A Sea Of Red

I know we will play better this season than we are right now. We are going through a bit of a rough stretch. We may even comeback and win this game. We very easily could.
But I’m beginning to worry about what our conference record will be. I can honestly see us fighting for .500 at the end of the year.
It’s been talked about enough and doesn’t really need to be discussed again but shockingly I think Jax State has better athletes than us.

We are not very good. No height, no offense, only 1 shooter.

Offensively LU is Short Bus eligible

The O is so painful. Only guy that can kind of create their own shot is Cleveland and he is a TO machine.

Painful

Fouling Cleveland in the bonus situation is the equivalent of an LU turnover

I'm curious if teams have figured us out or if we are just ice cold across the board with our shooting lately. Our offense was our strength while our defense lagged earlier in the season. Our defense wasn't the problem today, we just can't get shots to fall.

Going to be a long year…

When’s the baseball opener?

Venzant and Cleveland are the only guys playing well right now and the only mid-to-high level athletes on the roster. Porter’s been disappointing this year and Rode slumps way too much for a 5th year guy. Peebles is unplayable against D1 athletes. Just a poorly constructed roster with low-major level athletes.

I don’t think baseball will be any better to help with this pain.

We are 0-2 in CUSA.
From 6-0 to 11-6…that’s suboptimal

stokesjokes wrote: ↑January 10th, 2024, 9:56 pm Just a poorly constructed roster with low-major level athletes.

It's almost like we've been in low major conferences for the last 30 years...

9 for 34 on 3s

Yeah, but we’ve had better athletes. We had a team with Cabbil, Myo, Scottie James, and Homesley, all great athletes. You would hope we could parlay that success into better recruiting, but, as someone said earlier this year, it no longer feels like a program that’s growing.

Ill flame wrote: ↑January 10th, 2024, 9:53 pm I'm curious if teams have figured us out or if we are just ice cold across the board with our shooting lately. Our offense was our strength while our defense lagged earlier in the season. Our defense wasn't the problem today, we just can't get shots to fall.

Seems like teams are really extending the D on us to take away the 3. Willing to give up the penetration since we have not proven we can finish in the paint consistently.

That said we had plenty of looks…

My biggest frustration is that it doesn't appear that we're making adjustments. McKay didn't make the first substitution in the 2nd half until around the 14-12 minute mark with us down by 11 or 13. It's time to shuffle the starting line-up and shuffle the rotation. Give some of the guys buried on the bench more minutes. We need to shake the can and see what we can come up with.

Adjustments.
Lineups.
Recruiting.

Where are the assistant coaches?

Do we miss Brad Soucie yet?

JK37 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 7:55 am Adjustments.
Lineups.
Recruiting.

Where are the assistant coaches?

Couldn't agree more.

As for the assistants, they were on the bench in their pajama tops. Coaches need to go back to wearing coat and tie.

flamehunter wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 8:22 am Do we miss Brad Soucie yet?

I was thinking this as well

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 8:57 am

JK37 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 7:55 am Adjustments.
Lineups.
Recruiting.

Where are the assistant coaches?

Couldn't agree more.

As for the assistants, they were on the bench in their pajama tops. Coaches need to go back to wearing coat and tie.

How is that going to improve the shooting percentage or the ability to finish at the rim?
And a pullover is not a pajama top

The two must be strangely intertwined.

stokesjokes wrote: ↑January 10th, 2024, 10:10 pm Yeah, but we’ve had better athletes. We had a team with Cabbil, Myo, Scottie James, and Homesley, all great athletes. You would hope we could parlay that success into better recruiting, but, as someone said earlier this year, it no longer feels like a program that’s growing.

Ritchie typically recruits and signs players when they are underclassmen in high school. It's a high risk, high reward strategy. Sometimes we got guys like you listed that should have been playing at the mid or high major levels, other times we recruited guys that we thought could be very good and just didn't pan out. Unfortunately we had multiple relative flops in recent classes that have stacked up which has led to our situation. I dont think anyone thought Venzant would be an offensive liability his entire career. Beyond him Warfield, DJ Moore and Jonathon Jackson were all guards with decent size and good athleticism that would be on this team but they largely didn't end up being what we thought they were going to be for one reason or another. It's not like ritchie just hasn't signed an athletic guard in years.

Anytime you have to depend on Rode to be a scorer, you have MAJOR problems. If I am an opposing coach, I pay him to shoot 3's. The guards are too small, the forwards are too small. etc.
I trust McKay to get us back on track, but without a couple of Yuuuuuge transfer portal additions, it is going to take a few years.

Purple Haize wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 10:27 am

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 8:57 am

JK37 wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 7:55 am Adjustments.
Lineups.
Recruiting.

Where are the assistant coaches?

Couldn't agree more.

As for the assistants, they were on the bench in their pajama tops. Coaches need to go back to wearing coat and tie.

How is that going to improve the shooting percentage or the ability to finish at the rim?
And a pullover is not a pajama top

Ballcoach only believes in traditional pajamas

Ill flame wrote: ↑January 11th, 2024, 11:14 am

stokesjokes wrote: ↑January 10th, 2024, 10:10 pm Yeah, but we’ve had better athletes. We had a team with Cabbil, Myo, Scottie James, and Homesley, all great athletes. You would hope we could parlay that success into better recruiting, but, as someone said earlier this year, it no longer feels like a program that’s growing.

Ritchie typically recruits and signs players when they are underclassmen in high school. It's a high risk, high reward strategy. Sometimes we got guys like you listed that should have been playing at the mid or high major levels, other times we recruited guys that we thought could be very good and just didn't pan out. Unfortunately we had multiple relative flops in recent classes that have stacked up which has led to our situation. I dont think anyone thought Venzant would be an offensive liability his entire career. Beyond him Warfield, DJ Moore and Jonathon Jackson were all guards with decent size and good athleticism that would be on this team but they largely didn't end up being what we thought they were going to be for one reason or another. It's not like ritchie just hasn't signed an athletic guard in years.

I would like to see Venzant and Cleveland learn how to shoot. Venzant was a scorer in high school and is such a freak athlete - no way he can't work himself into a 10 point scorer each game. Cleveland - probably our best player right now - which is scary to say - should have worked all off season on his three point shooting and free throws. Teams are sagging off him and we can't have that when we have 2 5'9 guards on the floor already and allows his defender to drop down on smaller post players and/or get in a better position to stop him from driving. Not sure how anyone that plays college basketball can't figure out how to shoot free throws... 52% - come on.