EAST CAROLINA (9-10, 2-4) at WICHITA STATE (8-10, 0-5) Game Thread

[WuDrWu]

Here's a point that's being missed (best as I can tell):


Yes, we're turning over the basketball at a rate that is beyond troublesome.

Yes, a great deal of that stems from horrific passes.

But what I see that's being missed and must be addressed is the number of times we dribble into trouble which makes the passes so much more difficult.


How many times do we dribble into a double team? Or invite a trap by turning our back to the defense/basket?

How many times do we invite pressure by dribbling TO the sideline or baseline, creating another defender (out of bounds) and all of a sudden it's 6 on 5 or 7 on 5.

Sometimes (too often) we do all of them....dribble, turn away and we're in the corner. Making an effective pass out of these situations is all but impossible for the most skilled basketball player.


We also tend to pick up our dribble without a pass in mind. That invites pressure...and we do it WAY TOO OFTEN. Don't think for a millisecond other teams haven't picked up on this and include it in the scout.


You HAVE to keep your dribble until you're ready to shoot or pass. You HAVE to NOT turn away from defenders/basket.

You HAVE to stay away from sidelines, baselines, and half court lines with the ball.

And you HAVE to communicate, properly, to teammates when traps are coming.


These are all incredibly fixable shortcomings that will suppress many of these turnovers. You can't prevent all of them, and the defense will sometimes just make better plays, but you CAN limit their opportunities. Right now, we are doing very little limiting.

And yes, some of it has to do with less skilled ball handlers, and many of us said that was always going to be a problem. But you can teach these skills. To anyone.

[LoneStar48]

College athletics approaches things differently than the pros. The best and richest teams get the pick of the litter. The worst and poorest teams get to fight over the runts.

As the Wichita State's reputation is in decline we continue to move down in the pecking order. Making recovery increasingly more difficult.

It puts the team into a catch 22; they can't get better without better players but they can't get better players without getting better. I would love to see coach's plan to upgrade the talent; that might give me some hope.

[RoyalShock]

https://twitter.com/tayloreldridge/s...35791392715105

That series of clips from Taylor gives me hope in Mills' coaching ability. We just don't have the players to make shots, not make stupid mistakes, and play solid team defense.

[shockrah]

https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...284667836.html

"I have no ****ing idea what I am doing."

The video in that story.....it's like we are some type of turnover clown car. They just keep coming.

[Singeril]

College athletics approaches things differently than the pros. The best and richest teams get the pick of the litter. The worst and poorest teams get to fight over the runts.

As the Wichita State's reputation is in decline we continue to move down in the pecking order. Making recovery increasingly more difficult.

Obviously, I was kidding concerning "the draft". No matter what we do, how well we play, we are going to fight a huge battle going forward because of NIL and what appears to be a real lack of anything getting organized. I'm afraid that our "troubles" are going to continue for some time (even with me being intrigued by the new player coming in from Heights). But, we need so much more.

[1972Shocker]

What's your issue with Muma? Quite frankly, since he officially took over he's pretty much been killing it from what I've seen. Saal seemed like a good hire at the time, he definitely spoke a great game, but it's looking bad at the moment. He might be able to salvage something if the new baseball coach can be a bright spot. I'm not sure how the baseball fans here are feeling about that hire right now. I do know it seemed pretty lackluster from the outside when it was made, but I don't follow baseball all that closely to know if there's reason to think it'll work out or whatever.

Nooner is looking bad, but our women's program has been pretty bad since Jody left. He will probably get a little more time to get things turned around than someone like Mills because the women's team isn't a money maker and doesn't drive anything.

It's a shame that the sports we're currently good at don't generate revenue. I'd love to see softball grow in support. Those ladies are a lot of fun to watch and they win. T&F has never been a huge spectator sport outside of major national/international events. Bowling...

Coach MIlls and Coach Nooner are quite similar, in my opinion, in that their teams are not very good nor are they very entertaining to watch. In addition, neither of those teams, as currently assembled, don't seem to offer much hope that things will get better. As you say Coach Nooner has the advantage of coaching a team that flies under the radar and that has little tradition of success outside of the Jody Adams/Alex Harden years. Ironically, Jody's tenure pretty much mirrored that of Gregg Marshall. Both lacked a tough minded AD that could help keep them in line and under control. Things may have been much different if Jim Schaus had hung around. Jim was probably the guy the big money people needed to get behind and try to keep around. This could change but at this point I see no light at the end of the tunnel. So it is impossible to tell how long that tunnel is.

The jury is still out for Coach Green who is still in his honeymoon stage. Seems like we have some good, young talent and while we were hurt badly with the portal,NIL he and his staff did a fairly good job in keeping a good chunk of the recruiting class in tact. I was impressed that the Shocks beat Dallas Baptist 7-6 in a 14-inning scrimmage in Dallas. But at this point we have very little to go one.

Clearly though Wichita State simply cannot afford a disaster with Men's basketball and if Paul Mills proves to be a bad hire the continuing damage to the athletic programs financial standing could be existential for the Wichita State athletic program.

Even if Coach Green and Coach Nooner are successful, it will not come close to covering the damage that a melt down of the men's basketball program would cause. Absent the very big money donors stepping in to try to buy our way out of this situation, and as far as I can tell there does not appear to much appetite for that right now, then our options are very limited.

The Wichita State Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Inc. is nearing (and may already be) technically insolvent. Meaning their liabilities exceed their assets. As of the last published financials for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023 the WSU-ICAA had a net worth (assets minus liabilities) of $740k. The was a decline of $6.1 million from June 30, 2022. $5 million of that decline was due the booking of new severance pay obligations (presumably Isaac Brown and Eric Wedge). So even disregarding the severance pay hit the ICAA lost $1.1 million. Good chance that will be repeated, if not worse, in fiscal 2024.

Now the ICAA can continue to operate. As of June 30, 2023 the ICAA had total liabilities of $15.5 million. Severance pay accounted for $8.4 million (54%). Payout of the severance pay obligations has no effect on the ICAA net worth as assets (cash) and liabilities (severance pay) are reduced in equal amounts. However, losing $1 million per year without regard to severance pay does reduce the net worth by that much each year. The math is pretty simple. $740k at 06/30/23 less $1mil per year puts the net work at a negative $2.26 million in 3 years and it could easily be worse if current trends continue. ADKS' challenge is to find the funds either by increasing annual cash flow (raising revenues and/or cutting expenses) or enticing donors or other revenue sources to fund the shortfalls.

I have not lost total hope that it will work out but I am definitely in the majorly concerned category.

[SubGod22]

I'm afraid that our "troubles" are going to continue for some time (even with me being intrigued by the new player coming in from Heights).

I wonder what TJ's NIL deal is worth compared to what the current team members. TJ is already a brand ambassador and making money from NIL. I have no idea how much, but he was at an event recently where he was signing autographs and I'm guessing he got paid for his time if not his signature(s).

[shox7]

Doc, you are 100% correct about dribbling into double teams or the sideline. I don’t have much confidence that our offense as we know it under Coach Mills is going to get much better this year. I would suggest that with the 9 players he is now playing maybe it is time to try pressing on defense to help create offense. With QB back on defense he could possibly erase some shots if a team beats the press. By pressing it might also give our team a boost in energy. I am not saying press 40 minutes but why not try it for 10 minutes a game. We have really struggled coming out after halftime and pressing might give us a boost.

[WstateU]

Warning, this is graphic...

[ShockTalk]

You were right. VERY graphic.

[WuDrWu]

FYI There were less than 4300 hundred through the gates Wednesday and that includes probably a couple hundred student athletes for halftime. Another 500 students, and basically no one paying was there.

[Stickboy46]

Warning, this is graphic...

The most painful part of all of that .. there is almost zero movement in any of those. One or two of them had someone cutting, but most of them have 4 players not with the ball just standing. If there was movement it was often just players switching positions by jogging to another point on the court

[1972Shocker]

The most painful part of all of that .. there is almost zero movement in any of those. One or two of them had someone cutting, but most of them have 4 players not with the ball just standing. If there was movement it was often just players switching positions by jogging to another point on the court

That was the first thing I noticed as well. That is never going to work and should be blatantly obvious to Coach Mills and his staff. It seems counter-intuitive to trash everything you put in this year and try to install some kind of new, motion offense but how could the results be worse.

[RoyalShock]

Here is the team coming out of the locker room at halftime. I didn't realize just how bereft of energy they are. Also, not that when Bell was given a ball to begin shooting around, the first thing he did was turn the ball over. At least he's consistent.

[BostonWu]

A picture speaks a thousand words. That clip is damning.