Schasz Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 My night here in the palatial Palm Harbor Palace is never complete without some word from my friend Roy on this evenings Billiken game. I do enjoy reading everone's opinion on what happened and of course Nark is one of my favorites but it's just not final until I read what BR has to say. By the way, I was on business earlier this week...down in that bad Miami again. Thank God I missed the riot yesterday. Brought back memories of my days in Seattle when the WTO came to town. So what's up with someone masqurading as Billiken Roy? Can someone shed some light for me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 sorry schasz, had family plans after the game, and to be honest, still a little tired from my trip this week. i slept terrible. i guess the courtyard people dont want me for commercials. actually, overall i think the game had some good stuff in it. the other teams two guards shot pretty darn well, and ironically, we didnt really slow them down until fisher and drejaj switched men halfway thru the second half and then it seemed both slowed their guys down then. i really thought the defensive no-no's if there were any were some bunnies inside. izik might as well have been a statue and varner and frericks seemed to fall asleep a couple of times as well. frericks also had a really stupid play near the end of the game when he got a late rebound and instead of passing it back out, went up to the basket and turned it over to the other team. at that point in the game we were playing the clock not eastern kentucky. that said, i am warming up to frericks. i am admitting he is leaps and bounds an improvement offensively. but even then, he gave up too many easy points for my tastes. my gosh, tim volpenhein isnt even chris heinrich let alone chris massey and he scored easily on frericks. so while it looks like we are going to get 6-7 points a game more from frericks, it also looks like he is going to give up 6-7 points a game more than what we have been giving in the post the last few seasons. that said, he has the physical tools to turn that around. i am betting that he will become a more concerned defender by conference time. varner took some bad shots. but he also he some big shots. overall, i have no problem with varner's performance. in fact if varner's time was limited to 2-3 five minute appearances, i think he would be more of a weapon. when he is playing long periods, i think the opposing coaches then have time to plan there attacks to focus on varner's defense. the problem isnt varner. varner is what he is and at least gives us credible performance and 110% effort. the problem is getting the two obvious athletes that are sitting on the bench, to put out in varner like fashion so we can utilize their skills. but until they give that kind of effort, i see brad's thinking. both izik and justin johnson showed us flashes. however they also coasted way too much defensively. that kind of defensive effort vs a better team would spell l-o-s-s imo. right now, i think if there is any players that can elevate their play, how can anyone argue our potential lies with these two players? clarke's appearance was short and forgetable. i remember one very bad pass attempt, other than that, nothing. he is a freshman playing behind some really nice guards though, so i would not worry too much. darren just needs to keep working and getting better. drejaj and fisher played well imo. especially drejaj. drejaj had a couple of really nice moves. he really faked me out on the one move he had in the second half where he faked the pass and then went under the big guy for the high arching layup. defensively he had 5 steals i think. someone inferred yesterday that drejaj wont be playing after our recruits get here. i am having a hard time seeing him going quietly this year when reggie and fish are supposedly our final backcourt. this kid just wants to be out on the floor and does everything he can to make it hard to leave him off the floor. if izik doesnt start playing hard, my guess is that drejaj will get those minutes when bryant comes back. sloan was fabulous. talk about guts. he was on the floor all night. had at least 3 heads up plays that really won the game for the billikens. his defensive stunt on the possession with about 30 seconds to go was a dagger in heart to eku imo. my gosh, if he continues this he might carry the team to something special. great job chris! keep it up. non basketball stuff. i loved the jimmy john's dash for the sandwich deal. my legs were burning watching the kid run those stairs to the top like he did to get up there in time to win the sandwich. nice job on that promotion. tommie liddell was in the stands last night. watched the game very quietly with no emotion on his face. nice to see our top recruit there. frank was sitting at press row with two classmates of kevin lisch. maybe frank is backdoor recruiting kevin for us? j/k. crowd imo was probably about 7k. band, i did not make out the beginning words to the "hey baby". someone was to grow up. who? good blue crew again. obviously the billikens are starting to catch on with the campus crowd. interesting outfits by the baby blues at halftime. the one girl was one button away from being arrested. i liked it. i dont know if father biondi did. btw, if slu72 is counting again, father biondi was there for opening nite. wasnt a pretty final score, but all in all, i was happy. i think if the two guards werent shooting lights out the beginnning of the second half and frericks and izik play a little harder defensively, this game is the blowout we expected. so i am not too concerned at this point. bring on savanaugh state. btw, need to get the game report on that one from someone else. i donated my tix for that game to a benefit auction for a local grade school. so i will be watching electronically instead. 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3star_recruit Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 I don't blame Frericks for not coming out and defending a 7 footer 17 feet from the basket. You want the other team's 7 footer to shoot 17 footers. The problem was, this kid was making them. As for JJ, Coach Soderberg was giving props to the lad for his defense so I think he disagrees with you there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonwich Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 I'll take the contrarian viewpoint on that last play by Frericks. He's right next to the hoop, both players had just gone up for the rebound, and he's one-on-one with that guy two feet from the basket. The game was still close enough that points were important. We don't have quite as good of a perspective from behind the Billiken basket, but I think Frericks got jobbed on the call -- no way the other player competes for a rebound and then turns and gets set for Frericks' drive. That view of the call, by the way, is a debateable opinion, but there was one referee's "anticipation" call last night that was simply incredible --in the second half, EKU misses a pass and the ball goes into the backcourt. The ref calls over and back *before* the EKU player touches it. I guess he works for Miss Cleo in the off-season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StlCardinal Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 EK had an assistant coach (named Austin, apparently) who couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall, so the band sung: "hey Austin, we wanna know....when are you gonna grow?". They coach got a laugh out out of it, and he got a pat on the head from one of his players (I think he came up to the waistband of the player...literally). Something tells me this guy has heard a few short jokes before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted November 22, 2003 Author Share Posted November 22, 2003 B-Roy, Good report on the game and I am not disheartened by the lack of a blowout. We are missing a couple players who figure to get good minutes. You and I will both miss the next game. We are heading to the Caribbean on a Thanksgiving cruise. Should be lots of fun...we are going to do Xtreme cave tubing on Thanksgiving day in Belize, and then eat turkey that night. Let's get a couple more wins this next week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 Overall a good summary, but Coach Brad (based on his postgame interview) and I disagree with you on your defensive analysis. With a few notable exceptions, our interior defense was strong. The bulk of the poor defense last night resulted from our guards failing to get in the shooters face beyond nineteen feet. While Fisher and Drejaj demonstrated excellent hands and defensive anticipation (resulting in their large steal totals), they did not get a hand up on those two little guards. Those two little guards scored most of their team's points, and most of those points game from jumpers. Drejaj allowed that freshman Moore to hit five three pointers over him! Brad will correct that problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 "Coach Brad (based on his postgame interview) and I disagree with you on your defensive analysis." That makes three of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billikan Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 This is one of my pet peeves about modern college basketball players--they do not think about the "situation", particularly on offensive rebounds. The play by Frericks was absolutely terrible. with less than a minute on the clock and a 3 point lead an offnesive rebound is like a gift. We can throw the ball out and take the clock down under 30 seconds. We likely are fouled and a win is all but in the bag. I love Tom's energy and effort--although he is still having a hard time running up and down the court for long periods--but his decision on this play was terrible. It gave a team with great 3 point shooters a chance to tie the game or ever get a 2 and then foul and make us hit the one and one. Also, during the game at other times often the best way to get a wide open shot is to have the offensive rebounder pass out to a wide open shooter. So many players today decide that if they get the ball on the offensive rebound that it is their right to take any shot they want. Justin Tatum we a major offender a few years ago. On the other hand, chris Sloan almost always gets the offensive rebound and passes it out for a shot or to reset the offense. Obviously, if the guy is wide open and has a layup or a dunk they have to take it but in today's ball the rebounds are often long off three point shots so the rebounder is 4-5 feet from the basket--like tom was last night. I would bet that he will learn from that mistake because coach Brad almost had a heart attack on the bench when he saw the play. Fortunately for Tom, Chris Sloan made one of the best crunch time steals I have ever seen on a double team. He came up behind and completlely surprised their point guard. He just willed the team to victory. What a great performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 3 Star, The statistics STRONGLY support our analysis: -EKU had only scored 14 points in the paint, but scored 44 points from outside. (SLU scored 28 points in the paint.) -Also, SLU's starting center and power forward, outscored EKU's starting center and power forward 34-16. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 I thought our interior defense was good as well. JJ did an excellent job. Varner was burned on 4 or 5 plays, just does not ahve the quickness to get around screens and their one PF took it to him inside, IMO Varner was helpless. JJ comes in for him though and shuts him down on the next play. I thought Izik at least was making attemtps to play defense last night. He usually plays alot with his hands and doesn't move his feet but last night he did. He had a block and a tipped ball. He can do alot better but I thought he improved. Frericks stood up tot heir guys inside, I had more problems with his poor rebounding than his post defense. The last play where he took the ball up I am okay with, there were no players on his side of the basket to outlet pass to, and he was cut off from everyone else. He seems to take the ball up weak though on shots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted November 22, 2003 Share Posted November 22, 2003 "I thought our interior defense was good as well. JJ did an excellent job. Varner was burned on 4 or 5 plays, just does not ahve the quickness to get around screens and their one PF took it to him inside, IMO Varner was helpless" I have to give you credit on your call about Varner. He's a competitor but it's Diener defense all over again - not nearly quick enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 my point is that the two guards are scorers and they were making shots without even thinking. fisher and drejaj were there. the 16 points that their two big guys got were mainly uncontested and those big guys sucked. like i said, that guy was less than chris heinrich, not chris massey. if that is the interior defense frericks is gonna play, i hate to think what will happen when he is supposed to guard a real inside player. that said, again, i think offensively he is without a doubt an upgrade of kenny brown. so i guess as long as he continues to trade evenly i can live with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 MY OFFICIAL 1000TH POST. (Maybe it is time to diversify my free time.) Roy, we know that you were Kenny Brown's biggest supporter, so I am not convinced that you are ready to objectively judge Tom's defensive play. I am not saying that Tom didn't give up any points in the post last night, but I sure can't remember it happening very often. I find it hard to believe that Kenny would have defended EKU's post men any better than Tom did last night. EKU just didn't score in the post when Tom was in the game. Our guards, by contrast, allowed one or two players to hit at least a half dozen three pointers in the second half. That just can't happen if we expect to make the NCAA tournament. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mobile-iken Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 Schasz, Let me know how Belize is, We're going in January. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 david, you saying eku's post players didnt score while frericks was in the game is absurb. he played almost the entire game. if we would have seen all 16 points while frericks was sitting, that would have been pretty noticeable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I didn't say they didn't score while Tom was in the game; I said EKU players didn't score off Tom in the paint. EKU only scored 14 points in the paint the whole game. I can recall at least ten of the points being scored off of Izik and Varner; that means somewhere between 0 and 4 points were scored off Tom in the paint. Your hero Kenny Brown couldn't have done much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schasz Posted November 23, 2003 Author Share Posted November 23, 2003 One of my hopes is that Coach Soderberg is starting to get through to JJ. This kid is an athlete and we need to see this kid get some minutes. Seeing comments about his good play is a real positive for our team IMHO, as not too long ago I some some comments that led me to believe that he would never see anything but the end of the bench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 i am pretty sure 6 of volpenhein's points and 4 of haney's points came against frericks. i have been particularly watching tom on the defensive end since he is my main concern on the defensive end. now i do agree with 3 star that 2 of volpenhein's baskets and one of haney's came from shots that were 10-15 feet from the basket as tom was not out on them at the time. yet still, he was guarding them for at least those 10 points (probably more) as i remember distinctly thinking that frericks was not agressively guarding his man on those 10 points and after the frist 2 baskets by volpeinhien, i thought of the "my gosh, these guys are more like chris heinrich not chris massey he should be stopping them" line. kenny brown was far from my hero. i am just stating what i believe to be the facts to one of the weaknesses of this team. there is more to replacing kenny brown than covering his point production. that said, if frericks averages 12 points and 6 rebs per game, he probably covers the points he is apparently going to give up in stupid fouls and defensive lapses that brown didnt commit. so right now he is acceptable imo. if he could pick up his defensive intensity now to go along with his better offensive stats, we got us probably the best center on this team since bonner. let's hope that happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
former_d1 Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 I am willing to give him another game or two. It is a little soon to pass judgement on this kid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted November 23, 2003 Share Posted November 23, 2003 i agree. it is too early to pass judgement on any of these players or the team as a whole yet. i said all summer we should know by xmas what we have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Rich Posted November 24, 2003 Share Posted November 24, 2003 I agree. JJ needs to get himself out of Brad's doghouse and on floor. His limited appearances have been interesting. I want to see more! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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