Well, I had the very unique perspective of watching solely the first 8 minutes of this game.  Unfortunately, I was then called away for a medical emergency and missed the rest of the game.  I will say a couple of things:

1) JC semi-joked before the game that maybe he needs to stop listening to the fans who insisted on playing some zone last season and now are unhappy with the decision to play zone.  I'm going to try to not read too much into this but I just hope that he gets it.  (Yes, I know he sees them practice every day.  I know he knows the team better than any of us.  Still, he is a young coach who is capable of being incorrect about things, same as the rest of us.  His decision-making is not perfect and he'd be the first one to say so.)  What I mean is that the decision to play man or zone should be based on opponent and game situation.  It should not be so predictable that opponents will know exactly what they'll be facing and can prepare for it.  I would like to see this team play more than one zone defense, and man-to-man, all within the same game where appropriate.  

2) One thing that's become painfully obvious is that this team is not being coached on how to defensively rebound out of a zone.  It's not hard...once the ball is shot, you find the closest opponent in proximity to you and you box them out.  It only took 8 minutes to see how flat-footed we look when rebounding.  Guys are literally standing still hoping the ball will come to them.  Many of those 20 extra shots that Hampton took were the result of offensive rebounds.  Putting aside any and all intricacies of playing a zone defense, if you can't box out your opponents and end up surrendering 10 offensive rebounds to Navy and 15 to Hampton, you have no business playing a zone defense.

3) While I understand the frustration of any GW fan today, it would be decent if we could refrain from the "why should I care when the kids are clearly not caring" type of posts.  Again, I missed most of this game, but I find it very presumptuous that anyone here can get inside these players' minds and conclude that they really don't care about winning or losing.  I just see this as a tremendous insult to our players as well as a baseless accusation. 

Just listened to the Jamion post-gamer linked above. First, let me say I’m all in with this guy. I think he’s got the right character and leadership qualities to be successful. I am much less sure today, however, about his fundamental coaching ability. Last year was a pass in my book, but the things we are seeing this year have the red light on the dashboard blinking right now.

And then, to hear some of the delusional crap - we just need more love in the locker room, when we get that we’ll be ready to dominate our league - good lord. He’d be better advised to drop the howdy dowdy act and show us all he is in touch with realty - poor effort, no game plan, and lots of wood to chop.  I ain’t bailing on the guy yet, it’s way too early...but the wheels on the JC bandwagon are wobbling.

Alum1 wrote:

Just listened to the Jamion post-gamer linked above. First, let me say I’m all in with this guy. I think he’s got the right character and leadership qualities to be successful. I am much less sure today, however, about his fundamental coaching ability. Last year was a pass in my book, but the things we are seeing this year have the red light on the dashboard blinking right now.

And then, to hear some of the delusional crap - we just need more love in the locker room, when we get that we’ll be ready to dominate our league - good lord. He’d be better advised to drop the howdy dowdy act and show us all he is in touch with realty - poor effort, no game plan, and lots of wood to chop. I ain’t bailing on the guy yet, it’s way too early...but the wheels on the JC bandwagon are wobbling.

     Good press conference find and post, 0509. And this above, is spot on and mild. Anyone
who saw the game should listen to this "press conference"--2 people, one of whom basically asked 
"why are we so great." Presumably, the young lady who asked real questions is from The Hatchet. No real media covers us and with our early season glory, that is not going to chance.
   Everyone who watched the game should listen to the press conference. It's only 8 minutes, unlike our beatdowns by Navy and HAMPTON. The press conference is as disturbing as the stubbornness over sticking to zone, following the stubbornness of never playing zone.
    But Alum1 was right about how delusional it was. Don't generally want to make any analogies to current events, but if this happens when we play at LaSalle or St. Joes, we know an outdoor place nearby where he can hold the press conference and just the lawyer if JC wants to argue that we won.
At times our zone was good, JC indicates. Maybe the shot clock violation and some other scattered possessions. If we did get our "monsters" and "turkeys" on the white inspiration board, they were lost in our many turnovers and missed bunnies (maybe put those on the board, too). If Hampton shot decently in the first half, they would have been well on their way to a blowout.
And would say, beyond outside the 3 point line, the corners, around the FT line, under the basket, especially backdoors, as well as a lack of rebounding, the zone was okay at times. Its possible there weren't a lot of long range 2s, really didn't notice, but no one prefers them anyway.
Even Bishop admitted we have to play harder. Any other coach, at halftime or postgame would say, we have to play harder, it's on me I didn't get them prepared for the game, maybe offer a few excuses, but say, we have to win games like this and we will do better.
  More on the "love" thing in another post. Hope that didn't get him the job, because the love seems unrequited.
Did he see the same game we did. Saying thing that went something like "we're on a good path. We're gonna be great." Entirely possible, we may, but we sucked yesterday and frankly, against Navy, and particularly had no energy against a significantly lower-level team at home, where we were a big favorite.
   Bite the bullet. Say we disappointed ourselves and our fans. Both coaches and players can do better, this is what we did wrong--most of it is on me as the head coach, we'll work on fixing the deficiencies--everyone who's on the court will give their all. We have no excuses, but will work hard every day we practice--and will be better prepared in the future.
   All is not lost, and JC has potential as a coach and the players are more than good enough to be competitive. 
    But this is troubling, needs to be fixed and even though this is an escape from the troubles of actual life, it still needs to be somewhat grounded in the real basketball world so another season is not wasted.
    
      
 

GW73's ideal press conference after a loss



 

Heard much complaining about the offense throughout this thread.  I agree that there are many, many problems with the offense that we can easily see, even on television, but the fact of the matter is we scored 149 points over 2 games.   That is not why we lost.   Likewise, I heard much about that the talent on this team is better than how they performed.  That is probably correct; however it is easy to overrate a player if you only analyze half of his game (the offensive end).   Somebody scores double digits on a regular basis and hey, you have a good player.   No.  We must look at the complete player (meaning defensive skills also).    If a player scores 18 points but through lack of defense gives up 25 points, that is not a good game, and if this happens regularly, then this means one of two things...either he is not a good player or he is being utilized wrong on the defensive end.   This is my roundabout way of saying "its the defense, stupid."   I kinda want to give the coach the benefit of the doubt, saying that he believes that proper execution of the zone will result in the mayhem that he seeks, which in turn would result in a large number of turnovers and transition baskets, but this learning curve is very painful to watch.    But I really wish there was a defensive "plan b", which there does not seem to be.  Perhaps Navy is better than we anticipated (they did beat Ge**getown), but Hampton?  Our loss to the likes of Hampton, Morgan State last season, 3 losses to an otherwise winless Fordham, etc.) is unacceptable, no matter how far we still have to go on the learning curve;  Maybe in Coppin State we have discovered a team we can beat, but if the first 2 games were any indication, I would not count on it.    

 

Year One JC: lost to Towson, American, Morgan State, Harvard, Vermont, UM-Kansas City and Fordham (3 times). Year Two: Navy and Hampton.
JC inherited 2-3 years of an interim HC with no coaching experience and was hired by an AD with no AD experience. Meanwhile, GW moved from Knapp to LeBlanc, Covid hit, and GW's finances and PR continue to slide. A few reasons why GW Basketball is several years behind. That's a problem in regular cycles: Programs that have their shit together year in and year out still go through periods of mediocrity. Many many midmajor schools that reach glory (VCU, George Mason, Loyola Chicago) never return. Seems like midmajor programs that cycle towards success in 5-10 year increments. Our cycles are more 10- to 15-year. Institutionally, we are not in a position to expect anything will change. New people are in new roles and will be given every chance to succeed. I certainly don't expect a coaching change before Year 5 of JC. Similarly, in this financial environment and given the way she was hired, AD will be there more or less until she chooses to leave. Results are not as important right now as the daunting challenges of morale, compliance and simply not fucking up.

I've missed Mentzinger posts!

Rather than “going in reverse,” I think it’s more that there’s little difference right now between MoJo and JC when it comes to having a competent strategic game plan and being able to adapt and make changes within the game, along with a general cluelessness on basic things like calling time outs. It’s like a rerun to some degree. And to me that’s truly UNACCEPTABLE.

At a bare minimum I expected this guy to come in amd run circles around the in-way-over-his-head Mojo. I have to say I’m very dismayed at this point to see it unfolding this way. It needs to get fixed fast.

Last edited by Alum1 (12/04/2020 4:14 pm)

Gwmayhem wrote:

I've missed Mentzinger posts!

Thanks Mayhem. Took me a while to find the site, happy to engage now that the ball is being thrown up.