VT Basketball: VT vs. Oklahoma State Round 2. 12/31 12pm ESPN2

[Ragingcroc]

On a brighter note, Davilla has been shooting FTs pretty well and we won lol.

 

[wildturkey]

Thank God I'm not an old man. If I were, this team would give me a heart attack. They are so freaking frustrating. Every damn game it seems like they try their best to find ways to fuck it up. It's so bad sometimes I actually think their practices must consist of sitting a TV playing Xbox.

Ok St is a lesser opponent yet we were fortunate to win this game. We should have beaten them by 10 to maybe even 15 points. We had something like a ridiculous +20 rebound advantage, but that was totally offset by 15 turnovers and some pretty damn sloppy play and boneheaded decisions.

Our defense, like the only thing Greenberg has shown he can coach, was shit in the 2nd half. A screen is a basic play and fairly easy to defend. You either switch or have your guard undercut the screen. 90% of the time our guys just ran into each other and let Page drain wide open 3s. To compound things, Page was the only guy doing anything for OK St yet we still couldn't figure out how to stop him.

Offensively, I saw a little improvement. We actually ran set plays with some good screens and some backdoor cuts. However, we kept running the same ones over and over. Once Ok St figured it out and jumped the screen, our guys looked totally lost. It was especially apparent in the final 2 minutes when our team literally had no clue what to do on offense. They just stood around looking dumbfounded as if to say "I know we should be doing something right now but...oh shit, 2 seconds left...better jack this shot up". Unbelievable.

We won. I don't know how but damn if it wasn't pull your hair out frustrating.

 

[Ragingcroc]

Our defense, like the only thing Greenberg has shown he can coach, was shit in the 2nd half. A screen is a basic play and fairly easy to defend. You either switch or have your guard undercut the screen. 90% of the time our guys just ran into each other and let Page drain wide open 3s. To compound things, Page was the only guy doing anything for OK St yet we still couldn't figure out how to stop him.

You can't undercut a screen with a hot shooter like Page because they'll just pull up and drain it every time. We did a good job adjusting by having the defender of the screener come up and challenge Page but it came too late. They also had some double screens which makes it harder to come off the screener because you then come upon another screen.

Also keep in mind Page was on bench when we lost the 10 point lead.

Also, what is with Bob Knight bitching about 3 pointers? I know some were bad but complaining about Finney-Smith taking a wide open 3 when he has shot 42.9% on the year? Ridiculous.

 

[Chrish1023]

You can't undercut a screen with a hot shooter like Page because they'll just pull up and drain it every time. We did a good job adjusting by having the defender of the screener come up and challenge Page but it came too late. They also had some double screens which makes it harder to come off the screener because you then come upon another screen.

Also keep in mind Page was on bench when we lost the 10 point lead.

You're correct in saying that we can't undercut the screen against a shooter like him. However, the big man needs to come up and stop the progress of the point guard or else someone will be wide open. Davilla was very lazy coming up to help a few times and it resulted in some wide open looks.

My biggest concern, though, is our offense. We just past the ball around the perimeter wayyy to much and wait too long to attack. Also, with an offense like ours, we have to get easy buckets when we can. When they are coming up and double teaming the ball, we need to attack once we break that instead of pulling it out and calling a "play".

I'm glad we got the W, but I would just like to see some improvement in these areas before we start playing the big boys.

 

[Ragingcroc]

On a good note, Davila has shoot 76% on FTs since the St. Bonaventure game. Also, Barksdale and Raines were also part of the problem about stopping Page's progress not just Davila.

 

[wildturkey]

I didn't say he should undercut on Page. I said on screens you either switch or undercut. We did neither. The bigs did a terrible job at switching. When they did switch, they committed a couple of dumb reach in fouls as well, the worst being Davila's reach in foul about 1 ft from halfcourt. They played sloppy and lazy today.

 

[Fetti]

Marquis Rankin played excellant defense on Page when he was in, but once Brown got a hot hand Seth decided to stick with Brown in the final stretch.

That's why you didn't see Jarell Eddie at the end of the game. Seth considers Eddie and Brown our two worst defenders, so he will only play one at a time.

However, Brown has the potential to be a very good on ball defender before it's all said and done. It's just rare that a freshman plays as good of defense that Seth requires from his players this early, that's why we used to see very little minutes for some of our other freshman in previous years. It will all work out though. These freshman are A LOT farther along than anyone thought and show major potential.

 

[Hokie200proof]

Still no votes in the coaches or AP. RPI is 37?

Not too bad, bout where I expected us to be headed into conference play.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

CBS has us as last 4 in.....

 

[wildturkey]

Still no votes in the coaches or AP. RPI is 37?

Not too bad, bout where I expected us to be headed into conference play.

We haven't done anything to warrant a ranking. We've just held serve basically beating the teams we should and losing to those everyone expected (though I felt we could have beaten K State).

If we can win our next 3 games (Wake, FSU, BC), we'll probably be ranked heading into the UNC game. As bad as Wake and BC, we should definitely win those. FSU might be ify.