Lot of work to do. As usual, when the ball goes inside, it never comes out. Solo scored a lot of points, but I was disappointed in his point guard play in the sense that he's determined to dribble the ball and take it to the hole. Not much true point guard passing. Didn't ever seem to be interested in passing the ball, except to try sometimes to pass it inside, but never out to the wing.

Big Mike had a nice game, but once again, once the ball is in his hands he never looks to kick it back out. Our coaches always talk about playing from inside out, but do they not see that once the ball goes in, it seldom goes back out? Everyone else does.

Once again, they never seem to look for III. I think he only took two three's all night, and was open for a split second several times, but didn't receive the ball. Finally got the ball to him at crunch time, and he knocked down a three, but with 4.5 seconds left, Lionel brings the ball down, and instead of passing it to III, who should be taking that shot, he drives into the key and throws up a bad shot, and that's the ball game.

Big guys. Bails. Five minutes. Four fouls. Burton in foul trouble.
Mike in foul trouble. I never saw so many fouls called in a game. But give Harding credit. They shot the ball much better than we did, but they were getting the ball to their shooters, and as usual we weren't

Alex had some nice moments, but overall we were out of sync on both offense and defense. I don't know what our offensive plan is. Once again we have people standing out front aimlessly dribbling the ball.

It was definitely a wake up call for the team. Steve should really be able to get their attention now. I don't read too much into this game.
As I've said, the early going is probably going to be rough sailing, but we'll be pretty good later on in the season. 16-17 wins probably the best we can do prior to the tournament. I don't expect to win at Ole Miss since they're predicted to be a good SEC team, but I think we'll play better than tonight. If not, it will be ugly.

The key with inside out is the 1st option is inside. Hard to fault the guys with trying to go with the 1st option.

I suspect this was the end of exhibitions. Probably better to have scrimmages than Lose an exhibition.

(11-08-2009 07:01 PM)outsideualr Wrote:  Lot of work to do. As usual, when the ball goes inside, it never comes out. Solo scored a lot of points, but I was disappointed in his point guard play in the sense that he's determined to dribble the ball and take it to the hole. Not much true point guard passing. Didn't ever seem to be interested in passing the ball, except to try sometimes to pass it inside, but never out to the wing.

Big Mike had a nice game, but once again, once the ball is in his hands he never looks to kick it back out. Our coaches always talk about playing from inside out, but do they not see that once the ball goes in, it seldom goes back out? Everyone else does.

Once again, they never seem to look for III. I think he only took two three's all night, and was open for a split second several times, but didn't receive the ball. Finally got the ball to him at crunch time, and he knocked down a three, but with 4.5 seconds left, Lionel brings the ball down, and instead of passing it to III, who should be taking that shot, he drives into the key and throws up a bad shot, and that's the ball game.

Big guys. Bails. Five minutes. Four fouls. Burton in foul trouble.
Mike in foul trouble. I never saw so many fouls called in a game. But give Harding credit. They shot the ball much better than we did, but they were getting the ball to their shooters, and as usual we weren't

Alex had some nice moments, but overall we were out of sync on both offense and defense. I don't know what our offensive plan is. Once again we have people standing out front aimlessly dribbling the ball.

It was definitely a wake up call for the team. Steve should really be able to get their attention now. I don't read too much into this game.
As I've said, the early going is probably going to be rough sailing, but we'll be pretty good later on in the season. 16-17 wins probably the best we can do prior to the tournament. I don't expect to win at Ole Miss since they're predicted to be a good SEC team, but I think we'll play better than tonight. If not, it will be ugly.

Doc, I know you are very close to III but maybe III is not the first or second option in Shield's offense. If players are not being benched for not passing to him than they must being coached to do what they are doing.

(11-08-2009 07:19 PM)Scotto Wrote:  I suspect this was the end of exhibitions. Probably better to have scrimmages than Lose an exhibition.

Going to get ugly?? It's already about as ugly as it can get. Harding players, mostly from small Arkansas High Schools, are much better fun damentally, much better organized, much better coached. Trojans looked like they started practice this past week. I have totally given up trying to understand this coaching staff. Maybe they wanted to keep things hidden in case Ole Miss was scouting. The only positive I left with is that after this embarassment, there is no place to go but up.

(11-08-2009 07:40 PM)DollarBill Wrote:  

(11-08-2009 07:19 PM)Scotto Wrote:  I suspect this was the end of exhibitions. Probably better to have scrimmages than Lose an exhibition.

Going to get ugly?? It's already about as ugly as it can get. Harding players, mostly from small Arkansas High Schools, are much better fun damentally, much better organized, much better coached. Trojans looked like they started practice this past week. I have totally given up trying to understand this coaching staff. Maybe they wanted to keep things hidden in case Ole Miss was scouting. The only positive I left with is that after this embarassment, there is no place to go but up.

How would know you they were in fact practicing before last week? :kyle:

There is really only one way to lose an exhibition. And that is if you don't get better by playing it. Doesn't count for W/L, doesn't count for RPI, you are still 0-0.

(11-08-2009 07:51 PM)Hilltopper2K Wrote:  There is really only one way to lose an exhibition. And that is if you don't get better by playing it. Doesn't count for W/L, doesn't count for RPI, you are still 0-0.

Good point. The game counts for nothing. It was a practice. A chance to play in the front of the "lights" for the first time. Winning this game makes Harding's season. To us a win would have meant nothing.

However, many of our new players got very limited minutes so apparently we were "trying" to win. I'd feel a lot better if it was obvious were were using the game simply to get new players experience or experimenting with new defenses, offensive schemes, etc. Didn't really see anything new either.

(11-08-2009 08:15 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(11-08-2009 07:51 PM)Hilltopper2K Wrote:  There is really only one way to lose an exhibition. And that is if you don't get better by playing it. Doesn't count for W/L, doesn't count for RPI, you are still 0-0.

Good point. The game counts for nothing. It was a practice. A chance to play in the front of the "lights" for the first time. Winning this game makes Harding's season. To us a win would have meant nothing.

However, many of our new players got very limited minutes so apparently we were "trying" to win. I'd feel a lot better if it was obvious were were using the game simply to get new players experience or experimenting with new defenses, offensive schemes, etc. Didn't really see anything new either.

I didn't see anything that we haven't seen for quite a while. Where were the good shooters that we've heard about that were going to give us more of an outside threat?

They drove back to Searcy.

(11-08-2009 09:19 PM)Scotto Wrote:  They drove back to Searcy.

Good one, Scotto. Win or lose, Harding always seems to have 2 or 3 shooters better than anyone we have.

How hard is it to get good shooters? Or maybe the question is what happens to the good shooters we get. It may have something to do with inside 1st option-itis.

(11-08-2009 09:29 PM)Scotto Wrote:  How hard is it to get good shooters? Or maybe the question is what happens to the good shooters we get. It may have something to do with inside 1st option-itis.

Seems like there are quite a few good shooters out there. Do we just not get them? Do they forget how to shoot when they get here? Are we just unable to run an offense to get our shooters open looks? Do are coaches not coach running a basic offense? Are our players lacking the capacity to run what the coaches tell them? I don't have the answer. It does seem to me that most decent DI players (playing the 1, 2, or 3) should be able to knock down the shot if they get the open looks Harding's players were getting.

No way to sugar coat it. A decent D-1 team should wear down and out athlete a D2 team. We played our experienced players the majority of the game and got beat. Not the end of the world, but certainly not acceptable either. They better get back to work.

(11-08-2009 09:38 PM)Karl B Wrote:  No way to sugar coat it. A decent D-1 team should wear down and out athlete a D2 team. We played our experienced players the majority of the game and got beat. Not the end of the world, but certainly not acceptable either. They better get back to work.

I agree on all points. It's not the end of the world, but its still rather worrisome. On the other hand, Syracuse lost to Lemoyne, a small Jesuit school in Syracuse, NY. (almost the same exact score- 82-79 in their case). I know nothing about either team, but have a feeling Syracuse will be in the Big Dance in March and the Lemoyne loss will be a distant memory.