Umass Postgame Thoughts

[GOSLU68]

They have two that average 20 ppg, so they are both their top scorers.

When Kevin made his first two free throws I thought he would be lucky to get the ball to the rim; for the second ten minutes of the

the first half he was holding his shooting shoulder and flexing his muscle on the left arm. He was getting banged up this was a brutal game with the refs letting Umass grab our jerseys and poke us with elbows all day; we should have put AK in the game as

an enforcer.

Danny Brown still isn't jumping or rebounding. Two years ago DB was able to dunk and rebound. I think the layup he blew wasn't

a decision not to dunk but realization or fear he couldn't get that high any more.

Something must have happened to BE since he came to us from JUCO because he has no hops

The only thing we couldn't dominate on the floor today was the refs

[The Wiz]

Great game! An upset not just because we beat 21st ranked UMASS but because we led the entire game and we won by a pretty good spread. Hopefully, we will build on this win and turn it up another notch for X.

[Quality Is Job 1]

Great game! An upset not just because we beat 21st ranked UMASS but because we led the entire game and we won by a pretty good spread. Hopefully, we will build on this win and turn it up another notch for X.

People need to stop referring to UMass as 21st-ranked. Being ranked 21st in the RPI doesn't mean a team is 21st-best in the nation. Yes, it was a decent win for the Bills -- they should have won at home -- but let's not act like it was an upset win over a ranked team. I know it has been a harrowing season, but let's not manufacture false accolades.

[The Wiz]

People need to stop referring to UMass as 21st-ranked. Being ranked 21st in the RPI doesn't mean a team is 21st-best in the nation. Yes, it was a decent win for the Bills -- they should have won at home -- but let's not act like it was an upset win over a ranked team. I know it has been a harrowing season, but let's not manufacture false accolades.

I am not saying UMASS is a final 4 team but I did notice they were an 11th seed in the ESPN bracketology rankings. An impressive win for the Bills. Thur will be a good test against X. Are we turning it around or was the UMASS game another step toward inconsistency. BTW, X is #3 in the brackets.

[Box and Won]

Apparently Polk took a shot to the abdomen and was vomiting blood. Sounds like he's okay now though.

We need to improve our FT shooting. Luke missed a few, and Eckerle was horrible at the stripe.

We looked like Princeton out there with all those backdoor cuts.

[cheeseman]

-I hope Dwayne is OK. He didn't come out after half time, and the PA announcer called for his dad to come down three times. The radio guys didn't sound alarmed, so hopefully that is a good sign.

-I thought we played really good basketball with Kevin at the point and Brown at the three. It gave us a big offensive boost. Brown looks like an entirely different player under Majerus.

-Lisch, Liddell, Meyer, and Brown all had great games maximizing their varying skill sets.

-Husak rebounded, defended, and passed well. He looked like he was just rushing and throwing up his shots.

-Relphorde looked slow and under-sized strength-wise. I am not convinced that he has the strength and/or quickness to be a regular contributor at this level.

-Eberhardt is the worst jumping and finishing power forward since Newborne. There must have been a half a dozen opportunities for him to flush nice assists in the paint, but his lack of spring and vertical resulted in easy blocks for UMass's athletes. One one occasion he had an and-one finish, but he had to fall away and throw it over the defender rather than finish strong. We need some combination of Conklin, Reed, Thompson, and/or a future front court signee to finish these type of plays next year.

-With the exception of our late first half struggles against the zone, Majerus's offense looked real good today. I can't figure out why UMass ever came out of the zone.

The book on us is make us beat you with our perimeter shooting. The problem with that is when we are bad we are bad and when we are good we are good - which team we are for the day is anyone's guess.

[cheeseman]

Great win for the team today. Pretty much controlled the tempo from beginning to end.

Coaching Staff rated an A- today, would have been A+ but I felt Adam Knollmeyer should have played more.

Hell he should have played twice the time of Barry Eberhart.

Barry Eberhart-D/ Offers nothing defensively and is very limited offensively. I can't say if he is being limited

due to the injury or the fact that he is playing out of position.

Danny Brown-A minus/ Danny would have been an A+ if not for the blown layup. I'm really concerned about

Danny as he has clearly sold his soul to the devil. His turnaround this year is nothing short of extradordinary.

Danny was a playmaker this game. Danny knocked down open shot after open shot, he could possibly step into

the role of the 3rd scorer.

Bryce Husak C minus/ Bryce was average today. He wasn't really a force today defensively however UMass didn't

present much of a test today. Bryce's hands are such a huge liability. I think he and Paul were involved in 3 consecutive

turnovers in the 2nd half.

Luke Meyer B plus/ Luke's number won't show a great game, but his early play really sparked the team. Luke made

some beautiful cuts for some easy layups. He rebounded well and missed a double-double by 1 point and 1 rebound.

Luke even contributed 2 blocks for good measure. He played his usual aggressive defense and was probably the only

post players besides Adam that was willing to mix it up.

Kevin Lisch B plus/ Although Kevin only shot 6-13 from the field I'll give him a pass as at least 4 of those shots were taken

with the shot clock running down. He played 33 minutes with only 1 turnover. He kept the defense honest by penetrating and

generally played with a clear mindset. He was the team's primary ball handler during the 2nd half and got others involved with 4 assists. He was clearly tired as he gave up an offensive rebound late in the 2nd half but he still went 3 for 3 at the line.

Tommie Liddell C plus/ I would have rated him at least a B minus but his defensive play was inconsistent. I thought at times he made Forbes appear to be a better player than what he is. Coach criticized Tommie earlier in the year about playing soft and avoiding contact. This game was a microcosm of Majerus' thinking. Tommie had two of his shot blocked by avoiding contact. One blocked came on a drive to the basket where he attempted a finger roll. The other block came on a fast break when all he had to do was force some contact from Gaffney. Tommie has to understand that two made free throws are just as good as a made layup. In fact I'd take the two free throws everytime.

I thought the same thing about TL on that play - why he did not just try to jam home and take the foul was beyond me.

[cheeseman]

Good call, you're absolutely right. The one thing I still can't figure out is why Bryce shades toward the top of the arch when he is defending on the perimeter. When he does this, he is woefully out of position and can't recover when his guy rolls to the hoop. I've got to believe the coaching staff is instructing to take that position.

If you pay attention all the guys who play center tend to do that - it makes me wonder if they are being taught that? I don't like the play either. When you have a center on the other team that can walk and chew gum at the same time then he will always have an easy dunk.

[JaleJarr]

I thought the same thing about TL on that play - why he did not just try to jam home and take the foul was beyond me.

It's easy for me to say what a player should do in the comfort of an easy chair, but I think officials tend to reward aggressiveness. If Tommie would have turned that ball over in an attempt to dunk, the official would have called a foul. Even if the block was clean he would have called a foul, but when Tommie *****-footed for a layup he took the official off the hook.

[cheeseman]

I view the drastic inconsistency not as a reflection of the caliber of talent, but rather the lack thereof. This team's margin for error is so small that when the guards aren't hitting shots and the team isn't defending well, we can suffer a double-digit loss against anyone. If this team had any offensive talent in the post, we would have had another 15-20 points today and won easily. How many easy opportunities within eight feet did Eberhardt and Husak miss today? Without this interior threat, we are entirely dependent upon guards to hit shots and create offense despite being the focus of the other's teams defense. When those shots aren't falling, we can suffer record-breaking scoring droughts. When they are falling and we are taking advantage of a few transition opportunities, we can stay with most teams in the country. Unfortunately, until the talent improves those will remain big "ifs."

Agreed

[cheeseman]

Apparently Polk took a shot to the abdomen and was vomiting blood. Sounds like he's okay now though.

We need to improve our FT shooting. Luke missed a few, and Eckerle was horrible at the stripe.

We looked like Princeton out there with all those backdoor cuts.

I am sorry - I know I missed the one game that PE was such a star - but I am still having trouble seeing how he is worth a schollie. That being said, there are 2-3 others on the team that make me wonder that.

[Box and Won]

From Tom T's blog:

Eberhardt played just eight minutes. SLU did such a good job of slowing the game down that Husak was able to play 28 minutes. You would think a run-and-gun team would leave the 7-footer dragging, but SLU dictated the pace enough that he could stay in. Majerus said afterward that Barry would have to lose weight if he’s going to play next season.

“We have a lot of issues,” Majerus said. “Look at Barry. We go inside to a 6-5 5-man. If he’s 6-5 and the other guy is 6-9, the other guy’s got a pogo stick and Barry does not have a lot of bounce. He’s got a lot of weight. For Barry to play next year, he’s going to have to lose weight. He doesn’t have fat, he has weight. I went through this with Doleac. If he ever wants to be a good player, he has to eliminate body mass because he’s undersized.”

Eberhardt had no rebuonds. That his first game at SLU where he hasn’t had a rebound./quote]

[JaleJarr]

QUOTE(davidnark @ Feb 2 2008, 10:11 PM)

I view the drastic inconsistency not as a reflection of the caliber of talent, but rather the lack thereof. This team's margin for error is so small that when the guards aren't hitting shots and the team isn't defending well, we can suffer a double-digit loss against anyone. If this team had any offensive talent in the post, we would have had another 15-20 points today and won easily. How many easy opportunities within eight feet did Eberhardt and Husak miss today? Without this interior threat, we are entirely dependent upon guards to hit shots and create offense despite being the focus of the other's teams defense. When those shots aren't falling, we can suffer record-breaking scoring droughts. When they are falling and we are taking advantage of a few transition opportunities, we can stay with most teams in the country. Unfortunately, until the talent improves those will remain big "ifs."

Those are all good points but what do you do to get around those deficiencies? You point out how the team doesn't have an inside presence, my question is why run an equal opportunity offense? Bryce is not a player that can create his offense and Barry is not a player that can finish over legitimate post players, yet time and time again in the 2nd half we put these guys in those positions. Bryce turned the ball over and Barry was routinely rejected, which is really a turnover to me. Luckily UMass didn't capitalize on those miscues.

[moytoy12]

I do not know about everyone else but I was on pins and needles the entire game fearful that the refs would make calls to help them in their comeback and if started to happen in the last 5 minutes or so. That tall dark haired ref must have had a bet on UMass because I believe he made numerous calls and virtually all of them favored UMass even when it was obvous that he could not possibly see what happened because the play was on the other side of the floor and his view was blocked. The other two refs actually did make some calls down the stretch that were even handed but he was a joke.

Good God Billikan, enough with your conspiracy theories. Why don't you comment on how favorable the refs were to SLU for the first 30 minutes of the game?

[JaleJarr]

Good God Billikan, enough with your conspiracy theories. Why don't you comment on how favorable the refs were to SLU for the first 30 minutes of the game?

MoyToy, to channel Bill Walton, the game officials were Horrible.

[kmbilliken]

QUOTE(davidnark @ Feb 2 2008, 10:11 PM)

I view the drastic inconsistency not as a reflection of the caliber of talent, but rather the lack thereof. This team's margin for error is so small that when the guards aren't hitting shots and the team isn't defending well, we can suffer a double-digit loss against anyone. If this team had any offensive talent in the post, we would have had another 15-20 points today and won easily. How many easy opportunities within eight feet did Eberhardt and Husak miss today? Without this interior threat, we are entirely dependent upon guards to hit shots and create offense despite being the focus of the other's teams defense. When those shots aren't falling, we can suffer record-breaking scoring droughts. When they are falling and we are taking advantage of a few transition opportunities, we can stay with most teams in the country. Unfortunately, until the talent improves those will remain big "ifs."

Those are all good points but what do you do to get around those deficiencies? You point out how the team doesn't have an inside presence, my question is why run an equal opportunity offense? Bryce is not a player that can create his offense and Barry is not a player that can finish over legitimate post players, yet time and time again in the 2nd half we put these guys in those positions. Bryce turned the ball over and Barry was routinely rejected, which is really a turnover to me. Luckily UMass didn't capitalize on those miscues.

I was wondering the same thing. The Eckerle to Husak connection has got to stop. Eckerle's passes would have been good if Husak had the hands to handle them and the ability to do something with the ball in traffic if he did catch it. His ability to do either is limited and you're setting him up for failure by passing to him in those situations. Eckerle would be better off to just stop and pop no matter how low a percentage shot since we'd at least be getting a shot off at the basket.

Eberhard physically reminds me of Jeff Harris. Harris had limited jumping ability, but was very effective. He knew how to draw fouls and picked his spots. He was a bull, but a very intelligent one. Maybe Barry should watch some of the old Jeff Harris tapes.

[jgcurtin]

MoyToy, to channel Bill Walton, the game officials were Horrible.

Amen. Their inconsistency in calls was pretty consistent throughout both halves. The big guy with dark hair had no clue. He called illegal motion and icing on a few plays that just didn't seem to fit. My theory is, "Go to the game with the expectation of bad reffing and you'll seldom be disappointed". They're uniformly bad regarding blocking vs charging IMO.

[Billikan]

I was wondering the same thing. The Eckerle to Husak connection has got to stop. Eckerle's passes would have been good if Husak had the hands to handle them and the ability to do something with the ball in traffic if he did catch it. His ability to do either is limited and you're setting him up for failure by passing to him in those situations. Eckerle would be better off to just stop and pop no matter how low a percentage shot since we'd at least be getting a shot off at the basket.

Eberhard physically reminds me of Jeff Harris. Harris had limited jumping ability, but was very effective. He knew how to draw fouls and picked his spots. He was a bull, but a very intelligent one. Maybe Barry should watch some of the old Jeff Harris tapes.

Jeff Harris is one of my favorite Billikens. He had a real fire in his belly and an intelligent understanding of the game. BE will need to reinvent himself to get to that level of play. I don't know if you can get that fire if you don't have it by the time you are a junior in college.

[billiken_roy]

the last three minutes of the first half the officiating was so one sided bad, one couldnt help but think they were cheating to get umass back in the game. as stated above, the taller guy with black hair was just the worst.

[moytoy12]

Jale, i didn't say the refs weren't bad, but they were bad in our favor for most of the game (excepting the end of the game). They let us get away with a lot under the basket on the defensive side, especially early on.

This conspiracy stuff is pretty funny though.

[JaleJarr]

Jale, i didn't say the refs weren't bad, but they were bad in our favor for most of the game (excepting the end of the game). They let us get away with a lot under the basket on the defensive side, especially early on.

This conspiracy stuff is pretty funny though.

I only tend to see bad calls against the Billikens. We had one play in which Bryce and I think Luke were mugging a UMass player for about 3 fouls and nothing was called.

[davidnark]

QUOTE(davidnark @ Feb 2 2008, 10:11 PM)

I view the drastic inconsistency not as a reflection of the caliber of talent, but rather the lack thereof. This team's margin for error is so small that when the guards aren't hitting shots and the team isn't defending well, we can suffer a double-digit loss against anyone. If this team had any offensive talent in the post, we would have had another 15-20 points today and won easily. How many easy opportunities within eight feet did Eberhardt and Husak miss today? Without this interior threat, we are entirely dependent upon guards to hit shots and create offense despite being the focus of the other's teams defense. When those shots aren't falling, we can suffer record-breaking scoring droughts. When they are falling and we are taking advantage of a few transition opportunities, we can stay with most teams in the country. Unfortunately, until the talent improves those will remain big "ifs."

Those are all good points but what do you do to get around those deficiencies? You point out how the team doesn't have an inside presence, my question is why run an equal opportunity offense? Bryce is not a player that can create his offense and Barry is not a player that can finish over legitimate post players, yet time and time again in the 2nd half we put these guys in those positions. Bryce turned the ball over and Barry was routinely rejected, which is really a turnover to me. Luckily UMass didn't capitalize on those miscues.

I think it is a far cry from an equal-opportunity offense. In most half-court sets, we screen, pass, and dribble around the perimeter for the bulk of the shot clock. The reality, however, is that when your opponent is drastically overplaying your guards, you are going to get easy looks in the paint that you have to take advantage of when you can. I don't care how big the discrepancy is between your front court and backcourt, you can't consistently compete at the mid-to-hight D1 level if you ignore easy opportunities in the paint. If you completely ignore those opportunities, the guards' job becomes difficult to impossible.

[davidnark]

Jeff Harris is one of my favorite Billikens. He had a real fire in his belly and an intelligent understanding of the game. BE will need to reinvent himself to get to that level of play. I don't know if you can get that fire if you don't have it by the time you are a junior in college.

Jeff Harris the senior had two pluses over the current BE. First, Jeff was well-built but only carried lean musle on his frame. Second, Jeff had a wonderful ability to use his body in the post against bigger and more athletic players.

[JaleJarr]

{I think it is a far cry from an equal-opportunity offense. In most half-court sets, we screen, pass, and dribble around the perimeter for the bulk of the shot clock.}

Actually against UMass we were very aggressive in our half-court sets. I was listening to the annoucers commenting on how SLU wants to pass the ball around the perimeter and use the clock in order to limit possessions for UMass, but what I was watching was a different reality. Luke was making aggressive cuts to the baskets, Bryce was setting some mean back picks, Kevin and Tommie were aggressively seeking shots. We were not only putting up shots early in the shot clock, we were converting at a high rate.

{The reality, however, is that when your opponent is drastically overplaying your guards, you are going to get easy looks in the paint that you have to take advantage of when you can.}

Teams are overplaying our guards and yet we still haven't had that breakout game from our power players.

If teams are going to shut down your half-court offense i.e. Temple you have to get your guards out

in space. We were most effective against Temple when we forced tempo late in the 1st half. 2nd half

we predominately played half-court and lost a game we should have won.

{I don't care how big the discrepancy is between your front court and backcourt, you can't consistently compete at the mid-to-hight D1 level if you ignore easy opportunities in the paint. If you completely ignore those opportunities, the guards' job becomes difficult to impossible.}

I'm not saying ignore a wide open Bryce or Barry but their scoring opportunities should be relegated to them picking up garbage baskets. They should never be forced to iniate their own offense. I think we got blinded by Bryce's and Barry's early out of conference success. Since the conference season has started Bryce and Barry have been pedestrian.

In our 7 conference games Bryce has a scoring average of 3.2ppg to Barry's 3ppg. Our scoring opportunities in the paint by our post players are non-existent.

[davidnark]

JaleJarr, I think we fully agree on one thing: the post play (or lack thereof) is really hurting this team this season.