GW0509 wrote:

Knapp reminds me of the journeyman hitting .280 in AAA that people are demanding get called up. Sure, he could come up and give you a couple of good at bats, but if he could do more he wouldn’t be in the minors.

Spot on.

Yesterday proved that an improved team does not necessarily mean a good one.  Or perhaps I should say a consistent one.  I say this because a number of things happened in this game that just should never happen.  Some may appear to be nitpicks but they all add up in tight games.

1) Mason ran an inbounds play where Oduro caught the pass in between three GW players and proceeded for an easy dunk.  Coaching legend Ron Thompson, he of the 9 career wins as a college head coach, was correct in pointing out that GW fell asleep on the inbounds play.

2) So when you're caught napping, instinct says you will be overly alert on the next GM possession so as to not allow another easy basket.  Instead, a Mason player drove the lane in such an uncontested manner that it appeared he was in a pregame layup line.

3) Sticking with defense, am picking on Samuels in this example but this has happened so many times that it applies to almost everyone at one time or another.  Oduro, who is right handed, gets the ball in the post along the baseline.  Samuels is guarding him.  As a defender, you musty deny Oduro the baseline.  You do this by sticking your left foot extended to the baseline so that Oduro literally has to crash into you in order to go to his right.  We are horrible at taking away the baseline.  It's either the coaches not preaching it or the players not understanding or executing.  Predictably, Samuels provides enough of an opening for Oduro to back in using his strong hand and banking in an easy layup.

4) Ricky Lindo's fifth foul.  We can complain all day that a ref should not foul a player out on a call like this but what on earth was Ricky thinking?  Oduro is setting up to make a thunderous dunk off of a fast break.  Lindo can not be anywhere near that play.  The likelihood of getting a clean block on that play is miniscule when compared to the importance of Ricky staying in the game at this juncture.  I get that his competitive instincts may have taken over but it's decisions like that which separates smart teams from less than smart teams.

5) This echoes Moneybox's spot on post.  GW had a 6 point lead with a little more than 5 minutes remaining and was then outscored 13-0 to lose the game.  As soon as GW lost the lead, the two JB's combined to miss five three point shots.  These were not the shooting in rhythm type of shots, like when Brayon threw a bounce pass into the corner to James who sank the three in the first half.  These were what we used to call back in the day "chucks", as in someone who was taking wild, bad outside shots on the playground  was "chucking away."  These were long, out of rhythm shots when what was really needed were higher percentage plays that would result in easy baskets or free throw opportunities.  

6) What we saw down the stretch was panic.  The team had lost the lead and rather than rally to try to come back by hitting singles and drawing walks, the team instead swung for the fences on each pitch and failed to make contact.  This team has a tendency to fall in love with the big shot or the big play and those are typically made by Bishop or Bamisile.    I don't care who the two players are...defending 5 against 2 is just not that hard.  The two JB's took 33 of the team's 57 shot attempts, which is actually better than it sounds since they also took 15 of the team's 20 foul shots.   Simply put, there is enough talent on this team that we do not have to play so unbalanced on one side of the floor.  When Brayon and Ricky and Brendan and Qwanzii are given more opportunities to score, the 2 JB's become that much more difficult to defend,  It's ironic that Brayon would score the team's first 7 points on 3-3 shooting and then only shoot 6 more times (excluding his miss at the very end of the game), while the JB's combined for 33 attempts.

7) Yes we'd like to win them all and seedings may definitely change but as things stand,  if we end up in the 8-9 games against Fordham or UMASS, this is preferable to me than playing URI again.  And, it may mean matching up with Davidson in the quarters, which is preferable to playing VCU or Dayton in the quarters.  The conference tournament has a history of 1's losing to 8/9's, and with Davidson being securely in the field, they will be more prone to let their guard down than any other top contender in the conference.

 

Gwmayhem wrote:

Coaching legend Ron Thompson, he of the 9 career wins as a college head coach, was correct in pointing out that GW fell asleep on the inbounds play.
 

Haha, that's why I almost lost my lunch.

2twooed wrote:

I’m not sure we really panicked. The team lives and dies as the Big 3 play. When they are on or 2 of them are on we compete. Neither post player is an outside threat. Dean who is really a 4 has improved a ton. He actually has shown some decent offense within 10 ft of the basket. Lindo has not been the same player as last year. Lately he has shown glimpses of what he can do. When you live and die outside and have little interior offense, or defense, scoring will be in spurts. The team has gotten better and play harder lately. Let’s hope we get a good draw in the Tournament and further hope for immediate help underneath for next year.

I used the word panic to illustrate the very poor quality of shots being taken down the stretch.  I pointed out the corner 3 in the first half that James made off of Brayon's bounce pass to illustrate what a "good 3" looks like.  The shots taken down the stretch were either contested, or too deep.  The team wasn't working to get a higher percentage shot, which is really what was needed.  It's obviously hard to know for sure...either the team wasn't panicked  but thought that both JB's taking lower percentage shots was the best option since both are capable shooters or the team fell behind after being up by 10 in the second half, panicked, and took some poor shots feeling that this was needed in order to stay in the game.

I’m no expert, but Knapp seems to me like he can shoot just fine but isn’t athletic enough to get open in the A10, or to defend A10 caliber shooters. So the only situation that I can see him being a good option would be after a TO, with a play specifically drawn up to get him an open shot. And as many on here have pointed out, JC rarely calls TOs to draw up plays at the end of games. It seems to me that he would prefer to let his players push the ball at the end of close games, presumably because he doesn’t want to give the other team rest or the opportunity to set up their defense. But we could have used some TOs and drawn up plays yesterday, as well as at the end of the Davidson game.

The panic was by the "coach". How else do you explain letting Mason score the last 13 points of the game? Gimme a break!

Bryan Knapp James Harden analogy...spot on!

The two share so much in common after all

I'm not sure if it was panic, but the last few minutes of the game Bishop and Bamisile seemed to revert back to playing hero ball instead of doing what we did to get the lead in the first place.  

That was the worst officiated, most 1 sided game I've seen this year.  That played a huge role in the outcome.

It also came down to a game of runs, and both teams played mostly good defense and took turns with offensive dry spells.  

In the games we've won, JoeBam and or Bishop have taken and made a lot of quasi tough shots, that's how we score.  We don't really have a post-game or Frontcourt shooting to turn to, we can't play pick and pop screens, we rely on those guys.   Both had an off shooting day, and both got hacked uncalled on many of the  shots they missed, there was at least 3x we took a 3 an elbow got hit, no call.

But man, how many quick whistles for their guys, how many times did a GW player clearly get fouled and no whistle.  Every year it seems to happen to us on the road at Mason and VCU.  Oduro got away with at least 4 clear fouls, he wraps up arms and the flails away.

Bigger picture, the Frontcourt just has to get better personnel.  Everyone battled hard though yet again, I give Dean and Samuels a lot of credit for big improvement.  We played a team we were 11 point underdogs in a game that look more like even matchup.  Light years better than the early part of the season

the last 7 shots of the game for GW:

JoeBam drove twice, missed contested layups
Missed Wide open 3 from JoeBam off a drive from Bishop
Bishop drives and missed an open layup
Bishop takes a long open 3, missed.
JoeBam takes and missed a would be game tying 3  with 25 secnds left 
Down 5 now Bishop takes a 3 with 15 seconds left

I realize its usually better to let the BS pass by, but I'll make an exception for the last 2 minutes of that game. 

Last edited by The Dude (2/28/2022 4:34 pm)

Free Quebec wrote:

Dude, one of those plays at the end of the game where Biship got bumped going up for a layup and didn’t get the call or finish through contact. Not sure if that’s the one you are calling an open layup.


I’ll also add that GW fans trying to convince themselves or Hunter Dean’s ability to score around the basket is like Sixers fans trying to convince themselves that Ben Simmons is really good at 10 foot jumpers.

The reason Dean and Ricky are on the perimeter is to create space for the drives. since they are highly unlikely to score with their back to the basket, it’s better to get them out of the way so the killer Bs can drive to the basket.

Yeah, that's the play.  TBH I didn't think that was a foul but maybe I missed the foul, Bishop certainly did, you seem to think so and there was a LOT of that in the game.  Makes sense because its hard to believe he would otherwise miss a point blank layup so easily.    JoeBam had 2 at the rim (with some contact too) and 4 3's all of them pretty good looks, JoeBam's was wide open. We went 0 for 7, it was hardly "panic"   All 7 shots were variations of shots we've made all year and typically the good to pretty good looks we get.

Also, agreed, def better to have those guys out of the paint not clogging things up.   Ideally it would have been Battle setting pick and pop 3s but this is the personnel we have to deploy.

The guy I'd perhaps like to see more utilized, is Lindo, but frankly the team has played much better since his role was reduced.