Grade the Billikens
in Billikens.com Main Board
Posted
Check that math.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/rankings/rpi/index1
RPI of 51 SOS = 18
Honestly, it's way too early to look at RPI. Just win every remaining non-conference game - including New Mexico - everything will be fine.