Monmouth

[Queens_NYC]

Just got around to watching the replay. Disappointing loss on paper but that Monmouth team looks like they have a good shot at being making the NCAAs so hopefully this just goes down as a Q3 loss.

As others have mentioned, our halfcourt offense is straight up bad, but I also thought we had an abnormally bad/unlucky shooting night.

On one hand, you had guys like DeJulius make more long 2s than they'll likely make in a single game for the rest of the season. However, Madsen, MAW and Davenport missed a fair amount of open 3s (on top of a number of bad ones) and had a few of them rim out as well. Couple that with a below average FT shooting performance and that's the recipe for a team like Monmouth beating us when they only had like a 20% chance going into the game.

 

[waterhead]

Just got around to watching the replay. Disappointing loss on paper but that Monmouth team looks like they have a good shot at being making the NCAAs so hopefully this just goes down as a Q3 loss.

As others have mentioned, our halfcourt offense is straight up bad, but I also thought we had an abnormally bad/unlucky shooting night.

On one hand, you had guys like DeJulius make more long 2s than they'll likely make in a single game for the rest of the season. However, Madsen, MAW and Davenport missed a fair amount of open 3s (on top of a number of bad ones) and had a few of them rim out as well. Couple that with a below average FT shooting performance and that's the recipe for a team like Monmouth beating us when they only had like a 20% chance going into the game.

They made 4 more threes than we did on 12 less attempts. If you look back we have only had one other poor shooting night from 3 and that was 4 of 20 which is 20%. If we limit our attempts to good looks I am confident we can be a 33% shooting team or better (which isn't awesome but serviceable). If we wait to launch bad three balls till late clock I am good with that.


The early clock bombs and running 3 balls need to go away. We need to try to get some touches from the bigs in early clock if we can. Or drive to the rack. Or work the ball. Or use the weave etc. We are going to need a half court offense other than the ISO stuff or hero shots. Time for more X's and O's to see what works.

 

[Loser Mentality]

We may need Davenport to come off the bench.......Since we don't have a "Dribble Driver" at the 2 or 3, it makes Davenport easier to guard.

It's okay to be 100% hustle, but with not to much dribble to his game this year, he may be in for a long season, and teams will key in on that.

We need to continue to feed Ody, to open up some space for our shooters.

It's still early, so we got time to adjust.

 

[waterhead]

We may need Davenport to come off the bench.......Since we don't have a "Dribble Driver" at the 2 or 3, it makes Davenport easier to guard.

It's okay to be 100% hustle, but with not to much dribble to his game this year, he may be in for a long season, and teams will key in on that.

We need to continue to feed Ody, to open up some space for our shooters.

It's still early, so we got time to adjust.

Wes has to set each player up for their bread and butter play. Vik moves his feet well but doesn't have the handles yet. Put it on the ground once or twice and make your move or pass the ball. JD is not good off the bounce unless it's just one or two bounces. He's a spot up guy or post up smaller guy or catch the ball off the cut and float a layup.

Mason should be more of a spot up shooter for the time being until he gets the shot going. Get Mikey to the rack by sealing the post. DD can do his thing. MAW is low volume and usually picks good shots. Newman should be low volume, play D and rebound. Koval low volume 3 and block shots and get put backs. Ado block rebound and put backs. Ody seems to have good shooting touch in short and mid range but doesn't need to dribble.

Time to start with giving green, yellow and red light moments to these guys so we can become more efficient. That doesn't mean we cant take early clock shots...as long as they are green or yellow.

 

[waterhead]

I was looking at BartTorvik and saw we are at #49 on his algorithm. I believe we were #50 after the Monmouth game and around #50 before the Monmouth game. Doesn't seem like that big of a killer game for us all things considered.

It could get worse or it could get better.

 

[sedziobs]

Monmouth was one of those high risk, low reward matchups that I hate. This is the third consecutive season we have lost one of those, after Vanderbilt last year and Colgate the previous year. It might not hurt our Torvik ranking all that much because it's a loss to a decent team, but it's still a bad loss that hurts the resume. I wish we would stop scheduling those.

Luckily we've got Miami on the road tomorrow, which looks like it could to be a Q2 game (they are 115 on Torvik and need to stay in the top 135 NET). The rest of our home matchups should be much easier.

The main reason I'm concerned about the Monmouth game is it didn't seem like a fluke. With a team that doesn't run offense and doesn't rebound all that well, these kind of games are bound to happen several times in a season rather than just once. And our conference is littered as always with Q3/4 landmines (10 of them based on current Torvik rankings, compared to only 8 Q1/2 games).

Hopefully we can gain some shooting consistency and work on our rebounding. The Illinois win was huge and I'm still optimistic that we can pick up some more big wins on good shooting nights. Lots of games left to show what kind of team we are.