[quote='posterformerlyknownasthedoctor' pid='13894449' dateline='
A really disappointing performance, and certainly, along with the success other SoCon teams are having, calls into question our ability to even compete for the championship.
[/quote]

Seriously? What great successes have other SoCon teams had? Here are the best wins for each - and with the exception of Chatt over TN in the opener nobody has beaten anybody of any significance. So it might be just a bit early to call the race.
UNCG - Liberty
Samford - San Diego
Citadel - Stetson
Furman - UAB
Mercer - Ga Southern
W Car - App St
WOFFORD and VMI - neither have D1 win

Well, I didn't mean to overstate the case, as the data are "mixed", shall we say. I was mostly 'channeling' the post from swvabucsfan from the CollegeInsider Mid-Major poll thread. To wit:

Quote:UNCG isn't the only one building a strong SoCon team.

There's Chattanooga with BOTH 6-10 Justin Tuoyo and 6-10 Makinde London; Mercer, struggling through perhaps the toughest out of conference schedule in the SoCon (Florida, Davidson, Akron, George Mason, Clemson, Auburn); 5-3 Samford, with 6’5” athletic U-Mass transfer Demetrius Denzel-Dyson and 6-8 Auburn transfer Alex Thompson producing well alongside 6-9 Soph stud Wyatt Walker and a couple of good freshman guards (sharpshooter Triston Chambers and Philly ball hawk Josh Sharkey); Furman with an experienced team and 6-8 soph center Matt Rafferty gradually recovering from summer back surgery; Wofford with Mike Young gradually getting people to play his way.

Anybody who makes it through this conference will have built skills that should serve it well in the Dance.

Nobody is getting through unscathed.

My point, which still stands, is that we're not performing up to expectations (lately), and that some of the other teams may turn out to be stronger than earlier thought. Until the last couple of weeks, most pronosticators out there, both professional and amateur, were saying it would clearly be Chatt and ETSU fighting it out for the top spot, with Mercer only very slightly behind. I didn't necessarily buy that at the time, and although it's far too early to be writing the story of the season - it seems likely, as swbucs implies, that nobody has anything even resembling a clear path to the title.

All *that* said....I've kept myself from writing a "consequences of the Dayton loss" post, but while we're on the topic....

1. Unless we beat both Miss St. and UT, any small chance we had of getting something like a 12 seed *IF* we are fortunate enough to win the conference, has probably gone by the wayside.
2. The slim chances of the SoCon getting 2 bids are now even tinier than they already were.
3a. Unless we run roughshod over the conference, and end up something like 27-7 (just picking that at random) or so, with only 2 or 3 conference losses, we likely won't do better than a 14 seed. Again, *IF*..... (and of course even that may turn out to be too optimistic)
3b. I.e., if say, we go 25-10 (just like last year except win the conference tournament), we're likely a 15 seed, with an outside chance of being a 16, or a very slim chance of being a 14 with a win over UT, for example.

I could go on, but you get the picture. No, it's FAR too early to call the race, but it's not far too early to guesstimate how much losing to both UNC-W and Dayton might hurt our seeding, *IF* that even matters.

So...just reading the tea leaves, and I'd *love* to be wrong....we don't win the conference regular or tournament, but we do "get" to go to one of the other lesser post-season things. Don't mistake my meaning. I think ETSU is *capable* of winning either or both of those titles - I just think it's an even more difficult and rocky path than it appeared just 2-3 weeks ago.

And I hope we don't have any losses over the break due to academic issues. No, I don't know anything negative whatsoever; it's just that with so many new pieces coming in, that is something to wonder about.

Not trying to be a Debbie Downer here, but it seems that I am. Either we're not as strong as advertised, and/or some other programs are a bit more than advertised. I just see the L-M and Dayton games as fairly strong indictments of what we are, and what our upside limit is. Only time will tell, and hopefully those games will, in the long run, turn out to have been outliers in the grand scheme of the whole arc of the season.

And obviously my thoughts aren't worth much more than the internet(s) and cyberspace they're printed upon, so it's mostly just for grins and giggles at this point in time.

UT is looking better each game. Only lost by 2 to UNC. ETSU really needs to improve if we want to win that game.

I'll be Paula Positive and say we'll gel come conference time. The talent's there but is the mindset?

(12-11-2016 08:46 PM)squeak Wrote:  I'll be Paula Positive and say we'll gel come conference time. The talent's there but is the mindset?

Not right now.

posterformerlyknownasthedoctor, Sept. 9, 2016:

Quote:2. We *will* miss Guyn, at least for the first part(s) of the season. Impossible to tell how much so by January, with all the incoming new guards.

(From the "September 2016 Look at the SoCon" thread.)

These last 3 games, and maybe even in the UNC-W game, we missed him (although in that game it wouldn't have made enough difference).
Without Cromer dialed in, we just don't have another *consistent* "go to" threat - and that is a disappointment. Certainly several guys can get 12-18 "on any given night", but we just don't have another dependable one for night in and night out. (Not that I'd want to return to murry's "big 3" concept.) We've been doing it "by committee", as per Forbes, and by design. And that's good. it's just that no one on the "committee" has the Pigram snarl or Guyn beast mode. Well, maybe HMP and A.J. have it, but getting them the ball in the right places and situations has proven difficult.

How many games did Guyn single-handedly win last year? 3? 4? 5? Not a trivial number, and that capability to 'will' his team to victory has not yet shown up on this team. Or at least not in a tangible-enough form to bottle it and have it on the shelf for use when needed.

I like Desonta, don't get me wrong. But he's just not been capable *enough* to get it inside frequently. I'm hoping Long and/or Williams can get enough minutes to bring that to the table, as they've shown promise of that ability. Our deficit in the paint yesterday was beyond glaring. (duh) And although that was not a surprise to me, the degree was. You can bet (especially if you watched his post-game comments) Forbes will lay down the law on finishing strong (and yes, I mean finishing on a basket, not finishing a game) inside. He was quite perturbed with the inside weakness as well he should be.

Listen.....I'm hopeful, too, but I've just been around the block enough times to see some of the signs of serious chinks in the armor - and if I can see them, other SoCon coaches can, too.

Let me repeat something I posted a month or two ago, too. I'm getting up there in years, and bartow "stole" from me/us a decade of hope. This is a great team, with a great coach. I want to win now, as we just don't know if we'll have the pieces in place after this year to make another charge. But there is that one "intangible" that Guyn had last year, that we don't (YET) have this year. Maybe somehow "the committee" can conjure something up. But unless we can find that missing piece, this season will quite possibly end up being quite disappointing. And let's not forget, Pigram was in a horrible funk/slump there in his senior(?) season, but closed like gangbusters. Maybe Cromer can do that, too. There's no doubt he has that same shooter's mentality. But without the confidence to go with it, it's just not the same.

Something positive? Our halfcourt defense was solid vs. Dayton. This isn't my 'astute' observation, it comes from coach. How many layups did we miss? How many open 3s and other open shots did we miss? Answer: A ton. If those shots go down, this whole thread would be about how we're sweet 16 bound. It's December. We can beat Miss State & UTK, and if we continue to play solid defense, starting hitting layups and open looks, suddenly we will look a whole lot better and we will win those games.

(12-12-2016 09:09 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  Something positive? Our halfcourt defense was solid vs. Dayton. This isn't my 'astute' observation, it comes from coach. How many layups did we miss? How many open 3s and other open shots did we miss? Answer: A ton. If those shots go down, this whole thread would be about how we're sweet 16 bound. It's December. We can beat Miss State & UTK, and if we continue to play solid defense, starting hitting layups and open looks, suddenly we will look a whole lot better and we will win those games.

True, but I believe the reason a lot of those shots didn't fall is because of issues with the team's mindset. They come in expecting to run all over people and are shocked when it doesn't happen. Then shots are missed, ball is turned over, you get the idea. This team has got to get some grit if we're going to make any noise.

Didn't see it (music commitments) so perhaps I shouldn't comment. But it sounds like maybe we're a little short of confidence, swagger and grit right now. More than anything else, that's what Ge'lawn brought. With those tools he manufactured the rest. If we had that, if we really believed we belonged on that court, we knock down those open shots, and, like G0bucs says, its a whole different world.

So it's early December right now, and that's where we are. But as Poster says we've got the coaching and the players to build a lot more. Got to wipe this away and lace them up tight for Mississippi State and a Tennessee team that almost knocked off UNC. Got to build that confidence one game at a time.

Interestingly enough, and obviously if this happens we will all be thrilled - Real Time RPI has us losing exactly one more game the entire season: To Chattanooga at Chattanooga. Now obviously, that is unlikely to happen, but it does tell you how strongly our two losses are rated. Dayton's RPI is currently 27 and UNC Wilmington's is currently 13. Two studly teams, it appears.

Dayton was just the better team. ETSU needed them to be a little off and they were not. Cooke is a really good player and they couldnt do anything to stop him. We also seemed to get beat pretty bad inside. It wasnt really a matter of "just not hitting shots", Dayton was playing such good defense that those werent easy shots.

The only positive you can take away is that wasnt a game ETSU was supposed to win. I wish they would have been a little more competitive though.

(12-12-2016 09:09 AM)GoBucsGo Wrote:  Something positive? Our halfcourt defense was solid vs. Dayton. This isn't my 'astute' observation, it comes from coach. We can beat Miss State & UTK, and if we continue to play solid defense.....

Yes, that's what Forbes said, but here's another way to look at that, from "San Diego Flyer" from their board, which I happen to agree with:

Quote:Their coach mentioned that in the first half we only scored 1 bucket in the half court offense.
What he didn't mention was that for the most part we didn't have to go to sets because we were too busy on the fast break. But overall he complimented our team and particularly our speed in transition.

I'm not saying Forbes is "wrong" in what he said - only that because of the above-stated factor, our half-court defense just didn't matter nearly as much as it normally would. Here's yet another way to look at that. They outscored us 50-24 in the paint. 21 of their (total) points were also off turnovers, so some of those 'paint' points were from that. But how can one reconcile giving up 50 points in the paint, and yet still try to say that one's half-court defense was "solid"? I don't think you can.
They abused us down low (on both ends), and blocking NINE shots was only one facet of that abuse.

Forbes also said "They sped us up and were physical" (possibly paraphrasing just slightly). The "physical" aspect was what was most glaring. Yes, Cooke is significantly "physical", in addition to being skilled. Pollard himself "out-physicaled" us time and time again. This observer is saying that that physicality was enormously more important that our half-court D overall. Those two things are related, of course, but the final score clearly says which aspect was most important.

So although I'm not flat-out saying Forbes was wrong in what he said - I'm saying "so what?" in this case. I guess we could say it was a thin silver lining of a fairly black cloud, but that just doesn't go very far in the grand scheme of things.

I think the point to draw out it is: if the Bucs had (a) kept up with the pace (no excuses, we do have mid major and elite athleticism across the roster), (b) taken better care of the ball to limit turnovers (still a problem so far), and © otherwise gotten back on defense every time, this would have been more like the 8 point spread as originally predicted. If not a barn burner or possible upset. Dayton didn't look out of our league, but they sure did execute and ran circles around the unfocused Bucs. Still plenty of upside, but less time to tinker now. Tennessee will be a loud and dramatic "homecoming" show.

A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams.

Excellent point! In fact most teams this time of year have a few games on their record when they just don't look good.

But expectations are higher this year, and the talent is there to justify them. The Bucs need to show much better in these OOC games than they apparently did against Dayton. And they should be able to do that.

This team is still looking for the leader (or leaders) whose toughness could pull out games that would have been lost. Last year, on a weaker Bucs team, that became Guyn.

Will you be satisfied if they play against Mississippi State and UT the way they played against Dayton, Justbuc? What do you think the result will be if they do???

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

Just let me point out.....that sure, that's true, and we finished 24-12. Not a bad year, but not what we want with Steve Forbes at the helm and the talent we had, and perhaps moreso, have now. I think most of us want more than 24-12 with the current set of actors. I think most of us want AT THE VERY LEAST an NIT bid - meaning we would have won the conference regular season. I'm pretty sure you're fairly young (and I mean no offense by that - only that you lack perspective), and let me assure you that until (and if) we can reach the status of a bit higher of a "program" (a la "the Marquette of the South" [lol], Dayton, Gonzaga, Wichita St., VCU, etc.), what we've got going on now is an aberration to the upside. And therefore many of us want to maximize this chance - NOW. Ultimately, we'd LOVE to be getting chances at a 12 seed, or a 10 seed, or an 8 seed; maybe not every year, but at least have that chance on a regular basis. These chances just don't come along all the time. No, 7-2 isn't bad *at all*, and truly, we were favored to lose on the road when we did. But it's *HOW* we lost at Dayton, and how we almost lost to L-M, that bespeak a more limited upside (perhaps) than we had hoped. And yes, my comments are predictive and analytical - and I absolutely hope I'm wrong, and seeing things that are transitory. And I'm being clear in saying that. Seasons are long and ebb and flow. I was just pointing out that we've already limited our NCAA seeding upside. That's just simply factual. Again, unless we can beat at least one of the SEC teams, AND run roughshod over the conference schedule, and even then it's still factual - just not as much so.

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

If ETSU is ever going to break through and become a power mid-major it is going to have to go on the road and win some of these early "buy" games to avoid being a 15 or 16 seed in the tournament if they were to make it. That is where having 3-4 year players instead of 1-2 year players help. They have already jelled. Our balance of jucos/transfers vs traditional 4-5 year players is skewed. It makes for a talented and exciting team towards the end but it puts you in the hole early in the season.

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

By the way, while the loss to Charleston Southern was most definitely a bad loss, the one to TN Tech, not so much. They went 19-12 (14-1 at home, where ETSU was one of their victims), and played in the same "Vegas 16" tournament we did - losing to ODU in their first game.

(12-12-2016 04:23 PM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

By the way, while the loss to Charleston Southern was most definitely a bad loss, the one to TN Tech, not so much. They went 19-12 (14-1 at home, where ETSU was one of their victims), and played in the same "Vegas 16" tournament we did - losing to ODU in their first game.

Uh they blew a 15 pt second half lead. The amazing Mr Guyn was 4 of 15. Bad loss even if the refs did suck.

(12-12-2016 05:31 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  

(12-12-2016 04:23 PM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  

(12-12-2016 02:47 PM)Just Buc Wrote:  A year ago, 9 games in, the Bucs - with the great Mr. Guyn - were 4 & 5 with bad losses to Charleston Southern and TN Tech. Now at 7-2 with road losses to a couple of veteran tourney teams. But they miss Guyn. Give me a break.

By the way, while the loss to Charleston Southern was most definitely a bad loss, the one to TN Tech, not so much. They went 19-12 (14-1 at home, where ETSU was one of their victims), and played in the same "Vegas 16" tournament we did - losing to ODU in their first game.

Uh they blew a 15 pt second half lead. The amazing Mr Guyn was 4 of 15. Bad loss even if the refs did suck.

I was using the term "bad loss" in the way the NCAA committee uses it, as well as all the other bracketologists. In fact, I *almost* put quotes on it likes I've just now done, but decided everyone knew what I meant. It was indeed a bad *way* to lose the game; it was not a "bad loss" in terms of seeding *should* we have been able to get into the dance. Likewise - sort of - if we should be fortunate enough to require a seeding in March.....the loss to Dayton will not be considered a "bad loss", but imo it was a bad performance.

And by the way further.....I'm not some apologist for Guyn. He was an unconscious gunner. To a fault. Meaning he likely lost us a game or two, also. But he won us more than he lost. My point, clearly, is that he had that intangible 'something' that we're *so far* missing this year. A "secret sauce", if you will.

Just out of curiousity - and I do agree with your above point JustBuc - What's your problem with Guyn? He was undoubtedly the leader and best player on the team a year ago.