GDT, exhibition enjoy the season and forget about suspensions that have not happened

[CBFan]

36 minutes ago, dlarry said:

Quality game recap

Obnoxious game recap

great post

[Old guy]

My own 2 cents worth. Harris Stowe is not a pushover team in any way. They had a guy called Richardson that drilled 4 out of 5 attempts at 3 pointers, this kept their score up. On our own side Johnson, Bess, Roby and Hines scored 3 pointers. 

I liked the way Goodwin played, he seemed a bit lost in the first half and then improved and appeared more in control in the  second half. Bess was good 15 pts and 10 rebounds. I expected more out of French but he made his presence felt although he was very surprised at some of the fouls the refs called on him. He had 6 pts and 9 rebounds. I was less impressed with Foreman and hope he improves he had 8 rebounds and a single point. Anthony played but did not do much. We still are doing poorly with free throws.

Our team has improved in talent, and probably will improve a lot in performance. However the damned refs are as bad and as wild as they always have been. Something we have to live with.

A question I wanted to ask about Santos, is he a redshirt this year or is he OK to play?

[SShoe]

21 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

Goodwin was far better at the point than Hines.  Hines  Is a bad decision with the ball more times than not.  

No doubt. In fact, under the circumstances, I’d prefer to see roby handle it more. I just don’t think Goodwin’s strength is as a ball handler. I want him setting up to score on the drive as much as possible. 

Disclaimer: this is all based on one exhibition game. 

[SShoe]

2 minutes ago, Old guy said:

My own 2 cents worth. Harris Stowe is not a pushover team in any way. They had a guy called Richardson that drilled 4 out of 5 attempts at 3 pointers, this kept their score up. On our own side Johnson, Bess, Roby and Hines scored 3 pointers. 

I liked the way Goodwin played, he seemed a bit lost in the first half and then improved and appeared more in control in the  second half. Bess was good 15 pts and 10 rebounds. I expected more out of French but he made his presence felt although he was very surprised at some of the fouls the refs called on him. He had 6 pts and 9 rebounds. I was less impressed with Foreman and hope he improves he had 8 rebounds and a single point. Anthony played but did not do much. We still are doing poorly with free throws.

Our team has improved in talent, and probably will improve a lot in performance. However the damned refs are as bad and as wild as they always have been. Something we have to live with.

A question I wanted to ask about Santos, is he a redshirt this year or is he OK to play?

Santos is a red shirt. 

[Old guy]

Thank you SShoe

[billiken_roy]

1 minute ago, SShoe said:

No doubt. In fact, under the circumstances, I’d prefer to see roby handle it more. I just don’t think Goodwin’s strength is as a ball handler. I want him setting up to score on the drive as much as possible. 

Disclaimer: this is all based on one exhibition game. 

His best scoring came when he drove from out front as the point guard beat his man to the lane.    When he played wing neither roby nor Hines looked for him.

[HoosierBilliken]

 

[moytoy12]

Sounds like we’re going to miss bishop big time.  Not surprising. Any time you lose your MVP the team is going to suffer.

[STL Hoops Insider]

How did Harris-Stowe look?

[Box and Won]

2 hours ago, TFord and TRavs said:

Wow maybe now people will start listening to what I’ve been saying.

[SouthSide_Billiken]

It's so hard to take anything away from these exhibition games. Harris-Stowe hit what seemed like a ton of contested threes which kept the game closer than it should have been. We looked much better in transition than we did in the half-court sets. Although, I also don't know how much you can read into that because we had a very vanilla gameplan and essentially just ran our basic motion set with few (if any) set plays. We also seemed quite disinterested after the great start.

Some observations:

Goodwin - It seems to me that he will be "the guy" when we need a big bucket. His stroke is so smooth and he has great court vision, particularly in transition.

French - He never seemed like he was able to get into a flow on offense (which was partially due to the fact we didn't do a great job of feeding the post), but the guy can rebound. It may take him a few games to really learn how to use his body and physicality without getting called for fouls. I did love the Dikembe finger wag after the block.

Foreman - Some Reggie-esque travels. I attribute that to rust. Aggressive rebounder though.

Bess - Like with Foreman, there just seemed to be a bit of rust adjusting to game speed. On a few of those forced drives he reminded me of Yacoubou a bit. I was pleasantly surprised to see him hit a few 3's as we've read he worked on that last year.

Johnson - I really think he's underrated and will be a key contributor this year. The kid just looks like he loves the game and he looks like he's bulked up some.

Here's to hoping we get some clarity on the three guys who weren't at the game. If we are just dealing with some suspensions, I guess it's good news they are counting the exhibition. Either way, there's way more talent on the floor than the last few years.

[drkelsey55]

When was the last time a Billiken team, if ever, looked like they might rip the seam of the trunks at any moment?

I always thought trunks were kind of large and baggie. These are some built basketball playes. Made me think of Huggies teams.

[Gremio14]

1 hour ago, drkelsey55 said:

When was the last time a Billiken team, if ever, looked like they might rip the seam of the trunks at any moment?

I always thought trunks were kind of large and baggie. These are some built basketball playes. Made me think of Huggies teams.

My thoughts exactly after seeing these guys for the first time.   Don’t know who is our current strength coach, but he’s well on his way to molding our team in this old Bearcats image.  BB lived in Gold’s gym....

[3star_recruit]

10 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

Yes they practice them every day during and after practice.  I don't know why Ford can't correct some of these glitches.

They are not glitches. These guys have been poor free throw shooters their whole lives. That takes years to fix, if ever. Contrast with Davidson. They are going to be a good free throw shooting team. Why? Because McKillop recruits very good free throw shooters.

We are going to lose some games this year due to poor free throw shooting. I accepted that six months ago. Hopefully that's offset by the games we win due to rebounding.

[slufan13]

Just now, 3star_recruit said:

They are not glitches. These guys have been poor free throw shooters their whole lives. That takes years to fix, if ever. Contrast with Davidson. They are going to be a good free throw shooting team. Why? Because McKillop recruits very good free throw shooters.

We are going to lose some games this year due to poor free throw shooting. I accepted that six months ago. Hopefully that's offset by the games we win due to rebounding.

Agree. Same reason why Majerus, Crews, etc couldn't correct the glitches. 

[HoosierPal]

22 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

They are not glitches. These guys have been poor free throw shooters their whole lives. That takes years to fix, if ever. Contrast with Davidson. They are going to be a good free throw shooting team. Why? Because McKillop recruits very good free throw shooters.

We are going to lose some games this year due to poor free throw shooting. I accepted that six months ago. Hopefully that's offset by the games we win due to rebounding.

Call it what you want...glitches, heredity, laziness....we are agreeing that FT shooting may well be our Achilles heel.  This is why Bishop is a key to this year's team.  At 85% career FT shooter, you want him on the floor in crunch time.  It will be pretty obvious soon enough that Hack A Shaq is the way to play Bess and Goodwin.  Guys need to be practicing their FT rather than their dunks.

[3star_recruit]

9 hours ago, SouthSide_Billiken said:

We looked much better in transition than we did in the half-court sets. Although, I also don't know how much you can read into that ...

Some observations:

Goodwin - It seems to me that he will be "the guy" when we need a big bucket. His stroke is so smooth and he has great court vision, particularly in transition.

Bess - Like with Foreman, there just seemed to be a bit of rust adjusting to game speed. On a few of those forced drives he reminded me of Yacoubou a bit. I was pleasantly surprised to see him hit a few 3's as we've read he worked on that last year.

Halfcourt offense was never a strength of Ford's Oklahoma State teams. Expect more of the same this year.

Goodwin will be our primary ballhandler. He will eventually grow into the role of "the man". It's going to take awhile though. And his strength is getting to the basket, not jump shooting.

Bess was a good three point shooter in high school. I wouldn't go by his three point shooting at Michigan State. The sample size is too small. I expect he'll shoot the 3 ball well against teams who leave him wide open and struggle against those who don't. Henriquez, OTOH, can hit even with a hand in his face. We need him back.

[NextYearBill]

another takeaway: Roby is a good player when not surrounded by crap. I like him to have a great year 

[HoosierPal]

32 minutes ago, NextYearBill said:

another takeaway: Roby is a good player when not surrounded by crap. I like him to have a great year 

Uh oh. Uncle Jack will put you on Ignore. 

[TFord and TRavs]

How did Goodwin look as PG? I know a lot of people didn’t see him as such. Remind anyone of Marcus Smart? 

[NH]

Has anyone seen highlights floating around the internet and/or social media?

[SouthSide_Billiken]

1 hour ago, 3star_recruit said:

And his strength is getting to the basket, not jump shooting.

That's what I figured with Goodwin which is why his stroke stood out to me. Perhaps it was a fluke but that pull up jumper was nice. Also, in warmups he looked like he had really good range with great rotation on the ball. If he can develop that side of the game he'll be deadly.

Edited November 5, 2017 by SouthSide_Billiken

[Aquinas]

Our  players who shot poorly from the free throw line will probably improve some in that area, but their 3 point Numbers will probably drop from this exhibition game.  Poor to average free throw shooters are rarely good thee point  Shooters.  

[billiken_roy]

I've been watching Goodwin since he was a freshman in high school so to me he looked like Jordan Goodwin.   

He isn't ever going to look like Allen Iverson or Chris Paul as he isn't a speed demon, but he does a good job of protecting the ball and when he goes to the basket he can use his bigger body to create space for shooting opportunities.  He gets in the lane he can score.   

It would be great if we had a guard who was a distributor that would allow Goodwin to play the wing, but imo our other guard options are far worse with the ball than Goodwin and we will have to use Goodwin at the point.

As to comparing him to smart I'd say smart was pretty much the player I described above as well.   Not a prototype point guard just the guy you want with the ball that can score when needed.   Goodwin probably isn't that yet, but by the time he is an upper classman he will be.

Our Goodwin and French showed tremendous potential last night imo.    They are the least of our wish list, and they will provide great entertainment for us as they mature over the next four years.  Btw, come early to the games just to watch the French dunk show in warm ups.   The kid is the definition of power.  We have never had a power dunker like him.   Wow.

Johnson was without a doubt our best and most consistent all around player last night imo.  He does stuff right.   I wish he was a step quicker and a better ball handler.   However he probably wouldn't be a Billiken if he was.   

Bess showed his Michigan State stats meant nothing.   He is strong and will do his part this year.   If he can make layups he is an all conference player.  He plays hard all the time, he isn't afraid to go inside and he'll dive on the floor when needed.   I love this guy.     I do wish he could put the ball on the floor better.  But he gets an advantage he knows when to take it.   He makes good decisions and no doubt is a leader.  His reluctance to go left is concerning.   Hopefully it was a fluke last night.  But I don't ever see him ad a point player.   

My biggest disappointment was our bigs.   I was hoping for more.   They showed they will rebound and defend but I saw nothing on the offensive end that makes them a necessary go to option.   Right now I see a version of Campbell, Robinson and harris more or less, which is nothing terrible.   Just thought they might be more.  

I'm still excited.   Especially if we add henriquez and graves can help with guard work if he also eventually gets added to the mix.   The two of them are very key imo to our level of success this year.   If they for whatever reason don't play.   We might be a 500 team.   With them we might win 20+.

Last thought, santos in street clothes looks like he'd be another nice inside addition.    

Lot of questions yet but no doubt the arrows pointing up and I remain very excited.

[NH]

I have not seen any highlights and did not watch the game. That said, I think Goodwin is going to go down as a top 5 billiken of all time. Regardless of what our record is this year, it will be awesome to watch him and French start their careers.