GDT: No Mas, Umas .....

[Taj79]

Yes, we put up 83 points but only 17 through the skill sets of shooting the three and making free throws.  Umass' press is pitiful ..... how many layups did we get in the second half attacking the rim?  Dave Kaplan said on many occasions that if a team wants to hurt you on a press, you hurt them back by attacking the rim not just breaking half court.  And we did a lot of that.  We shot 56% if you take out the 2-for-12 from three and many of these were bunnies.  I'm good with that but that doesn't happen a lot in college ball.  This falls along the same lines as Jordair Jett didn't have a mid-range game and neither does Jordan Goodwin.  Kaplan also said that Goodwin needed jump stops and pull ups to avoid at least two offensive fouls.  I've said that all along.  Our fast break is also a skill set and we don't show much sense on that at times.  We don't have a go to guy because if we go to French, he's fouled and if we go to Goodwin, well, we did, end of game, and how did that work out? We didn't even get a shot off.

According to the ESPN Play-by-Play, only 9 shots were made not labeled layups or dunks by SLU the whole game.  French got credit for three "jumpers" but I know all three were near the restricted arc so is that really a jumper?  So six "jumpers" all game two of which were threes.  Four shots went down.  FOUR.  

Two games in and the book is out on us.  Umass knew enough to 1) not let Collins bring the ball up, and 2) ignore Collins when he drives because he won't shoot.  Collins had two layups and a jumper.  He needs to keep teams more honest because he's passing out to guys who make FOUR shots a game sans dunks.  Despite my calls for Goodwin getting a shot, I wouldn't trade him for anyone.  Still two of his fouls were completely stupid and the others might have been offensive.  That's a tight line to walk because we can;t afford to lose his intangibles down the stretch.  Another scouting point is cram the paint on us, make us shoot.  FOUR.  And I'll agree with larrymania who asks where our vaunted D has gone.  I am guessing this is a factor of having youth on the perimeter.  The rebounding I get ---- Umass jacked 24 threes and threes lead to long rebounds.  This is another part of perimeter defenders boxing their guys our on the long ball.

Nothing about the FT shooting bothered me ...... you get this way when you just accept and embrace the horror. Take Hasahn out and we shot 10 for 13 or 77%.   ABF --- Anybody But French.  See you Wednesay.

[SLU_Nick]

I dont know if it's been mentioned yet, but French grabbing the rebound and then immediately dribbling down court needs to be stopped right now.  He needs to give it up and then sprint down court for the finish.  Against bad teams, he was arguably successful dribbling in the back court but conference play does not allow for lackadaisical tenancies that we got away with against Eastern Washington. 

This team needs to realize what we do well and accentuate it so that we stop giving up easy points.  Plays like Goodwin shooting a 3 or going 1 on 3 on the fast break, French dribbling the ball up, Hargrove or Weaver trying to take their man 1 on 1, all play directly into the opponent's hands.  I want Ford to coach our guys to make the easy play and move the ball...especially with teams like Umass/GW/St Joes. 

We really should have lost that game last night (down 5 in OT).  We are really fortunate that Umass threw the ball away and couldn't hit a jumper in the last 90 seconds.  Then Jacobs finally hitting a timely corner 3 felt like a miracle.  Our win % felt like it was 10-20% at about the 2:30 mark in OT 

[Pistol]

My wife was out and I had both kids during the game yesterday, which is not an ideal way to watch it, but from what I could tell:

-It sounds weird based on his stat line, but French still looks a little injured to me and I think it's impacting some of his timing and decision making. Maybe I'm wrong, and I hope I am. He just looked a step slow on a lot of plays.

-Take his 1-6 out and our FT shooting was actually good.

-The absence of Thatch and Jimerson is being felt extremely heavily. Thatch's defense and energy and versatility give us more than what we see on a stat sheet. And without Jimerson, the whole offense reverts to the last two years - ugly, plodding, and easy to pack it in against. I don't know what the answer is here; I'm tempted to say play with more pressure and force turnovers and get more in transition but I don't know that we go deep enough to make this work for long stretches.

-I don't mind Perkins shooting from 3 as much as others do. I know he's not hitting like he should. His form looks fine to me, though, and there must be a reason he keeps firing. His percentage was fine at SWIC. I think he's just in a prolonged cold streak and trying to find it. Plus, we need another threat besides Weaver and the streaky Jacobs.

-I don't have much to add in terms of turnovers or the 1-3-1 or other things that have been heavily covered already.

-We tried to lose this thing in so many ways. The team's identity looks very much like the last couple seasons and I don't expect that to turn around. The conference slate is going to be a dogfight.

[Clock_Tower]

Yuri needs to shoot and score.   We cannot be one dimensional- not with French and Goodwin not being shooting threats.  
I would even be open to Goodwin playing more PG (or point forward) and running a pick for Yuri. Establish Yuri as a 2 point shooter and weaver as a 3 point shooter. 

[slu72]

This may sound out there, but I think Jacobs could be a game changer for us, if, BIG IF, he decides to show up every game. He looked impressive last night getting to the hoop, and he has shown, on occasion, he can hit the long ball. I guess Ford needs to challenge him before every game. 

[wgstl]

27 minutes ago, Pistol said:

My wife was out and I had both kids during the game yesterday, which is not an ideal way to watch it, but from what I could tell:

-It sounds weird based on his stat line, but French still looks a little injured to me and I think it's impacting some of his timing and decision making. Maybe I'm wrong, and I hope I am. He just looked a step slow on a lot of plays.

-I don't mind Perkins shooting from 3 as much as others do. I know he's not hitting like he should. His form looks fine to me, though, and there must be a reason he keeps firing. His percentage was fine at SWIC. I think he's just in a prolonged cold streak and trying to find it. Plus, we need another threat besides Weaver and the streaky Jacobs.

 

I know french always has to a certain degree, but he looks like he is FIRING the ball off the backboards. With no chance of it going in as hard as he is throwing it.  Idk if he is over compensating from an injury. 

 

I agree with Perkins, there has to be a reason he has a green light.  Bad shooters dont shoot that much from 3 for no reason. 

[wgstl]

Just now, slu72 said:

This may sound out there, but I think Jacobs could be a game changer for us, if, BIG IF, he decides to show up every game. He looked impressive last night getting to the hoop, and he has shown, on occasion, he can hit the long ball. I guess Ford needs to challenge him before every game. 

He just lacks confidence/ killer instinct.

[Pistol]

Collins wasn't much of a shooter in HS until he went on a tear his senior year. He's currently .343 from the field, .400 from 3 on low volume (which is fine by me - he should only be taking no-brainers from outside), and .541 from the line. If he has a wide open 3, take it. Otherwise, I don't really like him shooting - or driving, for the most part. He looks great on makes but often gets himself into trouble.

Weaver should have a green light for the rest of the season.

I want more consistency out of Jacobs. He's our most enigmatic rotation player. He can look so good but disappears for games at a time.

And again, I think Perkins is a scorer still figuring things out. I don't love mid-range jumpers and would rather see him going to the rim more often. He's .745 from the line on the third-most attempts. We need more of him shooting FTs, less of him settling for longer jumpers. If he has open 3s, I think they'll eventually start falling. Besides, I'm not sure what other choice we have. Weaver is our only consistent threat and plays under 15 MPG.

[RiseAndGrind]

58 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

I dont know if it's been mentioned yet, but French grabbing the rebound and then immediately dribbling down court needs to be stopped right now.  He needs to give it up and then sprint down court for the finish.  Against bad teams, he was arguably successful dribbling in the back court but conference play does not allow for lackadaisical tenancies that we got away with against Eastern Washington. 

This team needs to realize what we do well and accentuate it so that we stop giving up easy points.  Plays like Goodwin shooting a 3 or going 1 on 3 on the fast break, French dribbling the ball up, Hargrove or Weaver trying to take their man 1 on 1, all play directly into the opponent's hands.  I want Ford to coach our guys to make the easy play and move the ball...especially with teams like Umass/GW/St Joes. 

We really should have lost that game last night (down 5 in OT).  We are really fortunate that Umass threw the ball away and couldn't hit a jumper in the last 90 seconds.  Then Jacobs finally hitting a timely corner 3 felt like a miracle.  Our win % felt like it was 10-20% at about the 2:30 mark in OT 

This is what I meant when I said this team "is the dumbest team in the history of teams." I was just too lazy. 

[RiseAndGrind]

7 minutes ago, wgstl said:

I know french always has to a certain degree, but he looks like he is FIRING the ball off the backboards. With no chance of it going in as hard as he is throwing it.  Idk if he is over compensating from an injury. 

 

I agree with Perkins, there has to be a reason he has a green light.  Bad shooters dont shoot that much from 3 for no reason. 

Mentioned this yesterday to someone. Whatever "touch" French had previously is totally gone at the moment. 

[slufan13]

I honestly don't know what to think. With Jimerson out, our best offense is going to be driving to the bucket and scrapping points off of rebounds, loose balls, etc. Actually seemed like we had a good amount of success with that yesterday though. Part of that is because UMass is not a good team. Yes they have some good young players, but they are not a good team. But I was really disappointed in our defense yesterday. We couldn't defend and our guards couldn't stop turning the ball over. I know we lost Bess from last year but our defense looks significantly worse. Hargrove was good atop the 1-3-1 so I'd like to see more of that going forward but that's not a defense you can get by with for 40 minutes a game. 

[Billiken Rich]

1 minute ago, slufan13 said:

I honestly don't know what to think. With Jimerson out, our best offense is going to be driving to the bucket and scrapping points off of rebounds, loose balls, etc. Actually seemed like we had a good amount of success with that yesterday though. Part of that is because UMass is not a good team. Yes they have some good young players, but they are not a good team. But I was really disappointed in our defense yesterday. We couldn't defend and our guards couldn't stop turning the ball over. I know we lost Bess from last year but our defense looks significantly worse. Hargrove was good atop the 1-3-1 so I'd like to see more of that going forward but that's not a defense you can get by with for 40 minutes a game. 

We miss Bess AND Thatch.  I thought we were deep enough to lose Jimerson without it being a killer but I was wrong.  Between Jimerson and Yuri's thumbs (and Thatch) we are now missing the straw that stirs the drink.......

[billiken_roy]

Just now, slufan13 said:

I honestly don't know what to think. With Jimerson out, our best offense is going to be driving to the bucket and scrapping points off of rebounds, loose balls, etc. Actually seemed like we had a good amount of success with that yesterday though. Part of that is because UMass is not a good team. Yes they have some good young players, but they are not a good team. But I was really disappointed in our defense yesterday. We couldn't defend and our guards couldn't stop turning the ball over. I know we lost Bess from last year but our defense looks significantly worse. Hargrove was good atop the 1-3-1 so I'd like to see more of that going forward but that's not a defense you can get by with for 40 minutes a game. 

remember that for the last few games (which is what everyone is remembering) we have been playing perkins and hargrove more and more minutes.   they are likely the two worst defenders on the team.   good players that need to play considering their offensive potential.   but there is no doubt in my mind that spoon would be mandating the same highmark deal with them if he was their coach.  

having two weak links makes it tough to have a great team defense.  

[NH]

We are bad at Free Throws and 3s. That effectively ruins any chance you have at running an efficient offense. If you don’t have an efficient offense, there are really only two things you can do to win: 1) play shutdown defense or 2) get more possessions than your opponent.

In order to ensure that we’re getting more possessions than the opponent, we need to get rebounds and not turn the ball over. The last couple of games we’ve been turning the ball over far too much. Basically, we don’t have enough margin for error to survive turnovers, and I think that will be the key to our offensive success moving forward.

[glazedandconfused]

Interestingly enough, we are scoring .978 points per 3 point attempt and .980 points per 2 point attempt. So no matter if we are shooting 3s or 2s, we are scoring the same rate.

**3 point % will surely drop without Gibson playing rest of the year.

 

Just thought it was surprising that our 3 point shooting is as efficient as our 2 point shooting so far.

[bauman]

Sidepoint to the game;  Lots of "Shoes" in the background of the picture in the P-D online story which shows TJH Jr. blocking a shot.

[3star_recruit]

2 hours ago, Clock_Tower said:

Yuri needs to shoot and score.   We cannot be one dimensional- not with French and Goodwin not being shooting threats.  
I would even be open to Goodwin playing more PG (or point forward) and running a pick for Yuri. Establish Yuri as a 2 point shooter and weaver as a 3 point shooter. 

The problem is Yuri was not a good mid-range scorer prior to coming to SLU either.  Maybe he can develop that game over the next couple of summers but he is what he is for now - 5 ppg and a bunch of assists.  He's on the same development path as Butler's junior point guard, Aaron Thompson -- a low-scoring true playmaker.

Weaver is in a tough position because he's a 5'10 combo guard who is truly one-dimensional on offense.  85% of his shots come from the three, he doesn't get to the line and he averages less than an assist a game. When he goes 0-3 from three, it's hard to justify his presence on the floor.  If he's on early, then Coach Ford rides with him.  He will play a lot of minutes in some games and not in others.

[Matty Light]

47 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

remember that for the last few games (which is what everyone is remembering) we have been playing perkins and hargrove more and more minutes.   they are likely the two worst defenders on the team.   good players that need to play considering their offensive potential.   but there is no doubt in my mind that spoon would be mandating the same highmark deal with them if he was their coach.  

having two weak links makes it tough to have a great team defense.  

I don't know how anyone could be a worse defender than Tay Weaver.  Most of the time his assignment is a shooter on the perimeter.  As soon as the ball goes in the paint or the corner, he turns all of his attention to the basketball - waiting for an opportunity to run in late and steal the ball.  The problem is that 1) He immediately disregards his man who very easily just walks to an open spot on the three point line.  2) French doesn't need his help defending on the block, not every post entry has to come with a double team.  Trust your teammates.  3) Weaver might actually be successful twice throughout the game getting the steal.  It probably leads to an average of 2 points.  Just to be generous, say it leads to 2 made 3s.  Well he gives up four 3s to the opposing team, making his brilliant strategy worth -6 pts.

Bottom line:  GUARD YOUR MAN, TAY.  Quit worrying about help defense.  You're no good at it.

[Pistol]

2 minutes ago, Matty Light said:

I don't know how anyone could be a worse defender than Tay Weaver.  Most of the time his assignment is a shooter on the perimeter.  As soon as the ball goes in the paint or the corner, he turns all of his attention to the basketball - waiting for an opportunity to run in late and steal the ball.  The problem is that 1) He immediately disregards his man who very easily just walks to an open spot on the three point line.  2) French doesn't need his help defending on the block, not every post entry has to come with a double team.  Trust your teammates.  3) Weaver might actually be successful twice throughout the game getting the steal.  It probably leads to an average of 2 points.  Just to be generous, say it leads to 2 made 3s.  Well he gives up four 3s to the opposing team, making his brilliant strategy worth -6 pts.

Bottom line:  GUARD YOUR MAN, TAY.  Quit worrying about help defense.  You're no good at it.

A lot of this might also be the result of adjusting to a new system. He had a reputation as a solid defender at EKU. He also played under 3 coaches in 4 seasons there and was slowed by knee injuries.

But I agree, we're giving up way too many open looks beyond the perimeter and he's contributing to that.

[almaman]

5 hours ago, RiseAndGrind said:

Yep. I think Roy just was reading too fast 

and tripped over a CAP

[Cowboy]

12 minutes ago, Matty Light said:

I don't know how anyone could be a worse defender than Tay Weaver.  Most of the time his assignment is a shooter on the perimeter.  As soon as the ball goes in the paint or the corner, he turns all of his attention to the basketball - waiting for an opportunity to run in late and steal the ball.  The problem is that 1) He immediately disregards his man who very easily just walks to an open spot on the three point line.  2) French doesn't need his help defending on the block, not every post entry has to come with a double team.  Trust your teammates.  3) Weaver might actually be successful twice throughout the game getting the steal.  It probably leads to an average of 2 points.  Just to be generous, say it leads to 2 made 3s.  Well he gives up four 3s to the opposing team, making his brilliant strategy worth -6 pts.

Bottom line:  GUARD YOUR MAN, TAY.  Quit worrying about help defense.  You're no good at it.

-I think most if not every one of our guys could use some refreshers on the defensive end and how to play there, I guess tough for the staff to have this many new bodies and have the guys learn all they need

[3star_recruit]

Weaver is pretty good at pressuring the ball and fighting through screens.  I seriously doubt he is freelancing when he doubles the post.  That's pretty much how all our guards play defense.  But he's a short 5'10.  He isn't long enough to seriously challenge anybody's shot.  

[billiken_roy]

33 minutes ago, Matty Light said:

I don't know how anyone could be a worse defender than Tay Weaver.  Most of the time his assignment is a shooter on the perimeter.  As soon as the ball goes in the paint or the corner, he turns all of his attention to the basketball - waiting for an opportunity to run in late and steal the ball.  The problem is that 1) He immediately disregards his man who very easily just walks to an open spot on the three point line.  2) French doesn't need his help defending on the block, not every post entry has to come with a double team.  Trust your teammates.  3) Weaver might actually be successful twice throughout the game getting the steal.  It probably leads to an average of 2 points.  Just to be generous, say it leads to 2 made 3s.  Well he gives up four 3s to the opposing team, making his brilliant strategy worth -6 pts.

Bottom line:  GUARD YOUR MAN, TAY.  Quit worrying about help defense.  You're no good at it.

good point.  i'm out of reactions for today.

[White Pelican]

This question arises from mild curiosity. The program notes for the game had a paragraph on freshman TJ Weeks and his excellent 3 point shooting. I think it said he was 32 for 66 at the time.

I was looking forward to seeing how we played him and who would guard him. He didn't start and then he never played. I'm too far from the bench to tell if he was even at the game. Wears #23. A little research shows his last game was Dec. 7 and he's missed I think 4 games. Is he injured? Something else? Anyone know? 

[cgeldmacher]

I think our most consistent scoring play right now is Perkins at the top of the key with the ball.  Everyone spreads out.  He drives past his man and uses his "I'm longer than my defender" move and either lays it in, gets fouled, or misses and French and Goodwin attack for the offensive rebound.  I wish Ford would call for that more.  Perkins will score like that sometimes on 3 out of 6 possessions, and then he seems to not get the ball in the same position for another 10-15 minutes.

I agree that he needs to back off of the 3 point shot for now until they start going in more consistently.  Maybe use a shot fake to get his guy to to past and then drive it in as stated above.