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Marshall has stated that we need SHJ and MM to carry us if we have any shot this year. They are the two most immature players on the team. I think he needs to pull back the reigns on that philosophy and quickly. They aren’t go-to players and clearly aren’t skilled enough to ever be go-to players and load-carriers. Just because they’re seniors doesn’t mean their skill set magically changes. And quite frankly, the freshmen and newcomers seem to have a better understanding for running a system than these guys, who have been in the program for years. It’s simply mind-boggling.
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Deuces Valley.
... No really, deuces.
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"Enjoy the ride."
- a smart man -
I was just about to post this. My biggest concern out of this game and the post-conference is the fact that Marshall says we need to ride McDuffie. I don't see it. There are other players on these team we can ride. There will be bumps, but IMO it will make McDuffie play better too. If we are going to waste a year, let's waste it developing a bunch of promising freshmen not a senior that will be in Europe next year.Originally posted by ShockerFever View PostComment
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15 pts on 24 shots and 9 FT attempts ....Comment
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We all know Marshall favors experience early in the year, which is why no one is really surprised SHJ, MM, and AM are currently starting. But he can't keep rolling those three out there every night. They are not leaders on the court. They are not making the team better. We are not a tournament team. Marshall has to look at this team and find the guys best suited to lead, and being older does not make you a leader.
I'd much rather see Stevenson, DD, Burton, Rod Brown and JE taking bumps but learning then wasting their first year so MM and SHJ can have their senior fun.Comment
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“We’re still going to ride him,” Marshall said. “He’s still our best player, he’s just got to be more efficient.
Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...#storylink=cpy
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This is Coach speak. He, after the first game, can't say anything else. He has to still show some level of confidence in MM publicly so MM can at least have a mental boost going into the next game. But I predict if we are 0-5 that all will be right down the toilet and your wish will be granted. Like I said, he is not fond of losing.Comment
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This loss is on the seniors. Quit sucking, show some leadership or go home and let the young guys take over and develop.Comment
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Wow. Lotta action. Lot. Of. Action. I finally got caught up on the comments so I can repeat as little as possible. Initial thoughts and reactions:
BIG PICTURE
FTs - I see a lot of comments about how many free throws were missed, but no mention of how many were front ends of 1 and 1s. If we hit the front ends and 75 percent and squeak out a win, my parallel universe crystal ball says the board is full of "I'm not worried", "we can work with this", and "freshmen are freshmen but at least they found a way to win".
Leadership - Fred is my second favorite all time Shocker after X, and Ron was a helluva leader also. But if you take those two guys and stick them on this team instead of SHJ and MM, we're still discussing how to make the NIT instead of NCAA tournament seeding. They had each other, and far more often than not they had extremely seasoned alpha dogs with them in Malcolm, Cle, Carl, Gabe, Chadrack, etc. SHJ and MM don't have anybody else right now.
After any other offseason but this one, an Alex Lomax-quality point guard probably results in a W and 3-5 wins on the season.
THE GOOD
Yurview. At least for me, a major upgrade from ESPN3.
THE NOT BAD AND MAYBE THERE'S SOMETHING TO WORK WITH HERE
I saw decent composure against full court pressure by several non-PGs in their first real game.
Nice effort from Stevenson. Dennis is intriguing.
I got a similar ping of comfort from JB handling himself at a young age as I did with Tekele Cotton.
THE BAD
Udeze looks thick and slow, which was the read from a friend of mine whose son played against him in AAU. Conditioning can help, but usually guys don't get more agile as they age unless they sell out and pull a Kevin Love.
Every time I watch SHJ play I think about a postgame interview he did last year where Dave or Mike asked him about the difference between the plays and offenses in Juco and in D1. His response was "well we only had 1 or 2 set plays at Hutch and outside of that everybody just kind of did what they did". Which makes me shake my head and laugh about how it's good that death, taxes, and Steve Eck's MO are the only three things in the universe that don't change in 4 decades. I'm pulling for the kid, but it's a little hard to expect him to play PG in the AAC and make those level of decisions when he doesn't have the high school or JuCo background to do so.
THE UGLY
Contrary to most on here, even though they see,ed to go in I always hated watching MM finish his drives his freshman year at a 45 degree angle and then falling on the ground. That's a low percentage shot at any level of basketball. Knock it off or take a seat.
I don't know what the distribution curve looks like for D1 free throws (someone with a KenPom subscription, help us out), but if that was possible last night I think we should look for a 65 percent effort over the entire season as a middle of the road outcome. 70 percent is a win, 75 percent is magic.
I hope I'm not hearing or seeing resignation in 3G's voice or body language. But I thought I did during the game and after the game.
THE UGLIEST
Lotta new posters on here, with a heavy skew to negative. As most of our coaches probably told us at one time or another, you were given twice as many ears as mouths for a reason.
3G deserves WAY more than one game before being second guessed. That should be measured in seasons.
Onward and Upward,
Good News
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"SHJ and MM don't have anybody else right now."
There is a lot in this post, but this jumped out. I disagree 1000000%... They have a lot of talent around them, but when the majority of the shots you are taking are early in the shot clock and are bullrushing the rim or fading away, you aren't using that talent to YOUR advantage. There were multiple times they just had to make ONE pass to a wide open teammate under the basket but instead tried to pull off the highlight play and missed badly or got blocked. -
I was talking about leadership, critical mass, whatever you want to call it where there are multiple experienced lead dogs that can leverage off of each other. I wasn't talking about shot selection or trying to justify the lack thereof on the part of SHJ or MM. I see how it could have come across that way, but that's not what I meant. Another way to say it would have been that they're being asked to shoulder a greater percentage of leadership than Fred or Ron ever had to because Evan, Carl, Malcom, Cle, etc. etc. etc. were around. And unfortunately they probably don't have quite the leadership ability that some of those guys did so it's translating into trying to do too much.
Completely agree that the goal of the offense should be what it always has been - set screens and move to create a high percentage shot, not jacking up poor shots early in the shot clock instead of making the extra pass. And that includes ES' heat check 3 (after hitting 2) that was unnecessary and got him a seat next to coach...
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You forget quickly. Remember the team when FVV was hurt early in the year. Baker was the PG and we struggled early and lost several games. Shaq wasn’t ready yet. That team still had lots of experience and had to find their way. There will be changes made, the players who play will be trimmed, and rebounding will improve. We will get better. However, I predicted 18 wins and may have been optimistic. I just hope we aren’t mauled by Providence. We have some good young pieces but they aren’t ready for prime time yet. Our bigs are all projects. They will improve but may not soon enough.Comment
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I don't want to pile on MM of SHJ. And I dont even care that they took 24 shots. Its the 24 shots that they took, for the most part, were effing stupid! MM cannot create his own shot, neither can Jones, and yet, tgats what they are trying to do.
If they are running the offense and get open on the outside, by all means, take it. When I see a fall away 17 ft jumper when we are down 5 or 6 and getting stops.....
MM has always been the garbage man getting put backs. Also being tall and able to knock down a 3 from the wing.
Thats pretty much it. Stop doing more than what you are capable of doing. Thats all we need.
Jones needs to facilitate the offense and distribute the ball to Dennis the bigs, prefferable echinique.
Shoot when the defender sags, and avoid dribble drives, cause you turn it over half the time.
The future is ES, DD and Burton. They are going to lead us to great things!! Maybe even this year, depending on how quickly their learning curve is."When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." Better have some sugar and water too, or else your lemonade will suck!Comment
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If "The Buck Stops Here" is true, then I agree that HCGM takes the blame. But, I believe he HAD to know this coming into this season. For reasons we/I can't see (we're not there daily, as he is) he saw the best option going forward was a total rework of the players. Staff changes were somewhat unpredicted, but didn't help. He HAS to see something in MM and SHJ that we don't. But, I also agree that losing will not sit well; he won't play folks who can't contribute just because of class rank.
Post game comments for confidence are one thing; I'd HATE to be in practice the next few weeks. I'm guessing very few will feel good about themselves.Comment
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Just logged on. What did everyone expect? If our seniors are going to play like that we aren't going to win very many games. It's a shame they have not improved more but this is the hand we have. We are talking about the majority of La Tech's roster having 60+ games of Division 1 experience. Majority of our roster? 0 games of Division 1 experience. Stevenson and Echenique were everything you could ask of newcomers. Burton and Dennis are going to have solid careers here as well. I'm about 87% sure after last night that Teddy Allen is probably our most valuable player and likely our team's most vocal leader. If eligible he would help this team immensely, but would he elevate this team to an NCAA tournament bid? Very unlikely. Ricky Torres has been a space cadet so far. I'm hoping he will get more comfortable and we can slowly decrease Samajae's minutes. I think Udeze and Poor Bear will get better as the season goes on.
Enjoy the ride. Our best players are all newcomers. Save the hot takes for February and March when these guys have been given an opportunity to acclimate.Comment
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