So many things last night but this started with the nonsense lineup and rotation in the first five minutes. If you don’t approach every game with winning as the unequivocal objective that’s how you get beat in D1, and the Staff set a tone last night that we were trying to win and accomplish something else (whatever it was) at the same time. Completely unacceptable.
One of the announcer’s called us out on this, when Del. St. stretched it to 13 a few minutes into the 2nd half he said SJU’s mistake was letting Del. St. get comfortable early in the game. Couldn’t be more spot on. You secure the game in however many minutes it takes you to secure it, and then you accomplish whatever else it is you are trying to. It’s unfathomable that a team that just lost 4 in a row could even contemplate messing this up but our inexperienced staff did just that, and frankly this analysis has little to do with the loss – would be equally concerning even if we had managed to win the game.
This is a team without a sense of direction right now, an issue under previous regimes I had hoped this staff had moved past. 4 different starting lineups in 7 games. Freduenberg barely played the last 4 games and is first man off the bench last night. Alibegovic, who either didn’t or barely played in the Bahamas, checks into essentially a tie game with about 9 minutes to go in the first half last night, promptly launches a 3 and was out there for most of a Del. St. 9-0 run. When we were trying to stage the comeback in the 2nd half Ellison/Freudenberg/Sima were out there with Lovett/Ponds. At this particular point that trio might have to be the only available players left in a given game for me to have them out there together, even with Lovett/Ponds.
Perhaps some, but not all can be explained by a Staff trying to find combinations that work. At least some is a staff without clear plan for this team. Players far from blameless but that uncertainty from the top can and often does have a trickle down effect.
In what clearly looks like it is going to be another trying season, at an absolute minimum, one of the positives that has to come out of it is that this is a place elite players can come to thrive. Whatever is going on with Marcus Lovett not starting 2 of the first 7 games does not help achieve that objective. Don’t have any details regarding the rationale, but justified or not it needs to be resolved. That’s part of program management. A player that good starting and playing almost big minutes every night on a roster like this one should be an all-time layup, and if that can’t happen for one reason or another that’s concerning.
Conversation about talent is interesting. Clearly we have a lot more than Del. St., but if you take away Lovett/Ponds/Ahmed, how comfortable are people that we do? Probably still do, but if the question can even be asked relative to Del. St. who cares what the answer is, because we know what that likely means relative to most of the rest of the schedule (and teams in the country). So, with all respect to the current group, many of whom came here at a time when it wasn’t easy to do so, I hope Paultz, Happy, etc. will advise that we are still actively pursuing 16-17 beyond Simon/Clark/Brown (who I am more confident than ever will be in our top 6 players next year). High school, JUCO, and hopefully especially prospective 5th year seniors who can help right away.
Because the interesting part here is that the 3 guys likely to improve the most on the current roster are the 3 guys already helping us the most. You can probably add Yawke and Freudenberg in a second group due to youth and upside. Not to irrationally say after a loss that guys like Sima can’t give solid role contributions the next two years. But you don’t advance the program to the level I think we are trying to by relying on solid role contributions. We need more players like Lovett/Ponds/Ahmed, and with the way things have been going we should probably aspire to acquiring 20% more talent than we think we need. I’ll be the first to admit I thought we’d be set next year, and as much as I think the 3 current projected newcomers will help I’m no longer sure that will be enough.
