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Post by 00hmh on Oct 30, 2015 19:13:34 GMT -6
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. Not sure Weber has to start to be a big plus. He isn't House inside, maybe not quite the shooter and athlete that Sellers is, but he can substitute for either. Lots of very good teams have a super sub that gets starters minutes and is every bit as important as a starter. That could be Weber, it could even be Sellers. Sellers reminds me a bit of John Laskowski, an Indiana All Star who became the super sub for IU on the one of the greatest college basketball teams in history. But, I agree, whether Weber starts or not he will be good. The whole set of concerns Sherman has about match up at two positions misses the point that we can play motion offense and score inside at other positions, not post up and go through the post on offense. The size we have at PG and our pack line defense can offset the opponents on defense. The match up I fear is that we are not going to be a particularly quick team at some positions, and might have trouble with quick guards and defending on the fast break. That's where depth may be important so we can have everyone really hustle.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 30, 2015 19:16:07 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. Good call on the Davis, Kiapway injuries, and our guard play last year. But, we really couldn't red shirt Kiapway, we would have had to play a walk on at guard way too many minutes.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 5:10:31 GMT -6
"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.
Almost every team in D1 basketball uses an 8 man rotation, maybe stretching to 9 if fouls become an issue.
"Those D2 teams don't play D1 teams."
Never mind some of those same 10 scholarship D2 teams would have kicked the crap out of Ball State last year.
I 'll agree BSU was down on talent last year, but your argument a reduced roster can't compete because of fatigue is ludicrous.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 5:25:41 GMT -6
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. Not sure Weber has to start to be a big plus. He isn't House inside, maybe not quite the shooter and athlete that Sellers is, but he can substitute for either. Lots of very good teams have a super sub that gets starters minutes and is every bit as important as a starter. That could be Weber, it could even be Sellers. Sellers reminds me a bit of John Laskowski, an Indiana All Star who became the super sub for IU on the one of the greatest college basketball teams in history. But, I agree, whether Weber starts or not he will be good. The whole set of concerns Sherman has about match up at two positions misses the point that we can play motion offense and score inside at other positions, not post up and go through the post on offense. The size we have at PG and our pack line defense can offset the opponents on defense. The match up I fear is that we are not going to be a particularly quick team at some positions, and might have trouble with quick guards and defending on the fast break. That's where depth may be important so we can have everyone really hustle. Wait a minute, if BSU ran an effective motion offense, talent at individual positions wouldn't be the factor you are making it out to be, and we sure as heck wouldn't have lost 17 straight last year. Whit's motion offense seems to be a few perimeter passes, with the wings standing around, that turns into a game of hot potato as the shot clock runs down. A big part of BSU's offensive problems is they get lousy looks at the basket, hardly the sign of a well crafted motion offense.
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Post by comet on Oct 31, 2015 7:43:03 GMT -6
halftime, I can't disagree with you on those last comments about hurried last second shot clock shots. That was a problem. There again, though, maybe we didn't have a lot of options as to who we really wanted to take the shots and then couldn't get the ball in their hands. Hopefully more shooter options this year. I'm still pretty excited to see things get started as I really expect improvement and our being competitive with the additional bodies and improvement getting us over the top in some of those close games.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 31, 2015 9:32:34 GMT -6
The whole set of concerns Sherman has about match up at two positions misses the point that we can play motion offense and score inside at other positions, not post up and go through the post on offense. Wait a minute, if BSU ran an effective motion offense talent at individual positions wouldn't be the factor you are making it out to be, and we sure as heck wouldn't have lost 17 straight last year. Whit's motion offense seems to be a few perimeter passes, with the wings standing around, that turns into a game of hot potato as the shot clock runs down. A big part of BSU's offensive problems is they get lousy looks at the basket, hardly the sign of a well crafted motion offense. Who said we executed well? Who says talent doesn't matter? No matter how well we execute, whatever offense we run we do have to run it well. I agree 100%. But we have to hit the shots that result. Mostly for reasons discussed above I don't think were a good offensive team, with good offensive talent. Not sure great execution would have made up for that. The point I made above is that on offense matching up to big men is not so much a problem. We play faster, we move when we don't get a decent quick shot. Actually, when we did execute, we did show we could get good shots against set defense with motion. That happened when we could get the ball to House cutting into the lane. And that worked fairly well when Bo was hitting outside shots and drew his defender out. And, I think we got some good looks outside. But we did not have very much good outside shooting. The biggest problem we had with our scoring near the basket on motion was that teams did not have to respect our outside shooting once Tyler was out of the lineup. Only Sellers was reliable and they could face guard him. We saw zone and sagging defense which could bottle up the passing game. That meant we had to hit outside, and did not. But that was a lot to do with personnel, not with the scheme. You observed the result of opponents sagging in on D. It resulted in the only passing available being around the outside or cross court to a shooter who would then miss... This sagging defense won't be so easy for the opponent with Tyler and Sellers both in the game. In addition we add Weber. Optimistically, we will play also with a Center who can hit a shot at the elbow or side occasionally, and we might even see Davis able to hit! Hitting free throws when we are fouled going to the basket will be important. All that would change the face of the set offense a great deal. I suspect we will play well against man defense . And then we may see more zone to stop the motion and prevent the passing. I am expecting that we actually should hit some of those outside shots that result. The other difference this year should be that with more depth at all positions we stay fresh and can play uptempo and beat the defense down court and get a quick shot before we play against a set defense. That should help! The reason you remember some late shots last year was that when the ball could not go inside and then some shooters did not want to take an open outside shot, we just burned clock. We also just could not play fast with a short bench forcing a lot of set offense. This is very much different than the "offensive" play (I won't call it an offense) that the last coach ran. Shudder. There, by design, we were slowing the pace of the game down, hoping to find Jones in the middle or Randy open outside near the end of the clock, when that failed.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 31, 2015 9:42:15 GMT -6
halftime, I can't disagree with you on those last comments about hurried last second shot clock shots. That was a problem. There again, though, maybe we didn't have a lot of options as to who we really wanted to take the shots and then couldn't get the ball in their hands. Hopefully more shooter options this year. I'm still pretty excited to see things get started as I really expect improvement and our being competitive with the additional bodies and improvement getting us over the top in some of those close games. Good answer. The problem is we didn't have many people who could hit shots and the opponent didn't overlook that. They guarded our shooter(s). I'll give halftime some credit on the one thing. I can't say we executed all that well. But some of that was youth, lost practice time and some of it our lack of good shooters which let the defense clog things up. If Turner's shot had not disappeared or Tyler had played the whole season, we would have had another shooter, and won a few close games and certainly not have lost any 17 straight.
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Post by cardfan on Oct 31, 2015 9:54:27 GMT -6
Bottom line, whitford and the team have a TON to prove.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 31, 2015 11:38:01 GMT -6
Motion offense is no magic bullet. It's ridiculous to pretend that it will make gaping roster holes miraculously disappear. Execution comes and goes. Also, opposing coaches and their defense have game plans of their own. A team with a seriously unbalanced roster will always have an uphill battle against a team with outside AND inside firepower.
I like House, but if you see him as our primary inside offensive threat (and maybe he is) then that's a serious problem. We'll have to scheme and execute like crazy to get him inside shots that won't be menaced by a longer player. That's very, very difficult to do consistently. A lot of execution has to go right at the same time.
It makes life so much easier to have a good, big, inside scorer, who scares other teams and commands double-teams by just existing on the court. Now, your inside games helps your scheme instead of stressing it.
It's amusing to see how people out-smart themselves and obsess over a post player "hitting the elbow jumper" or whatever, which is a decidedly secondary virtue, while ignoring the primary post player virtues: inside scoring, rebounding and rim protection. Those things don't take care of themselves, and if you don't have them there is a low ceiling on your team.
Recruiting has consequences, and we will see them this year
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 31, 2015 13:12:29 GMT -6
General, if you have a big horse, that is great. Use him. Put him near the basket, force it in. But, it just isn't a disaster if you don't play that way. It's not a magic bullet what we are doing it is playing offense that fits our personnel, and are playing smaller. We are getting very high quality players who don't play that way. Given the odds that a MAC team can recruit a dominant big man, that is a really good idea!
We are not playing an offense where we run everything through the post, and lots of very good college teams are going that route. The NBA champ played that way. Larry Bird is going that way with the Pacers.
Our big guy has to play away from the basket on offense, hit the outside shot well enough that his man has to come out and let the much better options for us have some room. We are aiming for a team which many MAC teams will have an uphill battle trying to guard with our good shooting and size at guard, to keep up with our athletic wing players. It is not easy to guard House inside one on one. We will score inside, just not by posting up.
I worry some about the other end. You need enough size to defend another good big guy, and to protect the rim. But you don't get many dominant big guys in the MAC who will kill you inside, and our defense is based on help. So I think we'll survive it. There are VERY few MAC teams with both good outside shooting and a good inside play. Don't worry so much.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2015 13:44:33 GMT -6
"It's not a magic bullet what we are doing it is playing offense that fits our personnel, and are playing smaller. We are getting very high quality players who don't play that way."
WTF, are you talking about ? Our offense has been terrible, and our recruiting class is hardly full of "very high quality players". My head hurts.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 31, 2015 15:42:16 GMT -6
"It's not a magic bullet what we are doing it is playing offense that fits our personnel, and are playing smaller. We are getting very high quality players who don't play that way." WTF, are you talking about ? Our offense has been terrible, and our recruiting class is hardly full of "very high quality players". My head hurts. All the players we have signed have been recruited to play he system. Sellers, Tyler, Weber, Teague, Moses, are all good recruits, we have two already committed for next year who are also high quality players and they all can play well in this system. If you don't like "very high" quality, I don't know what you want in the MAC. If you aren't happy with the quality of those players (and this class not yet filled) compare it to past recruiting. I am not aware of many periods where we have done a lot better.
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Post by journalismjoe76 on Nov 1, 2015 6:47:14 GMT -6
Sorry, but I must have been asleep at the wheel. We "signed" the kid from Ft. Wayne. Who else committed?
Are you counting the transfer from NKU?
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Post by williamtsherman on Nov 1, 2015 7:33:07 GMT -6
"If you don't like "very high" quality, I don't know what you want in the MAC. If you aren't happy with the quality of those players (and this class not yet filled) compare it to past recruiting. I am not aware of many periods where we have done a lot better"
I'm aware of some. The Palombizio period. The Curtis/Paris period. The Bill Gillis period. The Steve Payne period. The Lonnie/Theron period. Interesting that there was a championship or two during each of the periods above, where we balanced out our roster, and zero championships in the periods between and after. Huh. It's almost....it's almost like there is a lesson in there somewhere.
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Post by 00hmh on Nov 1, 2015 10:33:05 GMT -6
"If you don't like "very high" quality, I don't know what you want in the MAC. If you aren't happy with the quality of those players (and this class not yet filled) compare it to past recruiting. I am not aware of many periods where we have done a lot better"
I'm aware of some. The Palombizio period. The Curtis/Paris period. The Bill Gillis period. The Steve Payne period. The Lonnie/Theron period. Interesting that there was a championship or two during each of the periods above, where we balanced out our roster, and zero championships in the periods between and after. Huh. It's almost....it's almost like there is a lesson in there somewhere.
I am not sure I agree about the unfavorable comparison to all those rosters. 1. The Majerus team of course was our greatest in history. No argument there. But the way it was put together is not something I would expect any new coach to do. Transfers, Jucos, not much in the way of conventional recruiting. In fact, I think our HS recruits may turn out to be better. Butts, McCurdy, Kidd, Parrish, Muller were all Majerus connections and, like the coach, that team was an outlier in many ways. Only Spicer, I think, was a freshman contributor. The holdover recruits preceding Majerus were not in fact better than our bench player recruits. Most were role players, remember Rick Hall was on that team, more a good walk on than a great recruit. Miller, Barber, others were good players in HS but not at all better than our players on the bench this year. But, anyway, let's not compare that team. It was a truly great team for the MAC. 2. Great individual players? Nobody sees a Bonzi, a Palombizio or maybe even a top recruit like Butts on this team. T Smith was a great recruit, too. I am not so sure one of our guys might not be one we call a great player, but I am not predicting that. On the other hand a lot of the teams any of those guys played on probably had less overall talent than this team will have. You mention Lonnie, he was a good but not great player. I think 3 or 4 of our players this year are better players, more talented. (However, I grant you they are not 7 feet tall) Some of the teams those truly great players played on will have fewer very good players than we will have, this year and next. Those great players did not win championships every year, the teams with great players to be did not win championships when they were freshmen. 3. Consider the championship teams in isolation, some without one of our greatest BSU players. Those other MAC championship teams of the 90's and 80's had some very good to great MAC players, of course, but most of those teams did not win when their best recruits were freshmen and sophomores where we are now. Bottom Line: Nobody says we are the level of the best Ball State teams. Yet. Look at the rosters for a year or two before each championship team and I think we will compare in talent, now, to more than a few of those championship teams. That is the appropriate comparison right now. Give our guys a year or so to develop and play together before we expect a championship.
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