This fan base particularly these boards seems to enjoy bashing its best player. Some are starting to bitch about shots and over dribbling. I see it differently. I see a guy that is in a bad position of being the point guard but also far and away the most talented offensive player on the team. He has no one he can get the ball down low who can get an easy basket. Ponds is a good player but he is more of a guy who creates his own shot rather than a catch shoot player. Ahmed is that type of guy as well. Not sure where assists come from on this team. With all his shooting I think he is still shooting over 47%. Which is actually great.
You can see Lovett getting frustrated but he has to shoot to keep us close. Really other than Ponds and Mussini wide open with feet set I don't expect any other guy to make a shot. I am actually surprised when they go in.
You really can't judge Lovett until we get better offensive players in here. And if Lovett wasn't here we would be worst team in the country.
Yeah, like any new kid, he has a few areas to improve on. However, in my opinion, he is obviously the best player we have &
frankly I hope he does not get too frustrated carrying such a huge burden on a very inferior offensive team to date. It must also be trying for him to have interior guys with hands of stone. I don't blame him for taking option B in that equation and shooting, driving himself. It was said early on that our bigs would prosper from his penetration & passes. True, but catch the ball first please.
The bold a key, and add Ponds to that. Hopefully Simon and Clark aren't purely scout team in practice so these two get the feel for having layups/dunks converted as well as potential for more general support next year.
On serious note re: your point, felt we were a year early playing this kind of schedule, not just in terms of results but perhaps more importantly team and player development. Understand reasons why we do it (Maui, Bahamas, etc. and games against premium national OOC comp impacts recruiting), but flip side is biting off more than you can chew and now having to manage that early in the season. Because what really was a pretty good effort in 3 consecutive difficult games against tournament type teams is now mostly overwhelmed by 4 consecutive losses, punctuated by what was our first really poor effort in our 3rd game in 3 days, which our freshman just weren't ready for.
Not apologizing (especially for ODU), but you can imagine how the results may have been different if Minny were on a neutral court or at home, and VCU/ODU were legs 1 and 2 and not 2 and 3 of a tournament. Purely hypothetical, but that's probably more the level we are ready for at this stage.
Mentioned before the tournament was worried about compounding effect of potential for 3-4 losses in a row, especially when most players have very little experience losing, and was hoping to see a team in Game 3 playing with the same energy and swagger they did in first road game in Minny. That didn't happen so now we have to manage the downside risk of this type of schedule that has come to fruition.
Lovett and Ponds seem solid in this respect but have to absolutely ensure the losing doesn't have short or long term impact on their morale. Also think Ahmed - who while erratic is off to a much better start than he's generally getting credit for, especially given the alternatives - and Yawke - who while off to a slow start is our best chance at a big this year who most fits this team's style - could use confidence reinforcement as to how much we need them.
Hoping for easy feel good win tomorrow because @Tulane is likely a challenging game given that pretty much all they've done this year is put up respectable efforts against power conference teams. That one and PSU, in addition to holding serve in games we should, now critical if the final OOC result is going to being credible.
