We are a very young team. Aside from the expected losses (Tarpey & Sheldon), we are currently down Seacat and, for all intents and purposes, Malinowski.

3 of our top 8 or 9 have never played real college ball before this year: Rowley, Pierce and Knight.

Last year we had a very experienced team and started strong (and then finished weakly).

I thought we competed hard in the first half. Bad shooting was from nerves and having to compete against superior athletes.

Cohn was over-hyped for the game and was not as effective as he will be.

We can learn from this game. This team will hopefully be peaking in March.

Strong OOC night for the CAA so far. Undefeated, save the Tribe game. Big win for northeastern over ucon.

Our team has no rim defender whatsoever. Against a team as athletic as Louisville that is a recipe for disaster. Poor shooting, too many turnovers, and bad FT's (mostly Knight) = blowout loss. We are not going to beat Duke or Rhode Island either, but these are the types of games that will have us ready come tournament time

NU got it done.


We looked overmatched at every position, but that's to be expected. Same same same...we suck at FT shooting. Fatigue causes that, right?

One Tribe. One Family.

Echo most of the comments here. Really like our upside. But needed more from the seniors tonight. Lots of unforced errors. Knight has huge upside. Did like the fact Tony played his entire scholarship roster (save Seacat, of course) in the first half.

Really got undisciplined in the second half. Lots of things to learn from the game tape. Love to see them take care of Presbyterian in solid fashion.

(11-14-2016 09:16 PM)mrjoolius Wrote:  A positive is that Knight had 14pts 7rebs against a long talented Louisville team. A Negative, he would have had 21 if he hit his free throws.

Regardless, it's not a difference maker tonight. More importantly, he stood in there and played. This kid could become a player. I liked him playing on after he'd committed a gaffe. Like I said, he could become a player.

After rightfully stating that Louisville is an elite team, Tony reiterated that the lack of execution and focus in the second half was a reflection of what he has been concerned with in practices. Separate Louisville, post game comments from Pitino, as well as, Snyder and Johnson, all underscored how focused they all were in the practice walk through for this game, and the outcome was the result of that. Will be key to see if this Tribe team digs in and gets better with these top level games, or, if they take a step back. Agree with Billymac that they need a very solid performance against Presbyterian. Unfortunately, Presbyterian is not a strong team. Some big swings in the quality of competition throughout our OOC schedule. Will be interesting to see how this team develops with these swings leading up to conference play, and whether these top drawer games help or hurt that progression.

Omar appeared out of his usual game, possibly due to large contingent of supporters from his home town, and Cohn was, as somebody else pointed out correctly, way over-hyped. This led to team getting out of its game in second half, taking poor shots, and totally lose the team concept they need.

Knight is raw, but he is the most exciting and talented big man I've seen here. Makes freshman mistakes and needs lots of work on defense, but there's no doubt in my mind he'll be starting by second semester.

Team will rebound Saturday night.

Very, very sloppy loss. Lots of physical and mental mistakes.

We all knew that we weren't going to win last night including the players. This isn't like NC State. However, we gave them at least 20 easy buckets based on missed defensive assignments, turnovers, second chance points, etc. We also gave them about 12-15 points in missed free throws including front end 1 and 1's. Given all of that we probably should have lost by 10-15 with a great game.

Whitman was outclassed. Period. He will run into a lot of physical players this year.

Presbyterian won't be an easy win. They are D1 (Big South) and shouldn't be taken lightly.

Hope a blowout loss like this helps them focus in practice now. We have talent, but we are not going to run away with anything this season without grit and effort in preparation.

I'm actually fairly encouraged even though the score wasn't that close in the end. I feel like all of our mistakes (Cohn getting spun out with his own speed, Prewitt taking bad shots, Knight being a freshman) are all easy fixes. Plus it was just a little unlucky that none of those things worked out for us. Cohn's speed is usually a weapon, Prewitt can hit almost any shot, Knight looks absurdly talented. Flip a few of those things and the game is a lot closer. We'll also shoot better from 3 moving forward

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Couple Concerns:
1) Way too many forced 3s. Realistically, any time we shoot 20% from behind the arc, we're going to struggle.
2) Shot distribution was terrible in the first half. Omar went 4 of 11. The rest of the starters combined to take 11 shots. We're too good of a shooting team to have that discrepancy...Particularly if Omar isn't the hot-hand.
3) Not trying to pile on Omar, but just as how we need better distribution, we *need* him to score points. We're not going to win games that he goes 0-2 from the floor in the 2nd half.
4) Malinowski didn't look anything like himself. We really need him at full health this year
5) I, like others, was hoping to see Cohn with a bit better of a jumper this year. His strength is in distributing. I hate harping on shot distribution, but I don't see why he should be shooting as many shots as Daniel.
6) Free throws free throw free throws

Couple positives:

1) In the first 2 games, our leading scorers have been Pierce & Knight (tied with Omar). That's a good sign.
2) This is the #12 team in the country, probably a 3-4 seed in March. We hung with them the first 18 minutes. Could have and should have been a more complete game, but for the first D-1 game of the season, it is what it is. Our poor offensive numbers were undoubtedly impacted by their long defense. Make no mistakes: Louisville is very good.
3) Knight. Wow. I liked seeing him create his own shot down low with a drive or a jumper. Long way to go, but man, he's going to be a player.
4) 9 guys had 10+ minutes. Great depth, but again, may be hard to find the "hot hand" and get guys into a rhythm.
5) CAA is going to be tough this year and we have a very young team. If they can figure out the rotations, get the younger guys some experience, and stay focused, this team has the ability to be a contender.

That was the best defensive and athletic team we'll play in the regular season. I'm not as concerned about the shooting percentage as some others on this board. Their opponents will shoot like crap all year. I also see them as possibly a two seed come tournament time. They should be one of the top three teams in the ACC.

I was mostly encouraged with the positives of last night than down with the negatives. I haven't really seen a ton of Tony using the media to make a statement to his team over his tenure here, but now for 2 straight games, in postgame comments, he has referred to the guys lack of focus and execution in practice which to me means he knows it's a real issue and must get corrected asap. Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance after all :).

Honestly, this is probably where we miss Terry and Sean the most. You can argue numbers wise that Knight and Pierce could even be a direct replacement, if not upgrade, in terms of their on the court statistics in games, but we need leadership, and that focus in practice often comes from the leadership from the players getting on each other and setting the tone often more than coaches. For us to succeed, not only do Daniel, Omar and David need to lead in their play, but even more so in their leadership as captains. It's a long grueling season with a lot of good teams in the CAA, and it will take a focused, mature, and resilliant team to get that tourney invite in March.

As crazy as this sounds, I think Louisville is a worse matchup for us in their size, intensity on D, and relentless style of play than even Duke. Not to mention they shot really well from outside last night which isn't always the case. I know, we always make other teams look like world beaters from the outside with our poor D which has to change.

This is going to be a fun and successful year. Whether we win the championship will be decided in practice and on the defensive end. I will say, that we are rebounding pretty aggressively so far which is a good sign.

Go Tribe!!!

(11-15-2016 09:16 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  That was the best defensive and athletic team we'll play in the regular season. I'm not as concerned about the shooting percentage as some others on this board. Their opponents will shoot like crap all year. I also see them as possibly a two seed come tournament time. They should be one of the top three teams in the ACC.

I think that's getting a little lost. We played a good team last night and they played a good game too. We may have turned a corner as a program but to pull these kind of upsets we'll still need the other team to have an off night.

As I mentioned earlier, I thought the biggest problem last night was the loss of discipline, in our offense, in the second half. we looked like we were trying to get back 10 points on each possession. The slightly erratic offense (okay, sometimes strongly erratic offense...) caused unnecessary problems for our defense, that couldn't be overcome and led to very easy baskets that let the game get out of hand.

The real positive thing here is that the three games against Top 25 teams will help us, RPI-wise, win or lose. Playing highly rated RPI teams, on the road, will give us a low RPI number as well, just off strength of schedule.

The only caveat about this plan is losing to teams that we should beat, ala Presbyterian and Liberty (and others). If we beat those teams, then the upper level games become "good losses" (especially if we are able to keep within, say, 20 points). If we wet the bed against teams that are rated below us, then we get the dreaded "bad losses" and the Committee doesn't even take into consideration who we played early.

I like that this team will be extremely tested by the three Top 25 level teams. It will give plenty of excellent tape to see where we still need to work. It will get the players attention in practice and it will toughen them when we play the non-elite teams (they've already seen worse, etc.).

The fact that the freshmen look like they will be able to contribute to the depth is a plus and Seacat's return, (whenever), will give us a wide body and 5 more fouls at a position where we are definitely going to need them, all bode well.

It's a long season, definitely too early to panic. Let's just take care of business along the way and, hopefully, make a little history while we are at it.

The lack of discipline in running the offense is a direct reflection on the point guard. That's his job.

If we ever make it to the dance, we are likely to meet a team like Louisville in the first round. It was a reality check and a good experience for everyone.

I was expecting a loss anyway, so I'm not that bothered that we got taken out back behind the woodshed. I'm glad the loss exposed some issues that we can work on (turnovers, better shot selection, FT shooting, etc...) - hopefully we can get these corrected and become a better team. If we can beat Presbyterian and put up a closer contest against Duke, that will at least give me confidence that our guys are able to correct mistakes, which should bode well for us.