Game 16: AT Saint Bonaventure University, Saturday, January 7th, 5 PM, NBCSN

[gmujim92]

Otis was working his a** off on defense today, which was great to see. We did as well in containing Adams and Mobley as anyone in the A-10 will do all season.

It was obvious Otis didn't have legs left on the offensive end because he was consistently short on his shot.

If I'm concerned about anything with him, it's all the miles we're piling up on his body. Gotta find a way to manage his minutes when possible against some of the weaker teams.

 

[MasonCrew]

I felt like they hit everything but haven't seen the stats. I felt ok with this loss. I didn't expect to win there, but was hoping for a better showing. Grayer playing better is what's gonna help me sleep well. Well that and the porno.

We're just younger than everyone. Next year we'll take a step back, and then in two years we'll hopefully take a massive leap forward.

 

[patriotchild]

We only lost the second half by a point, which to me shows that this team can adjust and fight.

A better first half, some better FT shooting (missed 10) and a few less turnovers and this is a much tighter game, possibly a win. It's clear we can play with these teams. But we have a small margin for error to win and need to have a clean game.

Disappointed we couldn't pull it out, but thrilled that I can even say this this year. Love the effort and not getting blown out is really nice.

 

[Pablo]

http://gmuhoops.co/2017/01/08/mason...-road-at-st-bonaventure/#sthash.rDjKlvGB.dpbs:

"They needed more of the balanced attack they saw against UMass but didn’t get enough from the bench. Jaire Grayer followed up with another strong performance and nearly got a double-double (16 points, 9 rebounds, 4-6 3pters). However, Otis didn’t have a great night shooting the ball, going 0-for-6 from the field and 0-5 on three-pointers. He came back in the game after running into a screen hard that put him on the ground. Otis is a true warrior and only knows one speed. Sometimes though when the team gets behind I think he tends to try and do too much. It was a rare off night for him."

 

[GMUgemini]

I mean, yeah, he's not a physically imposing guy, but I'm not super worried. He's crafty and skilled, and that's his game.

Plenty of point guards have gotten by on guile over the years, and it's not like Paulsen isn't putting athletes around him. Between Grayer and Kier and Newman there is athleticism to spare.

Yeah, look at Joey Rodriguez (who, by the way, vcu fans wanted to transfer to a DII school at some point...I think his junior year). I think he was even smaller than Otis.

Shane Larkin, who almost came to Mason, but followed Coach L to Miami is another example.

 

[Petey Buckets]

I posted some screenshots to my twitter (shameless plug: @peteybuckets) that show our bigs hedging up past the three point line frequently. I can't figure out why we didn't adjust this. Jalen was way out of position on multiple occasions. Here he starts off on Ayeni, hedges up top, and Ayeni slips down. Ayeni catches a pass and gets fouled by Jaire here:

Jalen starts on Gregg here but hedges high, well past the three point line. Gregg catches this pass and gets an easy post-up bucket on Kier. Look at the fifteen feet of open space between Gregg and the basket:

There are a bunch like this and I can't figure out why we didn't adjust. The Bonnies kept getting easy baskets with Gregg and Taqqee getting into the paint against one of our guards. Maybe we wanted to shut down the three point line (they only shot 5/19), but that runs counter to what's been a pretty clear strategy all season - shut down the paint and encourage jump shots. Just bizarre to me that we didn't have Jalen hedge lower or not at all to keep him much closer to the paint. I've got a screenshot of Relvao doing the exact same thing so it looks like this is something Dave wanted.

Full recap coming up later. I'll link to it when it's done. A couple quick thoughts in the meantime:

- This was a frustrating loss because like the vcu game, it felt like we just couldn't get stops down the stretch. But keeping things in perspective, we definitely could have stolen this one if Otis didn't have an off game, or if Jalen doesn't suddenly become lost against the double team, or if we get a bigger bench contribution. I have faith in Dave and the boys to fix our defense.

- That said, defending good 4s is going to be a problem. Denzel Gregg absolutely murdered us because either Jalen wasn't guarding him, or when Jalen was guarding him he kept getting switched onto Jaire/Boyd/Kier/Karmari. Those guys can hang for some possessions here and there, but when it happens all game long we'll keep seeing career games from opposing 4s. I'm curious to see what Dave does against St. Joes Tuesday, because Demery and Lodge are both very capable scorers.

- Love seeing another great outing from Jaire. In addition to the threes falling, he had a couple nice finishes in traffic. That's an important addition that we hadn't seen much of before the last two games.

I caught a little bit of St. Joe's vs Fordham yesterday. Fordham sucks, but it looks like St. Joe's is going to be a tough opponent per usual.

 

[gmujim92]

I posted some screenshots to my twitter (shameless plug: @peteybuckets) that show our bigs hedging up past the three point line frequently. I can't figure out why we didn't adjust this. Jalen was way out of position on multiple occasions. Here he starts off on Ayeni, hedges up top, and Ayeni slips down. Ayeni catches a pass and gets fouled by Jaire here:

Jalen starts on Gregg here but hedges high, well past the three point line. Gregg catches this pass and gets an easy post-up bucket on Kier. Look at the fifteen feet of open space between Gregg and the basket:

There are a bunch like this and I can't figure out why we didn't adjust. The Bonnies kept getting easy baskets with Gregg and Taqqee getting into the paint against one of our guards. Maybe we wanted to shut down the three point line (they only shot 5/19), but that runs counter to what's been a pretty clear strategy all season - shut down the paint and encourage jump shots. Just bizarre to me that we didn't have Jalen hedge lower or not at all to keep him much closer to the paint. I've got a screenshot of Relvao doing the exact same thing so it looks like this is something Dave wanted.

Full recap coming up later. I'll link to it when it's done. A couple quick thoughts in the meantime:

- This was a frustrating loss because like the vcu game, it felt like we just couldn't get stops down the stretch. But keeping things in perspective, we definitely could have stolen this one if Otis didn't have an off game, or if Jalen doesn't suddenly become lost against the double team, or if we get a bigger bench contribution. I have faith in Dave and the boys to fix our defense.

- That said, defending good 4s is going to be a problem. Denzel Gregg absolutely murdered us because either Jalen wasn't guarding him, or when Jalen was guarding him he kept getting switched onto Jaire/Boyd/Kier/Karmari. Those guys can hang for some possessions here and there, but when it happens all game long we'll keep seeing career games from opposing 4s. I'm curious to see what Dave does against St. Joes Tuesday, because Demery and Lodge are both very capable scorers.

- Love seeing another great outing from Jaire. In addition to the threes falling, he had a couple nice finishes in traffic. That's an important addition that we hadn't seen much of before the last two games.

I caught a little bit of St. Joe's vs Fordham yesterday. Fordham sucks, but it looks like St. Joe's is going to be a tough opponent per usual.

We were clearly trapping the high ball screens to get the ball out of Adams' and Mobley'a hands.

It worked, too. They average 43 ppg and finished with only 15 -- even before Adams got hurt, our guys did a good job of neutralizing the highest-scoring tandem in the A-10.

The problem was the first rotation off the double was consistently a step and a half slow, which gave them a ton of wide-open jump shots.

We needed to have a guy ready to immediately rotate onto the open man and force another pass, giving us time to recover back into position.

I still like the strategy of taking away Adams and Mobley as much as possible, though. Give credit to Taqqee, Ayeni and Kaputo for hitting shots and making us pay.

 

[Mason2005]

Having a true 4 would have helped greatly in this game, especially with Gregg going off. Oh well we'll have 2 good ones next session.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[Vurbel]

But even with some of our main players not playing well at worst we have a punchers chance in every game. Two years ago I couldn't say that. Refreshing.

 

[MasonCrew]

Yeah I didn't ever feel like we were gonna win, but I also never felt out of it. That was an odd but refreshing feeling.

By the way, was that Blaine Taylor announcing the game? I'm glad to see he's righted his ship. I always liked him in an odd way. The announcers were very high on our future.

Edit - nm it seems like he's an Assistant at UC-I

 

[GreenLantern]

This game tells me that we will have a hard time hanging with the cream of the A-10 but no game will be a blowout. Even the top dogs will have to work hard to beat us.

 

[Petey Buckets]

Jim - that makes total sense. Still getting used to a coach that does things differently based on opponent (what a novel concept). Still find it curious it took so long to adjust since we were clearly getting roasted possession after possession, and that the strategy amounts to Dave abandoning what I thought was a dearly held principle of his (close down the paint). Can't blame the coach for sticking with the game plan, but I bet we have a different one if we see them again.

Related - as much as I hate the charge and how it's taken over college basketball, I wish Dave would teach it to these smaller guys who are going to be stuck defending down low. It would be nice if Kier, Newman, Boyd, etc had it in their bag of tricks when they're stuck trying to guard a Gregg or Ayeni on the block.

Full recap here:

http://giantkiller.co/ByGeorge/2017/01/09/peteys-bucket-of-knowledge-4/

 

[Pablo]

http://giantkiller.co/ByGeorge/2017/01/09/peteys-bucket-of-knowledge-4/

• "Otis in A-10 play so far: 35 points on 10/38 from the field, 4/16 from three, 9 assists, 6 turnovers. He was playing at a very high level before conference play started, so I think it’s safe to attribute this to a little slump. I was surprised to look at the box score after the game and see he was 0-6 from the field (I thought his game was quiet, but not that quiet). Five of his missed shots were threes – I expect they’ll make it a point to get Otis into the paint to get him going next game."

Petey,

Do you think that Otis' "little slump" could be attributed to the defensive play of vcu & St. Bonaventure? BTW, I believe this was Otis' first game without a FGM.

 

[JimP]

I was a bit frustrated with the offensive effort, Bonnies give up almost 80 a game. Canisius went for 106 (in OT) against them.

 

[stimes]

I posted some screenshots to my twitter (shameless plug: @peteybuckets) that show our bigs hedging up past the three point line frequently. I can't figure out why we didn't adjust this. Jalen was way out of position on multiple occasions. Here he starts off on Ayeni, hedges up top, and Ayeni slips down. Ayeni catches a pass and gets fouled by Jaire here:

Jalen starts on Gregg here but hedges high, well past the three point line. Gregg catches this pass and gets an easy post-up bucket on Kier. Look at the fifteen feet of open space between Gregg and the basket:

There are a bunch like this and I can't figure out why we didn't adjust. The Bonnies kept getting easy baskets with Gregg and Taqqee getting into the paint against one of our guards. Maybe we wanted to shut down the three point line (they only shot 5/19), but that runs counter to what's been a pretty clear strategy all season - shut down the paint and encourage jump shots. Just bizarre to me that we didn't have Jalen hedge lower or not at all to keep him much closer to the paint. I've got a screenshot of Relvao doing the exact same thing so it looks like this is something Dave wanted.

Full recap coming up later. I'll link to it when it's done. A couple quick thoughts in the meantime:

- This was a frustrating loss because like the vcu game, it felt like we just couldn't get stops down the stretch. But keeping things in perspective, we definitely could have stolen this one if Otis didn't have an off game, or if Jalen doesn't suddenly become lost against the double team, or if we get a bigger bench contribution. I have faith in Dave and the boys to fix our defense.

- That said, defending good 4s is going to be a problem. Denzel Gregg absolutely murdered us because either Jalen wasn't guarding him, or when Jalen was guarding him he kept getting switched onto Jaire/Boyd/Kier/Karmari. Those guys can hang for some possessions here and there, but when it happens all game long we'll keep seeing career games from opposing 4s. I'm curious to see what Dave does against St. Joes Tuesday, because Demery and Lodge are both very capable scorers.

- Love seeing another great outing from Jaire. In addition to the threes falling, he had a couple nice finishes in traffic. That's an important addition that we hadn't seen much of before the last two games.

I caught a little bit of St. Joe's vs Fordham yesterday. Fordham sucks, but it looks like St. Joe's is going to be a tough opponent per usual.

Petey Buckets your game analysis is so accurate. Paulsen may need to hire you as a scout!

 

[Petey Buckets]

Petey Buckets your game analysis is so accurate. Paulsen may need to hire you as a scout!

Too kind, I'm just a big nerd.

Pablo - not sure I want to read too much into Otis's slump. We're definitely not playing the Longwoods and Prairie View A+Ms of the world anymore, but all the same I think he's been playing smart and the shots just aren't falling. He's not shooting contested threes or anything like that. I want to see him drive more and not settle for threes like he did against St. Bonaventure, but I bet the staff is telling him the same thing.

I watched the game without looking at stats. Afterward I was shocked to see he didn't hit a field goal (same way I was shocked to see the Bonnies didn't actually shoot 75%). Part of becoming a great player is learning how to positively affect the game when your shots aren't falling and Otis does that in a lot of ways. He also got to the line nine times so his lack of scoring wasn't super noticeable. I think he'll get back on track quickly.

 

[GreenLantern]

Now he did take a nasty spill there and I saw them doing the concussion protocol on him during the game. That could have played a factor in his below par game.

 

[sleeperpick]

Now he did take a nasty spill there and I saw them doing the concussion protocol on him during the game. That could have played a factor in his below par game.

That happened midway through the second half and he was off from the very beginning.

He will bounce back. Hopefully tonight!

 

[MasonSAE4]

His decision making, particularly when going to the basket, has been pretty off. He's driven into a few crowds and gotten his shot punched into row F. I'm sure Paulsen has given him an earful and he'll get back on track though.

 

[MasonCrew]

He's been a little off ever since Petey's mention of his issues when driving on a fast break. Petey get out of Livingston's head!!! You're ruining our season!!!