We cannot play the clock. It just doesnt work for this team. We have to play the whole game like itâs the first 4 minutes, and weâll be fine. Or, maybe you put Colby in late in games with leads and we just run offense to get him a look. But dont ask our typical rotation guys to eat time. The only effective play we have in that situation is to let Henry try to do it by himself, but GaSo picked up on that real quick and ran two guys at him every time.
Other than that, I love the hustle, and most of the decision making. I love how aggressively we attack the basket. Now we just have to execute better. Way too many TOs last night, and we have to keep up the FT% above 70% to make teams pay for hacking us.
I dont want to jinx it, and I do realize it was against two small teams, but that is two games in a row where we held a team with no FGs for over 10 minutes, and if David Scott was right, we held these guys to only 1 FG for almost 17 minutes. Thatâs nearly a half. With Freshmen and Sophomores. That is amazing regardless of who you are playing.
BTW - does this team remind anyone else of a Jeff Mullins team? Maybe a little more athletic but without a proven jumpshooter like Mullins usually had.
I agree with you 100%. The visitors side was weak last night. Total attendance broke 5800 but thatâs it. The problem is attendance has already suffered for two years straight due to rebuilding (not winning). However, if we could somehow come back from the Alaska shoot out unscathed, I think we may start to see that uptick in attendance. As bare as it was in there last night, there were people on the GSU boards envious and wishing they had âbig rowdy crowdsâ like ours. So it goes to show we could have it worse, although winning will make everything even better. I hope we can break the 7500 mark at least once or twice this year. Time will tell.
With as bad as our FT can be, I donât ever want to see us let up. If we let teams crawl back into games and force foul shots on us at the end, there is a very real chance we could lose the game.
The optimist in me says Major is using these big leads as learning opportunities for end-of-game situations where we want the last shot. We had a comfortable enough lead that we could risk slowing the game down.
That said, I really wish weâd keep the gas pedal down until the clock hits zero and stomp all over one of these bad teams.[/quote]
Pretty much my one complaint at this point.
We need shooters. No pressure Demario, but you gotta be able to knock a few of them down. When was the last time we had a game in Halton where we hit 1 3 and that 1 3 was shot by a big man?
The optimist in me says Major is using these big leads as learning opportunities for end-of-game situations where we want the last shot. We had a comfortable enough lead that we could risk slowing the game down.
That said, I really wish weâd keep the gas pedal down until the clock hits zero and stomp all over one of these bad teams.[/quote]
Pretty much my one complaint at this point.
We need shooters. No pressure Demario, but you gotta be able to knock a few of them down. When was the last time we had a game in Halton where we hit 1 3 and that 1 3 was shot by a big man?[/quote]
Whatâs more, when was the last time we attempted only 7 threes in an entire game? :o [size=4]SEVEN[/size] :o
I told HotRod that last night. Reminds me a lot of some of the very first Niner teams I saw play in the early 90s. Solid D and an offense that could get it done but wasnât always pretty. The key is having that one player that can make something happen - Henry, Dinkins, etc.
For the first time in a few years I got that chance to watch the guys play. Ugly indeed. However these guys play HARD. In fact I saw a number of plays defensively where are guys were so intense that they ended up hustling themselves out of position and giving up a few easy plays. We may need to notch the intensity down just a bit to control things, but you can tell that this team is well coached. The boys play hard and played smart.
[quote=âjfickett, post:9, topic:27113â]There were a couple of moments last night when our players had an open look in the 17-22 ft range and acted genuinely hesitant to shoot the ball. In each of those situations, we ended up driving to the basket and either getting a layup or drawing a foul. It was absolutely beautiful to watch. In the past, we would have jacked those shots up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
We had only attempted 4 treys at the half. Major is tailoring our offensive scheme to the players he has. I think heâs starting to show a little bit of growth as a coach. Our players certainly look to be buying in to his philosophy.
Encouraging signs for things to come. It was an ugly game, but they are all going to be ugly from here on out. We are going to be in a lot of games because of the way we defend. One concern for us going forward is that we must figure out a way to break the 2-3 and box and one. We are never going to be able to shoot teams out of zones, so we need to figure out a way to beat them with physicality and hard cuts to the basket. Weâve had a definite size advantage in these first two games. I hope we can continue to play with this kind of oomph when we play teams that match up with us a little better.
2-0. Keep it rollin.[/quote]
The downside to that is you never want scared shooters, its a bit of a double edge sword.
[quote=âHellsbells, post:32, topic:27113â][quote=âjfickett, post:9, topic:27113â]There were a couple of moments last night when our players had an open look in the 17-22 ft range and acted genuinely hesitant to shoot the ball. In each of those situations, we ended up driving to the basket and either getting a layup or drawing a foul. It was absolutely beautiful to watch. In the past, we would have jacked those shots up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
We had only attempted 4 treys at the half. Major is tailoring our offensive scheme to the players he has. I think heâs starting to show a little bit of growth as a coach. Our players certainly look to be buying in to his philosophy.
Encouraging signs for things to come. It was an ugly game, but they are all going to be ugly from here on out. We are going to be in a lot of games because of the way we defend. One concern for us going forward is that we must figure out a way to break the 2-3 and box and one. We are never going to be able to shoot teams out of zones, so we need to figure out a way to beat them with physicality and hard cuts to the basket. Weâve had a definite size advantage in these first two games. I hope we can continue to play with this kind of oomph when we play teams that match up with us a little better.
2-0. Keep it rollin.[/quote]
The downside to that is you never want scared shooters, its a bit of a double edge sword.[/quote]
Thatâs absolutely fair. I guess my point was that for the first time since Iâve been following this team (06-07), our players now understand that just because you have an open look within the flow of the offense, it doesnât mean that you have to shoot. Especially when driving to the hoop has been a more effective strategy against the particular team you are facing.
I agree that we donât want players that are scared to shoot the ball, but watching our players take the extra fraction of a second to reconsider shooting a jumper when there may be a higher percentage look available is a welcome change in Niners bball.
The optimist in me says Major is using these big leads as learning opportunities for end-of-game situations where we want the last shot. We had a comfortable enough lead that we could risk slowing the game down.
That said, I really wish weâd keep the gas pedal down until the clock hits zero and stomp all over one of these bad teams.[/quote]
Pretty much my one complaint at this point.
We need shooters. No pressure Demario, but you gotta be able to knock a few of them down. When was the last time we had a game in Halton where we hit 1 3 and that 1 3 was shot by a big man?[/quote]
NWA,
I got to point out that we shot 48.8% last night. That is pretty good shooting. Now there was some ugly 3 balls out there, but nobody shot more than 2. The ones that T Will throws up looks like he gets too excited or anxious on them. He will probably knock those down after making 3 or 4 mid-range shots first.
I think as fans we have to realize that we are not built to outscore an opponent by tossing in 10 three pointers. Our defense will determine the number of wins and losses we have. Our offensive scoring hasnât change much in the last 5 years. If we can shoot just under 50% that will almost always guarantee a win.
[quote=âDowless, post:34, topic:27113â]NWA,
I got to point out that we shot 48.8% last night. That is pretty good shooting. Now there was some ugly 3 balls out there, but nobody shot more than 2. The ones that T Will throws up looks like he gets too excited or anxious on them. He will probably knock those down after making 3 or 4 mid-range shots first.
I think as fans we have to realize that we are not built to outscore an opponent by tossing in 10 three pointers. Our defense will determine the number of wins and losses we have. Our offensive scoring hasnât change much in the last 5 years. If we can shoot just under 50% that will almost always guarantee a win.[/quote]
I get that and love the %, but as we play better and bigger teams getting those high % looks will get tougher and tougher. We will have to have a reliable shooter able to knock down some buckets when teams collapse on us. We donât need to hit 10 3s, but we do need our guards to be able to hit the wide open ones they get when the zone is packed in.
I like how Major comes out and says that weâre using end-game situations with a lead to practice for close games and using the shot clock/getting the last shot, and we then still complain that we should be stepping on throats.
Why? Our team is young, our coach is saying that weâre building a lead and then using that situation to figure out how to play in situations weâll face later that we havenât seen, and our fanbase would rather us just smash someone bad, get the same 2-0 result, and be clueless in the clutch later?
