In the post game Shaver mentioned that we haven't been getting great PG play, so that probably explains Tot. He also mentioned that with so many games in such short a time he hasn't been able to get the practice needed. Will be interesting to see his role after exams. No road games for the next month and a week of practice time between High Point and Central Michigan (with no classes either) will be great for helping him get back into the offense.

I could only watch the GameCast, but it looked like we were getting nothing from the bench. Maybe he just switched up to get Tot's offense and to send a message to Whitman.

(12-06-2015 09:29 AM)tribeinexile Wrote:  Does anyone know why Shaver mixed up his normal rotation yesterday? Tot and SeaCat got second-half minutes when the game was still in doubt. I think they got them in lieu of Schlotman and Whitman since ultimately Cohn and Sheldon rotated back in.

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I agree with this. I don't think Schlottman has scored a basket all year, whereas Tot is an aggressive, and pretty good shooter. When healthy, he is also a good defender. Also, the UVA 7 footer was giving us fits. Seacat is our biggest player and, I think, not as timid as Whitman under the glass.

I also think we'll see more Tot and less Schlotman as the season progresses. [Assuming Oliver gets/stays healthy]

There's plenty to like about Oliver. He's physically solid...6'6", 215 with arms and legs like tree trunks.
Plays a very aggressive, physical European game, especially on defense.

Good basketball skills although he can try to do too much at times and end up making bad plays.

Watching him last year and in some practice sessions he can shoot and rebound. We should all look forward to, if his ankle is fully recovered, adding to the team's success.

He and Cohn would cut back on Schlotman's minutes for sure.

Whitman had no chance against UVA's big men. He was too weak/meek against the power players and too slow against the quicker guys. Might as well play Seacat to get him ready for a starting job next season

Schlottman it too slow and deliberate to play division I basketball. You could see back in his high school days the same deliberate style, but at his height he was effective. My guess is that he transfers. I would give Glover some real minutes against Mary Washington and see how he does.

While I am disappointed any time we lose a game, I do think this team has a good chance to be very good by late February/early March which is the critical time of year for us. I still think will settle into 9 guys as part of his main rotation. Schlotman and Whitman are going to be given every chance, but like last year which Schalk emerged, Tony has no qualms about someone losing minutes regardless of their experience with the team.

I see a lot of things I like about the team. The only 2 things I haven't seen much of that I hope still develops is : much better free throw shooting and someone who can get their own shot in crunch time. I think Omar almost can in any situation and Daniel probably can too. If we could develop 2-3 guys that are in that mode, we will be tough to beat. Thornton's ballhandling skills and his quick release made him a natural for that. Given the career he has had, I would love for it to be Tarpey, but he needs to work hard on his shot and foul shooting. He made great strides last season, hoping he can let it go with confidence. Right now, teams can pack in it to hinder his game.

PG is definitely a challenge. Cohn doesn't defend and Schlotman is a liability at the offensive end of the floor right now. Dixon and Tarpey can't play the point. So, that means either we play a lot of zone to hide Cohn's weakness, or we need Oliver Tot to fill the void. They still have time to figure out their season's roles though. So great to have such competitiveness 3 years in a row. UVA is really good again and we basically were right with them on the road except for 1 3-4 minute stretch. Happy for any minutes we can get the young guys the rest of this month.

Cohn's definitely the guy at PG. He is not a great defender, but he did okay against ODU's guards and he is quick enough to recover as long as he's not covering a catch-and-shoot. He'll get steals with his quickness, too. I think Tot will move into Schlotman's spot in the rotation, too. Mike is a plus defender and pretty quick, but he's completely lost on the offensive end. I've said it before; Tot gives us one more ball hawk on a defense filled with them. His game is very European and he has floor vision like Laimis Kiselius did. I see the same thing in Omar, but not quite the quickness to take full advantage of it.

I was at the game (hence I am just watching the Richmond game now) and I have to admit, I was really proud of the way the team played. The turnovers were unacceptably high, and we forced a lot of shots in the first half. We also performed very poorly at the line in the first half - the deficit should have been five points at half. I was seated by a number of very knowledgeable UVA fans who were shocked by how good Omar Prewitt is, and how competitive the game was. This was not what they expected.

However, I felt that we competed extremely hard against a time that is incredibly talented and extremely well-coached and will perform very well in the ACC this year. There were a couple of moments - a three-point play when we had cut it to 6, and the dunk by Thompson - which gave UVA the momentum they needed to put us away. The technical foul at the end was unfortunate. The absence of London Perrantes may actually have worked against us, as it led to UVA putting even more long, athletic players on the floor that we struggled to match up with. Gill is an incredible player and we had nothing that could match him; however we did not back down. We need more effort from Whitman and more production from the point - there is no question about that. Seacat has more long-term potential. Like others on the board, I loved what I saw from Oliver Tot. One turnover aside, he played very well. He's also a presence - one of the few guys on the floor who did not appear overmatched physically by UVA. As for Schlottman, I don't know enough about what Tony asks him to do to comment, but I can say he appears out of synch.

By the way, off topic - I think some of our height/weight listings may be slightly off. Daniel Dixon is listed as 6'6 and 210; Malcolm Brogdon is listed as 6'5, 215. When these two went head to head, it was pretty clear that Brogdon was much bigger than Dixon.

Overall, I think we have a lot to be happy about after yesterday. I think we are going to have a very strong season. As for football..well...nothing to say that has not already been said.

It sounds to me like we are being too dismissive of both Whitman and Schlotman. Remember they both missed a year due to injuries, so they are not bulked up redshirt sophomores but truly sophomores who missed a year of competitive basketball.

It is important that Whitman gets his minutes. He is not moving well at all on defense or on the boards but men his size take longer to mature (or they go to a power conference). He is the putative starter at center for next year and likely the backup even is he loses the starting job. We always love the backup for his potential but I distinctly remember one play yesterday where the UVa player jumped up and landed with the rebound before Seacat even started to move.

I don't know where Knight is projected to play but I think Rusthoven played out of position because we never had anyone else who could handle the five position.

If we all agree Schlotman is a better defender than Cohn, then he is in the competition for minutes. As for talk of him transferring, I hope we don't become that kind of program. I seem to recall (or maybe I'm "mis-remembering") that he is a high GPA student in either Finance or Accounting and thus a solid asset to the school and the program. I recall Tom Schalk's senior year when a student working on his Masters in Accounting, who was viewed as a wasted scholarship, saved our bacon in several games.

[/quote] I recall Tom Schalk's senior year when a student working on his Masters in Accounting, who was viewed as a wasted scholarship, saved our bacon in several games.
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Not sure if I can agree here. While we were all happy to see Tom contribute it would have been much better had it not taken four and a half years to get there. I don't think anyone will disagree that W&M is not in a position to have too many "projects" in our basketball program. This is particularly true in the post, where we have had far too many over the last decade.

As long as we're talking about "busts", what's the deal with Rowley never seeing the court?

(12-07-2015 10:14 AM)Tribester Wrote:  As long as we're talking about "busts", what's the deal with Rowley never seeing the court?

It's way too premature to call him a bust. He's a redshirt freshman. Cracking the lineup as a freshman is hard to do at most good programs. Just because a kid isn't ready to contribute day one doesn't mean he can't be a solid contributor in the future. Who do you want him to take minutes from? Tarpey? Omar? Malinowski? He's not a power forward, he's a small forward. I think he will be able to contribute at some point, but is kinda lost in the numbers right now.

(12-07-2015 10:32 AM)mrjoolius Wrote:  

(12-07-2015 10:14 AM)Tribester Wrote:  As long as we're talking about "busts", what's the deal with Rowley never seeing the court?

It's way too premature to call him a bust. He's a redshirt freshman. Cracking the lineup as a freshman is hard to do at most good programs. Just because a kid isn't ready to contribute day one doesn't mean he can't be a solid contributor in the future. Who do you want him to take minutes from? Tarpey? Omar? Malinowski? He's not a power forward, he's a small forward. I think he will be able to contribute at some point, but is kinda lost in the numbers right now.

Agree with this completely. We have tons of depth at the wing/small forward spot. While I do not love that as a mid-major, we often will offer taller kids who need serious physical development, I think that sixteen months is a bit too early to make any judgments. If we are having the same conversation at the end of next season, then perhaps the equation changes.

I don't think we are on the same page here. I believe that, if a post player has the physical attributes and basketball skills to contribute day one, he is going to a power conference. All our post players are developmental projects. And any developmental project entails risks.

So is the suggestion that we only recruit power forwards and play them at center? That means we are always undersized. And even then our power forwards usually need a couple of years to bulk up.

Any program recruits players who don't live up to expectations. In my book, if they keep their grades up and compete in practice, they are not busts. So kudos to Schalk (who was not recruited as a post player), Heldrig, etc.

(12-07-2015 11:13 AM)tribeinexile Wrote:  I don't think we are on the same page here. I believe that, if a post player has the physical attributes and basketball skills to contribute day one, he is going to a power conference. All our post players are developmental projects. And any developmental project entails risks.

So is the suggestion that we only recruit power forwards and play them at center? That means we are always undersized. And even then our power forwards usually need a couple of years to bulk up.

Any program recruits players who don't live up to expectations. In my book, if they keep their grades up and compete in practice, they are not busts. So kudos to Schalk (who was not recruited as a post player), Heldrig, etc.

Under this rationale, taken to its logical conclusion, we should be participating in a Division 3 conference or in the Ivy League. There are dozens of 6'4 to 6'7 kids playing in Division 3 who could keep their grades up and compete in practice at William and Mary. Most would be thrilled to be walk-ons here. The purpose of placing a student-athlete on scholarship is because that particular student-athlete, in the view of the coaching staff, has the potential to make a significant contribution to the success of the basketball program in competition against other Division 1 programs with similar objectives. By accepting the scholarship, the student-athlete acknowledges that expectation. There's no free lunch. And while I don't use the term "bust", because we are after all talking about very young men, I will say that it is reasonable, if a player is on scholarship for four or five years and never earns a starting role or consistently produces on the court, to question whether the investment might have been more effectively allocated elsewhere.

I'm also not sure if I agree with your "power conference" statement. There are many post players who are recruited to non-power conferences and have successful careers. We just haven't had many of them in recent years. Then again, I still think losing Bill Phillips to St. Josephs was one of the worst things to happen to Tribe Basketball.

Tom Schalk only played 4 years. The original intent was for Tom to redshirt his freshman year, but the 11-12 year was when every big was hurt and Tom ended up starting at the 5 until Tim and Fred got healthy.

Tom is in the masters of accounting program at W&M now.

Skilled, long, & athletic big men that weigh 240lbs out of high school don't usually fall to the mid major ranks. That's why I am excited for the arrival of Nathan Knight. No guarantee that he will pan out either, but his measurables upon arrival are greater than we normally get with the Tribe. I would love to have a big to run the offense through- kind of like what the tribe had with Beasthoven. It would open up so much for the the scorers & perimeter shooters.

Is Knight projected to play at the 4 or the 5.

Add Ted O'Gorman to the Bill Phillips group. He was a starting center under Bruce Parkhill who transferred (to Iona I think).

Contrary to his nickname, I always thought that Rusthoven was a natural 4 who played at 5 because we didn't get the minutes out of Heldrig we hoped for.

For those of us who have been around a bit and choose to remember the "old days", I can tell you that the quality of player that we recruit, not only the starters but the reserves, and the quality of the play on the court, is light years ahead of where it was for the first three decades after I graduated in 1975. Bruce Parkhill certainly had several good teams, including the 82-83 team that broke our hearts, and so did Charlie. But Tony has taken this program to levels that I could have never imagined, and I think that sometimes we need to pause for a moment and realize that the bar against which we measure our teams now is light year's ahead of where it was even 10 years ago.

We have gone from teams where I wondered if any of our starters would even start for another CAA team, to a team where I now wonder how many players on other teams would start for us. We have gone from "money' games where we would lose 101-38 to Duke to wins at NC State and respectable performances at UVA where we did not play that well.

Our team looks like they belong on the floor with everyone that they play and I am excited about this year. Every conference game this year will be a war, with good teams playing each other each night, and the tournament promises to be perhaps the most wide open ever. And who knows, we might end up being a 2 bid league this year. January cannot get here fast enough.

WMTRIBE75 hits it right on the nose! Who would have imagined a decade ago our guys would be going for a third consecutive twenty-win season and a fifth appearance in the last eight years in the CAA Final? The talent levels between now and then are not even comparable. To lose a player like Marcus, likely the greatest player ever at W&M, and still be right in the CAA mix, is...at least to me...stunning. There is a chance, given the depth of this aggregation, we are better this year without Thornton!

I've been following our two recruits on the web. These two guys appear to be highly talented and both have a chance to either start or play lots of minutes next season.

We have a decent chance to win every game between now and the start of the CAA season.