Game 16: Davidson College, Wednesday, January 9th, 7 PM, ESPN+

[gmubrian]

Our defense for the final 15 minutes was insanely good. We completely took Davidson out of what they want to do. Took away the backdoor cuts and were still able to get out and contest the 3.

Just couldn’t get over the hump after cutting a 15-point deficit to 1.

I think you are taking my post the wrong way. The fact that I only mentioned 3 pointers (and layups but those may have been cause and effect...) that is the only area where we were lacking. I agree, our defense is looking really good. The last 3 games the defense has been great. See my earlier posts where I indicated defense was one of the things I am pleased with.

Another point, as I have mentioned several times in the past, I would expect everyone else on here, except maybe DJ3 ;-), to know more than me about coaching basketball. So, whenever you see me providing actual coaching advice, it should be taken as an attempt at humor or sarcasm.

The reality is perimeter shooting is going to suffer when the guys are leaving it all on the floor on the other end; they’re not robots and shooting is the first thing to go when legs get tired.

I have to disagree with you, to some degree, on this point. It wasn't their tired legs, at least initially. We missed every single 3 point shot in the first half, well before anyone's legs should have been tired. We did not make our first 3 point shot until there were only 12 minutes left in the game.

I honestly have no idea how you get them to actually make more threes (see above about my lack of basketball coaching). At face value, you would think doing it over and over in practice would help, but I assume they already do a fair amount of this in team and individual practice.

I am very high on what I am seeing on the floor. We are playing excellent D. We also fight back when down. The rotations and matchup choices seem to be good as well. It stinks that if we had shot even a pitiful 20% from 3, and hit some of those early on, we likely win this game. Not only for the additional points, but it would have helped to spread the cats D out a little more. They seemed to stifle our offense when it became obvious that we are not making threes. That is probably what impacted the layups as well.

To summarize my thoughts on the team at the moment is that we are doing so well overall that if we can get our 3 point shots to fall a little more consistently, we might not just finish my predicted fourth place, but could possibly win it outright.

Now go practice those 3 pointers guys (tongue in cheek).

 

[mkaufman1]

I have to say that if Mason defends at that high of a level, they are going to win a lot of games. They still haven't cracked an exact offensive rhythm but I think they do improve every game on that side of the ball as well. If you hold opponents to 60 points a game, you give yourselves a chance.

If Mason sees Davidson again (potentially in the A10 tournament), I think they'll have a good shot.

 

[gmujim92]

I think you are taking my post the wrong way. The fact that I only mentioned 3 pointers (and layups but those may have been cause and effect...) that is the only area where we were lacking. I agree, our defense is looking really good. The last 3 games the defense has been great. See my earlier posts where I indicated defense was one of the things I am pleased with.

Another point, as I have mentioned several times in the past, I would expect everyone else on here, except maybe DJ3 ;-), to know more than me about coaching basketball. So, whenever you see me providing actual coaching advice, it should be taken as an attempt at humor or sarcasm.


I have to disagree with you, to some degree, on this point. It wasn't their tired legs, at least initially. We missed every single 3 point shot in the first half, well before anyone's legs should have been tired. We did not make our first 3 point shot until there were only 12 minutes left in the game.

I honestly have no idea how you get them to actually make more threes (see above about my lack of basketball coaching). At face value, you would think doing it over and over in practice would help, but I assume they already do a fair amount of this in team and individual practice.

I am very high on what I am seeing on the floor. We are playing excellent D. We also fight back when down. The rotations and matchup choices seem to be good as well. It stinks that if we had shot even a pitiful 20% from 3, and hit some of those early on, we likely win this game. Not only for the additional points, but it would have helped to spread the cats D out a little more. They seemed to stifle our offense when it became obvious that we are not making threes. That is probably what impacted the layups as well.

To summarize my thoughts on the team at the moment is that we are doing so well overall that if we can get our 3 point shots to fall a little more consistently, we might not just finish my predicted fourth place, but could possibly win it outright.

Now go practice those 3 pointers guys (tongue in cheek).

Honestly I think Dave said it best when he described us as a streaky 3-point shooting team. There will be more games like SJU where we get scalding hot and the result will probably be blowout wins.

We just don’t have enough guys whose primary skill is perimeter shooting. But I can live with that because the coaches FINALLY seem to have convinced the players that when they’re not shooting well, it’s even more critical that they defend their asses off.

In far too many games, the level of our defensive intensity has been directly tied to how well we were playing offensively. Guys would get frustrated when they didn’t score and they’d let down on the other end.

The ability to maintain defensive intensity regardless of score or circumstances has been the biggest factor in our improved play. If we can completely take a team like Davidson out of its offense for a 15-minute stretch, imagine what we can do to teams that are far less offensively gifted.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

My thoughts:

1) I agree about the defense. Anytime that you're in a game where start the game 0 for 12 from 3, it means you're defending you're asses off. You play defense like that consistently (which was against a solid offense team), you're going to win a bunch of games because you simply won't shoot that bad most nights.
2) The Calixte missed FTs killed us. Even if he makes 2 of them, it's a different ball game. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Davidson laid off of him for that reason and simply knew they could foul him if he got the ball.
3) Mar needs to develop a floater/runner. He consistently beats his man off the dribble, has the help defender in the middle stop him and gets stuck. If he could develop a 10 foot runner, he'd be so much more effective.
4) Grinding teams out defensively will work in this league. We just saw it could work against the best the league has to offer. Keep this up.

 

[Bricker]

This was very similar to the K State game, except we held on to the ball. I can't figure out for the life of me how this team is inconsistent from 3. Was Paulsen telling them to keep shooting those? JDS got playing time because 3's is his shot, and sometimes he was wide open and no one saw it. Davidson pretty much dared Mason to shoot 3's in the 2nd half.

I'm not sure what Paulsen was telling them to do, but movement and passing were big issues against the zone. Shot clock would wind down and the three was the only option most of the time. Once it was obvious we were ice cold and were down double-digits, Davidson had the luxury of backing off the perimeter and fouling us in the paint every chance they got. Well played on a bad shooting night for both teams.

 

[GMUgemini]

I'm not sure what Paulsen was telling them to do, but movement and passing were big issues against the zone. Shot clock would wind down and the three was the only option most of the time. Once it was obvious we were ice cold and were down double-digits, Davidson had the luxury of backing off the perimeter and fouling us in the paint every chance they got. Well played on a bad shooting night for both teams.

He was yelling “move, move” to them a lot against that zone. We actually got the ball inside, but didn’t do a good job of making them pay for collapsing on our guys when we did.

 

[dr. gunnie]

Our defense was great. We will win most games with that defensive effort. The only way we don’t is if:

1) our bigs have combined their worst performance of the year with turning the ball over, missed layups, dumb foul trouble, and missed free throws at the end.

2) we are ice cold from 3.

3) we don’t take care of the basketball

Unfortunately, all three of those things happened.

 

[Bricker]

Our defense was great. We will win most games with that defensive effort. The only way we don’t is if:

1) our bigs have combined their worst performance of the year with turning the ball over, missed layups, dumb foul trouble, and missed free throws at the end.

2) we are ice cold from 3.

3) we don’t take care of the basketball

Unfortunately, all three of those things happened.

That's all that needs to be said. The reason I'm not bummed about this loss is that all those things happened and we didn't get blown out.

 

[NewPatriot]

Our defense was great. We will win most games with that defensive effort. The only way we don’t is if:

1) our bigs have combined their worst performance of the year with turning the ball over, missed layups, dumb foul trouble, and missed free throws at the end.

2) we are ice cold from 3.

3) we don’t take care of the basketball

Unfortunately, all three of those things happened.

This is a game we gave away. Your second bullet is spot on. The bigs have to finish at the rim and hit free throws.

In addition, otis misses alot of layups because he's afraid to absorb contact at the rim. He throws up these half-a$$, underhanded layup attempts the second a big comes over to protect the rim.

The ball ends up glancing the rim or a brick off the back board.

He has to be willing to drive through contact in order convert the layup or at least get fouled.

 

[Jack Strop]

He was yelling “move, move” to them a lot against that zone. We actually got the ball inside, but didn’t do a good job of making them pay for collapsing on our guys when we did.

That might have been me yelling, "MOVE! MOVE!" from the student section. DP must have heard me and thought it was a good idea to chime in.

 

[smccart5]

Has Paulsen called a good inbounds play once in 4 years?!? Or am I being too hard on him. They shouldn’t have called a timeout and just gone with the flow the last 9 seconds

I think if you have a TO in that situation you use it. That's exactly why you save timeouts for the end of the game. Remember we use to rail on Hewitt for not having timeouts to use.

 

[smccart5]

Really disappointing loss- I think Boyd had 3 3's that rattled around the rim. He had one where he was trailing in transition, and a 3 rattled out that would have put us up by two. Instead, they get a rebound and came back for a AND-1. That sequence pretty much killed the game with about 5 mins to go.

After a sloppy opening with turnovers, the team played some good defense and had nice motion on offense. We were getting good penetration and taking open shots. What else do you want? Oh yeah- for at least 30% of them to fall. We have even a decent shooting night and we win that game.

 

[gmubrian]

Honestly I think Dave said it best when he described us as a streaky 3-point shooting team. There will be more games like SJU where we get scalding hot and the result will probably be blowout wins.

We just don’t have enough guys whose primary skill is perimeter shooting. But I can live with that because the coaches FINALLY seem to have convinced the players that when they’re not shooting well, it’s even more critical that they defend their asses off.

In far too many games, the level of our defensive intensity has been directly tied to how well we were playing offensively. Guys would get frustrated when they didn’t score and they’d let down on the other end.

The ability to maintain defensive intensity regardless of score or circumstances has been the biggest factor in our improved play. If we can completely take a team like Davidson out of its offense for a 15-minute stretch, imagine what we can do to teams that are far less offensively gifted.

I agree 100%. I had already put a check mark in the good defense column after the first two conference games.

I am just being greedy now. I think we are so close to being the the A10 team to beat this year. If we got that 3 a little more consistent (without sacrificing focus on our D, of course), we would be almost unstoppable.

 

[gmujim92]

I agree 100%. I had already put a check mark in the good defense column after the first two conference games.

I am just being greedy now. I think we are so close to being the the A10 team to beat this year. If we got that 3 a little more consistent (without sacrificing focus on our D, of course), we would be almost unstoppable.

If Davidson really is one of the best teams in the A-10, so are we. With Kier playing at a first-team all-A10 level, I think man for man we are better than them and both teams know it.

If we can get Otis and Kier both playing at that level at the same time, this team will be scary.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

Disappointing to fall just short but wasn't really expecting to go undefeated in conference play.

I'm still looking forward to the first winning season since 2012-13 before Hewitt killed off the last remnants of what L had built; which is a pretty sad indicator of how far expectations for our program fell under Pall Ball.

 

[mkaufman1]

Isn’t it refreshing to watch the program be put in a position practically night after night to win on the court? Not saying they are perfect or immune to criticism, but they are put in a position to succeed, and that’s awesome. They are getting closer by the game. I now expect the them to really take care of business against the bottom tier like we saw in the first two games.

 

[Washingtonian]

If Davidson really is one of the best teams in the A-10, so are we. With Kier playing at a first-team all-A10 level, I think man for man we are better than them and both teams know it.

If we can get Otis and Kier both playing at that level at the same time, this team will be scary.

That is what happened in the St Joe's game:

Kier 18 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists
Otis 17 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists

 

[psyclone]

It's not Steven Goff, but Wang often covers the local universities. Hey, bylined articles for successive games!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...36fa44b80ba_story.html?utm_term=.30ce7e3c91da

 

[GMUSig03]

Variety of factors in this game, 2 most concerning things to me are that they have two stars that need to be stopped, as opposed to 1 (ala SJU and SBU) and it seems like everyone on their team can shoot 3's.

*Avoid slow start for us
*Shoot moderately well from 3
*Catch them on an off shooting night, or at least keep them from going off
*Kier steps up to help Javon defend Grady and JAG
*Continue to limit TO's
*Crash the boards

Probably need at least 4 out of those 6 to pull out win - really excited for this game, wish students were back and it was on the weekend.

*Avoid slow start for us - NO
*Shoot moderately well from 3 - NO
*Catch them on an off shooting night, or at least keep them from going off - YES
*Kier steps up to help Javon defend Grady and JAG - YES
*Continue to limit TO's - NO
*Crash the boards - YES

If we had gotten one more yes, would have pulled it out. I'm encouraged but also extremely frustrated that we let that win get away - but the frustration is a direct result of believing that we are good enough win that game.

Standing's wise, I think we now have to beat URI and Umass on the road to make up for the Davidson loss. 4-1 keeps us in the top tier, 3-2 means we are likely going to be in a dog fight like last year for middle of the pack seeding.

 

[dr. gunnie]

Standing's wise, I think we now have to beat URI and Umass on the road to make up for the Davidson loss. 4-1 keeps us in the top tier, 3-2 means we are likely going to be in a dog fight like last year for middle of the pack seeding.

I think most of time, 12-6 in conference is good enough to get you in that top 4. Not all the time, but most.

If that's the case, break the season up into 6 3-game stretches. If you can go 2-1 in each 3 game stretch, you get to that 12-6.

1st stretch - @ St Joes, St Bona, Davidson went 2-1
2nd stretch - @ RI, @UMass, Fordham
3rd stretch - @ Dayton, GW, @ vcu
4th stretch - @ Richmond, LaSalle, UMass
5th stretch - @ St Bona, Duq, Richmond
6th stretch - @ StL, vcu, @ GW

the 3rd and 6th stretches might be the hardest to go 2-1
the 4th and 5th stretches are possible 3-0 if we don't go ice cold like last night.