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Post by universityjim on Feb 28, 2018 8:43:56 GMT -6
I think there is a lot of pressure and expectations being placed on Taylor that he probably hasn't had to deal with in the past. At least not in college. My opinion is that the weight of those expectations is what you are seeing, not tired legs. It's mental. Not physical.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 28, 2018 8:43:57 GMT -6
With 3 of 4 guards who we expected to play a big part in that not playing it is the story of the season. We weren’t shooting the 3 that well when two of them were playing. And remember, the whole damn roster is chock full of versatile players who can shoot. Small ball, right? Congrats on the BRILLIANT foresight. Now, I admit I missed the part where you actually predicted we would lose two quicker small guards, and that Francis would never recover his shooting touch and athleticism all season. Seems to me you and others predicted we would fail this season due to lack of inside game, where somehow we seemed to have found enough. But I am sure I am wrong. Not arguing with your good point, exactly, but it doesn't surprise me that we can't play small ball now which actually requires good small players who can shoot as I understand it. We have not been doing bad with Mallers, Persons and Teague in terms of versatility and suitability for that game, but Persons, Josh and Ish are not really what I expected going into the end of the season.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 28, 2018 8:45:37 GMT -6
I think there is a lot of pressure and expectations being placed on Taylor that he probably hasn't had to deal with in the past. At least not in college. My opinion is that the weight of those expectations is what you are seeing, not tired legs. It's mental. Not physical. That could be true. But, although he is strong, he is not quick, so it sure requires a lot of effort on his part to defend the small guards AND to run the offense. That is physically and mentally wearing him down.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 28, 2018 8:53:36 GMT -6
I don't buy the tired idea either. we don't have anyone near the top of the conference minutes played stats. Why are we tired and the others are not? They've played just as many games as we have. I'm also not sure about this tough minded notion. We seem to be very tough minded when we want something badly enough. There are some games though where it almost looks like key players are off their ritalin and just don't give a damn. You can see a pattern in the way these games unfold. We play poorly in the first half but keep it close. Careless play. Many turnovers, with a lot of them not being forced by the opponent. Then we get our doors blown off in the second half. Oregon. Buffalo. Miami. The first game against Western. The second game against Eastern. Last night against Central. The Alabama game last year was like that. It doesn't matter the skill level of the opponent. I have a kid with ADHD, and frankly it reminds me of that. The sad fact is, some nights they just don’t give a damn. We’ve seen it far too often the last 3 years. The minutes played stat is deceptive. Both because late season is a time when all teams have to rest players more and we can't and because our short bench surfaced midway in the season, and because the lack of depth is hurting us more at guard than anywhere else. Our bench when it was working well featured bringing in some energy at guard and playing 3 guards. And in playing small and having Teague come off the bench. Now we can't find 2 guards... Both changes are obscured by looking at seasons stats. Teague, Moses, Persons have all had a significant increase in minutes played. I don't see the "don't give a damn" If that were true we would not have had the good run we did for 6 games responding to some real gut shots. That is not a sign of not giving a damn. It may well be that the team is discouraged and just can't find that extra gear they need right now. But that is not the same thing.
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Post by cardfan on Feb 28, 2018 9:01:34 GMT -6
Whitford: “When the game got tough we went south.” That’s all we need to know.
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Post by redbirdman on Feb 28, 2018 9:12:07 GMT -6
The complaint on tired players is primarily directed to Persons. Persons to me by being both the primary ball handler & also at times wanting to take over the offense is wearing himself down. If I was coaching the other team I would certainly pressure him & use my quickest guard against him. I don't think you can change the team in the next week hopefully we beat NIU & EMU goes down.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 28, 2018 9:44:06 GMT -6
Whitford: “When the game got tough we went south.” That’s all we need to know. It is a description of what happened. Persons is tough, he didn't have it to respond for whatever reason. We needed a spark from somewhere else and just did not have it. More athleticism overall, easier to respond. More guard depth and we might have had the piece to put into the game,or avoided having Persons overwhelmed by whatever malaise he suffered.
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Post by cardfan on Feb 28, 2018 9:57:48 GMT -6
We weren’t shooting the 3 that well when two of them were playing. And remember, the whole damn roster is chock full of versatile players who can shoot. Small ball, right? Congrats on the BRILLIANT foresight. Now, I admit I missed the part where you actually predicted we would lose two quicker small guards, and that Francis would never recover his shooting touch and athleticism all season. Seems to me you and others predicted we would fail this season due to lack of inside game, where somehow we seemed to have found enough. But I am sure I am wrong. Not arguing with your good point, exactly, but it doesn't surprise me that we can't play small ball now which actually requires good small players who can shoot as I understand it. We have not been doing bad with Mallers, Persons and Teague in terms of versatility and suitability for that game, but Persons, Josh and Ish are not really what I expected going into the end of the season. I was mostly being facetious because you like to espouse the small ball theory. However, even during our 9 game win steak with all our guards we weren’t shooting the ball well. Not to the level expected. That was my point, that from the start we weren’t shooting it as well as expected. BEFORE January. Hell we actually had some games we shot it better after we lost both Walker and Tyler and Francis was giving us nothing. Moses and Teague have generally been pretty good. Especially once we were forced to rely on them. (Last night notwithstanding) Maybe it wasn’t so much we lacked good inside players but rather lacked a good offensive system that played to their strengths. So now I put that more on the coach and less on the players. Unless you think it’s better practice to have Teague being nowhere near the rim, shooting 3’s and Moses generally not being involved and aggressive. Our “bigs” were not really setting the world on fire until the team was forced to include them. Plus those two guys suddenly adopted the mindset needed to play strong inside. We hadn’t really seen it before then.
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Post by cbcjanney on Feb 28, 2018 10:36:06 GMT -6
Instead of viewing us this year as a good team who lays a turd on occasions, I think there's more evidence to suggest the opposite - that we're a mediocre team who plays a better-than-expected game on occasion (the anti-turd):
-- Only Toledo & NIU (so far) have we really handled amongst the MAC. We've lost to 6 MAC teams, won in the final seconds vs 2 others, and trailed well into the 2nd half vs a 3rd other. Basically in a conference where 10 of the teams are ranked #158 to 258, we're just kind of right there in that mix. -- Only in the recent Kent/@akron/Toledo stretch would I say that we played two games in a row all season where we overachieved/did better than anticipated -- We have 2 wins of 15+ pts (Kent/Tole) and 7 losses of 15+ pts vs the top 275 teams -- We won 3 Home games (Valp/Akr/BG) in dramatic fashion when we were favored in all 3.
When we analyze this season I think we'll conclude that we were really a .500 team all along that probably won a bit more than we should have. And if someone could've foretold preseason that we'd lose Walker/Tyler/Kiapway plus be a very average 3-pt shooting team, I think we'd have all predicted that kind of .500 finish from the get-go.
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Post by cardfan on Feb 28, 2018 10:41:31 GMT -6
That’s a good post.
We definitely looked like a .500 team most of the season. You’ve laid it out pretty well.
Basically we are not as good as expected, but did better than maybe what we should have been ultimately given the roster and off court issues. Somehow we’ve pulled off the duality.
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Post by JacksonStreetElite on Feb 28, 2018 11:04:25 GMT -6
This was one I expected to lose. However, I would have felt a lot better about it had they not shit the bed against Western. They can still beat NIU and I will get all of your respect and admiration for predicting 20 wins. Is it football season yet? You better get the Kid to update his thread listing all of our predictions. He missed you. overthepylon.boards.net/thread/1741/early-season-predictions
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Post by JacksonStreetElite on Feb 28, 2018 11:28:55 GMT -6
Teams should press us. I'm nervous to post this because it apparently isn't obvious to every other team in our conference, but if you want to beat us by double digits make Persons run hard the whole game, leave Teague open from 3 but close the lane on him, and bully Trey.
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Post by cardfan on Feb 28, 2018 11:30:40 GMT -6
Teams should press us. I'm nervous to post this because it apparently isn't obvious to every other team in our conference, but if you want to beat us by double digits make Persons run hard the whole game, leave Teague open from 3 but close the lane on him, and bully Trey. Simple as that.
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Post by frozenbaugh on Feb 28, 2018 11:32:07 GMT -6
This was one I expected to lose. However, I would have felt a lot better about it had they not shit the bed against Western. They can still beat NIU and I will get all of your respect and admiration for predicting 20 wins. Is it football season yet? You better get the Kid to update his thread listing all of our predictions. He missed you. overthepylon.boards.net/thread/1741/early-season-predictionsI refer you to page 3 of the Will BSU Make It to 20 Wins thread. I never make blind basketball predictions at the beginning of the season because I have no idea how good FAMU and N Florida are going to be.
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Post by thebsukid on Feb 28, 2018 11:42:24 GMT -6
Absolutely did not show up!! I'd say that was clearly our worst game of the season. Why we have gone away from going inside to Moses and Teague is beyond me. Suddenly Teague thinks he's a threat from 3 point land again although he was the only player that played reasonably well last night....the rest of the team sucked. Its easy to see why we lost...our turnovers were simply over the top and we were not playing against that tough or pressure. And, what did we shoot from the field...25% I agree with Reevo this is not about no legs. We will be damn lucky now to win 20 which just a week ago looked in the bag. The NIU game in my view will be a huge statement game for this team after getting their ass kicked. NIU beat Buffalo not to long ago on their floor...do we go to Cleveland as a top 4 seeded team or do we play a first round home game???
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