Date: November 8th, 2018

Time: 7:00 PM

Opponent: Hiwassee (3-2)

Place: Freedom Hall (6,000)

Television: none

Webcast: ESPN+ ($4.99 per month)

Radio online: 640WXSM.com

HC 2018-2019 Schedule

HC 2018-2019 Roster

Interesting scheduling on Hiwassee College's part. They played something called North American University last Saturday and Sunday.

A good game to have right now to “work on us”. I wouldn’t mind it if Good and Boyd attempted 15 shots from deep apiece to, hopefully, shoot their way out of the early slump. I’d also like to see Armus be fed to work on his consistency.

Armus needs to go for the dunk and draw the foul. He’s not springy enough to hold the ball and keep pump faking against truer athletes. He got swarmed on his many layup attempts, a number of them blocked or the ball stripped while hesitating. Turn around shots were weak, hopefully just a bad shooting night. The dunks were fast and made a statement. The rebounding was great.

(11-07-2018 03:16 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Armus needs to go for the dunk and draw the foul. He’s not springy enough to hold the ball and keep pump faking against truer athletes. He got swarmed on his many layup attempts, a number of them blocked or the ball stripped while hesitating. Turn around shots were weak, hopefully just a bad shooting night. The dunks were fast and made a statement. The rebounding was great.

One of my many pet peeves watching basketball is inside players who have a size advantage on those guarding them who shoot weak tap ups or push shots near the basket. I see our bigs dunking in warmups with a mere flexing of their ankles and yet in games to this point they are constantly lobbing the ball above the basket hoping for a friendly bounce. If you have the advantage in size and position, dunk the ball. If you lob it up, three things will happen : you will score, you will miss or the defender may get a finger on the ball requiring the official to make a call on whether it was goaltending. I would rather not leave it in the refs' hands. Dunk it and as you say you are more likely to get a call if you are fouled. A long standing issue with me. Every time I see it, I howl at the TV screen, which is why I watch basketball in the most isolated part of the house.

(11-08-2018 07:02 AM)BigIslandBuc Wrote:  

(11-07-2018 03:16 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Armus needs to go for the dunk and draw the foul. He’s not springy enough to hold the ball and keep pump faking against truer athletes. He got swarmed on his many layup attempts, a number of them blocked or the ball stripped while hesitating. Turn around shots were weak, hopefully just a bad shooting night. The dunks were fast and made a statement. The rebounding was great.

One of my many pet peeves watching basketball is inside players who have a size advantage on those guarding them who shoot weak tap ups or push shots near the basket. I see our bigs dunking in warmups with a mere flexing of their ankles and yet in games to this point they are constantly lobbing the ball above the basket hoping for a friendly bounce. If you have the advantage in size and position, dunk the ball. If you lob it up, three things will happen : you will score, you will miss or the defender may get a finger on the ball requiring the official to make a call on whether it was goaltending. I would rather not leave it in the refs' hands. Dunk it and as you say you are more likely to get a call if you are fouled. A long standing issue with me. Every time I see it, I howl at the TV screen, which is why I watch basketball in the most isolated part of the house.

While I don't disagree with all that...……….Armus did dunk it at least twice, with authority. And didn't maybe that equal his dunks for all of last year? That is likely an exaggeration, but to my eyes, he moved way in that direction. Maybe so much so that his extremely effective short lay-ins with either hand were almost absent - or at least relatively speaking. Armus knows sometimes that those are more effective, using the goal as a protection from a block, than trying to dunk it with someone between you and the goal. I was thinking that GSU had watched tape of Armus from last year, and were trying to stop those little lay-ins. To me, this is not a problem. I thought he had clearly moved in the direction of dunking when it was there. There was at least one other time he *maybe* could have done so, but didn't need to.
*Much* more problematic, imo, is him getting stripped before he can go up, or stripped from behind while waiting for a cutter. That happened 3 or 4 times this game. It happened to Rodgriguez once or twice, too.

(11-08-2018 08:55 AM)posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Wrote:  

(11-08-2018 07:02 AM)BigIslandBuc Wrote:  

(11-07-2018 03:16 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Armus needs to go for the dunk and draw the foul. He’s not springy enough to hold the ball and keep pump faking against truer athletes. He got swarmed on his many layup attempts, a number of them blocked or the ball stripped while hesitating. Turn around shots were weak, hopefully just a bad shooting night. The dunks were fast and made a statement. The rebounding was great.

One of my many pet peeves watching basketball is inside players who have a size advantage on those guarding them who shoot weak tap ups or push shots near the basket. I see our bigs dunking in warmups with a mere flexing of their ankles and yet in games to this point they are constantly lobbing the ball above the basket hoping for a friendly bounce. If you have the advantage in size and position, dunk the ball. If you lob it up, three things will happen : you will score, you will miss or the defender may get a finger on the ball requiring the official to make a call on whether it was goaltending. I would rather not leave it in the refs' hands. Dunk it and as you say you are more likely to get a call if you are fouled. A long standing issue with me. Every time I see it, I howl at the TV screen, which is why I watch basketball in the most isolated part of the house.

While I don't disagree with all that...……….Armus did dunk it at least twice, with authority. And didn't maybe that equal his dunks for all of last year? That is likely an exaggeration, but to my eyes, he moved way in that direction. Maybe so much so that his extremely effective short lay-ins with either hand were almost absent - or at least relatively speaking. Armus knows sometimes that those are more effective, using the goal as a protection from a block, than trying to dunk it with someone between you and the goal. I was thinking that GSU had watched tape of Armus from last year, and were trying to stop those little lay-ins. To me, this is not a problem. I thought he had clearly moved in the direction of dunking when it was there. There was at least one other time he *maybe* could have done so, but didn't need to.
*Much* more problematic, imo, is him getting stripped before he can go up, or stripped from behind while waiting for a cutter. That happened 3 or 4 times this game. It happened to Rodgriguez once or twice, too.

I didn't mean to single out Armus for criticism, as I continue to be impressed by his stout play inside. Several times, I remember him surrounded under the basket seemingly with no chance to secure a rebound only to see him emerge with the ball. In fact, when he did dunk the ball, I gestured emphatically at the computer screen to emphasize my point, another reason I am banished from the majority of the house during games. As I said this is a long standing general issue with me as far as inside play is concerned.

I can’t even dunk, so what do I really know! But Armus got abused on many layup attempts at GSU, and he threw up a lot of bad shots. Of course I saw his two dunks, but he was essentially wide open. I’d just like to see more aggressive power moves when he’s being guarded and has an opening to the rim. He’s not a monster athlete, but he’s a monster. Impose thy will.

It is going to be a long season for the Buc bigs if the trend from the Georgia State game continues. ETSU bigs shot 5 free throws, Georgia State bigs shot 12. Georgia State's bigs scored 10 points from the line, ETSU's bigs scored 3. That alone was more than the margin of victory.

It is going to be difficult for Armus, Jeromy, and company to score with folks hanging on them and if the no calls continue.

Just my opinion.

(11-08-2018 02:45 PM)shampoo Wrote:  I can’t even dunk, so what do I really know! But Armus got abused on many layup attempts at GSU, and he threw up a lot of bad shots. Of course I saw his two dunks, but he was essentially wide open. I’d just like to see more aggressive power moves when he’s being guarded and has an opening to the rim. He’s not a monster athlete, but he’s a monster. Impose thy will.

Hand size has a lot to do with dunkage. I haven't checked out Armus's hands up close, but the way he holds the ball I don't think they're all that large (for how large the rest of him is); but that's just from knowledge of how this works. So that's why when he dunks, it's always two hands. And a player has to be fairly close to the basket to dunk with two hands. We'll rarely see him dunk one-handed, I suspect, which would also mean we won't see him take more than one big step and then dunk. He's going to limited in that fashion, I'm pretty sure.

Anybody got ESPN+ working?

James Harrison better step up. Octavion is coming for his minutes...

Maybe I'm just so into football right now, but this seems like a complete waste of a game. Not sure this helps in any way.

(11-08-2018 07:56 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  Maybe I'm just so into football right now, but this seems like a complete waste of a game. Not sure this helps in any way.

Everyone else is afraid of ETSU.

(11-08-2018 08:26 PM)etsuandpurdue3 Wrote:  

(11-08-2018 07:56 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  Maybe I'm just so into football right now, but this seems like a complete waste of a game. Not sure this helps in any way.

Everyone else is afraid of ETSU.

Hiwassee has 302 students, a number of which are athletes.

There HAS to be a DII that will play us. That would at least give us SOME competition.

Did College of Faith rebrand as Hiwassee College and start a basketball team?

(11-08-2018 08:32 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  There HAS to be a DII that will play us. That would at least give us SOME competition.

And some trashed me because I had a meltdown when I found out that ETSU was playing Hiwassee once again. Again, Hiwassee isn't DII, it isn't DIII, it isn't NAIA, it is strictly a National Christian College Athletic Association member with 7 academic programs that are not regionally accredited.

Given the number of SoCon schools that play them, do they have a relationship with someone in the conference office? Is there an advantage to having an opponent that schools can play if they can't fill their schedule?

I noticed that several SoCon schools are playing them.

I made the plunge for ESPN+ only to discover that Kasey Marler does the play by play. Luckily he's not nearly as annoying as I'd have expected.

I did feel sorry for those who spent money on tickets for such a joke of a game. There's no sense at all in scheduling such a team.