When coach lost asst.Dale Layer last year, he lost the perspective he needed to starting and playing an inexperienced team. The first 3 games starting lineups certainly didn't get us ready for anything. And since than the lack of either of the two big men on the floor, thus far, have all spelled trouble against good Div 1 teams. I believe Coach Layer would have persuaded Buzz to start his Best 5. This line up would have to include Gardner, Cadougan, Butler, Buycks/DJO and Crowder/Blue,but almost never without Gardner (25min) or Otule (15min) per game. Gardner is Big East ready, you need to start and play him as many minutes as he can play. He is the key to our offense and takes up the space for both screens and Def rebounds. If coach sits Gardner and plays Otule his customary 6 min.,put a W by Vanderbilt and watch the B.E. losses pile up.
Quote from: muchamps on December 28, 2010, 06:30:55 PM
When coach lost asst.Dale Layer last year, he lost the perspective he needed to starting and playing an inexperienced team. The first 3 games starting lineups certainly didn't get us ready for anything. And since than the lack of either of the two big men on the floor, thus far, have all spelled trouble against good Div 1 teams. I believe Coach Layer would have persuaded Buzz to start his Best 5. This line up would have to include Gardner, Cadougan, Butler, Buycks/DJO and Crowder/Blue,but almost never without Gardner (25min) or Otule (15min) per game. Gardner is Big East ready, you need to start and play him as many minutes as he can play. He is the key to our offense and takes up the space for both screens and Def rebounds. If coach sits Gardner and plays Otule his customary 6 min.,put a W by Vanderbilt and watch the B.E. losses pile up.
Epic first post.
How is the first semester of middle school treating you? May want to pay a little extra attention in Language Arts.
Quote from: reinko on December 28, 2010, 06:36:57 PM
Epic first post.
How is the first semester of middle school treating you? May want to pay a little extra attention in Language Arts.
Now that was funny.
Muchamps, did you know the relationship between Layer and Buzz? While I certainly question the rotation Buzz uses I do not think he is letting an assistant coach decide the starters. I guess I could be wrong, but doubt it.
Quote from: muchamps on December 28, 2010, 06:30:55 PM
When coach lost asst.Dale Layer last year, he lost the perspective he needed to starting and playing an inexperienced team. The first 3 games starting lineups certainly didn't get us ready for anything. And since than the lack of either of the two big men on the floor, thus far, have all spelled trouble against good Div 1 teams. I believe Coach Layer would have persuaded Buzz to start his Best 5. This line up would have to include Gardner, Cadougan, Butler, Buycks/DJO and Crowder/Blue,but almost never without Gardner (25min) or Otule (15min) per game. Gardner is Big East ready, you need to start and play him as many minutes as he can play. He is the key to our offense and takes up the space for both screens and Def rebounds. If coach sits Gardner and plays Otule his customary 6 min.,put a W by Vanderbilt and watch the B.E. losses pile up.
Layer wasn't there last year either. Welcome to the party 20 months later (he left in April 2009).
And you might want to invest in a spell check program. Or a space bar.
Wow, you guys are rough on the newcomer. I for one welcome ANY MU fan to the board....regardless of their ability to translate coherent thoughts.
And regarding the subject of the thread, you make it sound as if 8 wins is the basement for this team. I'm no pessimist, but I could easily see this team struggling to get 6 W's considering how we have played against the other quality opponents.
Quote from: OhioGoldenEagle on December 29, 2010, 07:50:08 AM
I could easily see this team struggling to get 6 W's considering how we have played against the other quality opponents.
We played poorly against Duke, Gonzaga, and Wisconsin and only lost by 5, 3, and 5 points.
Quote from: TallTitan34 on December 29, 2010, 08:01:38 AM
We played poorly against Duke, Gonzaga, and Wisconsin and only lost by 5, 3, and 5 points.
Shot poorly against Dook.
Played poorly against Gonzaga/UW...I would even go as far to say we got outplayed in both of these games.
We are going to need to play like we did against Dook to have a chance in tonights game...same goes for 6-7 of our BE schedule.
LETS GOOOO!!
Quote from: TallTitan34 on December 29, 2010, 08:01:38 AM
We played poorly against Duke, Gonzaga, and Wisconsin and only lost by 5, 3, and 5 points.
I'll give you Duke, but Gonzaga isn't nearly as good as they have been the past few years and already have some bad losses. UW was a home game, and while UW is solid, they too aren't as good as they have been in past years. While we are "bigger" than years past, this is the WORST rebounding team i've seen at MU in a long time.....and that alone is going to cost us a number of games.
I do not see why people think this team is going to be successful in the Big East, when our best win at this point is a so called road game against UWM. Maybe after tonights game I will change my opinion, but I see this team as a competitive team that will lose at the end of close games because of inexperience.
Nothing like a post containing the words "season in the balance" in the title when we haven't even gotten to a single conference game yet.
This season might not be as fun to watch as last year, when we exceeded expections with an undersized but experienced team - I think we're in for some rough losses this year - but it will be fun to watch the development of this hugely talented but inexperienced team as they work their way through the season.
Quote from: muchamps on December 28, 2010, 06:30:55 PM
When coach lost asst.Dale Layer last year, he lost the perspective he needed to starting and playing an inexperienced team. The first 3 games starting lineups certainly didn't get us ready for anything. And since than the lack of either of the two big men on the floor, thus far, have all spelled trouble against good Div 1 teams. I believe Coach Layer would have persuaded Buzz to start his Best 5. This line up would have to include Gardner, Cadougan, Butler, Buycks/DJO and Crowder/Blue,but almost never without Gardner (25min) or Otule (15min) per game. Gardner is Big East ready, you need to start and play him as many minutes as he can play. He is the key to our offense and takes up the space for both screens and Def rebounds. If coach sits Gardner and plays Otule his customary 6 min.,put a W by Vanderbilt and watch the B.E. losses pile up.
I suspect Otule and Gardner will see more minutes this game, as Buzz has shown their playtime is sensitive to matchups (Centenary). That said, I don't know whether Gardner is ready to play 25 minutes per game - he's played over 15 minutes once so far this season. Also, subbing Gardner in for Crowder actually drops our defensive rebounding capabilities - our current top 5 defensive rebounders are, aside from Fulce who has only played spotty minutes so far (but is probably our best rebounder when healthy), in order:
Crowder
Otule
Gardner
EWill
Jimmy
Quote from: Tom Crean's Tanning Bed on December 28, 2010, 07:04:45 PM
Layer wasn't there last year either. Welcome to the party 20 months later (he left in April 2009).
Buzz didn't have a freshman team either...Dope. Think before you post.
I love the "Duke, Gonzaga, and UW were close losses" argument .. we totally need to hang a banner.
(http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8424/closelosses.gif)
Feel free to be optimistic, but the dozen games we've played so far, point to a very tough year.
Quote from: muchamps on December 29, 2010, 10:17:06 AM
Quote from: Tom Crean's Tanning Bed on December 28, 2010, 07:04:45 PM
Layer wasn't there last year either. Welcome to the party 20 months later (he left in April 2009).
Buzz didn't have a freshman team either...Dope. Think before you post.
ZING! He's got you there. Oh, wait. Didn't Freshmen Teams get discontinued in the 70s?
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 10:23:31 AM
Feel free to be optimistic, but the dozenthree games we've played so far, point to a very tough year.
What you actually mean? I'd say at least eight of the games don't point to a tough year at all, though most of them don't point to much of anything.
I'm pretty confident we're going to lose 7 games and win 7 games.
The other four are up in the air.
I hate calling the Wisconsin game a close loss. Sure the final score was close but they controlled us the entire game. I think we only lead when the score was something like 9-12 (don't quote me on this, I'm just going off memory and I'm to lazy to look it up).
Quote from: bilsu on December 29, 2010, 08:19:04 AM
I do not see why people think this team is going to be successful in the Big East, when our best win at this point is a so called road game against UWM. Maybe after tonights game I will change my opinion, but I see this team as a competitive team that will lose at the end of close games because of inexperience.
This ought to be a good benchmark game tonight -the reality is that other than Gonzaga, we haven't really played solid teams in the 30-60 ranking range. Duke and Wisconsin (as much as I hate to say it..Pomroy and others think Wisco is a Top 15 team)..are our benchmarks. We call can agree DJO played poorly in both of those games, and particularily against Wisco..we were REALLY bad on the boards. Throw in the rivalry..and that game is a tough one to win.
I'm pretty sure we will represent ourselves well tonight, and perform solidy in the Big East - don't see anyway the team finishes any worse than 8-10 in Big East, and by no means will be shocked with an 11-7 season.
Quote from: National Champs on December 29, 2010, 11:10:51 AM
I hate calling the Wisconsin game a close loss. Sure the final score was close but they controlled us the entire game. I think we only lead when the score was something like 9-12 (don't quote me on this, I'm just going off memory and I'm to lazy to look it up).
Duke missed three straight one and ones in the last 30 seconds so to me the game was more like a 10 point loss. Gonzaga and UW were in control for almost the entire second halves and those "close" losses didn't really seem that close to my old eyes.
I'd call the Duke game (other than the final score) encouraging. Gonzaga and Wisconsin? Not so much.
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 10:23:31 AM
I love the "Duke, Gonzaga, and UW were close losses" argument .. we totally need to hang a banner.
(http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8424/closelosses.gif)
Looks Like A Tanned Tommy Special. I'm surprised the Bronzed Behemoth of Bloomington has yet to put up something like this in Alumni Hall. Something to give hope to the faithful, who still see Indiana as someplace "special"
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj229/marquettetitan34/untitled-4.jpg)
Quote from: dsfire on December 29, 2010, 10:28:00 AM
What you actually mean? I'd say at least eight of the games don't point to a tough year at all, though most of them don't point to much of anything.
Our 9 wins .. two wins were versus teams that might sniff the top 100 .. one of them we were down 13 in the 2nd half and managed to win. The other, we were a shot away from an OT game. Both of these wins were against teams that would be the doormats of the Big East.
The other 7 cupcake wins .. sorry, I don't get any positive feelings after the Varsity team beats up on the 8th graders.
Quote from: TallTitan34 on December 29, 2010, 08:01:38 AM
We played poorly against Duke, Gonzaga, and Wisconsin and only lost by 5, 3, and 5 points.
gotta love it when we refer to our losses as "only lost by" no matter how you slice it, they are losses
Quote from: 79Warrior on December 29, 2010, 01:12:56 PM
gotta love it when we refer to our losses as "only lost by" no matter how you slice it, they are losses
It's a strange phenomenon but a lot of posters are pleased with MU's "only lost by" games but upset with MU's "only won by" games.
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 01:03:09 PM
Our 9 wins .. two wins were versus teams that might sniff the top 100 .. one of them we were down 13 in the 2nd half and managed to win. The other, we were a shot away from an OT game. Both of these wins were against teams that would be the doormats of the Big East.
The other 7 cupcake wins .. sorry, I don't get any positive feelings after the Varsity team beats up on the 8th graders.
I'm not saying you should be delighted about the wins, just that the doom and gloom is predicated almost entirely upon our 3 losses. And, while I would've preferred not to be down to Bucknell (who would be a BE doormat, probably laying on top of DePaul and USF - but hung with Nova for most of their game and played with BC for the whole game last week, at their place) I think gutting out that win probably shows some positives for the team.
On the other hand, neither UWM nor UWGB appear to be borderline top 100 teams right now. Both teams have fairly unimpressive 6-7 records (though GB did only lose to undefeated SDSU by 9 the week after we crushed them! ....)
If DJO makes 2 or 3 of the 11 shots he missed in the first half against Duke, all of this doom and gloom on the boards is gone.
Quote from: Lennys Tap on December 29, 2010, 11:40:27 AM
Duke missed three straight one and ones in the last 30 seconds so to me the game was more like a 10 point loss. Gonzaga and UW were in control for almost the entire second halves and those "close" losses didn't really seem that close to my old eyes.
I'd call the Duke game (other than the final score) encouraging. Gonzaga and Wisconsin? Not so much.
Great Post.
Of those 3 games, we gave Duke the best run. We didn't shoot particularly well. They beat us. Plain and simple.
Gonzaga was our poorest effort of the 3. We got out played and out hustled.
We did not play well enough for long enough (didnt start to play well until mid 2nd half...if you're being picky) against Wisconsin.
I think if we can average our play to be between the level we played Duke and Wisco...and hit a few more shots here or there...we could finish with 10 wins in BE play.
If we play well and win tonight...it could help catapult us to double digit BE wins as well....but, a loss could have the reverse effect.
Go out and take it boys!
Quote from: dsfire on December 29, 2010, 01:27:23 PM
I'm not saying you should be delighted about the wins, just that the doom and gloom is predicated almost entirely upon our 3 losses.
On the other hand, neither UWM nor UWGB appear to be borderline top 100 teams right now. Both teams have fairly unimpressive 6-7 records (though GB did only lose to undefeated SDSU by 9 the week after we crushed them! ....)
The doom and gloom is not predicated "almost entirely upon our 3 losses." It's also predicated on a few of our wins against supposedly vastly inferior teams.
Look .. from watching the first dozen games, I think MU is somewhere 60-80th best team in D1. (RPI Forecast has us at 71, btw.) That sounds about right. My prediction back in October was 9-9, and quite frankly, I'm not sure we'll get there -- yet I'll yell myself hoarse for each game, cheering on the team.
Quote from: TallTitan34 on December 29, 2010, 01:34:28 PM
If DJO makes 2 or 3 of the 11 shots he missed in the first half against Duke, all of this doom and gloom on the boards is gone.
Maybe, but something tells me Duke would have an answer. With every action there is a reaction and Duke would have a reaction of some kind.
Quote from: TallTitan34 on December 29, 2010, 12:00:45 PM
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj229/marquettetitan34/untitled-4.jpg)
You should add an extender to that second banner
ANSWER:
Softest Bubble
in Years
;D
I wouldn't go so far as to pin the season's losses so far on an individual necessarily, but if DJO was playing this year like he played last year things would be different. It's not his fault we lost those games but his essentially not showing up does have a substantial impact not only on the final score but on the momentum of the team as a whole.
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 02:04:23 PM
The doom and gloom is not predicated "almost entirely upon our 3 losses." It's also predicated on a few of our wins against supposedly vastly inferior teams.
From that perspective, you probably have to toss out the Duke game as reason for despair, then, and toss in UWM - and, if you want, Bucknell. Not sure what other wins would be cause for concern.
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 02:04:23 PM
Look .. from watching the first dozen games, I think MU is somewhere 60-80th best team in D1. (RPI Forecast has us at 71, btw.) That sounds about right. My prediction back in October was 9-9, and quite frankly, I'm not sure we'll get there -- yet I'll yell myself hoarse for each game, cheering on the team.
I found this quote in the write-up on us on the Vandy board, which I think goes to some of the mixed feelings around here:
QuoteAs noted previously, they're losses are all close losses to very good teams, but they don't have a win against anybody in the top 100 teams according to kenpom.com. In fact, they only have three wins against the top 200 teams in the kempom.com ratings. Their schedule has been a bit bi-polar, meaning that it is a bit difficult to get a great read on them.
Some people look at our losses to the respectable teams we've played and the scare at UWM and see a team that's barely better than the horizon league teams. Others look at our our wins and a few losses in very winnable games against top 50 teams and think we should be just as good as any of them. The reality is somewhere in between. Personally, I see us playing as a bubble team but without a non-conference quality win that will probably need to win a couple of games in NYC to get in. But the hope is based upon the team we've put on the floor - and will continue to play for the rest of the season - not the W/L record we've compiled.
Quote from: dsfire on December 29, 2010, 02:56:32 PM
From that perspective, you probably have to toss out the Duke game as reason for despair, then, and toss in UWM - and, if you want, Bucknell. Not sure what other wins would be cause for concern.
I found this quote in the write-up on us on the Vandy board, which I think goes to some of the mixed feelings around here:Some people look at our losses to the respectable teams we've played and the scare at UWM and see a team that's barely better than the horizon league teams. Others look at our our wins and a few losses in very winnable games against top 50 teams and think we should be just as good as any of them. The reality is somewhere in between. Personally, I see us playing as a bubble team but without a non-conference quality win that will probably need to win a couple of games in NYC to get in. But the hope is based upon the team we've put on the floor - and will continue to play for the rest of the season - not the W/L record we've compiled.
We are 0-3. Our other 9 games are a mish-mosh of good and mediocre play. With this data, we are the 60-80th best team in the country, which means a long season and a hard fight for an NCAA berth. I don't feel the need to kibbitz over which win or loss means what -- but I would turn it around. Do you disagree with the 60-80th place analysis? What's yours? Where do you think we will end up, and if it's better than 60-80, why?
(Of course, we could all just wait until 10pm when the Vandy game is over, and we'll have another data point.)
Quote from: mu_hilltopper on December 29, 2010, 03:46:23 PM
We are 0-3.
...is actually all I was getting at in my first post. Anyway, I think we're around 50th, headed towards somewhere within a game of .500 in conference, and will need a very good showing in the BET to get into the tourney, given that I expect us to lose by about 6 tonight.
As to the why, it's hard to differentiate hugely between 50 and 60, but looking at some of the teams put down around 80 on kenpom and RPI forecast... I think we're better than say, NC State and Providence. Looks like RPI Forecast has 2 Ivy League schools ahead of us, so I'm not quite sure what to make of that.
There are teams that I think we're better than even though they may have a signature win - as we get into the meat of our schedule we'll win some of the games that we've had close losses in so far, and we'll lose some games we shouldn't that we haven't yet. @Rutgers is a prime candidate for the latter.
Quote from: dsfire on December 29, 2010, 04:03:01 PM
@Rutgers is a prime candidate for the latter.
They looked like CRAP last night. Not so good Mr. Rice, especially at MSG. We should handle them or I will be in really bad shape mentally.