Game 26: AT Saint Bonaventure University, SUNDAY, February 17th, 2 PM, MASN/Stadium

[GMU_DCU]

I don't see us beating Duquesne, vcu, or St. Louis. GW and Richmond are possible wins. My guess is we will finish 10 - 8, maybe 11 - 7. Out of the top 4.

I see this as the likely outcome as well. I'm guessing a 6th place finish in conference.

 

[MASONscott]

I’m no coach but I suspect playing zone would make hints worse, only because guys would have to be quicker to get to shooters and to help on penetration.

.

In the youth arena it is the opposite. When you have less skill, numbers, or health putting a zone in slows the other team and requires less of your players.

Pretty sure we have seen a few teams throw zone at us to slow our energy.

I wouldn’t mind seeing DP use a bit of it while we try to get over the hump especially if we continue to be depleted with injuries.


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[mkaufman1]

In the youth arena it is the opposite. When you have less skill, numbers, or health putting a zone in slows the other team and requires less of your players.

Pretty sure we have seen a few teams throw zone at us to slow our energy.

I wouldn’t mind seeing DP use a bit of it while we try to get over the hump especially if continue to be depleted with injuries.


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Interesting point. Even if they throw it for a random possession or two, it can throw off the other teams rhythm. We haven’t seen them throw anything different the last few games, but probably because they have been playing from behind so much amongst other things. They would do a zone when they were playing good basketball defensively.

 

[sleeperpick]

please don't get into the vcu pattern of blaming refs on Twitter. It is unbecoming of folks that don't work fast food and have most of their teeth. (Refs gave us the UMASS game if you really want to get into it). The same people who tweet at recruits and players every 5 mins are the ones blaming the refs so I guess that is the vocal minority of our guys.

We got meticulously manhandled in this game. Horrible viewing experience. Bona a lot better than their record (half the season they were without two best player and 2nd best freshman)....

Dayton has 7/8 scholarship players currently as does St Louis and other A10 schools... Losing Greg, Goanar and Jaire obviously hurts but that is kind of a lame excuse.

Boyd looks lost and pretty horrible lately and Kier is in some kind of funk that is unexplained...

Otis and Javon carrying this team and that is frankly not enough right now.

Osun Osunnyi and Kyle Lofton are going to give us nightmares the next three years

UGHHHHHHH

 

[gmujim92]

please don't get into the vcu pattern of blaming refs on Twitter. It is unbecoming of folks that don't work fast food and have most of their teeth. (Refs gave us the UMASS game if you really want to get into it). The same people who tweet at recruits and players every 5 mins are the ones blaming the refs so I guess that is the vocal minority of our guys.

We got meticulously manhandled in this game. Horrible viewing experience. Bona a lot better than their record (half the season they were without two best player and 2nd best freshman)....

Dayton has 7/8 scholarship players currently as does St Louis and other A10 schools... Losing Greg, Goanar and Jaire obviously hurts but that is kind of a lame excuse.

Boyd looks lost and pretty horrible lately and Kier is in some kind of funk that is unexplained...

Otis and Javon carrying this team and that is frankly not enough right now.

Osun Osunnyi and Kyle Lofton are going to give us nightmares the next three years

UGHHHHHHH

Boyd isn’t “lost.” He is playing with a wrist that’s so messed up he can hardly shoot the ball. Truth be told he probably shouldn’t be out there at all.

 

[GMUgemini]

Interesting point. Even if they throw it for a random possession or two, it can throw off the other teams rhythm. We haven’t seen them throw anything different the last few games, but probably because they have been playing from behind so much amongst other things. They would do a zone when they were playing good basketball defensively.

Last year, we had some success later in the year shifting to a 1-3-1 to slow teams down.

Look at how successful Davidson is running zone. They have zero depth (you saw what happened when Grady went down, imagine that team without Jon Axl).

The problem is without drilling it over and over it can look worse than man if everyone isn’t on the same page. So I’m not sure how helpful it will be this season.

 

[sleeperpick]

Boyd isn’t “lost.” He is playing with a wrist that’s so messed up he can hardly shoot the ball. Truth be told he probably shouldn’t be out there at all.

He has cross court passing turnovers multiple times a game. He is not playing the greatest defense. He is hustling and clearly hurt.. But he is very very net negative for the past month

 

[smccart5]

Let's not blame the poor play on "being tired" and injuries. This team was DREADFUL to start the year when we had plenty of rest and no injuries.

 

[sleeperpick]

Let's not blame the poor play on "being tired" and injuries. This team was DREADFUL to start the year when we had plenty of rest and no injuries.

thank you. The excuse train on this board is just as bad as the trolls...

 

[By George.]

Let's not blame the poor play on "being tired" and injuries. This team was DREADFUL to start the year when we had plenty of rest and no injuries.

What do you blame it on?

 

[Leesburg Chankenstank III]

1. We are shorthanded. Mar, Grayer, Calixte all out.

2. Boyd is basically only good for defense right now as he is obviously nursing an injury.

3. Kier, Otis and Greene are exhausted which will make them more suceptible to injuries.

I'm not the best a tunderstanding the X's and O's of basketball.

But wouldn't going more to a zone defense conserve a bit more energy than straight man to man defense?

 

[masonjoe]

What do you blame it on?

Not playing full court defense and SIZE!

 

[Patriotsince81]

I still have a hard time buying that any 19 - 22 year old can be tired. TV timeouts every four minutes, half time, and coach time outs give players regular breaks. At 21 I could go all day and not think about it.

 

[sleeperpick]

What do you blame it on?

for starters our defense doesn't work even against some of the worst offensive teams in the A10... we make bad shooting teams look like the Warriors far too often.. Dayton had their two guards shoot 3-20 from deep against us and we thought it was the norm... nope that was the outlier of the situation....

Our offensive play calling has been crappy and inefficient for years but not much has changed and we currently have two centers right now who are gassed after 1 min 3o seconds of game play.

 

[GMUgemini]

I still have a hard time buying that any 19 - 22 year old can be tired. TV timeouts every four minutes, half time, and coach time outs give players regular breaks. At 21 I could go all day and not think about it.

You also never played D1 basketball? I think it has less to do with straight endurance than it does the wear and tear of being bumped, falling on the deck, hacked, crashing into players, etc. I remember Will Thomas said he used to wear like three layers of stuff under his jersey to deal with all the physical play in the post and he’d still come out bruised all over by the end of the game.

 

[gmujim92]

Let's not blame the poor play on "being tired" and injuries. This team was DREADFUL to start the year when we had plenty of rest and no injuries.

Failing to meet expectations and “dreadful” are not the same. After the 0-3 start our guys have gone 15-8, which is actually pretty respectable.

 

[GMUgemini]

for starters our defense doesn't work even against some of the worst offensive teams in the A10... we make bad shooting teams look like the Warriors far too often.. Dayton had their two guards shoot 3-20 from deep against us and we thought it was the norm... nope that was the outlier of the situation....

Our offensive play calling has been crappy and inefficient for years but not much has changed and we currently have two centers right now who are gassed after 1 min 3o seconds of game play.

If I fault Paulsen for anything is that his offense and defensive schemes are very conservative and heavily rely on patience and the other team making mistakes rather than forcing them into making mistakes. To be successful, Yove got to have 5 players on the floor at all times playing flawlessly, otherwise a single mistake breaks the whole scheme down in really ugly ways.

In other words, we have very little tolerance to having an off night somewhere on the floor.

 

[FreeGunston12]

I would buy all the tired/injured excuses . . . except that we started the game with the same 5 healthy guys as we have since the Mar injury. We fell into a 16-0 hole. You can’t blame that on energy and injury.

 

[gmujim92]

I would buy all the tired/injured excuses . . . except that we started the game with the same 5 healthy guys as we have since the Mar injury. We fell into a 16-0 hole. You can’t blame that on energy and injury.

Serious question: Did our guys look energized to you?

I thought they looked tired and at least a step slow for most of the game. But hey, Patriotsince81 says he could run all day when he was 21 so I guess they’re just lazy.

 

[FreeGunston12]

Serious question: Did our guys look energized to you?

I thought they looked tired and at least a step slow for most of the game. But hey, Patriotsince81 says he could run all day when he was 21 so I guess they’re just lazy.

No, they looked flat. The question is: what can you attribute that flatness to? Were practices too hard? Not recovered from Wednesday? Travel and general workload?

Seems more to me that the blame should fall more on being emotionally and tactically unprepared than physically unprepared. That’s what DP’s message should be to the team in my opinion.

Sure, injuries played a role in that. Regardless, you can’t come out of the gate 5 minutes behind your opponent. I’d rather see us fade late in the game than be noncompetitive from the start.

Every team has games like that. Learn from it , get as right as you can this week, and move on.

Edit: Maybe mentally unprepared is better wording that tactically, as tactically implies blame on the coaches. And I don’t want to place blame on one entity more than others.