@Villanova, Wed., Feb. 12 , 6p, FS-1

Larry Wright said:
Something seems to be wrong with Zuby? Not sure if injured or has been sick but forget how poorly he has played, the concerning thing for me is why does he keep falling down? Like every third play he is on the ground.
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I have noticed that as well . He’s on the ground more often than upright .


Don’t know if it’s the result of getting mugged underneath or , just losing his feet from imbalance .

Regardless. , we got very little from him Vs Nova . The Cats played their 2 bigs , Dixon and the other guy , together and they packed it in tight .

A couple of things , strategy wise , having both , Luis and KR set up from the top of the key , instead of the Wing , took their baseline game away from them .

Which had been very effective in our prior games .
Pitino is a great Coach but , seemed asleep on the last Nova possession , where we had the 1 point lead .

Nova got the ball upcourt way too easily and Perkins had way too good a look , without our defender RJ close to him .

True , he made it but , still

Even with that, we had the ball with 8 or 9 full seconds left , and I think we still had a timeout .

The last play was doomed from the inbound to KR , who I thought was way too slow getting the ball upcourt .
KR is slow afoot and this wasn’t the time to let him slow foot it upcourt .

Lastly , and I know this is 20/20 hindsight . But , wouldn’t a better last play been Luis or KR driving to the hoop ?


Yes , it’s easy to dissect the game and Pitino knows better than all of us , how to run plays but , that last play didn’t have to be so disorganized .
 
logen said:
No, Rick, they didn’t. I get and respect the coach speak but they did not play either smart nor especially hard. Disappointed not in the record obviously and losing on the road is no disgrace but this team IMO has a chance, not a given, a chance, of truly being special.
Their potential capability on D is that good, but until they understand that games are 40 minutes, and this approach of it being seemingly ok to shoot whenever whatever 3 shows, go 11-37, while 16-24 from 2, IMO this team is not moving toward maximizing their potential.
Now perspective is certainly necessary and more than fair so I am very anxious to see how they come out of the gate Sunday.
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Err, I think I go with coach on this one. Coach does have a lot of expertise in this area.
 
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SJUDave said:


RJ's defense on the last play was really bad. Poplar drives and RJ is right there to close him off and lets him go. Then on the kick and swing RJ is in the wrong spot, 10 feet off Perkins, late to close. For as good as he's been defensively and overall this year, this was just a really poor and costly mental lapse. Unfortunate.
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One thing we know for sure - Pitino will not let RJ forget about this and look for him to play his tail off on D vs. Creighton.
 
espken said:
Highlights



Postgame Presser

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I think that Rick needs to really consider who he wants to take the last shot in a situation like last nights. He stated that Wilcher had a good shooting night, well maybe for Wilcher it was (36%) but by the numbers it was not as good as Kadary’s(70%), Scott’s (50%) and even RJ’s (38%) who had a tough night shooting.

While many would argue, and have, Wilcher just hit a three, do you really want Wilcher taking the shot with the game on the line when you have a seasoned veteran like Kadary or a player like Luis or Scott who was having his best shooting night of the season? Maybe Wilcher takes that shot a year from now when/if his shooting improves but shouldn’t coach have gone with the law of averages or in this case, percentages?

In terms of Zubys play, it was not just his offensive play, and lack of his assertiveness offensively, it was his rebounding and lack of intensity. When he and Brickis had the ball and Brickis came away with it, that kind of told the story of Zubys night.
 
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Look, we lost the game and aside from Scott and Kadary at times there were no stellar offensive performances and still kept it close but what I came away with as most concerning was the play of our bench. If you take away Leftys 3, the rest if the bench contributed 3 points?

Why has Vince’s game regressed to the level it has, Glovers handle become an almost certain turnover and Preys offense become a distant memory? If we are to go forward without Smith, we are going to need a lift from someone. The starters are not always going to be on their A games. It’s a tough issue Rick is going to have to figure out.
 
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Larry Wright said:
Prey is a good defender and decent rebounder but an absolute mess on offense right now. You have to stop talking him up like he is Marc Gasol. He is a solid guy and I think will be a good 4 year player but right now adds absolutely nothing offensively. In fact w/o Smith who is still hampered by injuries himself the entire bench offers nothing offensively.
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Agreed. Have been impressed by Prey's ability to switch on defense, guard different positions, but the word is out on his offense. Teams are leaving him alone. Nova fans around me at the game were yelling "let him have that!" every time Prey lined up a shot last night. No one is afraid of him scoring. It becomes tougher for our other players out there when the defense doesn't have to worry about a guy.
 
Silly Donovan said:
I think that Rick needs to really consider who he wants to take the last shot in a situation like last nights. He stated that Wilcher had a good shooting night, well maybe for Wilcher it was (36%) but by the numbers it was not as good as Kadary’s, (70%) Scott’s (50%) and even RJ’s (38%) who had a tough night shooting.

While many would argue, and have, Wilcher just hit a three, do you really want Wilcher taking tge shot with the game on the line?
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No !
 
Joedib said:
Err, I think I go with coach on this one. Coach does have a lot of expertise in this area.
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Since this is about the 5th time you have shared with me your opinion of his absolute infallibility, I get it. I suggest maybe you ignore those posts of mine. I have this weird quirk of thinking for myself.
 
logen said:
You make your own luck, I pointed out during the game, Brickus, I believe, made a very long 3 with 2 seconds on the shot clock in which Wilcher sat a good 3 feet away watching him line the shot up and step into it.
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Don't think you can knock Sim for not closing out on a guy taking a 40 footer, especially since he's fouled 3 point shooters several times this year.

Zuby worked hard many times to get open and the paint and then didn't get the ball, expending a lot of energy doing it. Now that he's playing almost the whole game, he's getting lazy and frustrated.

When the bench in the game, it needs to be clear out for Kadary or LJ time. Can't run your normal offense when guys on the court treat the ball like a grenade. I never, ever want to see Glover dribbling the ball up the court again, talk about no awareness.
 
Larry Wright said:
Prey is a good defender and decent rebounder but an absolute mess on offense right now. You have to stop talking him up like he is Marc Gasol. He is a solid guy and I think will be a good 4 year player but right now adds absolutely nothing offensively. In fact w/o Smith who is still hampered by injuries himself the entire bench offers nothing offensively.
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He's a 6'10 freshman that plays 5 minutes a game on a team that has two big offensive players. How polished do you expect him to be? Some of our fans are completely unrealistic. He'd need 100+ minutes to show any comfortability on offense and that would come after many mistakes.

We aren't talking about a kid that plays 25 minutes a night here.
 
McClancy88 said:
Don't think you can knock Sim for not closing out on a guy taking a 40 footer, especially since he's fouled 3 point shooters several times this year.

Zuby worked hard many times to get open and the paint and then didn't get the ball, expending a lot of energy doing it. Now that he's playing almost the whole game, he's getting lazy and frustrated.

When the bench in the game, it needs to be clear out for Kadary or LJ time. Can't run your normal offense when guys on the court treat the ball like a grenade. I never, ever want to see Glover dribbling the ball up the court again, talk about no awareness.
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Yes I certainly can, potentially committing a stupid foul is not remotely a good reason to not play defense on a makeable shot, which since it went in, I assume you would agree that it was.
 
Marillac2 said:
He's a 6'10 freshman that plays 5 minutes a game on a team that has two big offensive players. How polished do you expect him to be? Some of our fans are completely unrealistic. He'd need 100+ minutes to show any comfortability on offense and that would come after many mistakes.

We aren't talking about a kid that plays 25 minutes a night here.
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I still feel like one can at least be a threat on offense without being polished, was hoping Prey could be somewhere in the middle of that at this point given his international experience and practicing with the team all year
 
logen said:
Yes I certainly can, potentially committing a stupid foul is not remotely a good reason to not play defense on a makeable shot, which since it went in, I assume you would agree that it was.
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I'd gave him that shot all day, 15% at best. Longest 3 I've seen made all year.
 
Joedib said:
Err, I think I go with coach on this one. Coach does have a lot of expertise in this area.
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He's certainly one of the greatest of all time...but that doesn't mean he's infallible. The last play was a mistake. Pitino pointed out Wilcher made the previous shot...but, other than practice, when has he hit two in a row.
Another thing...we have virtually no scoring from the bench. It's the kiss of death with Smith a non-factor the rest of the way.

Sorry to be such a bummer.
 
Marillac2 said:
He's a 6'10 freshman that plays 5 minutes a game on a team that has two big offensive players. How polished do you expect him to be? Some of our fans are completely unrealistic. He'd need 100+ minutes to show any comfortability on offense and that would come after many mistakes.

We aren't talking about a kid that plays 25 minutes a night here.
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100 minutes to be comfortable on offense. Hahahahaha.

Thats too funny.
 
espken said:
Total liabilities don’t defend the way Prey does.
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Sorry, but we have no scoring off our bench. We dont have the luxury to bring a guy off our bench who cannot score the basketball.

We are playing 4 on 5 on offense when Prey is in the game. Hes a liability and has no business being out there.

But we have nobody else so hes is forced to play.
 
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