gwsb14 wrote:

I have no doubt this team would play better if Bishop sat on the bench

I disagree. Bishop is great at drawing fouls that get him to the line and at bringing extra defensive attention that leaves someone else open. The problem is he does not make that pass to the open teammate often enough, and when he does not draw the foul he forces his shot. Coaching can correct both of those items.
 

First time back at the Smith Center. Had to see it with my own eyes.

First half I thought we looked good. Hit a bunch of threes and generally played good D. Second half was a west coast redux. Bad offense, really bad defense (how many wide open dunks did we give up?), and the wrong side of the officials.

I don’t really have any answers for what can be done. At some point the players just have to give a crap for their personal pride. Until then we’ll just get beat down like we have been.

I really don’t see an on-court difference between Mojo’s last team and this one except Mojo’s team didn’t have 4 BCS transfer starters.

Last edited by GW0509 (11/19/2021 9:31 pm)

Who on this team can give a Mike Hall UNCW type speech to wake this team up?

After 54 games, what is the coach supposed to figure out? We're batting a "solid" .333 during that span. Unfortunately this is not baseball.

But the long plane flight home.  Three time zones!

Same as it ever was…….

4th game in 6 nights for UMass-Lowell, all away from home. They must have been tired.

Really incredible to see a team fall apart like we did in the 2nd half where Bishop was abysmal handling the ball. He must've had 3 possessions in a row where he turned it over.

A few thoughts:

1. Defense was atrocious in the 2nd half. Looked like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. No rotation, no one would guard the guy rolling after doubling up top, consistently getting blown by on cuts because heads weren't on a swivle...some relatively basic stuff and things you do in practice.

2. Hard to win games when Adams and Bamasile go a combined 5-23. Adams was particularly invisible in the 2nd half. 

3. I'm not even sure what to say about Brown at this point. Seems like a good guy but there's just so much left to be desired. Zero awareness, slow movement, doesn't hold onto balls, not a good rebounder for someone of his size, not much of an offensive game...I'm just not sure what to do there. I don't want to be too hard on the kid but it seems he's overmatched at the D1 level. 

4. Probably the most obvious and least surprising thing of all, coaching is non-existant on this team. A 20 point swing in the 2nd half and zero adjustments? What was the offensive gameplan? Looked like they'd pass it around the perimeter and then hope someone could drive the ball or take a low percentage jump shot. How is it that no one on the coaching staff thought of calling ANY sort of play where someone could get open? Zero 3 pointers made in the 2nd half as well...all around just an atrocious night for the coaching staff

Here's to another long season

GW in the first half over five games -> +8 point differential
GW in the second half over five games -> -58 point differential

We are getting outscored by nearly 12 points in the second half alone each game. I don't even know how that's possible. This tweet goes one further:

Matt Eisenberg @matteise 25m
For GW, it’s rinse & repeat. Over the last 40G, GW has lost the opening 10M of the 2H in 31 of 40G w/ a +/- of -179. In the last 25G, GW has been outscored 21 times, with an avg. deficit of 5.8 pts in the first 10M of the 2H. Jamion Christian HT adjustments are not working.

Like GW0509 I don't how much can be done except have the team care more and not try to boost individual stats. This team is clearly talented, but right now it feels like the pieces JC has recruited do not fit well with each other.

There were two changes in this game:
1) We slowed things down, which caused us to foul less. We were gambling less for steals.
2) We made an attempt to pass the ball more and use more of the shot clock. Unfortunately, that still didn't result in open shots so I don't know how it really made a difference. We also went back to the same team that played in California in the second half where it was all isolation ball so the passing really only lasted a half.

I believe last year Coach Bousley was handling the offense and Devlin was handling the defense, but this year it seems like Bousley has moved over to defense and now Atkins is coaching the offense. Not sure if this happens on other staffs. Whatever Eric Atkins is doing right now isn't working. This dribble handoff system is cramping floor space and guys just keep dribbling into traffic time after time. The rotations down low were poor defensively tonight, but overall the defense has improved from a year ago and I think Bousley has done a solid job.

There is no one on this roster that I can say definitively is a strong shooter from distance which will cause teams to just continue to zone us. As someone who is probably less hard on Bishop than most on the board, those two turnovers late in the second half where he just had the ball stripped from his hands warranted benching. The only problem is he is probably our best offensive weapon on a team that is lacking offensive firepower in the halfcourt. It was more infuriating that Bishop's body language suggested that the turnovers didn't really matter. The lack of depth is probably forcing JC's hand to not rest guys when they get frustrated.

Really liked the energy Brayon brought tonight. I wouldn't mind if JC just inserted him into the starting lineup starting next game. Maybe have Bishop come off the bench as an offensive spark plug to see whether things change. The current starting lineup is just not working. I honestly wish the team could just skip the Naples tournament and use the extra time to figure things out. Ricky was really forcing things tonight and struggled to get going. It might have been his worst game at GW. Bamisile is an exciting player but takes really poor shots at times...like those really contested midrange shots. It's painful to watch every team move the ball better than us game after game.

This team needs a leader in the worst way, and until they play like a team the results will remain the same. I wouldn't be surprised if our offensive efficiency was in the 300s at that point. For an A10 team, ranking that low on either end is a fireable offense honestly.
 

Is Daniel Nixon that unimpressive in practice that he can’t crack a lineup that goes just 8 deep (and with one of the 8 playing 7 minutes)?

I am not Matt Eisenberg, @matteise, but we sound alike re: halftime adjustments