How did we win??

49ers Basketball Forum 🏀
61

[QUOTE=ninerball49;274014]
The funniest part…some guy I know from Davidson actually called us a one man team after this win. I thought that was hysterical.[/QUOTE]

That’s funny considering that, without Curry, this team probably would not win the SoCon.

[QUOTE=CharSFNiners;274031]All I want is the guys to stop celebrating after a shot, big shot, whatever shot… just get back and play D. Numerous times this killed us from making and keeping any type of momentum. That’s my huge gripe.
[/QUOTE]

Agreed. Don’t know if we were so much celebrating as we were having trouble covering until we got the matchups set for defense. That’s still no excuse, but when we are switching up on defense from the matchups at the other end it seemed that’s where we got beat in transition. I scared the people in front of me one time when I yelled just before Menow’s easy jam in transition. I saw it coming before it happened, and was already yelling before he jammed it. We gave up too many chippies last night and missed quite a few ourselves.

[QUOTE=NinerAdvocate;274054]We pulled some of out best rebounders out to chase Curry. It was PAINFUL to watch, but in retrospect, it makes sense. [/QUOTE]

Indeed. Big Phil can’t race up and down the court with these guys. It hurt us on the boards not having him in there, but Coley III, Wilderness, and Mack give us the ability to run more and cover the run.

[QUOTE=Smoothieking;274058]
I gotta agree with Metro. Unless they beat Cal-Los Angeles on Saturday, they have no shot at an at-large bid. The D-1 teams that they’ve beaten so far are a combined 4-14, and their other win is the dreaded “Non-Division 1.” The SOCON just won’t be able to help them move up. The current SOCON RPI is 18, and I don’t see that moving up drastically.[/QUOTE]

When you play in the SoCon, what choice you have in your scheduling if you want to have ANY chance at an at-large berth? They have to play a Gonzaga-like schedule to get in the mix for an at large. They aren’t playing any of these teams on their true home court, either. That makes it even tougher to beat them. They went 17-1 in the SoCon last year folks. I dislike Davidson and what they are more they anybody, but 17-1 in the #19 conference is nothing to smirk at. Guess what, we just beat that same team last night because they returned every one of their starters. Slamming them for not beating anybody is a little unfair when all of those games against “somebody” are road games. A #49 RPI playing in the SoCon is nothing to sneeze at, either.

[QUOTE=9erken;274059]We appear to be one of those teams that wins ugly. You never really can explain how they do it, but somehow they pull it out. It usually means guys are playing hard and hustling, often playing good defense. [B]Still doesn’t sound like we play good team defense[/B], but we’ve got some good individual defenders out there. [/QUOTE]

I disagree with that. I think our team defense is as good as it has been in the Lutz era as of now. We make the other team play ugly. Guys are helping each other and rotating when screens are set, and they are doubling really well at times. They only thing glaring right now on defense is that we are giving up too many transition buckets. We’re defending the three much better than in previous years. A lot of this has to do with having better defensive players, but we are executing on defense better than we have in a long while.

Some other observations from last night:

  • When the other team sets illegal screens, we need to learn how to show this to the referrees. Ian got floored one time last night, but I thought he dramatized it a little also. Guess what, it worked. Refs will let stuff go if you don’t point it out to them sometimes. Lee got floored on two different screens just before the last 3-pointer Curry made. I thought they were both moving screens, but neither was called. I swear we are the most disproportional team in the country at getting illegal screens called against us versus getting them called on the opponent. I wouldn’t be upset with that if I thought the opponent was not constantly getting away with setting illegal screens.

  • I don’t care if Mack and Ian shoot 3’s, but please get open and set your feet before you hoist it. Mack was covered on all but two of his 3’s last night. I know he’s tall, but he’s not a good enough shooter from that range to make them consistantly when covered. Same goes for Ian, and he also needs to learn to plant before shooting. When he comes off of a screen he is often times jumping sideways while trying to shoot. You aren’t going to make many doing that.

  • Loved the play calling at times last night. The isolations with Wilderness and Coley worked well. This allowed both to drive, or drive and dish. We got several scores and several trips to the line last night with them running this set. We also got a few nice kickouts for open 3’s when Davidson doubled down to try to stop the penetration.

*I love the aura of excitement this team has. They play tough defense, all seem to pull for one another, and they leave it all on the court. Can’t ask for more as a coach or as fan if they continue to do that.

*Curry is one of the best shooters I’ve ever watched play. They guy is like his dad. Give him one step, and it’s good. To those that stated that he can’t create, I think his wrist injury is affecting that. He can’t handle the ball like he needs to with that tape-cast on his left hand to dribble drive, or to use the dribble in-and-back move like Lee uses. If I remember correctly, he took it to the hole quite a bit in last year’s game against us when the wrist was healthy. The wrist injury is not affecting hit stroke, though.

*Davidson was 5th in the nation last year in points scored per game. They fool a lot of people because they look like your stereotypical slow-play team. They averaged 81.7 ppg last season. We held them to 68 points and 36.7% shooting. Not bad. They shot 44% against Duke and 38% against UNC-CH, for comparision.

62
This Niner team doesnt play a finesse game. We still have one really great shooter that can sometimes just outgun you, but we stay in games, and win when we are not hitting 3's, because of our defense, hustle and grit.

People whining about how we play are just not used to this. The halfcourt offense is a work in process with a dozen problems to work through. It will get there. Until then, we are “ugly”.

Those describing the game to me weren’t necessarily complaining, I think “ugly win” has become a common way to describe winning just as you say, with grit, hustle, and defense that ruins the other team’s offense. Frankly, I like it that way, and teams who play that way tend to do well at the end of the year. If we can start hitting shots and free throws, it will stop being ugly wins and start being beatdowns. I agree that we haven’t seen this kind of defensive effort in a long time.

63

…on post game comments.

Lutz said that HE would be more involved in the FT. Said up to now it’s been the Assistants. Said from now on, it’s “on him.”

Also, regarding Phil, Lutz said he “wasn’t down on Phil at all, he just couldn’t keep up with their running. He was getting beat down the court.”

64

I really wish we could learn to inbound the ball from underneath our own basket. 8 times out of 10 we end up throwing the “touchdown pass” all the way into the back court. We either turn it over (or nearly turn it over) doing this once or twice per game.

Also, why does Bobby never call timeouts to set up plays when we have the last possession before halftime? We had 4 timeouts last night and possession of the ball with the shot clock off and we don’t even get off a decent shot. Same thing happened at the Wake game and a couple of other times this year I believe.

Other than those 2 things, and the Monmouth debacle of course, I think Bobby has done a good job coaching this year. No technicals so far either.

65
...on post game comments.

Lutz said that HE would be more involved in the FT. Said up to now it’s been the Assistants. Said from now on, it’s “on him.”

Also, regarding Phil, Lutz said he “wasn’t down on Phil at all, he just couldn’t keep up with their running. He was getting beat down the court.”

Hopefully we will see a big improvement in both of these areas real soon. Both of those things hurt us alot.

66

Max, I agree with your about inboudning the ball, but let me throw some praise towards Lutz for something we used to criticize him for - calling good plays out of timeouts. There were a couple last night that produced points for us, and they weren’t “zipper”.

If you are one who has believed that Lutz had been tanking it the last couple of years, he’s back now. There is no doubt that he is coaching this team up.

67
The masses may not like this but I feel like Davidson is a better team than us NOW, but we played an ugly game and dragged them in there with us. They were shooting non-Curry three’s early in the shot clock, making dumb passes and charging etc. Davidson is a team that can effectively score from the inside and has a devastating weapon on the outside. They rebound, play good “D” and make there free throw and run their set play offense. But we made them play grimy, unpretty ball. The same thing happened with Wake Forest and we prevailed.

We’re the dirty kid playing in the mud and were dragging the preppy kid in with us and making them play by our rules.

The kind of ball we are playing is A10 ball. It’s grimy dirty and painful to watch, but it will generally defeat the finesse game that we’ve been playing forever. As of right now, we can play with everyone in the A-10 except X and maybe RI. I’m excited by the progress and I’m very happy with the players we have as they will mature and get better. Coley and Mack will hit the easy ones. Gabby will stop charging and Phil will dominate the glass like the kid from Davidson did last night.

We’re not great yet, but I’m loving this so far.

Tintin

I LOVE the mud I LOVE the mud I LOVE the mud I LOVE the mud I LOVE the mud

Just my mentality, I suppose. Growing up, my favorite players were always on defense in football, or low-scoring wings in hockey, etc. I preferred bouncing a tennis ball off the garage and diving like Ozzie Smith - rather than hitting off a tee or something.

If we went from pretty to ugly - then how come I don’t cover my face with my hands nearly as much as I used to? I suffered for years with ‘Ole’ defense as a Charlotte fan. Let me sit back and enjoy the moment, will ya? :lol::tongue:

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I really wish we could learn to inbound the ball from underneath our own basket. 8 times out of 10 we end up throwing the "touchdown pass" all the way into the back court. We either turn it over (or nearly turn it over) doing this once or twice per game.

Give credit to Davidson for aggressively defending the inbounds pass. It won’t be any easier against So. Illinois - a team known for defensive intensity for every second when they don’t have the ball.

69

[QUOTE=X-49er;274214]

When you play in the SoCon, what choice you have in your scheduling if you want to have ANY chance at an at-large berth? They have to play a Gonzaga-like schedule to get in the mix for an at large. They aren’t playing any of these teams on their true home court, either. That makes it even tougher to beat them. They went 17-1 in the SoCon last year folks. I dislike Davidson and what they are more they anybody, but 17-1 in the #19 conference is nothing to smirk at. Guess what, we just beat that same team last night because they returned every one of their starters. Slamming them for not beating anybody is a little unfair when all of those games against “somebody” are road games. A #49 RPI playing in the SoCon is nothing to sneeze at, either.
[/QUOTE]

But a “good” team has to come up with a win over Western Michigan, who is 4-4, and as much as I hate to say it, a “good” team would have beaten us last night. To turn Metro’s question around, how did Davidson lose when they outrebounded us by 14 and we miss 12 of 25 FT? I’ll tell you how. Take out Curry and the rest of the team was 3-20 from the 3 and had 18 turnovers. That sounds like a Niner game from the past few years. I happened to listen to Davidson postgame last night, and generally McKillop is very complementary of the other team. Last night, he was very critical of his own team and how bad they were in so many areas. That was very out of character for him and told me that even he doesn’t think they are a "good’ team, at least not right now. People always want to compare mid-majors with Gonzaga. The one thing that Gonzaga did was actually beat some of the high-majors it has played. When was the last time Davidson did that?

70

[QUOTE=CharSFNiners;274031]
The last thing I will say… Curry is nothing without those screens… NOTHING. Now before I get blasted for that let me explain. How many times did he create for himself, I’ll say maybe 3 or 4 times, and one of those he got a lucky roll, but it still counts. Like I said this is not a shot at him or Davidson, the kid has a killer stroke, it’s nylon every single time, but I’d hate to see a kid that fundamentally sound disappear to Europe after he graduates. PLEASE, someone teach the kid to dribble, drive, and finish. Maybe that will come with growth as he still looks like an 11th grader. His body should fill out. With that stroke, if he develops the ability to dribble, he would destroy people even if he’s serviceable (dribbling) at best. Please nobody feed me stats from last year on assists, I’m sure he gets them, we all would if we were constantly double teamed and hounded on screens like that. He will not last in the NBA unless he can become a PG (his height hurts him too), and that is sad to say about someone that good.

[/QUOTE]

I’m not exactly sure what’s the purpose of this comment. You didn’t say he wasn’t as good as hyped, but did say he’s nothing without the screens. Screens or no screens, he is already a special player. Lutz mentioned the other night on his radio show, barring injury he’s easily going to be the all-time leading scorer in Davidson history. If he stays on his current pace he’ll have 20-30% more career points than Henry Williams! I posted an inquiry on another thread about who is the all-time leading scorer in the Charlotte/Davidson series? I believe we are watching him in action.

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[QUOTE=Smoothieking;274271] People always want to compare mid-majors with Gonzaga. The one thing that Gonzaga did was actually beat some of the high-majors it has played. When was the last time Davidson did that?[/QUOTE]

I believe one of the announcers during the Dav/UNC CH game said that Davidson has NEVER beaten a top 25 team.

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[QUOTE=Smoothieking;274271]People always want to compare mid-majors with Gonzaga. The one thing that Gonzaga did was actually beat some of the high-majors it has played. When was the last time Davidson did that?[/QUOTE]

No one is disputing that Davidson has not beat these “somebody” teams that you and Metro speak of, but Gonzaga did not do it overnight. You have to first keep playing those type of schedules to have a chance to get the big wins. Gonzaga played that kind of schedule for several years with similar results before finally breaking through. Their conference also got tougher as well, which helped them land some better seeds. Western Michigan is not a slouch. All of their losses thus far have been to Top 100 (current) RPI teams. Most MAC teams aren’t easy to beat on the road either. I don’t think Davidson will become Gonzaga, but they are doing what they have to do each season to give them the best chance to get an at-large should they not win the SoCon Tourney. I would have been tickled to sniff the Top 50 in the RPI the last two years.

The shooting woes of the other Davidson players is their biggest problem right now. Curry is shooting 44% from 3-pt land, and the rest of the team is shooting 27% from behind the arc. Last year, those numbers were 40% and 35%. Doesn’t seem like much of a difference on paper, but two extra threes last night would have been big for Davidson.

73

[QUOTE=X-49er;274292]No one is disputing that Davidson has not beat these “somebody” teams that you and Metro speak of, but Gonzaga did not do it overnight. You have to first keep playing those type of schedules to have a chance to get the big wins. Gonzaga played that kind of schedule for several years with similar results before finally breaking through. Their conference also got tougher as well, which helped them land some better seeds. Western Michigan is not a slouch. All of their losses thus far have been to Top 100 (current) RPI teams. Most MAC teams aren’t easy to beat on the road either. I don’t think Davidson will become Gonzaga, but they are doing what they have to do each season to give them the best chance to get an at-large should they not win the SoCon Tourney. I would have been tickled to sniff the Top 50 in the RPI the last two years.

The shooting woes of the other Davidson players is their biggest problem right now. Curry is shooting 44% from 3-pt land, and the rest of the team is shooting 27% from behind the arc. Last year, those numbers were 40% and 35%. Doesn’t seem like much of a difference on paper, but two extra threes last night would have been big for Davidson.[/QUOTE]

Over the last 6 years, guess how many wins Davidson has over the RPI Top 100? 2! 2! St. Joe’s (43) in 05-06 and Mizzouri (72) in 04-05. Gonzaga first went to back-to-back NCAA’s in the 98-99 and 99-00 seasons. They had 16 wins over the RPI top 100 in the 6 years leading up to that. To be a “good” team, you have got to beat other “good” teams. Despite their perception, Davidson has just not done so.

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I don’t give a crap how good or bad Davidson is… My only reason for saying this was a GREAT win is this game is a 10 point loss with last seasons squad.

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By the way. **** all Davidson snobs and their talk about how we are thugs. I now hate these snobs worse than Wake's snobs. They have no reason to make an ignorant comment like that. This team works there asses off and wins with pure heart everytime we put a W on the schedule. We are all effort and guts. Where I sat was a bunch of Davidson people talking about the "thugs" we have on the court. Please, go back to Davidson and cry yourself to sleep wondering why you didn't get into Duke and how you got beat by a bunch of "thugs." Oh, and KISS OUR GREEN ASSES!!!

OK, now that I’m completely off topic. I LOVE THIS TEAM!!
:49ers:

Good thing you didn’t do anything to further that reputation in this post.

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I'm not exactly sure what's the purpose of this comment. You didn't say he wasn't as good as hyped, but did say he's nothing without the screens. Screens or no screens, he is already a special player. Lutz mentioned the other night on his radio show, barring injury he's easily going to be the all-time leading scorer in Davidson history. If he stays on his current pace he'll have 20-30% more career points than Henry Williams! I posted an inquiry on another thread about who is the all-time leading scorer in the Charlotte/Davidson series? I believe we are watching him in action.

The purpose of the comment is slightly that he is over-hyped, b/c as great as he can be in that offense after his 4 years are up, he’ll struggle to play at the next level, at the highest level (NBA). He is nothing without the screens, that is exactly my point! He will not play in the NBA unless he can dribble and drive. He does it against lesser teams, but the SoCon is far from the NBA. The point of my point is it’s almost a waste of talent. He does everything EXTREMELY WELL. It’s almost as if it disgusts me that he won’t develop possibly. At Davidson, with his talent he could be the same character he is now and dominate, but will find it hard to develop against enough competition. At a larger school (I know they all shunned him), he would have developed a better overall game b/c he would have been forced to. At Davidson he’s gold already, but in the NBA he’s fool’s gold.

77

Loved the play calling at times last night. The isolations with Wilderness and Coley worked well. This allowed both to drive, or drive and dish. We got several scores and several trips to the line last night with them running this set. We also got a few nice kickouts for open 3’s when Davidson doubled down to try to stop the penetration.

Wilderness is da man, very good player does not force it reminds me of Dwayne Wade

78

Curry can shoot the lights out from 3 land. Is it just me, or does he look 12 years old?

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Good thing you didn't do anything to further that reputation in this post.

I didn’t, thank you. I held my words at the game bc I figured they weren’t worth it. In here, I’m simply defending our team from wrongful accusations. So kindly, **** OFF!!

80

[QUOTE=CharSFNiners;274495]The purpose of the comment is slightly that he is over-hyped, b/c as great as he can be in that offense after his 4 years are up, he’ll struggle to play at the next level, at the highest level (NBA). [B][U]He is nothing without the screens, that is exactly my point![/U][/B] He will not play in the NBA unless he can dribble and drive. He does it against lesser teams, but the SoCon is far from the NBA. The point of my point is it’s almost a waste of talent. He does everything EXTREMELY WELL. It’s almost as if it disgusts me that he won’t develop possibly. At Davidson, with his talent he could be the same character he is now and dominate, but will find it hard to develop against enough competition. At a larger school (I know they all shunned him), he would have developed a better overall game b/c he would have been forced to. At Davidson he’s gold already, but in the NBA he’s fool’s gold.[/QUOTE]

Is he currently being hyped as a great NBA player? I haven’t seen it if so. I think this mentality is a problem with both high school and college players. It’s unfair to Curry. The kid is a great collegiate player. Maybe he would develop more at a bigger school or maybe he would get lost in the shuffle of other talented players. There are other great collegiate players who had no or little success in the NBA too. Henry Williams, JJ Reddick, Rodney Monroe, Randolph Childress, Donald Williams, William Avery. Does this mean these players were over-hyped too?