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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2015 15:38:33 GMT -6
Yes the talent is somewhat better, however I have no idea why you guys believe they are suddenly going to be well coached or better prepared on a game to game basis.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 29, 2015 16:42:52 GMT -6
Yes the talent is somewhat better, however I have no idea why you guys believe they are suddenly going to be well coached or better prepared on a game to game basis. It was harder to be "well coached" and "prepared" when you have to change lineups due to injury every few games. That means a player, especially a freshman is constantly having to play a different role. Lack of depth means you can't prepare to play the kind of game you want to play, and have been recruited to play. Practice is MUCH more useful when you have good players to play against. We sometimes had to play student managers in practice. That does not simulate MAC competition. And, of course every player being a year older and year stronger after off season workouts means the team not only has MORE talent in numbers, but improved bigger stronger versions of the same returning players. I think we play a lot of games last year where we lost in the last 10 minutes. We were well enough prepared in those games to win, but could not execute down the stretch just due to fatigue and not having a good bench player to step in for a player who is not playing well. If you want to say the coach and his staff can't coach, OK. While I think he had things to learn, that wasn't the big problem. So, even if you want to insist he made big mistakes and it was the coaching at fault, that staff is a year older with more experience and more time to figure this thing out. Plenty of reasons there to expect better prep and better overall coaching.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 29, 2015 16:45:42 GMT -6
There are a lot of interesting possibilities at the 2 and 3 spots, and there is reason to be optimistic at the 4 with Weber and Teague, and if neither of these pan out then the undersized but useful House. But. Davis has not shown that he can be an adequate MAC point, either offensively or defensively. He could not even displace Turner from that spot, which is saying something. Smith was at best a plan C recruit and appears to seriously lack scoring punch, and I wonder about his ability to guard quick guard opponents. Wells was not impressive at Bradley and it seem seriously doubtful that Moses can contribute much as a freshman. I'm afraid that we'll be outmatched at point and center every MAC game we play. That's a lot to overcome, and reflects severe recruiting failure. We'll look good when the threes of Sellers, Weber and Tyler are falling and we'll look pretty bad when they are not. Our big guards at PG will give other teams a few problems, too. And our matchup in the middle will likely be more a problem on defense. Unlike you I think House will do just fine at that big forward matchup. As long as we can hit the outside shot, he will get room to score inside.
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Rankings
Oct 29, 2015 17:05:19 GMT -6
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Post by thebsukid on Oct 29, 2015 17:05:19 GMT -6
General , we obviously see this season differently. While I have Wells slotted first at Center now I would not be surprised if Moses quickly earns the starting role with Wells being back up!! We are loaded at forward with House, Calhoun, Sellers, Teague, and Weber!! Teague was rated by several services as a 3 star recruit and by one service in the top 100.
My biggest question mark is if Davis can play a better point with less turnovers and better shooting percentage.
But, the bottom line is you guys are underestimating this team.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 29, 2015 17:55:13 GMT -6
"Our big guards at PG will give other teams a few problems, too."
Very few. One shoots 32% and the other seems to pose almost no offensive threat at all.
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Post by DickHunsaker on Oct 29, 2015 19:10:23 GMT -6
General , we obviously see this season differently. While I have Wells slotted first at Center now I would not be surprised if Moses quickly earns the starting role with Wells being back up!! We are loaded at forward with House, Calhoun, Sellers, Teague, and Weber!! Teague was rated by several services as a 3 star recruit and by one service in the top 100. My biggest question mark is if Davis can play a better point with less turnovers and better shooting percentage. But, the bottom line is you guys are underestimating this team. I agree
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Post by lmills72 on Oct 30, 2015 0:11:05 GMT -6
How most do not see a good season barring major injury or some other major issue is beyond me. The biggest problem Whit will have is keeping everyone pleased with enough play time. Kid, I didn't get in on the betting because I'm almost always optimistic this time of year and tend to think we might win 15. But, even I admit this is just a paper team at the moment. Do we have the players? I'm willing to concede we might. But maybe the bigger question is do we have the coach? Those who are praising the potency and flexibility of this roster leave only one fallguy if it doesn't produce and that's the guy at the top. So, just curious, if he doesn't win at least 15 with this deep and talented roster, are you going to be ready to show him the door?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2015 3:54:51 GMT -6
"It was harder to be "well coached" and "prepared" when you have to change lineups due to injury every few games. That means a player, especially a freshman is constantly having to play a different role."
Almost every team playing NCAA basketball has the same or similar issues to deal with. I also love your belief that continually "losing down the stretch" is a sign of player failure but not lousy coaching.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 30, 2015 7:51:52 GMT -6
"It was harder to be "well coached" and "prepared" when you have to change lineups due to injury every few games. That means a player, especially a freshman is constantly having to play a different role." Almost every team playing NCAA basketball has the same or similar issues to deal with. I also love your belief that continually "losing down the stretch" is a sign of player failure but not lousy coaching. Now that just isn't true. On several counts. First, we sometimes had only 9 scholarship players available to practice, only had 8 dressed on occasion. That is fairly rare. Most division one teams face fewer games with an injured starter and a last minute lineup change required. It was the norm for us, it seemed. Second, where those other teams face that same problem, guess what, those teams lose games. Most NCAA teams lose games when they suffer from lack of depth in the game and when their injuries create preparation and planning difficulty. Third, I watched those games. I saw time after time where losing down the stretch was a matter of not having players to substitute and the players on the floor being too slow to the ball, unable to defend full speed, or full court, and missing shots due to dead legs. That is fatigue not coaching. You don't anything that would indicate "lousy coaching" was the reason for losses down the stretch. Lets assume that moves the coach made didn't work some of the time, and that we lost some games due to that. What about those moves? what magic move was available that would have worked? With a short bench he had few choices, none of them maybe very good, and tired players don't execute as well. So even when a decision didn't work, you can't say that fatigue and lack of depth aren't factors. Losing games obviously is about talent, preparation, game coaching decisions, preparation, home court, and other factors. You acknowledge we were short on talent. You grudgingly acknowledge we have more talent, but you say not much, and it was really coaching and that won't improve. I see considerably more talent. I see that making it much easier to prepare and to coach in games. I don't see why you would not expect coaching decisions to work out better, when he has more good choices and a better chance that they will be properly executed just because the players are not gassed at the end of a game.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2015 10:12:47 GMT -6
Oh I see. I can't wait to see Whitford unleash his 13 man regular rotation on the college basketball world. How do all those D2 teams that are limited to ten scholarships have anyone standing at the end of games ?
Since, apparently in your world, a coach isn't responsible for conditioning or recruiting players that remain academically eligible, please give us all a run down on exactly what a coach IS responsible for.
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Post by thebsukid on Oct 30, 2015 10:35:50 GMT -6
If Whit is not 15 wins or above I'd be shocked...I will still take on all comers for a friendly wager!!
This Coach was learning the last couple of seasons, but he was still in my view a good choice....only another year or two will tell. He has had some bad breaks...losing Kam his only decent big who was hurt really hurt most of the season killed...plus I don't think he recruited Z but I could be wrong...finally, he takes responsibility as the head coach for Tyler's classroom antics but to lose three starters essentially and not be deep kills.
We will win this season......a lot!!
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 30, 2015 10:55:21 GMT -6
Oh I see. I can't wait to see Whitford unleash his 13 man regular rotation on the college basketball world. How do all those D2 teams that are limited to ten scholarships have anyone standing at the end of games ? Since, apparently in your world, a coach isn't responsible for conditioning or recruiting players that remain academically eligible, please give us all a run down on exactly what a coach IS responsible for. Those D2 teams don't play D1 teams. You don't need a 13 man rotation, but you need more than one guard off the bench and more than one front line reserve. We played with zero back up centers and one guard off the bench in more than few games, unless you count Rocco as a guard or center (where in fact he had to fill in last year). I will hold the coach responsible for conditioning and recruiting. I agree that losing even one player to academics is not something I like, but it does happen when you try to get top talent. That meant we lost one starter last year when we were short handed to start with. Losing as many players over the year to a raft of injuries was unusual. Our losses to injury took two starters away for a majority of the season. That combination with a team that was not deep to start out is not something I expect a coach to solve with conditioning or with recruiting in a rebuilding year. Sure, you can play with an 8 man rotation, even do well. But, that is not an easy task, especially when you are without 2 of your best 8 players and can't be sure who else is going to be ready for the game.
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Post by comet on Oct 30, 2015 13:03:00 GMT -6
00hmh, I'm in your corner almost entirely. You cant' expect plays to be executed correctly with worn out players. I think you can only condition to a point. Everyone in D-1 is going to tire. That's why, even in high school, there are rotations. You're trying to keep kids as fresh as possible and a team playing less people is going to tire more so than the team with a greater number of players. If we were thus "equal" talentwise to many of the teams we played last year, with more players of equal or better talent this year we are almost certain to improve our record. Now that said, reading the point about going from the extended losing streak to winning 15 or 17 games is really optimistic, but I think it could happen. My biggest complaint with Whit has to be the academic scenario. I just can't see how that could have been let to happen. We have to take some risky players but we have to be responsible for watching over them and seeing that they somehow get their grades. I'm struggling, too, with where some of you folks are putting Weber. I can't get past those frequent comments from last year where he was said to be the best player in practice. Man, if that's the case, he has to start someplace no matter how you have to adjust the line-up. If we are adding a player that shows being better than House and Sellers, we've made a very positive improvement to things. Realize we still have some PG and #5 issues, but I still think we have to be much better with this bunch of players. I had no problem with effort in most of the games that I saw last year. I graded the effort far above what we had been getting. Will we miss Kam, certainly, but then again there were only so many games where he was able to play. Staff hasn't been blessed with player health issues either. With healthy Kam and a healthy Koch I think we would have won several more games two years ago. It will be fun and it's great to see the interest from folks albeit a rather small group.
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Post by thebsukid on Oct 30, 2015 14:51:12 GMT -6
Comet...I think you are pretty spot on...it will take a massive year to win 15 or more as you have said and as I keep suggesting will happen. However, this team is up for the challenge and Whit and the staff are pumped up!!
I think kids like playing for Whit...notice even though Tyler didn't play the second half last year due to grades he stayed...got his grades up and in my view will likely be this years' leading scorer.
Also, kids talk to kids and Whit and his staff continue to recruit the best we have gotten in years...next year he has Persons a transfer who is another Indiana All Star eligible plus a very top recruit from Fort Wayne who likely be another Indiana All Star...many on the board have criticized other prior coaches for not recruiting more in state...not only is Whit recruiting in state...he is getting clearly some of Indiana's best.
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Post by cardfan on Oct 30, 2015 17:08:11 GMT -6
What people don't know/realize is Davis and Kiapway barely practiced last year, especially Davis. The same with Kam. They were nursed through the season while recovering from their injuries. They got very limited work (Kiapway probably should have been redshirted, imo) and it really affected their games. If Davis is healthy and back to what he showed two years ago he should be much improved. Bottom line, it really hindered them and the team.
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