Unfortunately for the first time in a long time we will not have our normal weekly show dropping on Sunday evening. Tom is away with his family this week and production of our typical show was just not possible. Probably for the best, might have had too much Sour Grapes and Gripes even though we went 1-1. However for our loyal listeners here is a something to hold you over until next week.
Mike Monologue:
Even though it was a 1-1 week, I still felt a little empty watching the games on both occasions. I understand the end results aligned with what was expected in reality. A road loss to a tough UCONN team and a hold serve victory vs a bottom 3rd team in DePaul. However, I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that any conference win is a good win in a conference as tough as the Big East. There are certain games that must be won if you want to be a tournament team. I don’t care if DePaul is getting better, or that a road loss to them is considered a quad 2 loss, you just can’t be losing to a 3 conference win DePaul team twice and be proud of your chances to make the dance. The UCONN game they were just beat by a team that wanted it more and vs DePaul they had a chance to step on an opponents throat early and ultimately played down to their level. This week should have been something to build on and yet with the news that Aiken could be lost for the year, it concerned me that this could be foreshadowing a similar finish to last year when we stumbled down the stretch not being able to find ourselves.
Blue Tinted Glasses
Kadary Richmond is developing right in front of our eyes. At times in might not be pretty as there are still careless unforced turnovers. But he is learning, learning how to face a double team out of the post, learning to trust his teammates a little more, leaning how to control the pace of the game, and all while bearing the burden of having to play 35+ minutes a night. You are also starting to see him look for the right times to be aggressive and shoot the 3 ball. Lastly, of course he handled the ultimate pressure of hitting the winning bucket in crunch time vs DePaul.
Sour Grapes and Gripes
It’s unfortunate but if we are being honest about the reality of the situation, Bryce Aiken has probably played his last game as a Pirate. The concussion is clearly having lingering effects that have kept him off the court for now up to 4+ weeks. At this point the health and future of this young man must be a priority over basketball. if the doctors are still seeing signs that his health is compromised, maybe it’s not worth risking his long term health retuning to the court. So we must accept the fate of the team going forward without a major component and find ways to win consistently with the current pieces on the floor.
Speaking of the pieces on the court. It obvious that how Jared Rhoden goes will determine if this team can make a run. And Jared is still just too inconsistent for what they are asking him to do offensively. He put them on his back with 18 points and 18 rebounds vs DePaul, but almost gave the game away with a costly pick 6 turnover to give the Blue Demons the lead late. And vs UConn he just couldn’t get it going in a 4/12 effort from the floor. He is being asked to do everything and you can see it is wearing him down by having to play 38-40 minutes every night. It’s starting to look similar to Sandro at the end of last year. He looks frustrated, scouted by the other team, and asked to do more offensively than what is within his comfort level. Jared needs to find a way to let the game come to him like he did vs Xavier for this team to be successful.
“The Chiropractor”. This is not a fire Willard segment, but it is a challenge to him to adapt and adapt quickly in order to salvage meaningful tournament hope for this roster.
It’s been 9 games now. He needs to find the identity of this team without Bryce Aiken, he needs to find ways to get Jared Rhoden more comfortable offensively, and he needs to hold himself and the team accountable for doing the little things well in order to win games. In my opinion it starts with the little things first; box out the other team, get on the floor for loose balls, value the basketball with no careless turnovers, execute unselfishly on the fast break, and move without the basketball. Find a way to play beyond iso and the occasional pick and roll basketball. If you are going to post Kadary up, know what you want to do if they double him. If a team hits you with a 1-3-1 know that the baseline corners are the weak spots, not the middle of the floor. You have to take a team that is talented and make the sum greater than the individual parts. I have seen that at stretches this year but only on the defensive side of the ball. Willard needs to find a way to put a complete product on the floor for a full 40 minutes.
Mic Flops / Drops
Pete Gillen is unfortunately past his time and he made the entire UConn game a painful listen.
Casey Jacobsen needs a fact checker, he had too many incorrect statements to keep track of at one point.
two broadcasts that just added negatively to an already difficult game watching experience this week.
Resume Analysis / Bubble Watch
I wouldn’t say the Hall hurt it’s resume this week, but it didn’t help it either. It followed up a resume bolstering miss vs Nova with another quad one miss vs UConn. And it dashed away an opportunity to build its metrics with a home blow out by shooting 38% and needing a nail biter just to avoid a NET crippling loss. Which still dropped from 34 to 36 despite the DePaul win.
There weren’t as many bad loss on the bubble this week as last and teams are starting to fight for their marquee wins.
Creighton found a way to notch 2 more wins for their 5th straight. St Johns caught Seton Hall in the standings getting back to 7-8 in BE play. While these performances help Seton Hall’s overall resume, it starts putting more teams in the conversation as a contender for those last 16 spots in the field. It’s now crunch time. Florida beat #2 Auburn, Iowa won at #18 OSU, and Rutgers beat #12 Illinois. So other teams are capturing their statement wins. Yet when people say the bubble is soft they aren’t incorrect, a 2-2 finish probably has the Hall in the mix heading into the BE tournament and 3-1 basically locks up a comfortable bid.
Weekly Prediction
I was going to say that the Pirates have a shot to go 2-0 this week and put themselves in golden position, but what fun would that be and where would all the drama go. I truly feel that fate has the Hall headed to Creighton at 9-9 with all the marbles on the line to punch their ticket like recent years in the final game.
They should beat Butler at home, but as we have seen over and over, nothing is a given and hopefully the DePaul game was a wake up call to not take the Bulldogs lightly after they just took Providence to OT.
Then you have a road test vs Xavier, a team the Hall matches up with well and is really starting to feel the pressure themselves. If they can’t get by Ed Cooley and company on the road Wednesday they will have lost 5 of their last 6, sit at 7-9 in BE play, and a loss to the Hall would guarantee an under .500 conference record. Will the pressure be too much or will they come out in ultimate desperation mode? Too tough to call IMO. If they can figure out how to slow down the Nunge / Scruggs two man game that tore them apart in the second half of the first meeting, then the Pirates can come away victorious.
Not sure if this was enough to make up for the missed episode but hope you enjoyed and as always, I know Tom is saying “Go Pirates” and I’ll send you off with a “Go Big Blue”
Mike Monologue:
Even though it was a 1-1 week, I still felt a little empty watching the games on both occasions. I understand the end results aligned with what was expected in reality. A road loss to a tough UCONN team and a hold serve victory vs a bottom 3rd team in DePaul. However, I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that any conference win is a good win in a conference as tough as the Big East. There are certain games that must be won if you want to be a tournament team. I don’t care if DePaul is getting better, or that a road loss to them is considered a quad 2 loss, you just can’t be losing to a 3 conference win DePaul team twice and be proud of your chances to make the dance. The UCONN game they were just beat by a team that wanted it more and vs DePaul they had a chance to step on an opponents throat early and ultimately played down to their level. This week should have been something to build on and yet with the news that Aiken could be lost for the year, it concerned me that this could be foreshadowing a similar finish to last year when we stumbled down the stretch not being able to find ourselves.
Blue Tinted Glasses
Kadary Richmond is developing right in front of our eyes. At times in might not be pretty as there are still careless unforced turnovers. But he is learning, learning how to face a double team out of the post, learning to trust his teammates a little more, leaning how to control the pace of the game, and all while bearing the burden of having to play 35+ minutes a night. You are also starting to see him look for the right times to be aggressive and shoot the 3 ball. Lastly, of course he handled the ultimate pressure of hitting the winning bucket in crunch time vs DePaul.
Sour Grapes and Gripes
It’s unfortunate but if we are being honest about the reality of the situation, Bryce Aiken has probably played his last game as a Pirate. The concussion is clearly having lingering effects that have kept him off the court for now up to 4+ weeks. At this point the health and future of this young man must be a priority over basketball. if the doctors are still seeing signs that his health is compromised, maybe it’s not worth risking his long term health retuning to the court. So we must accept the fate of the team going forward without a major component and find ways to win consistently with the current pieces on the floor.
Speaking of the pieces on the court. It obvious that how Jared Rhoden goes will determine if this team can make a run. And Jared is still just too inconsistent for what they are asking him to do offensively. He put them on his back with 18 points and 18 rebounds vs DePaul, but almost gave the game away with a costly pick 6 turnover to give the Blue Demons the lead late. And vs UConn he just couldn’t get it going in a 4/12 effort from the floor. He is being asked to do everything and you can see it is wearing him down by having to play 38-40 minutes every night. It’s starting to look similar to Sandro at the end of last year. He looks frustrated, scouted by the other team, and asked to do more offensively than what is within his comfort level. Jared needs to find a way to let the game come to him like he did vs Xavier for this team to be successful.
“The Chiropractor”. This is not a fire Willard segment, but it is a challenge to him to adapt and adapt quickly in order to salvage meaningful tournament hope for this roster.
It’s been 9 games now. He needs to find the identity of this team without Bryce Aiken, he needs to find ways to get Jared Rhoden more comfortable offensively, and he needs to hold himself and the team accountable for doing the little things well in order to win games. In my opinion it starts with the little things first; box out the other team, get on the floor for loose balls, value the basketball with no careless turnovers, execute unselfishly on the fast break, and move without the basketball. Find a way to play beyond iso and the occasional pick and roll basketball. If you are going to post Kadary up, know what you want to do if they double him. If a team hits you with a 1-3-1 know that the baseline corners are the weak spots, not the middle of the floor. You have to take a team that is talented and make the sum greater than the individual parts. I have seen that at stretches this year but only on the defensive side of the ball. Willard needs to find a way to put a complete product on the floor for a full 40 minutes.
Mic Flops / Drops
Pete Gillen is unfortunately past his time and he made the entire UConn game a painful listen.
Casey Jacobsen needs a fact checker, he had too many incorrect statements to keep track of at one point.
two broadcasts that just added negatively to an already difficult game watching experience this week.
Resume Analysis / Bubble Watch
I wouldn’t say the Hall hurt it’s resume this week, but it didn’t help it either. It followed up a resume bolstering miss vs Nova with another quad one miss vs UConn. And it dashed away an opportunity to build its metrics with a home blow out by shooting 38% and needing a nail biter just to avoid a NET crippling loss. Which still dropped from 34 to 36 despite the DePaul win.
There weren’t as many bad loss on the bubble this week as last and teams are starting to fight for their marquee wins.
Creighton found a way to notch 2 more wins for their 5th straight. St Johns caught Seton Hall in the standings getting back to 7-8 in BE play. While these performances help Seton Hall’s overall resume, it starts putting more teams in the conversation as a contender for those last 16 spots in the field. It’s now crunch time. Florida beat #2 Auburn, Iowa won at #18 OSU, and Rutgers beat #12 Illinois. So other teams are capturing their statement wins. Yet when people say the bubble is soft they aren’t incorrect, a 2-2 finish probably has the Hall in the mix heading into the BE tournament and 3-1 basically locks up a comfortable bid.
Weekly Prediction
I was going to say that the Pirates have a shot to go 2-0 this week and put themselves in golden position, but what fun would that be and where would all the drama go. I truly feel that fate has the Hall headed to Creighton at 9-9 with all the marbles on the line to punch their ticket like recent years in the final game.
They should beat Butler at home, but as we have seen over and over, nothing is a given and hopefully the DePaul game was a wake up call to not take the Bulldogs lightly after they just took Providence to OT.
Then you have a road test vs Xavier, a team the Hall matches up with well and is really starting to feel the pressure themselves. If they can’t get by Ed Cooley and company on the road Wednesday they will have lost 5 of their last 6, sit at 7-9 in BE play, and a loss to the Hall would guarantee an under .500 conference record. Will the pressure be too much or will they come out in ultimate desperation mode? Too tough to call IMO. If they can figure out how to slow down the Nunge / Scruggs two man game that tore them apart in the second half of the first meeting, then the Pirates can come away victorious.
Not sure if this was enough to make up for the missed episode but hope you enjoyed and as always, I know Tom is saying “Go Pirates” and I’ll send you off with a “Go Big Blue”
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