Author Topic: Game 24: vs. Hartford 2/3  (Read 983 times)

VA_Seawolf

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Re: Game 24: vs. Hartford 2/3
« Reply #30 on: February 04, 2018, 01:04:46 pm »

 All things considered, we had a good run from 09-2016, so I really can't complain too much.

Guess only time will tell, but wondering if this year is a down-year blip or perhaps where this program is and we're in for a long rebuild. In hindsight it feels more and more like a lot of energy went into the Warney run-up that squeaked us into one tournament, and maybe last year we were just lucky to have a supreme floor leader who willed us to a bunch of wins in close games.

In the best cases players grow and mature at a reasonable rate, and I have a hard time imagining the returning players at SBU in the near future (no matter the freshman coming in) suddenly hanging with the always top two programs or pretty much the entire Hartford team coming back.

Kudos to Hartford. They look good this year, and I really hope somebody can push UVM at least a little bit down the stretch.

Yeah, a lot of down faces and frustration among SBU players *and* coaches right now. For anyone still hanging around to watch the final games this year, feels like it's going to be more of the same.

We had turned the corner as a program and began competing for the AE before Warney got here though. Maybe it's the players, the coaching, or both that are missing right now, but we won't be down long. We have the largest athletic budget in this conference by a considerable margin and have great facilities, and a great athletic reputation. We're playing in the America East, not the Big East. We won't be down for very long. These next couple seasons will be rough I'd imagine, but we'll get this thing turned around before long. The football team will just have to step up and carry the banner for the university (which is how it should be anyway).

Moveitfred

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Re: Game 24: vs. Hartford 2/3
« Reply #31 on: February 04, 2018, 01:13:28 pm »
anyone want to talk about our three point game?  you know i do

I posted in the UMBC thread they were at .342, and now they're at .333. Of course this is for the year, and this continual drop is magnified recently against some okay/average percentages early on.

This is flat out just a very poor shooting team. What about our mid-range game? Our layup game? Heck, even our dunk game (if such a stat existed, we might even have the worst dunk percentage in the country!). The beginning of the game last night was simply laughable in terms of SBU misses, but was anyone surprised?

Just out of curiosity I went back to what seems like it was the beginning of the end this season--The Norfolk game. SBU's shooting percentages first half vs second half were:

FG/3pt/FT

46%/44%/89% (yeah!) vs 26%/18%/56% (clank...). Just seems indicative of about everything since. They fall behind and try to shoot their way back, but they can't shoot. Vicious cycle of failure.

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Re: Game 24: vs. Hartford 2/3
« Reply #32 on: February 04, 2018, 01:18:57 pm »
yeah but the % is only half the story, right.  we missed 28 shots that were low % to begin with. 

we defer right to the desperation shot.  no attempt to even pass or penetrate and force the defense to play us.  its like a pickup game of high school all stars just wanting to shoot shoot shoot.  no one wants to rebound or get physical.

im not saying this would work- if we were to play slow and steady and take high percentage shots and keep the defense honest- but heck isnt worth a try?  let's see what happens maybe???

or are we ok missing 28 of those desperation shots in front of 3500 fans against hartford?

PS loss 17 is coming against UML
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Moveitfred

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Re: Game 24: vs. Hartford 2/3
« Reply #33 on: February 04, 2018, 02:23:10 pm »
Like Checkmate has said, I don't think we're going to see any radical changes this season beyond stuff like what we saw last night with some new starters, but overall minutes and approach to games and shooting won't change.

I'm not saying this is the right move, but my best guess is this in terms of hopes/philosophy for what's left:

As poor as they've been, SBU has not (yet) been blown out in the AE. You could argue that with a few breaks and a few shots falling we've been *right there* about every game. Hey, I'm not saying I'd be convinced by that argument, but I think you could make it and from a program approach standpoint it's probably the safest/best argument to make right now. Keep on with what you think is the right thing to do.

So you keep plugging along and what happens?

SBU loses the rest of its games. Quite possible, and of course worst case scenario. Okay, so you say to the masses "We had some tough breaks, played a lot of young guys without experience, and need to get better at X, Y, Z...."

But what if, just what if, especially come AE playoffs the trend shifts and SBU starts hitting just average percentages and doing a few more things right? Possible, right? And if that happens (AE remember) they're right back to maybe winning a first round game (if they don't draw UVM) and we think "Okay, well they ended on a higher note...." Or, they super-duper pull things together and win two games (I'm thinking even if they didn't draw UVM in game 1 they'd likely get them in a game 2, so this probably is not at all likely, but still...) and we think, "Wow, now they over-achieved and something must be good going into next year!"

Anyway, yeah, rambling but I guess what I'm trying to say is we ain't going to see anything different this year (probably not any year with the same HC) and the best hope is playing that early morning AE Saturday game in March as a "Cinderella team" on ESPN2 against UVM or UA. Anything less than that and you play the "we have more work to do" card and come back next year.

But what do *I* think SBU should do in terms of 3 pters? I'd like it if Ty, Saintel, Mac, Garcia, and Petras (Petras?!!) never shoot another one all year. I'd like it if Cornish and Olaniyi each take no more than two wide open ones each game (and zero is fine). And I'd like it if Yeboah and UC take as many open ones as they want (heck, why not). If Sekunda comes back, he can take a few (I'll text him the number allowed if he suits up this year  ;D)