Heading into conference play

[GwillMac6 20,671]

24 minutes ago, auburnphan said:

i thought I saw 2000 was the last time we won there

Thank you. and DANG that is quite a few AU coaches ago.

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

16 minutes ago, jamstanjr said:

If we can shoot well, get their big man in foul trouble and knock it down from the charity stripe, I think we have a shot, but this Vandy team is a good team. if we come out cold and they hit their stride, this one is going to be over quickly. Season is still young and it is not a must win, but we have not won here in a looooooooong time and a win here would be special. OTOH, a hard fought loss would not be the end of the season. Austin Wiley is going to gain some great experience. We need Danjel to show he can play D tonight and we have to play really good defense to keep them from getting on a shooting tear. We have our hands full. WDE! 

If we do all of those things it will be a blow out. I just want to see us defend and rebound towards the upper end of our abilities. Vandy allows teams to shoot 50+% from the field so I think we should be fine on offense, as I suspect we will attack the rim. 

[AU64 10,122]

UK beat the aggies by about 50 last night.....seems they might be in a league by themselves...again thou everyone can be beaten I guess.

[cole256 17,050]

On 1/4/2017 at 5:17 PM, JwgreDeux said:

If we do all of those things it will be a blow out. I just want to see us defend and rebound towards the upper end of our abilities. Vandy allows teams to shoot 50+% from the field so I think we should be fine on offense, as I suspect we will attack the rim. 

I keep wondering but you don't answer the question, what do you think our defensive and rebounding abilities are. I'm asking because I think we differ in opinion here and I feel you know some about basketball so I'm interested in how do you gauge that?

[AuburnNTexas 7,140]

I think that part of our rebounding issues are three fold one the obvious we don't block out well the second is the fact that we want to play fast so to many people take off towards O end when other team shoots so we don't have many people down low, and third is when we are on O everybody seems to be on the wings and we don't consistently have a down low presence and when we do it is only on one side of the court.

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

On 1/6/2017 at 4:17 AM, cole256 said:

I keep wondering but you don't answer the question, what do you think our defensive and rebounding abilities are. I'm asking because I think we differ in opinion here and I feel you know some about basketball so I'm interested in how do you gauge that?

I expect Them to understand how to help the helper on D, and to communicate and match up after a loose ball. I also expect them to trail a shooter when they are running off screens and not go under and leave wide open shots. 

Nothing that we don't the ability to do. Let's start there. 

[cole256 17,050]

14 minutes ago, JwgreDeux said:

I expect Them to understand how to help the helper on D, and to communicate and match up after a loose ball. I also expect them to trail a shooter when they are running off screens and not go under and leave wide open shots. 

Nothing that we don't the ability to do. Let's start there. 

Well going under a screen could be a strategy within the defense or a particular strategy matchup with a particular player. There really isn't a way for us to know if that is right or the wrong way just from watching a game....But that's not what I'm saying. I'm not asking your expectations

what I'm saying, this is a team with 4 new starters, guys fresh out of high school, second year players or whatnot. If you haven't seen the team play, how do you know the upper end of our abilities? 

To me it was clear that we'd have problems rebounding, even before the season started. It's on here documented. Since the season started we've been getting beat on the boards but since the early season you've been saying we can rebound better....what makes you say that? You've seen that where? From what I've seen from the two year players and then logic being undersized is how I came to my conclusion and I've been right. I'm asking what do you tell yourself to think we can be better at it right now?

Same question on defense. And why do you think Brown is a good defender? What game? I want to go back and watch it

[cole256 17,050]

On 1/6/2017 at 10:06 AM, AuburnNTexas said:

I think that part of our rebounding issues are three fold one the obvious we don't block out well the second is the fact that we want to play fast so to many people take off towards O end when other team shoots so we don't have many people down low, and third is when we are on O everybody seems to be on the wings and we don't consistently have a down low presence and when we do it is only on one side of the court.

The second thing there is no excuse for. If that's what's happening pearl is accountable for that

[cole256 17,050]

On 1/4/2017 at 5:31 PM, AU64 said:

UK beat the aggies by about 50 last night.....seems they might be in a league by themselves...again thou everyone can be beaten I guess.

UK has a point guard that would have our point guard using a red shirt this year. They have a 2 that was probably better than our 2 now when he was a freshman in high school. And Kentucky's big man is EXACTLY the type of player we're lacking and need at the 4 or 5. 

I said all of that to say while we do have some pretty good freshmen, there are different levels to this. Our freshmen talent isn't on par as the elite freshmen in this country. That's what I was trying to say when everybody was talking about we have so much talent on this team. We have better talent than what we're used to but we don't have the talent I think many on here feel we do

[AU64 10,122]

8 minutes ago, cole256 said:

UK has a point guard that would have our point guard using a red shirt this year. They have a 2 that was probably better than our 2 now when he was a freshman in high school. And Kentucky's big man is EXACTLY the type of player we're lacking and need at the 4 or 5. 

I said all of that to say while we do have some pretty good freshmen, there are different levels to this. Our freshmen talent isn't on par as the elite freshmen in this country. That's what I was trying to say when everybody was talking about we have so much talent on this team. We have better talent than what we're used to but we don't have the talent I think many on here feel we do

Agree...some were talking about AU being in the top 10 or something with commitments....but that was the top 10 list of guys not going to the top 10 schools if I recall the list.   Still....certainly a better group than we have seen in quite a while.

[cole256 17,050]

Right. I'll also say guys who are the elite like Josh Jackson, Dennis Smith Jr., Foxx, and lonzo ball wouldn't be putting up the type numbers they do if they had come here. They are sprinkled in with teams that have other leaders and mature players as well. The closest person I'd say is just carrying a team is probably Smith Jr, but I've watched them play and they have some tough and super athletic big men.

[AU64 10,122]

14 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Right. I'll also say guys who are the elite like Josh Jackson, Dennis Smith Jr., Foxx, and lonzo ball wouldn't be putting up the type numbers they do if they had come here. They are sprinkled in with teams that have other leaders and mature players as well. The closest person I'd say is just carrying a team is probably Smith Jr, but I've watched them play and they have some tough and super athletic big men.

I'm thinking Monk scores no matter where he is playing though?    His scoring is probably held down at UK...

[cole256 17,050]

Monk is a tremendous scorer. Literally a threat everywhere, but without fox at point I don't think he'd have as easy of  a time. I think fast break points would go down, and the defensive weight would sort of weigh him down more as well. 

But even with all of that said we're probably talking about maybe a 2-3 point average decrease lol

[AU64 10,122]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

Monk is a tremendous scorer. Literally a threat everywhere, but without fox at point I don't think he'd have as easy of  a time. I think fast break points would go down, and the defensive weight would sort of weigh him down more as well. 

But even with all of that said we're probably talking about maybe a 2-3 point average decrease lol

I guess, but I grew up in the era of Pistol Pete, and Johnny Neumann and guys like that who did not have a point guard....even John Mengelt who put up 60 or so against bama.....unforgettable.   Seems like scorers can score if the coaches turn them loose.

Anyway...the game has changed, the clock that was added to speed up play has seemed to slow the game in many cases....it probably has reduced scoring and it's getting rare to see a guy averaging much over 20 points per game now. .

[cole256 17,050]

Yes he'd score but would we win? As far as pistol yeah he was able to dictate the game, he was the point. Monk plays off the ball. If he had to play with a sub par point I think it would have an affect with his game as opposed to playing with a point that is just as talented as him. 

[Tiger 8,822]

Didn't see an Ole Miss post game thread so I'm going to put my lone point here:

 

Our defense is not good enough to overcome our putrid, at times, shot selection. Bruce Pearl's offensive style or not, we won't win very many conference games if we continue to take such poor shots or unless we improve our team defense - by a lot.

[FoundationEagle 637]

1 hour ago, Tiger said:

Didn't see an Ole Miss post game thread so I'm going to put my lone point here:

 

Our defense is not good enough to overcome our putrid, at times, shot selection. Bruce Pearl's offensive style or not, we won't win very many conference games if we continue to take such poor shots or unless we improve our team defense - by a lot.

Agree on all. I'm trying to withhold judgement on Bruce's coaching until next year because we need some leaders to properly implement it, but as of now I'm highly concerned.  It doesn't help that the dribble drive to me is the laziest crappiest offensive scheme in all of basketball and usually takes elite players all around to ever become a tournament team running it.