I'm a Louisville fan, here's our scouting report, ask me anything...

[shoxlax]

Dieng speaks English now, he didnt when he came.

I have a question. The guy who's clearly mad has stated, several times, that you have the best handlers left in the tournament. I look deeper into the stats and see that Armstead has a 21.4% turnover rate and Vanvleet has a 24.1% turnover rate. Those are really high numbers. The team as a whole turns it over on 19.5% of its possessions. What am I missing? I believe him when he says you have great ball handlers, but why do they turn it over so often?

We play in a league of floppers, which count as turnovers.

Malcolm and FVV have taken care of the ball much better the second half of the season. In Nov-Dec and part of Jan, Malcolm had some really bad games. But now we are seeing the real Malcolm, the one that has shaken the rust off from sitting out a year.

Another improvement is getting Ron Baker back. He is a very steadying influence on this team. We are missing another starter, Evan Wessel, who is the same way.

[ccrunner101]

Dieng speaks English now, he didnt when he came.

I have a question. The guy who's clearly mad has stated, several times, that you have the best handlers left in the tournament. I look deeper into the stats and see that Armstead has a 21.4% turnover rate and Vanvleet has a 24.1% turnover rate. Those are really high numbers. The team as a whole turns it over on 19.5% of its possessions. What am I missing? I believe him when he says you have great ball handlers, but why do they turn it over so often?

Good question as the numbers surpise me as well. My guess would be a lot of the turnovers would be on post entry passes or passes after driving to the hole. I cant think of one time all year Fred or Malcolm has turned it over bringing the ball up the court or passing it ahead and having it stolen resulting in a break a way.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I don't quite understand what your purpose of existence is, Cold. You complain of trolls, then you complain about a guy who absolutely isn't a troll, who provides a solid 2000+ word post on our forum for free. It's a better break down of Ville than I have seen on any news website.

Get over yourself.

+1

Plenty of stuff to complain about. This Louisville guy isn't one of them.

[ABC]

Re-watching both the OSU and La Salle games, both VanVleet and especially Armstead try to be too cute sometimes with their passes, attempting just stupid passes.

[Joneildu]

Here's a good video breaking down the Louisville's high screen, full court press, and their matchup zone.

[C0|dB|00ded]

I don't quite understand what your purpose of existence is, Cold. You complain of trolls, then you complain about a guy who absolutely isn't a troll, who provides a solid 2000+ word post on our forum for free. It's a better break down of Ville than I have seen on any news website.

Get over yourself.

What an odd, odd post laced with all kinds of personal issues that probably should be kept private.

And for the record, I have never "complained" about a "troll" in my life. Their occasional visit is the spice of any forum's recipe.


T


...:cool:

[C0|dB|00ded]

Dieng speaks English now, he didnt when he came.

I have a question. The guy who's clearly mad has stated, several times, that you have the best handlers left in the tournament. I look deeper into the stats and see that Armstead has a 21.4% turnover rate and Vanvleet has a 24.1% turnover rate. Those are really high numbers. The team as a whole turns it over on 19.5% of its possessions. What am I missing? I believe him when he says you have great ball handlers, but why do they turn it over so often?

Joneildu,

Since we are having a frank discussion here about strengths and weaknesses of both programs, I wanted to get your opinion on the impact the recent scandal involving coach Pitino has had with regard to recruiting, donations, etc.

The one I'm speaking about involves Karen Cunagin Sypher and her extortion attemps against Pitino for her alleged rape by him. For those that are unaware; August 11, 2009 Pitino admitted to having engaged in sexual relations with Cunagin on August 1, 2003 in a Louisville restaurant, Porcini's. Several weeks later, Cunagin told Pitino that she was pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, but she did not have health insurance. Pitino paid her $3,000 for an abortion. At a press conference on August 12, Pitino made a statement, in which he apologized for his indiscretion and stated that he would remain as coach.[20] While Pitino's contract allows for his firing for "acts of moral depravity or misconduct that damages the university's reputation," University of Louisville president James Ramsey announced on August 13 that Pitino would be retained in his position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Pitino


What was your opinion of the whole deal? Did you lose faith in coach Pitino? Did several large boosters turn their back on the program? Or did everybody just brush it off and go back to business as usual?


The second issue involved Pitino at an earlier date getting his hands messy with the NCAA:

Pitino's time at Hawaii was marred by a 1977 NCAA report on sanctions against the program. According to the report, Pitino was implicated in 8 of the 64 infractions that led the University to be placed on probation. The violations involving Pitino included providing round-trip air fare for a player between New York and Honolulu, arranging for student-athletes to receive used cars for season tickets, and handing out coupons to players for free food atMcDonald's. He was also cited, along with the head coach, Bruce O'Neil, for providing misinformation to the NCAA and University of Hawaii officials. Also in 1977, the NCAA infractions committee recommended that Pitino and O'Neil be disassociated from Hawaii athletics. In 1989, Pitino would dismiss the report, saying "I didn't make any mistakes, I don't care what anybody says."[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Pitino


I find that report interesting because Wichita State was also involved in some NCAA violations in the early 80's and our coach was eventually fired. It appears Pitino was able to brush off those slipups and regain his reputation until the Karen Sypher issue hit the news.

What is your fan bases general opinion of Rick Pitino? Has he been unfairly treated over the years or do you guys have the attitude that if he keeps winning all can be forgiven?


T


...:cool:

[Joneildu]

I don't know why I'm even entertaining that line of questioning. It's BBN level of maturity.

Pitino cheated on his wife. That's egregious. She forgave him. I couldn't care less about his personal life. I'm a pro-choice atheist, the abortion affects me in no way, shape, or form. You also left out the part where pitino was extorted and the lady is now incarcerated. It hasn't had any noticeable affect on the program. There was no reason the NCAA had any reason to be involved. Any line of thinking otherwise is asinine. That was, at best, a university issue if he had a conduct clause in his contract.

Bringing up the 35 year old Hawaii allegations is hilarious. Reach further.

What an odd, odd post laced with all kinds of personal issues that probably should be kept private. I find, in my experience, that armchair psychologists are much more delusional than the people they pretend to analyze.

N

...:cool:

[deep3card]

Joneildu,

Since we are having a frank discussion here about strengths and weaknesses of both programs, I wanted to get your opinion on the impact the recent scandal involving coach Pitino has had with regard to recruiting, donations, etc.

The one I'm speaking about involves Karen Cunagin Sypher and her extortion attemps against Pitino for her alleged rape by him. For those that are unaware; August 11, 2009 Pitino admitted to having engaged in sexual relations with Cunagin on August 1, 2003 in a Louisville restaurant, Porcini's. Several weeks later, Cunagin told Pitino that she was pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, but she did not have health insurance. Pitino paid her $3,000 for an abortion. At a press conference on August 12, Pitino made a statement, in which he apologized for his indiscretion and stated that he would remain as coach.[20] While Pitino's contract allows for his firing for "acts of moral depravity or misconduct that damages the university's reputation," University of Louisville president James Ramsey announced on August 13 that Pitino would be retained in his position. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Pitino


What was your opinion of the whole deal? Did you lose faith in coach Pitino? Did several large boosters turn their back on the program? Or did everybody just brush it off and go back to business as usual?


The second issue involved Pitino at an earlier date getting his hands messy with the NCAA:

Pitino's time at Hawaii was marred by a 1977 NCAA report on sanctions against the program. According to the report, Pitino was implicated in 8 of the 64 infractions that led the University to be placed on probation. The violations involving Pitino included providing round-trip air fare for a player between New York and Honolulu, arranging for student-athletes to receive used cars for season tickets, and handing out coupons to players for free food atMcDonald's. He was also cited, along with the head coach, Bruce O'Neil, for providing misinformation to the NCAA and University of Hawaii officials. Also in 1977, the NCAA infractions committee recommended that Pitino and O'Neil be disassociated from Hawaii athletics. In 1989, Pitino would dismiss the report, saying "I didn't make any mistakes, I don't care what anybody says."[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Pitino


I find that report interesting because Wichita State was also involved in some NCAA violations in the early 80's and our coach was eventually fired. It appears Pitino was able to brush off those slipups and regain his reputation until the Karen Sypher issue hit the news.

What is your fan bases general opinion of Rick Pitino? Has he been unfairly treated over the years or do you guys have the attitude that if he keeps winning all can be forgiven?


T


...:cool:

These are some really great sarcastic jabs. Seriously, we've never heard any of this before. NEVER. Congrats on being the first intelligent person to bring up these fascinating points.

For a non-sarcastic reply: Our opinion of Pitino overall is very dynamic. Some people are just happy we're winning with a guy who used to be the coach at Kentucky (our bitter, bitter rival) and still don't really like him as a result of that, but generally speaking will deal with it, because he's brought the program success after Denny Crum left us with very little in the late 90's. Others are pleased as punch that we could get a future HOF coach to replace a HOF coach regardless. If anyone cared about what a coach did nearly 40 years ago, there wouldn't be many coaches on the sidelines today as well. I have no clue about what he did in 1977, nor do I care, if the NCAA doesn't care.

Sypher was convicted of extortion and is in jail. If you judge men by their personal relationships, then there's an awful lot of hypocrites out there considering the divorce rate in this country.

There was a lot of negativity among our fan base after the 2010-11 season. We had 1 Final Four trip in his tenure at that time, flopped as the overall #1 seed in Indy to Michigan St in 2009, and lost in the first round of the tournament 2 years in a row after that. People began to wonder if he still had it. Apparently, he does.

[Kung Wu]

Yeah, well, our 7 footer from Africa speaks 6 languages and is on pace to graduate in 3 years. So, there... :)

Good discussion between fans so far, keep it going.

Oh yeah!? Well our 7' 6" Nigerian behemoth can do sign language in six different dialects, sprinkles leaded paint chips over the bolts and screws he eats for cereal in the morning, and can deflower a woman just by winking at her.

[Kung Wu]

I look deeper into the stats and see that Armstead has a 21.4% turnover rate and Vanvleet has a 24.1% turnover rate. Those are really high numbers. The team as a whole turns it over on 19.5% of its possessions. What am I missing? I believe him when he says you have great ball handlers, but why do they turn it over so often?

This is going to sound a little arrogant, and I think HC3GM has spoken with them about it, but they were intentionally giving the ball back to lesser to teams so that they could rack up their steal counts. Petty I know, but I think they have cut that out for the post season.

[C0|dB|00ded]

These are some really great sarcastic jabs. Seriously, we've never heard any of this before. NEVER. Congrats on being the first intelligent person to bring up these fascinating points.

For a non-sarcastic reply: Our opinion of Pitino overall is very dynamic. Some people are just happy we're winning with a guy who used to be the coach at Kentucky (our bitter, bitter rival) and still don't really like him as a result of that, but generally speaking will deal with it, because he's brought the program success after Denny Crum left us with very little in the late 90's. Others are pleased as punch that we could get a future HOF coach to replace a HOF coach regardless. If anyone cared about what a coach did nearly 40 years ago, there wouldn't be many coaches on the sidelines today as well. I have no clue about what he did in 1977, nor do I care, if the NCAA doesn't care.

Sypher was convicted of extortion and is in jail. If you judge men by their personal relationships, then there's an awful lot of hypocrites out there considering the divorce rate in this country.

There was a lot of negativity among our fan base after the 2010-11 season. We had 1 Final Four trip in his tenure at that time, flopped as the overall #1 seed in Indy to Michigan St in 2009, and lost in the first round of the tournament 2 years in a row after that. People began to wonder if he still had it. Apparently, he does.

Thanks for the honest reply. I really am just curious about it all.

I know Wichita State fans are particularly proud of how our team (and coach) carry themselves in the public arena with respect to morality. You never hear about our coach or players making the news for reasons other than athletic or academic success. We like to poke fun at KU with their penis/knife-wielding players. But I wonder, have you guys had any public embarrassments in recent memory where players act like thugs, get arrested, etc.? If so, how has that affected the U of L fanbase with respect to fanbase morale?


T


...:cool:

[Cdizzle]

We play in a league of floppers, which count as turnovers.

Malcolm and FVV have taken care of the ball much better the second half of the season. In Nov-Dec and part of Jan, Malcolm had some really bad games. But now we are seeing the real Malcolm, the one that has shaken the rust off from sitting out a year.

Another improvement is getting Ron Baker back. He is a very steadying influence on this team. We are missing another starter, Evan Wessel, who is the same way.

Nailed it. I would be very interested to know what % of our TOs are from offensive fouls. I bet it is one of, if not the highest rate in the country.

That alone doesn't explain the guard numbers though. We probably average at least one guard TO/game from an ill-advised pass to Orupke. Also note that WSU has played a number of the Top 10 steals teams in the country. We averaged less TOs and had very similar steals numbers against those teams. I'll have to look up my old post about that. I've adopted more of a Assists+Steals to TO ratio for this year. Little credit is being given to our ability to turn folks over, which is great. We haven't needed to press in the tournament because we have been up 15 early in the second half, which is when we usually utilize the press. I can only hope that Louisville watches the OSU 2nd half and is licking their chops, because that was not very representative of this team's ability to handle pressure.

I believe this is going to be a very interesting chess match.

[deep3card]

Thanks for the honest reply. I really am just curious about it all.

I know Wichita State fans are particularly proud of how our team (and coach) carry themselves in the public arena with respect to morality. You never hear about our coach or players making the news for reasons other than athletic or academic success. We like to poke fun at KU with their penis/knife-wielding players. But I wonder, have you guys had any public embarrassments in recent memory where players act like thugs, get arrested, etc.? If so, how has that affected the U of L fanbase with respect to fanbase morale?


T


...:cool:

We did have a player early in Pitino's tenure (2003, IIRC) who was accused of check fraud and was kicked off the team after being arrested. We're a program who is treated as the little brother of UK, our fan base takes pride in the quality of our players, and seeing the thugs that John Calipari puts out (DeMarcus Cousins is a great example) makes us that much more proud of the team this year (similar to you and KU), and we saw a lot about the team character through the injury to Ware.

Also, our teams pride themselves on getting work done in the classroom. We just posted a team GPA of 3.41 in the Fall semester with 15 of 17 players making over a 3.0. Peyton Siva leads a bible study group on campus, and we just have very few egos to deal with, which is very refreshing. The only 'ego' on the team is Chane Behanan, and with him being Ware's best friend on the team, I'd imagine he'd be a little more focused on the team now, since he was the one wearing the #5 jersey at the end of the Duke game.

Many people disliked the characters Pitino recruited at Kentucky, but I think he's also grown from the Sypher incident, and the quality of his recruits has been basketball AND character focused much more than in previous years. Terrence Williams (playing for the Celtics) was the biggest head case, and likely the reason we lost in the E8 in 2009.

[deep3card]

Nailed it. I would be very interested to know what % of our TOs are from offensive fouls. I bet it is one of, if not the highest rate in the country.

That alone doesn't explain the guard numbers though. We probably average at least one guard TO/game from an ill-advised pass to Orupke. Also note that WSU has played a number of the Top 10 steals teams in the country. We averaged less TOs and had very similar steals numbers against those teams. I'll have to look up my old post about that. I've adopted more of a Assists+Steals to TO ratio for this year. Little credit is being given to our ability to turn folks over, which is great. We haven't needed to press in the tournament because we have been up 15 early in the second half, which is when we usually utilize the press. I can only hope that Louisville watches the OSU 2nd half and is licking their chops, because that was not very representative of this team's ability to handle pressure.

I believe this is going to be a very interesting chess match.

What makes your defense so strong? What scheme(s) do you run? I read the stats and was curious about your defensive style, because I didn't really pick up on anything significant in the OSU game, but it was effective in stopping them enough, and they missed an awful lot of open shots. We credit missed open shots to tired legs from dealing with our pressure, but I haven't seen you guys press much during the tourney, yet I've been impressed with your defensive FG% overall.