I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[Wayne23]

I agree about a zone in exh. games. Not much help. I'm at the same point with Duke right now. Exhibition games definitely help in lots of ways. You tuned me into that and I've used it ever since. Time to crash. I've had insomnia 3 of the last 4 nights so a little sleep, which is probably what I'll get, sounds good.

[PointGuard]

Nice start on reporting your dynasty. Looking forward to more.

[CoachC]

thanks, PG.

[CoachC]

Our 2nd exhibition will be against Div II Bellarmine. We'll be looking to establish some sort of initial rotation out of this one so I'll be looking at various combinations.

We win 75-67, although again the score really doesn't matter.

We established a few things in this game:

We can run.

We can shoot. (just 43 % for the game because we didn't adjust well at first when they switched to 1-3-1 zone for the middle part of the 2nd half, but the rest of the game we were shooting well over 50% from the field.)

We can rebound adequately, but our guards still need to get after those long rebounds better.

Our 1-2 combo of Josh Brown and Billy Sheals at the 5 is pretty potent, but we may be spending a lot of money on oxygen masks for those two.

We have a long way to go with learning the Amoeba zone, but we did force 18 TOs in this game. We had just 5 steals and only 6 points off the break however.

We are pretty thin on the perimeter especially at the 3 and the 1.

We shoot free-throws well (20-22 for the game)

Our ball-handling is not very good. 15 turnovers is still way too many.


Individually:
Rod Woods is here to play. 18 pts, 3 asts. 3 rbs in 27 minutes. Although a true 2 guard, he actually may be our best option at the point. (just 1 TO playing largely at the 1 in this one.)

Josh Brown is a tank inside. If he gets his hands on the ball he's usually gonna take it to the rim and can finish (8/9 shooting for the game, 16 pts and 5 rebounds in 21 minutes). Billy Sheals does a pretty good job of posting up as well, although not as polished as Brown at finishing. Tony Evans is our only viable option at the 3 and plays pretty well, but we are going to have to figure out how to rotate him out. Forward Larry West and Point guard Reggie Feeley showed us something in limited minutes and have probably played their way into the rotation. Larry Gilchrist should be a part of this rotation, but needs to learn to value possession better if he's going to get significant playing time. He has a pretty jump shot though and we need him. Tyler Brown rebounds well and is one of our better defenders at the 4. Larry Williams had a poor showing in this one, but he's looked great in practice and will probably get some minutes. Quincy Lemeke will probably be our starting 2 and will probably get some minutes at the point as well. Overall, I think I'm going to have to find a way to shorten up the bench to make this work.

[CoachC]

Preparing for our season opener:

ALL of our underclassmen look to be important parts of this rotation, so redshirting any of them doesn't seem to be an option.

At this point we've decided that our initial starting line up will be:

PG 6'2 JR Ron Woods
SG 6'2 SR Quincy Lemeke
SF 6'3 SO Tony Evans
PF 6'6 JR Tyler Bonney
C 6'9 FR Josh Brown

The bulk of the bench minutes will go to:

6'1 SO Guard Reggie Feeley (primarily at the point)
6'3 SO Guard Lawrence Gilchrist (mostly at the 2 until he learns to value the ball more)
6'6 SR Forward Jerrold West
6'8 Fr Forward Larry Williams (will most certainly play some minutes at the 5 as well while we give CPR to Brown and Sheals)
6'7 SO Center Billy Sheals (while it would be enticing to play Sheals and Brown on the floor together, it is totally unpractical. He'll probably be getting starter minutes behind Brown though.)

6'7 FR Forward Donald Moore may make his way into the rotation if he works hard in practice. The rest of the bench at this point doesn't look to be ready to help out much.

Great news from Vicky. All of our kids are doing well in school so far this semester, and all of them should be able to stay academically eligible in the spring. Nothing like a pretty Grad student to get young men to crack open a book.

Pre-season conference ranking picks us 6th. That's a lot of pressure on a team that hasn't finished higher than 10th in an 11 team league in quite a while.

[Wayne23]

Unpractical because...? Neither Brown nor Sheals could start at PF?

[CoachC]

Unpractical because...? Neither Brown nor Sheals could start at PF?

Unpractical because both would then wind up on the bench simultaneously for too long a period of time. Things will be different next year when Godzilla O'Connor joins us. Sheals may well play some 4 for us then and I think would do quite well there. Brown probably will as well, because O'Connor will be able to play fairly heavy minutes for a big man, and I can't have Brown limited to 10 or 12 minutes a game.

[CoachC]

1st game of the season already presents some challenges for us. They are a very deliberate team so it will be a battle for who controls the tempo. In the Tigers season opening win against Utah Valley they put 3 guys in double figures. They really like to get ball into their Center Rollerson, their 2 guard Curry loves to penetrate and when he's not finishing himself he looks to dish to Rollerson. Their 3 Hamilton is a serious threat from 3 to open up the paint for those 2, and their point Reyes is a great play-maker who seems to get the ball into the hands of whichever of those 3 is the least bit open. Oh boy!

They do have a tendency to turn the ball over though, and their D looks a bit shaky.

I get T'd for the first time this already this season at the 10:22 mark with the fouls at 2-7 for stepping out of the coaches box. The T surprised me since I hadn't been very vocal thus far (been chewing on the blanket being patient with these grade-school level zebras). Now I'll have to be very careful, but hopefully the T will get some of the calls they've been missing all game at our end of the floor.

Fouls did even out the rest of the way, (6-10 at the half) although the early bonus let them get to the line 15 times.

We lead 38-36 at the half. Can't find fault with our guys effort in the first half. Everyone we played gave us positive contributions. We definitely were able to control the tempo, Shot very well (50%. 5-8 from beyond the arc), while holding them to 40% shooting. We forced 7 To while keeping our own down to an acceptable 6. Not much of a differential but it's a start in the right direction. We stayed pretty much even on the boards (14-15, 4-5 on offensive glass) and scored 7 points off the break. If we can keep them off the line in the 2nd half, I tell the guys this game is here for the taking.

Feeley scored 11 points off the bench in the first half with nary a turnover, and despite early foul trouble, Evans gave us 8 points in 8 minutes. Larry Williams was much more the guy we've been seeing in practice in this one giving us 4 points and 4 rebounds in 12 minutes. We do need to find a way to get the ball in Brown's hands more in the second half however, as the big guy got off just 2 shots.

Strangely enough, Rollerson didn't start for them tonight, and sat out the entire first half. Must be in the doghouse, and I hope he stays there. Curry didn't start for them tonight either, but played well for them off the bench. They still had very balanced scoring, so it's going to be a matter of picking our poison in the 2nd half.

We begin the 2nd half by turning the ball over 5 times in the first 4 and 1/2 minutes and I have to call a full timeout to calm them down. They've also begun pounding the ball into the posts, and we need to solve that in a hurry. Out of the timeout, I draw up a play for Brown to try to get him involved in the offense and Woods promptly throws the alley oop pass OVER the backboard. Have to burn another 30 second time out to chew them out.

Those first 5 minutes did is in, as the team lost their composure, stopped shooting, stopped playing defense, stopped rebounding. stopped playing. Very disappointing second half led to a 79-61 defeat. We were able to pull with 7 with about 3:30 to go, so the margin of defeat wasn't truly indicative as we were firing up 3s in desperation at the end, but a sound defeat it was.

we finish the game:

rebounding (26-31, 8-11 on offensive boards)
Ast/To ration(18-16 for us, 14-12 for them)
Fg percentage (43%, but a healty 8-17 beyond the arc)
Fg defense (47%, 7-16 from 3 bad bad numbers)
Freethrows (7-9, 22-25)
points in paint: 22-30
2nd chance scoring: 5-14
and the real killer
Fast break points: 9-18

Once we got frustrated they went to their big men over and over in the second half and their starting bigs combine for 36 points mostly in the 2nd half.

Lemeke had a very solid game for us and was about the only guy out there with a clue in the 2nd half (15 pts, 3ast, 1 to, 3 reb, 2sts, and a block to fill the stat sheet on 5 of 8 shooting from 3 in 27 minutes)
Feeley's stat line looks good, but did almost nothing positive in the 2nd half but turn the ball over (11 pts, 5a, but 5To all in the 2nd half)

A couple of other players had decent games for us, but the body language in the 2nd half was pitiful. This could be a long season unless we learn to take care of the ball better. In their defense, they've never played at this tempo before, and it's a tough learning curve for them. We'll keep looking for improvements. Onward.

[Wayne23]

It's a process, Coach, particularly with the bottom feeder schools.

[CoachC]

It's a process, Coach, particularly with the bottom feeder schools.

Yep. I was actually fortunate in grabbing this school for my association. They had all the skills I would have wanted for my system except ball-handling. There is only one guy on the entire roster with ball-handling skill higher than 4, and he stood around for 25 empty minutes in the two exhibitions doing nothing, and i mean NOTHING. He basically stood on the court and watched the cheerleaders. So I'm afraid turnovers are going to be our bane all season. Even if I were inclined to go against Gary Winston's philosophies and reduce tempo, I doubt it would matter. They'd just replace the unforced turnovers with more forced turnovers making the situation worse :S I'm going to make an adjustment for the next game and see how it goes.

One additional note, The school nickname is the Runnin' Bulldogs! lol I didn't know that before choosing them, but talk about perfect serendipity!