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Hero Ball


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At the beginning of the season, I was down on Isabelle.  I though his "let's do this all myself" attitude to an offensive possession was counter productive to what we were trying to accomplish on offense.  He clearly wasn't doing what the coaches or his teammates were wanting or expecting.  For a while at the end of non conference play, he toned it down and started playing more of a team game.  After Gordon left, I resolved to be more forgiving of his style since we needed him.

Now, all my thoughts and former criticism of his style of play has gone out the window.  I think the coaches and teammates agree.  Hero ball is back and neither I nor anyone else seems to mind.  Isabelle drives and dishes.  He drives and scores.  I honestly believe that after showing this to the other team, it opens up our offense even when he's not involved.  When he gets in a rhythm with his drives and a few shots go down, the confidence he gets carries over into his three point shooting.

My point is that I've come full circle on Hero Ball.  I love it.  I question whether we should have been more tolerant of it all season.  I'm willing to ride it all the way to the NCAA Tournament if it can take us there.  Long live TI Hero Ball!!

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I am highjacking this thread to make the statement that Tremaine Isabell should not be tasked with guarding Gundmundsson or Grady tomorrow. I don’t care what Coach Ford has to do to make this work. TI on Gundmundsson was a nightmare on our home court, it was an automatic basket for Axel. Think it through Coach, find a way to get the points we need (ie. TI on the court) while Bess, Thatch, and Goodwin lock down Davidson’s best.

willie likes this
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8 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:

At the beginning of the season, I was down on Isabelle.  I though his "let's do this all myself" attitude to an offensive possession was counter productive to what we were trying to accomplish on offense.  He clearly wasn't doing what the coaches or his teammates were wanting or expecting.  For a while at the end of non conference play, he toned it down and started playing more of a team game.  After Gordon left, I resolved to be more forgiving of his style since we needed him.

Now, all my thoughts and former criticism of his style of play has gone out the window.  I think the coaches and teammates agree.  Hero ball is back and neither I nor anyone else seems to mind.  Isabelle drives and dishes.  He drives and scores.  I honestly believe that after showing this to the other team, it opens up our offense even when he's not involved.  When he gets in a rhythm with his drives and a few shots go down, the confidence he gets carries over into his three point shooting.

My point is that I've come full circle on Hero Ball.  I love it.  I question whether we should have been more tolerant of it all season.  I'm willing to ride it all the way to the NCAA Tournament if it can take us there.  Long live TI Hero Ball!!

Hero has been the order of the day all season but the hero had been Bess.  Then Isabell's defensive lapses contributed directly our losing streak, Bess got hurt,  our bench players got hurt and we started to hear about finger pointing for the first time all season.  We entered the toughest part of our schedule and our chances at competing for a conference title were effectively done.   

Per Ford's interviews, TI was losing faith in himself but Ford never lost faith in TI.  He predicted that Isabell would finally figure it out offensively.  It's taken 2 1/2 months and he's taken years off my life but he's figured it out. Not only has Isabell shot the three better than he ever have in his college career over the past 8 games, he plays defense now.  This is a Justin Love-level performance.  I tip my cap to him.

Zink, slufanskip and Schasz like this
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I have liked Isabell from the beginning but I like scoring this team lacked scoring and when the shot clock is running out or if the teams offense is stuck Isabell will shamelessly take the shot and not worry about missing.

I respect the criticism of Isabell, many of the posters understand how a team game is supposed to be played and have played high school and college ball and if they say that he is not playing as a team player then I believe that.

I am just a simple fan of the Bills and I appreciate when knowledgeable fans post things that I don’t agree with because I learn something.

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Two key events from yesterday ----- VCU losing Evans and Dayton losing Toppin.  And where are both teams now?  I say this in regards to the comment about TI's legs.  Fatigue is one thing but injuries are another.  Kenyon Martin.  Even little nagging things are harder to overcome night-after-night of playing.  This is a key factor in survive-and-advance.  Jeff Dowtin did nothing extra to Evans; Foreman did nothing extra to Toppin.  Do-do happens.  I was extremely worried early when Toppin hit TI but the guy was okay.  

But this is who we are ---- bully and hero ball going full tilt.

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7 hours ago, AnkielBreakers said:

I am highjacking this thread to make the statement that Tremaine Isabell should not be tasked with guarding Gundmundsson or Grady tomorrow. I don’t care what Coach Ford has to do to make this work. TI on Gundmundsson was a nightmare on our home court, it was an automatic basket for Axel. Think it through Coach, find a way to get the points we need (ie. TI on the court) while Bess, Thatch, and Goodwin lock down Davidson’s best.

Start Thatch instead of DJ. At least play him 30+ minutes. Keep Bess and Thatch on their two scorers. Their bigs can be guarded by our guards. Play four guards. You can’t have Isabell on the bench at all right now.

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We need to go inside against Davidson. This needs to be a French, Foreman, Goodwin inside effort. Our legs will be shot, so we cant rely so much on shooting. Luckily, we can play that game. 

Also, would love to see a fresh Wiley come off the bench and hit some bombs. He had a great game against Davidson the first time around. 

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10 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:

Long live TI Hero Ball!!

TI gets nothing but love from me at this point. With the injuries and everything else we needed someone to become the man and he has been incredible. The other thing is that while he is scoring at a high level and doing so shooting a really nice %, he is also doing a good job of creating opportunities for his teammates off of his penetration. Isabell is essentially our offense at this point and it has been surprisingly fun to watch. And part of that is the other guys kind of embracing that and attacking the offensive glass like animals. I should note that French was a beast Thursday night when we ran a lot of offense thru him, so props to him (and Isabell) for getting us to Dayton and then Isabell and Goodwin took the torch last night. Great work guys, take the fight to Davidson!

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To the issue of fatigue - it's nice to be at a point in the tourney where both teams have played the day before. Sure we've played two days in a row, but I still think it levels the playing field as compared to coming in against a rested Dayton team. 

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24 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

TI gets nothing but love from me at this point. With the injuries and everything else we needed someone to become the man and he has been incredible. The other thing is that while he is scoring at a high level and doing so shooting a really nice %, he is also doing a good job of creating opportunities for his teammates off of his penetration. Isabell is essentially our offense at this point and it has been surprisingly fun to watch. And part of that is the other guys kind of embracing that and attacking the offensive glass like animals. I should note that French was a beast Thursday night when we ran a lot of offense thru him, so props to him (and Isabell) for getting us to Dayton and then Isabell and Goodwin took the torch last night. Great work guys, take the fight to Davidson!

The jump in the efficiency of his game over the last 3 weeks has been shocking.

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44 minutes ago, willie said:

Whether he did it with Ford’s blessing or not I think TI said F-it,I’m going back to the way I played last year. I’m the man. 

On his radio shows, Coach said he had told Isabell that it would be February to March before he felt comfortable in the Bills system. It looks like that was pretty much on mark.  If we had had the 22.5 ppg Isabell for the entire conference slate, wow, what a difference it would have made.  53.5% from the arc! ! Would have, could have, should have....  It is pretty neat to see these Seniors closing out their college careers swinging. 

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Isabell had to relearn how to play within the confines of a team game. He had teammates like Bess, Goodwin, and French who had to have over a 20% usage rate to play an effective offensive game, and even Foreman and Wiley can pop to be the leading man on offense.

He tried to play isolation hero ball early in the season, but it did not move the other chess pieces well. He now understands what Bess knew all along, and it works when coordinated.

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Izzy will be the MVP of the tournament with another average tournament game and a Billikens win

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The pick n roll at the top of the key with Isabell and French has won us all of these games. Reminiscent of the Jett-Evans combo. 

Bess and Goodwin spot up in the corners/wings and can slash if there’s an opening while Foreman waits for easy drop off finishes. 

It really maximizes the traits of everyone on the team, and Isabell has enough tricks up his sleeve that it’s really hard to defend; he doesn’t even know what he’s going to do until he does it. 

Hopefully the magic lasts (at least) one more game, it’s been fun to watch. 

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