BET-Villanova, Thur. Mar. 9, Noon, FS1/970AM

Looks like we're not going to pull this one out.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the season.
 
Who evaluated Freudenberg?
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Whoever it was has a keen eye for talent
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If you've never seen a guy with some talent who just plays nervous and can get nothing done for whatever reason you don't know ball nearly as much as I thought you did.
 
Who evaluated Freudenberg?
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Whoever it was has a keen eye for talent
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If you've never seen a guy with some talent who just plays nervous and can get nothing done for whatever reason you don't know ball nearly as much as I thought you did.[/quote

I'm not sure whether he has talent or not, but my comment was in jest. I posted the first comment after he traveled and the second after he drained a theee and made me look bad for calling him out
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pathetic unfortunately but this freshmen on Nova DiVincenzo looks pretty damn good as Nova continues to restock.
 
I guess the only thing left to do is sweat it out on Selection Sunday to see if we get an at-large bid.
 
Johnnies shooting 0ver 50% from three and two but Nova shooting in the 60% range and rebounding and not turning it over. Worlds apart.
 
It's the defending national champs (and not a terrible bet to repeat as same) playing in a tournament game against a team that played a tough game last night and is just happy to be there. It's going about the way you'd expect.

WRT to the defense, yes we are an atrocious defensive team. It has been apparent since the first exhibition game. We cannot or will not play anyone straight up. All the defense amounts to is trying to get turnovers and get blocks, and personally I think the block numbers are a sign of what's wrong with the D, not a good thing (because if we stopped the ball or stopped people playing straight up, the block opportunities would not be there).

I hope/expect that next year Clark will provide tougher on-ball defense, we will have a legit post defender, and Owens can go to the stretch-4 spot he belongs in, which in turn would move Yakwe down to guarding guys he would have a shot against.

However, no argument at all that despite the personnel issues our effort and fundamentals could and should be about a zillion times better. My hope/guess is that the staff just decided to spend this year working on offense and next year they will spend more time on D.
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These guys have been playing basketball for 10+ years and play man to man defense. You really believe they have to be COACHED at this level to keep your man in front of you, to not jump at every fake? COACHED to come out and play HARD? I don't, not at all. Yes, lose to Nova but go down fighting, go down with some pride; I don't get it and I have seen it too much this year. Blame Mullin, and certainly some of it falls on his shoulders, but as a player, I would be ashamed to think I needed a coach to teach me effort and focus in college.
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Yes, believe it or not you need to coach defense, especially since it isn't 1950 anymore. Many of these players do not get enough fundamentals at the HS level, in particular the more talented ones who get by on ability (like fast hands).

Team defense is another coaching issue, you need a plan and then you need to spend time on it.

And beyond that, the degree to which you want to emphasize defense and make it part of your team identity is a coaching decision. Some of it is deciding how you want to play the game, and some of it is a matter of you only have so many practice hours and you have to figure out how you want to spend them. It's a particular challenge when you're program-building and you don't have an established identity or culture to lean on for reinforcement and you don't have a pipeline of players who have matriculated through the system and are now upperclassmen who can help establish what you want.

I understand where you're coming from about playing the game the right way, putting in effort, and taking pride in what you do on both ends of the floor. However believe it or not, 95% of the players coming in today do NOT get it, and thus it become a coaching issue.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was a sustainably winning basketball culture. Let's see if we can improve next year.
 
Still buzzing from last night's game and didn't expect to win today but would have been nice not to give up 108 or more for the 2nd time in a month. How many teams gave up 108 or more twice this season? Really low bar to clear it seems.
 
In a game between who we are vs who we want to become, we are coming up painfully short. Nova is taking us to the woodshed
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Nova played probably the closest thing to a perfect half of basketball, that I've ever seen.
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Yes and it's just coincidence that it comes against us.
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Has to come against somebody. Not gonna tell you we were great, but I thought that half had more to do with Nova, then us.
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St. John's gave up 80 or more points in 6 of their last 8 games. That's not a coincidence.

Staff needs to teach these kids how to play defense.
 
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