Gutsy win - very good defense.

Had recorded game and just finished watching.   Very proud of team today.    Well coached and players hung tough during the stretch, especially Bishop..   Hunter Dean has not been a scoring option all season and today he was.   Either this was opportunistic on Hunter's part or it was a bit of a change in the coaching to include him in the offense.    Was kinda fun not reading the posts on this board until after the game was over.   For the longest time, I was wondering if we were going to end  the game having scored only on Samuel's 3.    This one may come back to bite URI at the end of the season if they had any hopes of being a bubble team.   

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (1/22/2022 6:10 pm)

Missed the game, followed the last minute on my phone...sounded exciting at the end.

May have been halftime adjustments...but if URI missed 16 FTs and was 2-19 from 3, may have just been a bad game by URI.

In any case, loved the twitter videos of the locker room and happy for the kids.

You got to smile at this from  the Rhode Island message board  --

On the postgame show, Cox called GW a "really good team". I'm not kidding. HE SAID THAT!!!

GWRising wrote:

Also, as an aside, couldn't be happier that the Mitchell twins tanked the game at line. Don't usually root against any kids but if you know some of their history that was justice! 

Agree with this. We definitely dodged a bullet with them not coming here. Would have been bad for the locker room and they show such poor body language. Whining on call after call while the rest of the URI team got back on defense. Also a 3-16 performance from the line wouldn't even make the cut at SLU. I feel bad for Cox (he seems like a nice guy), but some of his players are unlikeable and seem to be hot headed when things go south. Despite the tough season we've endured thus far, I have to give credit to JC and staff for keeping the team morale high and connected. While the things he says during the postgame conferences is a bit cheesy at times, the team's response after two really bad A10 games to start conference play tells me that they've still bought in. We could have easily packed it in today, but really played together against all odds.

A very satisfying win, especially with it being on the road (I believe our first of the season?) I am honestly still stunned that we won that. Nice to see that JC wasn't afraid to keep JB squared on the bench while the bench was giving the team a spark. I actually think playing fewer minutes helped Bishop with his efficiency and allowed him to take the reins down the stretch when the team needed it. Joe (only) shot 5 threes today, which tells me the ball moved a bit more and Joe didn't settle. He would have had a great extra assist to start the game had Hunter not missed the dunk (his only real blemish in the game).

Amir might not score, but he gives us a veteran ballhandler and I think even just that is useful, especially in a game where Brayon was in foul trouble.

The refs were awful today. Maybe that's been the case every game and I've shut it out since we've been so bad, but the officiating was overtly bad in this game. It seemed like every time a Mitchell got a touch in the post and pushed off/ran us over they called a blocking foul on us, but when Hunter or Qwanzi did the same thing they called a charge. Not that it was the worst thing in the world to send them to the line. It made the win feel that much better because URI lost despite the refs giving them the home whistle. Brayon was called for some outrageous fouls where it seemed like there was minimal to no contact. All I'll say is thankfully the game did not go to overtime given we had 5 players with 4 fouls.

Freeman is so unselfish on offense and does such a great job setting others up. That's much needed on the team. What's even more impressive is that he knows when the team needs him to score and he really kept us from getting to downright brutal territory early on offensively.

I have been tough on Hunter and Qwanzi in the past in terms of their ability to hang with A10 players but have never doubted their effort. Hunter has quietly made good plays all season (the Maryland game comes to mind, and I think we missed him on that west coast road trip when things started falling apart) but he just never put it fully together until today, which was his most complete game on both sides of the ball. Glad to see us change things up and not force things with just the guards today. URI made the right call to try and take away Bishop/Bamisile, but for once it seemed like we were willing to take what the defense gave us and make Hunter a more prominent part of the offense. The post is so devalued in JC's system that at times I feel that guys like Hunter and Qwanzi (along with Noel when healthy) could give us more if they are just simply used a bit more in the offense apart from just setting screens.

As one of the taller guys playing right now, I wish Qwanzi would give us a few more boards, but he definitely deserves a shoutout on the last sequence where he played good defense on Sheppard without fouling (although we could have just run out the clock had he thrown it ahead kind of like what he did in the Mason game - I think FQ had also mentioned that). The team didn't make it easy to watch down the stretch with some reach in fouls that just weren't needed but glad we still pulled it out. We can't always count on a team going 11% from three or 48% from the line, but we controlled what we could control and made a smart decision to double in the post to make up for a massive disadvantage there.

I've also been hard on Brendan, and he deserves a lot of credit for not only forcing threes a lot less since he returned a game ago, but contributing on the glass and making the extra pass. I can't imagine it was easy to move back to the bench but he's given the team a nice spark when he comes off the bench. He brings great value when he penetrates and gets closer to the hoop.

Would love to give a 40% three point shooter like Bryan Knapp some tries from distance, but he did an admirable job defensively when in.

Also kudos to Tyler Warner for coming in and giving us a bucket that ended up being the difference in score between the two teams.
 

There's one skill that rarely gets mentioned, and it is "can you create your own shot"

James Bishop can always create his own shot, go back and look at that game winner, he's driving left, he pulls up off the bounce, smooth, and pure, for the game winner. 

Gutsy win all around

 

Mike K wrote:

Missed the game, followed the last minute on my phone...sounded exciting at the end.

May have been halftime adjustments...but if URI missed 16 FTs and was 2-19 from 3, may have just been a bad game by URI.

In any case, loved the twitter videos of the locker room and happy for the kids.

Good Free Throw defense is a key part of our future wins as I see it. Seeing that we committed 65 fouls. Serious, I also think that we have to get Harris and Joe to the end of a close game to have a chance at a win. Knapp may also be helping withg his rebounds per minute rate. If his shooting steals us a few minutes as well, we are benefiting. Even when we get Ricky back, I hope that we keep playing with the 4 guard set and run the other team around in the first half. That burns up their legs.

Gwmayhem wrote:

GWRising wrote:

Great comeback win! Keep hope alive!

But I beg to differ that this was JC's best coached game. It just worked out because we executed and URI shot terribly at the foul line. Some of you are so outcome determinative it isn't funny. We win  - great coaching job. We lose - terrible coaching job. Let me ask you this if JC coached exactly the same way but URI hit 3 more free throws do you really believe anyone would be here praising the coach?

JC is the same guy all the time. He can coach. The key is whether he gets execution for his sets and whether we guard and rebound. Good players make coaches look smart! Today they made him look smart. This past Wednesday, not so much.
 

I think this is a ridiculous statement GWRising.  I'm not sure how anyone could possibly believe that the way this team was coached today was very much along the lines of how they've been coached all season.  So much of the OOC games saw an offense predicated on one player attempting to go 1 on 1 (or worse) with 4 teammates standing around watching.  There were practically no screens and no movement without the ball.  Doing the color commentary today was Dr. John Giannini (who did a nice job) who specifically mentioned that JC had told him that GW had only recently installed a motion offense which was designed to make it more difficult to double team Bishop and Bamisile.  To spell this out, there was no motion offense attempted during the OOC games.

Furthermore, I saw a distinct in-game coaching maneuver which involved not allowing Sheppard (and to a lesser extent, Leggett) to beat you while double teaming the Mitchell who could not shoot free throws in the post.  The coaching, unique to this game, was not to be concerned with sending URI (specfically Mitchell) to the line, particularly if the trade-off was to not allow easy baskets.

I thought this was a great team win, one that I hope JC will recall the next time his stars are having an off day and yet he's tempted to still play them 38 minutes.   That, by the way, was another change in coaching, playing players 6-10 (or close to this) for a fairly long stretch during the comeback.  Again, something we really hadn't seen all season.

The last word goes to Hunter Dean.  I, too, predicted that he would have a long day and am thrilled he proved me wrong.  Regardless of whatever his stats turned out be be, Hunter fought and fought all afternoon.  Without Ricky and Noel, and having to often face both Mitchells at the same time, it was really a courageous effort.  My knock on Hunter prior to today was that he looked like he didn't belong.  Played like he often second-guessed himself which will often have much to do with being mistake-prone.  These past three games, it's obvious that he knew he was going to play a lot and didn't have to "play scared", wondering if a single mistake might put him back on the bench.  He's made the most of the opportunity but not any better than today.  Would love to see this confident Hunter Dean emerge from here on in.  Dr. John referred to him early in the game as the X factor and he could not have hit the nail any more squarely on the head.  
 

First of all, I don't care what Dr. John claimed JC told him (maybe he has a different definition of recent), more of a motion offense has been in place since the Florida trip. Ask JC if you would like. Now to my point it may have taken awhile for players to execute it. But the motion offense didn't win or lose us the game yesterday. The real improvement was the defense and rebounding (and very fortunate to have the Mitchell twins go 3-16 from the line). GW has been working on rebounding everyday for months - JC knows it has been a real problem for awhile. But again, we executed block outs and positioning to a better degree than before. And we guarded the three like we always do - we were ranked 67th in 3-point defense coming into the game so in the best 20% of teams in nation at that.

Obviously, every game plan is different based on strengths and weaknesses of other team.

Finally, go back and read the comments when we were down 18-3. Yes, everyone thought JC was coaching a great game then lol. Same offense, same personnel. So he was coaching a bad game until he wasn't?
 

Last edited by GWRising (1/23/2022 10:52 am)

Rising-Are you suggesting that a coach can’t make good or bad decisions during the same game?
I do that every day!

Yes, he was coaching a bad game until he wasn't. 18-3 is not a good start in most people's opinions. And with one possible but unlikely exception, while those commenting have not been A-10 basketball coaches, to the average college basketball fan, an 18-3 start would seem to indicate that things are not going well and it's not a great hole to dig out of as a rule.
Dr. John has actually been an A-10 basketball coach.
Numerous examples have been provided in this discussion.
   And, for a rare time in the first half, JC decided to sit a favorite down for an extended time when he wasn't performing. And try some lineup mixes, rather than sticking to a losing formula using the same players.
   Also, how the players execute is obviously part of the job. It's midyear, season 3 and barring a spectacular run or league championship, postseason hopes have been gone for a long time. Is there supposed to be no accountability for performance?
Sometimes it's how the Jimmies and Joes you have recruited execute the Xs and Os.