We need a back to the basket big BAD. Both on offense and knowing how to deny the post on defense.

Like other said, we know where we stand now. Hopefully we can get two more wins and finish off strong.

I guess the one bad sign is that outside of the Davidson game our conference losses have all been by double digits.

Last edited by GW0509 (2/22/2022 9:35 pm)

Richmond too good for us.  Total lack of frontcourt was the difference because our guards are good enough.  Definitely another day we felt the loss of Ira Lee hard - I think he might have smothered Grant Golden and changed the whole game (especially because we then could have put Dean on Cayo instead of watching Qwanzi and Adams get backed underneath all game). 

Also a really frustrating game from the refs.  I haven’t seen a team use two hands on both ball handler and cutters without getting calls as often as tonight since the 90s.  It was shocking how they let them defend for much of the game.

Also a killer was the offensive foul call on Joe for kicking out his leg on a three… followed by twice calling fouls on us when their 3point shooter kicked out their leg. One of those was a gifted 4 point play, so it was a 7 point swing for not calling it all the same.


But referee complaints aside that’s not why we lost.  We lost because they are better and we didn’t do a very good job of holding our ground when they backed us down, because they shot it extremely well and moved the ball well, and because we simply aren’t a good enough offensive team to match that kind of offensive onslaught.

But two GREAT positive takeaways - only 4 turnovers the entire game (none by Freeman, only 1 steal for Gilyard) and only 3 offensive rebounds given up (I know they don’t crash the boards, but we still did our job).

Some other observations:

1) JoeBam looked like a pro. They simply couldn’t guard him, though it’s too much to ask him to put up 40+ as a freshman, which is what we needed.  He’s shooting 38% from three in conference games (and 77% from the line, so the shooting is not a fluke).  When he shoots it well, he’s basically unguardable.  This is also his 10th game of 20 or more this year.  Great player and only getting better.  I hope we can surround him with a high level frontcourt because he may just be our first NBA player since Yuta. 

2) Brayon was fantastic.  He had 6’8” pro prospect Tyler Burton on him (trying to pull a Yuta with the long guy guarding the PG), but Brayon attacked well all game.  He also had two great sequences midway through each half to keep us on it - in the first he did the inbound off the guy’s back for a layup followed by the steak and three point play when the game was getting away, and in the second back to back threes when we needed it. He also could have had 10 assists if guys were knocking down shots. And again, zero turnovers.

3) James was off, but he did have the Defensive Player of the year and all time NcAA steals leader on him.

4) Adams had his worst game of the year. Tough matchup, especially trying to guard Cayo, but 0 points and 0 rebounds isn’t going to cut it.

5) Qwanzi is simply overmatched against all but the worst teams in the league.  I don’t know whether to praise JC for beating the bottom half of the league with Qwanzi playing major minutes or criticize him for failing to recruit anyone better (or, more accurately, for failing to recruit anyone better other than the one injured guy). We really need an upgrade to the frontcourt this off-season.

6) Hunter needs to learn to hold his ground better against bigger post players. I would have loved to see him try to draw offensive fouls instead of just getting backed in under the basketball game.

7) Ricky should have matched up nicely in this game and he did play well at times, but we need more from him and he’s capable of more.

Again, hats off to Richmond, who simply played too well for us.

Richmond came out angry after getting blown out against VCU and it showed. Unlike URI, it looked like the Spiders showed that they cared about their seeding for the upcoming tournament. It was going to be tough to overcome the way Richmond was shooting the ball. I'm actually surprised they only shot 56% from the field, because it felt like it was closer to 80%. Almost every possession for Richmond felt like it ended with a made basket. I had said the game was going to come down to whoever can get a defensive stop, but what I should have said was whoever simply misses more shots because there was very little defense played on either side.

Golden was predictably a near impossible matchup for our frontcourt (although we strangely had trouble even guarding Grace, which was a bit concerning). Would have liked to see Ricky get that assignment for stretches (despite the obvious height disparity) because it was always going to be tough for Hunter one-on-one. This felt like a repeat of the second half Davidson game except it was over a full game. No one provided help side defense and that allowed Richmond's bigs to get great positioning and finish under the hoop like Brajkovič. Richmond was a big test for the defense and it's safe to say that we still have a ways to go against teams that are strong offensively with 5 scoring options on the floor at once. I think we are pretty good at recovering back to the three point line when the ball gets passed back out to the perimeter, but perhaps JC didn't trust that enough. All I know is that Hunter cannot be by himself against the better bigs in the league. We have won games when we have doubled more often.

I am not quite sure what the defensive game plan was. I thought we did a better job in the Davidson game. The fact that Cayo made 9 field goals is unacceptable. I'm glad that we tried to force him to beat us early on, but given we had no foul trouble and Cayo shot 1-4 from the line tells me that we made things way too easy for him to foul down low. We should have used more of our fouls to hack him and send him to the line. He was 48% on the season and has a weird hitch when he releases the ball.

The three point defense wasn't as good as it usually is, perhaps because Richmond's scheme caused us to rotate more than we usually do. Gilyard made a couple deep threes, but otherwise almost all his looks were open which was bad. He is less efficient when he is run off the line due to his height and I trust our frontcourt enough that we would have made things tougher on him to finish inside.

It also wouldn't have been the worst thing to force Sherod to take more shots when he was in. He clearly did not look the same after his second ACL injury and didn't get much lift on his shots.

Offensively, I thought we didn't do a good job of consistently attacking the hoop. That's been a concern all season when shots aren't falling. We are too jump shot reliant at times. Like Davidson, Richmond isn't threatening at all down low and I'm not sure why we didn't take more advantage of that. Cayo and Burton finished with four fouls, and the game could have been completely different had they fouled out earlier. Golden and Grace can't play together, so Richmond would suddenly become a much smaller team. The refs may have called more things on us than them, but 13 FTs is low against a mediocre Richmond defense.

Great game for Joe, although he looked a bit gassed in the second half after a really good first 20 minutes. There were some layups after halftime that rimmed out that he usually makes. Defensively, Joe has promise but has to learn to not step into a three point shooter. It happened in the La Salle game and unfortunately again in the Richmond game. The Burton four point play effectively put the game out of reach for us.

Brayon was absolutely fantastic yesterday. He won the matchup against Gilyard which is really impressive. 5 assists to 0 turnovers. The team did a really good job protecting the ball against a Richmond team that can disrupt the flow of the offense. While we were down by 7-8 points virtually the entire game, Freeman continued to battle and made some big plays on both ends. He finished in traffic and was one of the few players to actually attack the hoop apart from Joe. The fact that he has emerged as a third scoring option when defenses lock down on JB squared has been huge for the team's improvement and overall outlook moving forward.

Hopefully Bishop's cold streak comes to an end soon. He made some nice passes to Hunter early on. It would help his confidence if he got to the line more instead of settling for jump shots.

Hunter and Qwanzi have been nice stories this season. I think they have shown enough to potentially be factors off the bench in small doses, but we simply need a stronger starting frontcourt against the better teams in the league. I wish we would give Hunter the ability to be more assertive offensively. When he does, it usually works out. Asking him to just screen and hand the ball off makes us easier to guard and the offense more predictable overall. I think he's capable but JC's offense de-emphasizes the big a little too much. To move up in the A10, we need to find a big we can play through/score, and JC needs to change his philosophy to get the frontcourt more involved (and provide balance offensively).

Noel needed to play way more than 2 minutes. Qwanzi and Brendan just did not have the size or strength to cover the 4 spot and it was tough to see no adjustment made there as we got backed down time after time.

Brendan and Ricky have just been disappointing overall for much of the year. I am not convinced Ricky is 100% healthy still. Despite him going 0-6 from three the past two games, I'm fine with him taking those shots because he's been fairly good from distance on the year. Having said that, I think Lindo settles a bit too much and should attack the rim more. His only shots close to the hoop are off offensive rebounds. He does a great job defensively and on the boards as always but the team cannot take the next step if he's a non-factor offensively. His three best scoring games of the season were the first three games in November. That's why I'm convinced he's not fully himself. The only times he's really hit double figures since then is when he makes enough three point shots. Earlier in OOC play, much of his scoring was coming more inside.

Brendan has come up big for us recently, but I'm not sure he did enough to warrant 17 minutes if we were keeping him on Richmond's forwards all game. I would have at least liked to see him defend Gilyard or another guard. Adams does a great job as a passer but every time he shoots it usually kills the team momentum unfortunately. If Ricky and Brendan can combine for 5-7 made baskets this team would win more often than not (minus a hot shooting team like Richmond of course).

I would prefer we put ourselves in position to face Davidson in a potential Friday matchup so it's not the end of the world that we lost yesterday. I wouldn't mind if we ended up in the 8/9 game which is a worst-case scenario at this point. Hopefully, we come better prepared defensively against Mason. If the plan against Oduro is to let him back us down underneath and not give Hunter any help at all it will be another tough game.
 

I believe that JC thought (and I would concur) that he could not effectively double Golden or Cayo because they are very effective post passers coupled with effective perimeter shooters (Gilyard, Burton, Gustavson and Sherrod). At some point you have to choose your poison.

I would also echo the comments that the referees stole our momentum with some dubious calls in the second half and clearly frustrated both JC and the players. It was not the sole reason we lost or even the most important one but it was a factor.

BM wrote:

A bit late on this, but it looks like it's relatively easy to gameplan against us as we refuse to give up on defending the three point line with up to four players and the one defender of the basket will get no help for fear of a kickout pass.  As long as a team has a center who can take Dean one-on-one, opponents will print baskets at a high rate.

Yes and no. I would concur if you said a team has a center who can take Dean one on one and is an effective post passer coupled with an effective perimeter offense (2 or more shooters on the floor at all times). For example, we played differently against URI because URI couldn't hit 3s like Richmond can. We struggled versus Davidson because they had both. We have considerably more trouble when you have both. When you have one or the other, we have done a much better job. 

Also, on the whole we are guarding way better than at any point in JC's tenure so far so the trends are pointing up. But we do need much more post defense to become a team that can compete for the top of the A-10.

Last edited by GWRising (2/24/2022 10:07 am)

I think it's far more about the post player.  Golden and Brajkovic took the ball right to Hunter who was all but defenseless playing man-to-man without help.  URI may not have the three point shooting of Richmond or Davidson but they also have two big men who were content to take jump shots rather than repeatedly pound the rock.

A lot has been covered. Dean was truly overmatched and left without help. Didn't even seem like another Colonials would take a vague swipe at the ball when Richmond post player dribbled high. Adams on Cayo, I guess, the comparatively massive UR player, seems like a really odd assignment that predictably didn't work.
     Couldn't we have used Brown or even Nixon to body up a bit, at the least give a few fouls for poor FT shooters as noted above?-- and at least give Richmond some pause for thought as they went inside with impunity. Even that walkon Warner, though thin, could raise his hands and give a foul or several.
   In addition, when we are struggling offensively, can we give Knapp a heat check when we are struggling with shooting? It's not really fair to him to throw him in like that and expect him to perform, but Knapp has done it at the D1 level, though with more playing time. And frankly we were desperate for scoring at times.
As pointed out again above by someone else, the starters seemed gassed in our usual second half collapse. If nothing else, we should be able to let them catch their wind. We left spots open and don't have a lot  on the bench. We need to make at least some small use of what we have.
      Also, the offense seemed to be reverting toward early form when we were losing. It wasn't as bad as OOC, etc. Brayon penetrated/made some nice passes, Ricky and James made a couple of backdoor passes. But it seemed like we were taking some inopportune shots that didn't fall, rather than seeing if we could get a better one. And when a player couldn't highlight his individual moves to shake his defender(s), he wound up just handing it off or made a last minute pass to someone else who wasn't in good position. Compare it to the way Richmond moved the ball.
   Since Richmond is solid, but not spectacular, hope this isn't a reversion to earlier form for us.