(12-06-2018 12:03 PM)TribePride91 Wrote: Last night 11 guys played and none of them were particularly effective. We shot the ball very poorly and defended poorly. There is no one we can beat when both those things occur. But, the schedule has been difficult. I don't think "the chemistry is bad". We are missing an excellent point guard and a fantastic 3 point shooter from last season. Milon, Pierce, and Rowley are all struggling with various injuries which also impacts conditioning and likely their shooting. Nathan can be limited or taken away with zones and double teams or fouls. He is still a major impact player. So, the 4 returning leaders of the team are all no where near where I hope they will be during the conference season. All 4 are excellent players and have shown the repeated ability to make great team plays. The freshmen, Loewe, Jihar, and Clark are all still working to find their roles. Say what you want, but the limited number of guys who played last year were all very familiar with the system. They may all still make significant improvement over the next 2 months. The shooting, including that from the foul line is concerning. But, I hope that the guys remain positive, keep working hard, and accept that the Tribe needs all of them to get where they want to go. None of the losses mean anything for the CAA race except that we aren't playing well right now. While I went way off the deep end on my season prediction, I still think the Tribe is capable of a good CAA season if we can defend, work together within a well proven offensive system, and make critical free throws. It is not like any other CAA team looks unbeatable at this point, either. We have 3 weeks to try and get things going before we open at home with JMU and Towson.
(12-06-2018 06:18 AM)bubbadog57 Wrote: The CAA appears right now to look weaker overall than last year. Suffered some abominable losses with few "highlight" victories.
No chance at an at-large NCAA bid.
TribePride91 said what I want to say, so I have simply highlighted his points that I most agree with.
From the Tribe website: "The road can be difficult. It often deals out tough lessons and leaves bumps. Playing its fifth contest in the opening nine on the road, the youthful William & Mary men's basketball team experienced another challenging setting on Wednesday nigth, falling at Old Dominion, 71-53.
The Tribe's five road opponents to this point in 2018 are a combined 23-3 inside their own gyms.
The game, as it usually does, changed on the simplest of plays. After a missed ODU free throw, the Tribe did not pull down the defensive rebound as it instead bounced out of bounds and went the way of the Monarchs. Marquis Godwin splashed a momentum-changing triple to stretch the lead back to seven, 41-34."
From ESPN Recap: "Old Dominion is ranked in the top seven in the nation for holding opponents to less than 55 points and 36 percent shooting. Those defensive stats were reflected Wednesday as William & Mary shot 35 percent (21 of 60) on the way to its 53 points."
The things that concern me the most are the abysmal free throw shooting (especially considering how good they were last year), the PG play (which will get better with experience for both of them), and Nathan's fouling. But let's face it, that last one involves an outside variable (namely, the officials). So if any officials (especially all these refs from other conferences who probably are not even familiar with Knight other than his reputation) want to foul out Nate, then they are going to foul out Nate regardless of what he himself is doing.
Remember, the UIC game went to OT and many of us thought that if Knight was on the floor instead of the bench then that game would have been a win; plus Rowley did not play. We lost to Notre Dame with Pierce and Rowley injured. We lost to a good Radford team with Pierce, Rowley, and Milon all out. Those could have been 3 wins and, if so, the psyche of this team would be in a far better place.
Since then, I think that we had no business losing to Mason; that we played poorly against Marshall; and that we had an absolutely terrible shooting night against ODU. But since conference play is all that matters in this one-bid league, and since everyone else but Charleston seems to be stinking it up, I think that we will do all right in CAA play.