After a 4-5 minute stretch of great defense we've somewhat fallen apart. Crutcher with a very clutch 3 pointer as the shot clock expires.

Was starting to believe when it was down by 4.
But then realized it was us

Very poor shooting night for Sloan. 3 point shooting in general has been awful today. Does anyone know if we've had a single game this season where we've had an above average 3-point game? Maybe against Fordham?

MG14 wrote:

Very poor shooting night for Sloan. 3 point shooting in general has been awful today. Does anyone know if we've had a single game this season where we've had an above average 3-point game? Maybe against Fordham?

Seymour is 5/18 from 3 in our last 4 games. Good for 27%. Shooting at about 39% for the season which is actually good.

Don't understand why Coach doesn't pull players who are ice cold from the field.  Again, I am not talking about benching them, but just sit for a couple of minusput back in.   Or if they are staying in, stop calling their number in favor of another offensive option.   Or let me put it this way...there is no way that Seymore and Bishop, who shot a combined 7-26, should have taken nearly 60 percent of our shots for the game.  Unlike VCU, when we scored 77 points, today we really missed Battle as a desperately needed scoring option.

The offense was a disaster today, but I chalk that up to Dayton’s D and no battle.  Trying to imagine all those empty Seymour minutes going to Battle and it’s a different game. 

One thing I was struck by.  In the second half, Moyer was guarding Crutcher and shut him down, and other guys couldn’t pick up the slack for them.  But when we were down 4, we started switching everything so they got Moyer off Crutcher 3 straight possessions (the first two, the D broke down as soon as Seymour switched onto Crutcher).   

Maybe we were switching all along or started switching before we were down 4 and I just didn’t notice because the D was good?  But I definitely noticed when we were switching how Dayton created mismatches late in the game, and how for many possessions when Moyer stuck with Crutcher, we got stops.

Need to come out on Wednesday ready to play. Great fight in the second half, but it's tough to dig out of a hole set early on. We were far too lackadaisical in the first half on both sides of the ball - asleep is probably a better word. The number of corner threes we gave up to a good shooting Dayton team was troubling early on, but glad we remedied that somewhat in the second half.

Dayton basically has 4 guys who they can get points from, and Chatman didn't even play so it was really 3 - Crutcher, Watson, and Amzil. The scouting report for Crutcher is to guard him tight so he doesn't let it fly from behind the arc. Yes, he made some very deep shots, but he has done that consistently over his career and sometimes you have to make exceptions to how you guard for a guy who shoots over 40% from distance. We extended our zone at times, but it wasn't particularly effective. After he made five threes against us last year, you would think we would focus in on him, but he nailed another five against us tonight. Hopefully that doesn't happen again on Wednesday. Run him off the line and get the ball out of his hands. We did do a much better job on him in the second half, but the time we lost him on the switch late in the game was costly. He's a great player, but make someone else beat us to score points. Maybe we should keep Moyer on him for more of next game - he did a really good job on him in the second half. Dayton shot the ball the way they did early because all their looks were wide open. We tend to have many missed rotations defensively resulting in a lot of open shots all over the court.

The offense just did not show up today. Dayton is decent defensively but not elite like we made them look. Too many guys were standing around today and not moving trying to get open. The shot selection was pretty much either a contested Bishop shot that fell short or an unbelievably deep Seymour shot that hit the back rim. I get that JC kept Sloan in the game because we needed offense to catch up, but on most nights honestly his lack of defense outweighs his offense. We were bailed out on a couple plays where he was fouled on a three, but we need to be better about diversifying the offense - at the very least having Sloan take a closer uncontested three point shot. There was one play in the under 12 timeout where Seymour was wide open on the right side but Bishop just dribbled the ball for the entirety of the shot clock on the left side of the floor where all the Dayton defenders had concentrated, not looking at all at the other side of the court. That play was our offense in a nutshell this game - we didn't have to make Dayton work hard defensively because we played slow to their style of play and we didn't move the ball consistently enough. Predictably, it resulted in a contested heave from James at the end of the shot clock, not to dissimilar from our set seconds before out of a timeout.

Dayton wants to play slow, we do not. Part of our success offensively in the VCU game was because VCU likes to play fast anyways so it ended up being an up and down game. We have to start dictating pace of play. I liked Chase's extra passes down low - we needed to make some extra passes to get Matt some shots down low and balance out the offense more instead of just Bishop and Seymour taking all the shots. Perhaps we can play through Chase/Hunter more on offense. Felt like Hunter didn't play much in the second half which I thought was interesting - he could have provided some energy.

Having said that, proud of the team's fight in not letting Dayton run away in the second half. Really liking Ricky's ability to alter shots defensively and provide a spark down low on offense. Hopefully we get Jamison back soon.

Lack of identity is what I was thinking.
Only strategy is Bishop or at times Moyer taking shots,joined by Seymour today.
Lindo often makes his own defense.
We could well have used Maceo today.

If only we had bigger, tougher, taller, smarter, more talented, more disciplined players. We're too young, too new to compete, too many transfers in, too many guys leaving.. If only so and so wasn't hurt. Just give us another few years and we'll be dominating the league. Christian is being paid to win now--even at GW-- and he isn't coming close! This team lost 5 out of 6 early games to teams that we would have beaten in past years without a sweat. Gimme a break! 

moneybox wrote:

If only we had bigger, tougher, taller, smarter, more talented, more disciplined players. We're too young, too new to compete, too many transfers in, too many guys leaving.. If only so and so wasn't hurt. Just give us another few years and we'll be dominating the league. Christian is being paid to win now--even at GW-- and he isn't coming close! This team lost 5 out of 6 early games to teams that we would have beaten in past years without a sweat. Gimme a break! 

I somewhat agree, Moneybox.   I have been disappointed in many aspects of the coaching.   It seems like in many of the games (with the last two being glaring examples), the team seems to have been coming out completely unprepared as to what was being thrown at them.   Against VCU, we had already turned the ball over 4 times in the first 75 seconds, and against Dayton, they were scoring at will.   I have not liked his in game adjustments, the Bishopcentric offense that seems to waste the skill strengths of other players; his failure to adjust on defense and his leaving cold players in the game far too long as opposed to resting them for a few minutes.   I also agree that we need to be tougher and yes, more disciplined.  Other than the woeful defense, my biggest concern is the awful assist to turnover ratio.   But it is also true that we are too young and too new to complete, at least against the likes of VCU and Dayton.   I would like to think that we have come along far enough to win all of those earlier games that are now on the record as embarrassing losses.   If I had to grade the coaching at this point, it would have to be an incomplete, as we really need three full seasons to fairly judge his hire.  But I am definitely concerned.