Sonoma State
- Thread starter LINY89
- Start date
1. Obekpa IS the real deal...he just has a natural knack for swatting and blocked what seemed like every shot near him. He was so dominant you almost expected him to block each shot around him as the norm.
2. D'Lo was off...he needs time to get going he was in his prime late last season. Let him warm up.
3. Sampson looks solid at the very least.
4. Free throw shooting was awful...no excuse for that.
5. The referees missed a ton of calls. I constantly saw our guys getting swatted on the arm or hand as they shot and no call. At one point a SJ bounce pass hit the toe of a SSU player and the refs didn't call it they let SSU keep it. They were babying SSU making us play soft.
6. Greene is very underrated.
7. Jones was very "eh"...he didn't impress as much as I expected he would.
8. SSU basically had 1 player making virtually every 3 pointer even with hands in his face. That's why the game was closer than it should have been.
9. We made some terrible passes right into the hands of SSU a handful of times.
10. The game was frustrating to watch for much of the game and let them hang around due to stupid mistakes and cold shooting. I hope we make notable improvement vs. Concordia. Btw, I swear we have the worst luck with the NCAA...they really do seem out to get us. How are they allowed to tell us this late that they are not eligible yet? Wtf?
2. D'Lo was off...he needs time to get going he was in his prime late last season. Let him warm up.
3. Sampson looks solid at the very least.
4. Free throw shooting was awful...no excuse for that.
5. The referees missed a ton of calls. I constantly saw our guys getting swatted on the arm or hand as they shot and no call. At one point a SJ bounce pass hit the toe of a SSU player and the refs didn't call it they let SSU keep it. They were babying SSU making us play soft.
6. Greene is very underrated.
7. Jones was very "eh"...he didn't impress as much as I expected he would.
8. SSU basically had 1 player making virtually every 3 pointer even with hands in his face. That's why the game was closer than it should have been.
9. We made some terrible passes right into the hands of SSU a handful of times.
10. The game was frustrating to watch for much of the game and let them hang around due to stupid mistakes and cold shooting. I hope we make notable improvement vs. Concordia. Btw, I swear we have the worst luck with the NCAA...they really do seem out to get us. How are they allowed to tell us this late that they are not eligible yet? Wtf?
Now explain why 5 and 7 were "funny", because I was at the game in the student section with a perfect view. To be fair, Jakarr clearly kicked a ball right before going into a fast break and they missed it. Our guys got jipped on a few no calls. What about Jones makes you think he is anything other than just ok? He had that 1 great slam but other than that his highlights were some nice assists. I was expecting a few blocks and a dominant inside game.
Has Sanchez been cleared or is he hurt? But for people on Jones he had some nice baseline jumpers i saw they were smooth. DLo was just off but I think what we really need and I saw it said earlier on this board, we need a true pg. You will see everything come together once Branch suits up I am telling you
When did I say he was a star? The last thing I remember posting about him was how I think he is getting hyped up too much. So that's false. I watched as many clips of him as I could and he just was not dominant like he was in HS. He is a solid to decent player, but I don't see him being a star. It would be nice if I didn't get attacked for just one day for a 100% relevant post. If I was 48 would you guys be all over me? Probably not. Just because you are older does not make you an expert on anything.
Both Jakarr and D'Angelo had kicked balls for scores that weren't called.
As far as Jones goes, he averaged something like 12 PPG at IMG. I wouldn't call that dominating.
And for his first time in a D-1 game, he looked pretty good to me. I'm really not sure what you were expecting.
Oh, besides winning by 50 because the SSU players were non-athletic looking from their website.
They aren't athletic. They had that 1 guy who was like Steve Novak automatic from 3 and they just started to fall for him even on heavily contested and unbalanced shots. That won't happen often. SSU played good defense and we couldn't get inside until late in the game when we pulled away. We ultimately won by about 20 which is pretty good for the players we were missing as well as benching our best offensive weapon in Harrison. I think this is a game Marco would have done well in with wide open 3's since they wanted to keep us out of the paint and dared us to shoot from the perimeter.
Moose
Well-known member
My two cents-
- Surprised we went Man to Man the entire game. Would like to know if thats our future? Did they not pick up the zone? Did Lav want them to get better at man?
- Phil looked really impressive. Definitely worked his tail off over the the summer. 6 dimes for him was nice in addition to his shots falling. Confident looking and exuded leadership qualities that Harrison didn't show tonight.
- Harrison didn't start which surprised me. Injury? Lesson? When he was in he was going thru the motions and when he picked up 4th foul glued to bench for the game. Most energy I saw from him was when Christian attempted a 2nd thunderous putback and he jumped up.
- Amir really impressed me. What was he 2-2 or 2-3 from behind the arc? Looked very confident out there. Heady play on the inbounds play. I was really happy to see him look like he continued his stretch from last 7 or 8 games of last year.
- Dom handling the ball looked a lot better. Light years better in fact. He's still Dom and going to bring you energy and intangibles. He did confidently take a jumper off the dribble early in the clock that he nailed which was nice to see. The best part of his game is he is fine doing the rest of the stuff and doesnt have to score.
- Karr looked great. I told people to stop worrying about his jumper. Does it look pretty? No. Neither did Hatten or plenty of others so long as it goes in. I like how he's comfortable taking the jumper from the FT line extended area. Too many players live and die looking for a 3. Great to have him and eventually Sanchez shooting that mid range J. Karr looked great again.
- Please admit my membership to the Christian Jones fan club. How the hell did this kid drop in our laps? I was expecting Sean Evans. Way past that. He didn't spend as much time down low today but that was based on the size of comp. Love his post moves and footwork. Nice smooth J. Freakish athleticism. Heady player. Usually you get scared when a big man puts ball on the floor (JB24 and Evans come to mind). Not here.
- Obekpa did what I told people to expect. Couple points, boards and blocks thats it. He still needs to learn a bit on D in terms of switching and footwork. Would have loved to see him in a zone. That being said he hit a smooth long range jumper, was active down low altering the shots he didn't swat. Should be fun seeing how teams try to get shots off with the likes of Obekpa, Karr, Jones, and Sanchez down low and Dom and Amir lurking from behind.
Really sucks that Marco and Orlando couldnt get out there. Likely we get 1 yr from Orlando and 2 from Marco. Lets just get them out there. There were 3 guys missing tonight adding Branch to the equation who will be playing SIGNIFICANT minutes. I understand holding out Gift with the new exhibition rule. If Orlando is one year I'm fine with redshirting Gift.
I honestly totally forgot about Felix and on the drive home called someone to ask if they said anything. I don't even recall seeing him on the bench but I could be wrong. Being that we actually have a full team now its not like last year and having to only know one guy on the bench.
Bottom line the team can learn more from this game than a 50 pt blowout. They learned and succeeded in overcoming key parts not being able to play and their best scorer being invisible today. Lets not get all crazy about the score. Michigan St won by 12 last night. We've seen teams like Cuse lose in the past. Nova struggle as well. I took a STJ grad who doesn't follow the team as much as we all do. That being said he knows basketball and said he's never seen talent like we have in the 10 yrs he's followed the team. Its clear and evident talent is there. Let the staff continue to mold them. These kids I think are better than many of the Sr's we had and they had 4 yrs under their belt.
- Surprised we went Man to Man the entire game. Would like to know if thats our future? Did they not pick up the zone? Did Lav want them to get better at man?
- Phil looked really impressive. Definitely worked his tail off over the the summer. 6 dimes for him was nice in addition to his shots falling. Confident looking and exuded leadership qualities that Harrison didn't show tonight.
- Harrison didn't start which surprised me. Injury? Lesson? When he was in he was going thru the motions and when he picked up 4th foul glued to bench for the game. Most energy I saw from him was when Christian attempted a 2nd thunderous putback and he jumped up.
- Amir really impressed me. What was he 2-2 or 2-3 from behind the arc? Looked very confident out there. Heady play on the inbounds play. I was really happy to see him look like he continued his stretch from last 7 or 8 games of last year.
- Dom handling the ball looked a lot better. Light years better in fact. He's still Dom and going to bring you energy and intangibles. He did confidently take a jumper off the dribble early in the clock that he nailed which was nice to see. The best part of his game is he is fine doing the rest of the stuff and doesnt have to score.
- Karr looked great. I told people to stop worrying about his jumper. Does it look pretty? No. Neither did Hatten or plenty of others so long as it goes in. I like how he's comfortable taking the jumper from the FT line extended area. Too many players live and die looking for a 3. Great to have him and eventually Sanchez shooting that mid range J. Karr looked great again.
- Please admit my membership to the Christian Jones fan club. How the hell did this kid drop in our laps? I was expecting Sean Evans. Way past that. He didn't spend as much time down low today but that was based on the size of comp. Love his post moves and footwork. Nice smooth J. Freakish athleticism. Heady player. Usually you get scared when a big man puts ball on the floor (JB24 and Evans come to mind). Not here.
- Obekpa did what I told people to expect. Couple points, boards and blocks thats it. He still needs to learn a bit on D in terms of switching and footwork. Would have loved to see him in a zone. That being said he hit a smooth long range jumper, was active down low altering the shots he didn't swat. Should be fun seeing how teams try to get shots off with the likes of Obekpa, Karr, Jones, and Sanchez down low and Dom and Amir lurking from behind.
Really sucks that Marco and Orlando couldnt get out there. Likely we get 1 yr from Orlando and 2 from Marco. Lets just get them out there. There were 3 guys missing tonight adding Branch to the equation who will be playing SIGNIFICANT minutes. I understand holding out Gift with the new exhibition rule. If Orlando is one year I'm fine with redshirting Gift.
I honestly totally forgot about Felix and on the drive home called someone to ask if they said anything. I don't even recall seeing him on the bench but I could be wrong. Being that we actually have a full team now its not like last year and having to only know one guy on the bench.
Bottom line the team can learn more from this game than a 50 pt blowout. They learned and succeeded in overcoming key parts not being able to play and their best scorer being invisible today. Lets not get all crazy about the score. Michigan St won by 12 last night. We've seen teams like Cuse lose in the past. Nova struggle as well. I took a STJ grad who doesn't follow the team as much as we all do. That being said he knows basketball and said he's never seen talent like we have in the 10 yrs he's followed the team. Its clear and evident talent is there. Let the staff continue to mold them. These kids I think are better than many of the Sr's we had and they had 4 yrs under their belt.
Moose, my bet is that they went man-to-man to really just get principles. In the past, we skipped that just to get into zones and learn those principles. Bottom line though, is that our zones rely on matching up with man principles. Best way to start off is learning how to play good man defense and then advancing into different zones. We have the personnel to do so now. I really love those zones and I'm positive we will use them extensively, but starting off learning how to close out on shooters and playing solid man defense is really IMO the best way to start working on defense.
Btw, thanks for your synopsis moose. Sounds like we have a lot to look forward to, and we were missing , branch, Bourgault, Sanchez, Gift, Balamou and our best player was having a bad day. Imagine how good we might look at full strength??
Btw, thanks for your synopsis moose. Sounds like we have a lot to look forward to, and we were missing , branch, Bourgault, Sanchez, Gift, Balamou and our best player was having a bad day. Imagine how good we might look at full strength??
I think in Lavin's quotes it was mentioned that Sonoma shot 50% from outside in first half and only 20% in second where we improved our efficiency a bit. Still more to work on in every category I'm sure, but I think, and it's just a guess, that Lavin wants the kids learning se good man-D principles before folding in some zones which will probably be done soon.
BT in Oceanside
Active member
I noticed Balamou participating in the warm-ups before 2nd half tonight. He looked good. Not sure why he didn't get any pt.
Lavin has a lot of work to get some semblance of team basketball, but he has loads of individual weapons. I was most impressed by Obepka tonight - he is everywhere on defense and a shot-blocking machine. Jones and Sampson looked good. Phil Greene - love his heart and tenacity, though he's not the true pg we need to make everyone else better. Harrison was tough to watch.