It ought to be apparent to all that our team has some significant issues. In no particular order:
- Our only playable bigs are Sanchez, Obekpa, and Sampson.
- Sanchez is multi-talented but (1) is not sufficiently aggressive on offense; and (2) is foul prone.
- Obekpa has a lot of potential and is coming along but is still a weak post defender against a decent big man and needs work on offense.
- Sampson has to stop shooting jumpers and attack the rim.
- Jordan attacks the rim well but needs to hit some jump shots.
- Harrison brings a lot of positives but his shooting percentage is still not good enough and though he forces it less than he used to, it still hurts the team when he does.
- The only shots Dom should take are dunks.
- Our man defense is slowly improving (now that the zone has vanished)
- Our offense still looks suspiciously like streetball most of the time.
Looking at the first three league games, I'm not sure there is much of a takeaway other than the the above collection of issues are keeping us from getting over the hump. Xavier on the road is not a game you should expect to win unless you are a top 15 or 20 team. Georgetown is just a bad matchup for us, has been for a few years now. For some reason we don't play well against a hyper-disciplined team that runs an intricate offense with backdoor cuts and lots of passing. On the road it's worse.
Today's game against Villanova was just a mess, and not really due to us. Both teams looked bad, and nobody could get into any kind of rhythm with the 325 fouls that were called. It was just an ugly, stop-and-start game. Harrison forced a shot with 5 minutes left, Nova scored the next 7 points, and that was the difference in the game. They just executed a little better than we did and made a few more shots in crunch time of an ugly game. Perhaps because they're better coached and have better shooters (I thought the KenPom article that's up on the site was very accurate).
Having said all that, I still think that this team is going to win a bunch of league games before the season is over, and may still push 20 wins. I don't think we are going to make the NCAAs, but I never thought that we would. I don't think we get there with this coach unless we have overwhelming talent, and (as described above) though we have talent we also have a lot of flaws).
I suppose the bottom line is that I wouldn't give up hope on the season yet. Just temper those hopes to something like 19 wins, some sort of magical run in the BET, and an NIT bid if that run doesn't end with an automatic bid to the NCAAs.
- Our only playable bigs are Sanchez, Obekpa, and Sampson.
- Sanchez is multi-talented but (1) is not sufficiently aggressive on offense; and (2) is foul prone.
- Obekpa has a lot of potential and is coming along but is still a weak post defender against a decent big man and needs work on offense.
- Sampson has to stop shooting jumpers and attack the rim.
- Jordan attacks the rim well but needs to hit some jump shots.
- Harrison brings a lot of positives but his shooting percentage is still not good enough and though he forces it less than he used to, it still hurts the team when he does.
- The only shots Dom should take are dunks.
- Our man defense is slowly improving (now that the zone has vanished)
- Our offense still looks suspiciously like streetball most of the time.
Looking at the first three league games, I'm not sure there is much of a takeaway other than the the above collection of issues are keeping us from getting over the hump. Xavier on the road is not a game you should expect to win unless you are a top 15 or 20 team. Georgetown is just a bad matchup for us, has been for a few years now. For some reason we don't play well against a hyper-disciplined team that runs an intricate offense with backdoor cuts and lots of passing. On the road it's worse.
Today's game against Villanova was just a mess, and not really due to us. Both teams looked bad, and nobody could get into any kind of rhythm with the 325 fouls that were called. It was just an ugly, stop-and-start game. Harrison forced a shot with 5 minutes left, Nova scored the next 7 points, and that was the difference in the game. They just executed a little better than we did and made a few more shots in crunch time of an ugly game. Perhaps because they're better coached and have better shooters (I thought the KenPom article that's up on the site was very accurate).
Having said all that, I still think that this team is going to win a bunch of league games before the season is over, and may still push 20 wins. I don't think we are going to make the NCAAs, but I never thought that we would. I don't think we get there with this coach unless we have overwhelming talent, and (as described above) though we have talent we also have a lot of flaws).
I suppose the bottom line is that I wouldn't give up hope on the season yet. Just temper those hopes to something like 19 wins, some sort of magical run in the BET, and an NIT bid if that run doesn't end with an automatic bid to the NCAAs.
