2023 Offseason

Jive36 said:
I dont know where to put this so I guess it can go here. Mostly the same shit i put on X/Twitter. Except it looks at all runs we conceeded back to the beginning of conference play last year. We managed to survive and win 2 of the last 12 games we gave up a significant run. Runs like this are called "Kill Shots" by the statheads. Last year the team with the most Kill Shots in a game won 82% of the time. Guess what when we give up a Kill Shot we lost 83% of the time. Our major problem is we dont have a Kill Shot stopper Adams and Stockard are the two best examples I can think of. Since we dont have that guy we have become overly reliant on calling the right play at the right time to stop a run and all too often we have failed to execute the play or just called a bad play.

On a side note i think there is nothing more frustrating as a fan than seeing your team conceed massive runs. I can live with back and forth losses even blowouts when the team is just outmatched, but seeing the team go from in the lead/competitive to down 10 in 3-5 possessions is brutal and takes a lot of the fun out of it.

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Good stuff, Jive.

While it's obvious that we probably don't have the scoring to offset runs like we saw on Saturday, I think Charles Pride could be that guy.

I think he can be a 15-17 ppg guy for us. I know that's not close to a 2018 Adams output, it's still a lot better than what we had last year. I'm really not sure what to make of this club. We are most certainly much better than last year, and yet Schmidt keeps giving big minutes to guys like Luc and Banks.

If we want to be a contender in the A10, Woods and Flowers need to be starters or at the very least play 30+ minutes each night. I've seen enough of Luc and Banks. Neither are bad players, but are best suited for smaller roles.

The only thing that worries me is we still look out of sync on the offensive side (defense too), and I have to imagine that's because we have two new starters trying to learn Schmidt's offense. I don't want to be an alarmist, but in the age of the portal, you need to onboard your guys faster than in year's past, if he can't do that, he won't succeed in this new age.

It's a longshot, but hopefully this team is much better than what they showed on Saturday. We need a major rebound to win a game in Brooklyn.
 
Giving up that type of run to Canisius is infuriating. To play a pretty good 1st half and be in control of the game and then come out and do that is just horrible. It would be one thing if our guys were undermanned or just ran up against a good team but this should not happen at home to a team we should beat 9/10 times. I think Pride is that guy but clearly not Sat night.
 
What made me more angry was the complete defensive disappearance during that stretch. Nearly every look was an uncontested 3, uncontested back door cut, or transition point. They were outhustled and out-toughed.

The scoring drought problem is one we've had since Jay left. It's transcended lots of roster turnover, and we've had plenty of good players since that time capable of hitting a shot to stop a run. So I'm inclined to believe we should look to who the common denominator is over that time for a correction. You shouldn't need an A10 POY quality player to stop a run.

The offense is a huge concern. It doesn't seem as if any of the glaring weaknesses we lamented last year, are anything more than marginally improved. Woods and Pride can get to the rim, but so far its been out of necessity because of stagnant possessions.

I watch all of these teams we play use screens, cuts and ball movement to get downhill and attack the basket- including many teams we are more talented than- and it seems godddamn impossible to fathom that happening with our guys most of the time. If we're not hoisting threes off screens, than we are hoping for feeds into the post or iso ball to get us to the basket. There is rarely any semblance of an offensive rhythm otherwise. It's deeply disappointing that an obvious improvement in one of our most glaring weaknesses, has not shown itself yet. I really hoped for something different on that front, after a full offseason with lots of continuity.
 
Too much standing around on offense. I think that can be fixed with personnel changes.

I'm more worried about the defense and some of the mental/physical issues

Say what you want about Barry Evans' offensive production vs. Assa's but I think Barry is the smartest player on the team (flowers close second). I would give more minutes to Barry. If that means reducing Assa's, so be it.

just my view from the red seats
 
I think sometimes we over-analyze things. Yes the defense was horrid in the 2nd half and allowed them to shoot 12/24 from 3. We shot 4/20 from 3 and lost by 3 points. We also missed some critical FT that have to go down from good FT shooters. Its the little things that make the difference. Sometimes it comes down to they just had to make a few shots and they didnt. I have already argued that we should have never been in that position to begin with but at the same time, make some shots and control what you can control.

I rarely rip any players and I am not going to. However, we cant have Evans and Flowers combining for 0 points in 24 min. Barry played 10 min and was invisible. Not even a rebound. Need more from someone with his height and athletic ability. Flowers just never had it going.

Banks played 28 min, which is probably right for him.
 
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That's exactly what makes it so frustrating, 03. For 35 minutes of the game, we blew them out by 20, for 5 of them we lost by 23. That can't happen, not with a team with the experience and continuity we have. And it especially can't happen against an opponent like Canisius.
 
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