Whitehead and more

[cernjSHU]

i was very pleased to see Whitehead have a lot of assists during the three previous games. He must be the facilitator. However, last night, he reverted to forced shots and not passing the ball. The offense was stagnant and it ended up with guys trying to drive to the basket by themselves all night. IW must be the person to get the offense started. Shooting 7-17 is not what this team needs.

Second, coaching issue. What was with running the weave all night? Villanova was in their shirts all night playing D. All that running the weave was going to do is run the shot clock to 8 and force a shot. With Villanova playing tight D, why not run some backdoor plays? The lack of adjustments on offense by Willard was not good.

Third, once the Villanova defense got set in their half court, the Hall had problems scoring. I would have liked to see the Hall push the ball up in 2 on three situations and drive the ball to the basket before their defense got set up.

Let's chalk this up to a learning experience. Beat Creighton.

 

[donnie_baseball]

Cern, you are right on. The weave is terrible, especially against a trapping defensive team like Nova. I thought they exposed our lack of a true point guard, but the weave puts us in the hole for 20 seconds and the result is a rushed shot. We move the ball well in transition, but the announcers said it best: "Kevin Willard doesn't care about offense." Maybe his dad could stop by and install a couple new sets for us?

 

[SHUSource]

... the announcers said it best: "Kevin Willard doesn't care about offense." Maybe his dad could stop by and install a couple new sets for us?

They really said this? Yeesh...

 

[Seton75]

Whitehead had to create cause nothing was happening and their pressure and our nerves took us out of our game, specially in the first half when Isaiah hardly shot. So I disagree with you guys and I think he played a good game last night.

Good teams will get in our grill at the handoff cause it is so predictable. It is like running a double reverse on every play. If you watch the game, you will see three guys on the weave, and Angel standing still.

 

[Seton75]

They really said this? Yeesh...

I don't think he said that. In a huddle he was applauding our defense and in what we saw on TV, he didnt mention the offense. So he applauded the good defense and there is nothing wrong with that at that moment in time.

And regardless, while I like Brando, what he says is not gospel on what is actually happening. So I don't much care what announcers say. That they say it doesn't make it so.

 

[donnie_baseball]

75, I'm with you, I thought Whitehead played very well. He doesn't have the ability, like Shaheen, Eugene, and Jordan before him to beat the press with his dribbling, so they were able to burn seconds off the clock every half court possession, and then that weave...

 

[donnie_baseball]

And regardless, while I like Brando, what he says is not gospel on what is actually happening. So I don't much care what announcers say. That they say it doesn't make it so.

True, he said a lot of weird things, but he did say what I posted.

 

[HALL85]

Whitehead had to create cause nothing was happening and their pressure and our nerves took us out of our game, specially in the first half when Isaiah hardly shot. So I disagree with you guys and I think he played a good game last night.

Good teams will get in our grill at the handoff cause it is so predictable. It is like running a double reverse on every play. If you watch the game, you will see three guys on the weave, and Angel standing still.

This. Isaiah was not the problem last night, in fact a couple of times he passed up a shot (Singh's three from the corner) to get the ball to a teammate. The problem was coaching and the offensive game plan. Add me to the list that think the weave is a waste and created a number of the easy turnovers. And like 75 said, Angel had limited touches as a result...We know Ochefu is a beast on the boards, so why not run some plays early on to Angel to see if he can get him in some early foul trouble? Willard is handling the team better this year, but the game plan still leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[SHUSource]

Whitehead had to create cause nothing was happening and their pressure and our nerves took us out of our game, specially in the first half when Isaiah hardly shot. So I disagree with you guys and I think he played a good game last night.

Same here. I tend to cut Whitehead very little slack, but I can't disagree with this. He wasn't great, but credit VU for that. I think he looked to get teammates involved, but there were very few opportunities for that.

 

[SHUSource]

This. Isaiah was not the problem last night, in fact a couple of times he passed up a shot (Singh's three from the corner) to get the ball to a teammate. The problem was coaching and the offensive game plan. Add me to the list that think the weave is a waste and created a number of the easy turnovers.

This should be noted as well.

 

[Bud Boomer]

Offensively IW played well last night, I thought. The assist numbers were low but that was more b/c of Nova than IW. The shots he was taking were good ones. He hurt us a bit on the defensive glass, but he wasn't alone there.

 

[Section112]

The weave is simply not gonna work when playing a ball trapping, active, good hands team like Nova. And when we run the weave we do not look to pass the ball anywhere else the first few passes and I'm sure other teams see that (even when we have a clear cutter that is open - have seen it time and time again).

I agree with Seton 75 that Isaiah had a very good game last night. We were getting nothing from our bigs and they were not moving very well away from the ball last night (especially Angel who was sick). He had to try to create and took for the most part open shots. He was our offense for a stretch and then Khadeen was our offense for a stretch and in the first half Gordon was our offense for a stretch. The guards pretty much did everything last night and what was different was our bigs got us very few if any second chances. Our second chance points in other games have been much better and Nova stopped that cold last night. I also noticed we went back to our old tricks defensively and our bigs did not crash the boards in the first half and almost started running back on D when our first shot would go up. In the 2nd half it seemed like we were working harder to get those 2nd chance pts and had a few but not enough.

Right now we don't shoot the ball at a high percentage so we rely on 2nd chance points and getting to the line. Nova stopped the first and our poor foul shooting stopped the second (with a definite assist from the refs but what did you expect in that small gym).

 

[Shuathelete]

IW needed to force shots. Nobody else was doing anything and everyone was getting trapped. Our post game was atrocious.

 

[Burnsly]

Nothing goes into the post because our bigs don't fight hard enough to establish position. Echefu is a master at it.

 

[Shuathelete]

Nothing goes into the post because our bigs don't fight hard enough to establish position. Echefu is a master at it.

I remember Delgado getting the ball in the far post, tried to get closer to the basket, made no moves, got pushed backwards, and didnt score on that trip.

 

[wpc75]

Give credit to Nova for taking us out of half court sets. Game went just as i thought it would with Nova the more seasoned and STRONGER team at this point. We actually did better than i thought we would. Carrington's strong finish with a three and a couple of pull of jumpers may be the confidence he needs. Our guys learned a lot last night.

 

[chickenbox]

We've basically abandoned the zone this season, as so many have been requesting - maybe next year we'll finally ditch the weave