MBB Game 12 @ UNLV, Dec 21 (Thu), 10 PM EST

[Cards]

HU starts second half with a 14-2 run to tie game at 38.

[Polito]

Turned it off with a few min left, lost interest and very unimpressed. Will hold my full comments until I've had a night to sleep on it - been trying to work that approach in this year, has gone much better for me lol.

Needless to say, things are not good with this team.

[cactus]

great run to start the second half but a lot of forced shots took them right back out of the game.

[dutchPride86]

Had a bad feeling this was gonna be a rough matchup for them. This team isn't anywhere near as good as it thinks it is offensively. Held under 70 pts 6 times in 11 games vs D1 teams now, and 1-5 in those games. When facing quality competition with length and size Hofstra really struggles to score... not sure if it's fixable or a fatal flaw.

[ZMAN3]

Had a bad feeling this was gonna be a rough matchup for them. This team isn't anywhere near as good as it thinks it is offensively. Held under 70 pts 6 times in 11 games vs D1 teams now, and 1-5 in those games. When facing quality competition with length and size Hofstra really struggles to score... not sure if it's fixable or a fatal flaw.

Agreed- No inside game other than layups - don't see where it can be fixed - no answers on the bench and can't call up anyone from the farm team. Miss Estrada's penetration!

[triplec2195]

I didn't watch any of this game too late for me lol but just looking at stats they out rebound us 39-30 and scored 36 points in the paint to our 22. Nothing really jumps out at you in this loss other then poor shooting. You're not going to beat many teams especially good teams scoring 56 points. Maybe as TT goes we go as a team again Bryce a non factor offensively only scoring 2 points. Where is the Omar Silverio off the bench who can come in and hit a few three's. TheIr bench outscored us 29-13!!

[Wags]

They're never going to be good offensively when their leading scorer is going 4/20 and settling for 3/11 from 3 among those 20 shots (not that he wasn't even worse from 2 last night, going just 1/9, but still, that's 25 3-pt. attempts, making only 8, out of 37 total shots over the past two games). He's been good most of the time in order to be among the top scorers nationally this season, but along with the 4/16 game against Princeton and the 3/12 game against Iona, this is already the third "that's not the typical Tyler Thomas shooting game (he'll be fine)" performance we've seen. By far, it's not all on him, but if he's going to be the top option, it has to start with him and trickle down to the rest. Can't have your top option relying too heavily on the 3, and when those don't fall, not finding others ways to score and score efficiently. It all stems from that offensively.

Dubar, who has taken more than his fair share of heat (un unfair misperception, I think), has actually been more consistent and reliable in the #2 role. He was 7/10 last night. He's at 1.43 PPS (213 points on 149 shots) this season while taking only three fewer FTs and making nine fewer than Thomas, who is at 1.20 PPS (265 points on 220 shots). Thomas needs to be as consistent and as reliable, efficiency-wise, as Dubar has been at a minimum, and probably even more so.

But same as last year. This was a challenging OOC schedule going in, so none of this is a surprise. The CAA is at a different level and it's frankly where they belong right now (despite talk of the A10, where they'd be exposed on a more regular basis). It's good that they challenge themselves (they always should), but they were largely playing out of their league. I'll maintain - six games into CAA play, that's when we'll start to know where they may be headed this season. But their leader has to consistently lead.

[Wags]

Where is the Omar Silverio off the bench who can come in and hit a few three's.

They need Plotnikov to do this but he's been hurt and also underused otherwise - he made his only shot last night. A couple of other games, 2/3 and 2/2. So get him a few more shots off the bench!

Also, when he went 3/4 (all from 3) in the Princeton loss, Speedy said of Barrouk, "He’s going to have a big role here this season." Yet he's had virtually no role since that game. Maybe give him a shot to do what he did against Princeton a little more often.

[HUSID80]

Disappointing loss...not so much for the loss itself but for the fact that we came out of the gate so poorly...would have liked to see more use of other players in the non-conference season...as mentioned by Wags, Barouk, Plotnikov and Tomasco (who I believe is hurt).
Only one more game left in the non-con and ST John's will put a beat down on us if we don't come to play.

[Cards]

Disappointing loss...not so much for the loss itself but for the fact that we came out of the gate so poorly...would have liked to see more use of other players in the non-conference season...as mentioned by Wags, Barouk, Plotnikov and Tomasco (who I believe is hurt).
Only one more game left in the non-con and ST John's will put a beat down on us if we don't come to play.

I shudder to see what Soriano does to our tandem of Fritz and Sunday. Fritz has certainly not looked like a 5th year player - not a strong rebounder and not a very accomplished offensive game. Sunday is very raw. Given his lack of career minutes, I normally would be OK with that. What concerns me is that he appears to be slow around the hoop and he has poor hands - I don't think those faults can be rectified with more playing time and targeted coaching. Hopefully, I wrong, but I think there will be another strong need to recruit a competent 5 for next year........again!

[ZMAN3]

Defense, at least last night, keying on TT - He took a lot of bad shots - deeper and more contested than usual. DD more selective. I understand TT needs and feels the urge to score (not a lot of options out there) but taking very low percentage shots not the answer.

[triplec2195]

TT is a marked man like everyone knew he would be and others need to take the pressure off but who. Dubar is having a very good season so far but who r the other scorers. Carlos has dished it but he will have to score more since we're not getting that much in the post or from Washington who has played well. Dubar also doesn't draw the attention that Tyler does which is helping his game.

[Wags]

Defense, at least last night, keying on TT - He took a lot of bad shots - deeper and more contested than usual. DD more selective. I understand TT needs and feels the urge to score (not a lot of options out there) but taking very low percentage shots not the answer.

This has happened a few times this season. This is where they miss Estrada's decision-making. He knew when his shots were more high percentage and when he could take those and knew when he was there to draw attention and find others. He averaged 5.7 and 5.5 apg and was trusted to play a lot of PG in his two years at HU. Thomas is not quite like that but it can be learned - he had 1.3 apg last year and never more than 2.9 at SHU. This year, he's at a career-best 3.3 apg. They need to get that more toward 5.0 apg and have him give up some of those bad/forced shots while having him onl look for or create the ones he should be taking.

[Polito]

Next day... still feels sucky. Disappointed in this team and the staff. I do not see the sustained improvement I expected from this team and the OOC is nearly done. Yet to grab a true good win vs a team with an actual pulse. Hope they find a way to elevate for this final one vs SJU.

You said it best dp86, this team and its coaching staff seem a bit delusional about the offensive skill of this team - this group is horribly inefficient, and it's star, I'm sorry to say cuz the kid works hard, is the worst of the bunch. TT has to take way too many shots to get his points, and that isn't helping the team. As has been noted, he's trying hard but forcing shots because he has little help.

Bench play has fallen off a cliff, zero consistency overall, Washington reverted right back to his poor play, Fritz was not impactful (although at least didn't foul out), and Plotnikov did zip (though good to see him back). DD was and is a bright spot so far, JC too, and I thought even Sunday gave some good minutes for his current level. But man it's like digging under cushions trying to find more coin from this team. Where's the juice?!?

I can accept losing to Duke at Cameron, I can't accept getting blown out by an average UNLV. You have to at least keep this game close. And I thought blaming the travel in the post-game to explain the poor play was as lame as blaming officiating. These post game interviews are pretty useless, not even sure why I bother to listen to them anymore. Topic for another thread...

I am pretty tired of seeing the poor starts, and I put that squarely on the coaching staff. This has to be corrected - team is constantly playing from behind, putting itself in a position where it has to chuck 3's half the game just to try and claw back or keep it close - a losing strategy when your team doesn't shoot the 3 efficiently, has little to no post game, and seemingly few who can play the mid range game or finish drives.

This team plays well for about 10 minutes a game, and looks completely out of sync for the other 30. That's not going to win, not even in the CAA.

As wags has reminded me, this kind of stuff happened last year too, and this could all change in conf play - that's fair. But that team didn't dance either so this idea of playing like garbage and then magically turning it on isn't exactly a recipe for NCAAT success. Can't ignore this was a pretty disappointing OOC - tough schedule yes, but HU should be good enough to do better than they have. Concerning this team seems to need crappy competition to pull out any wins.

Sigh...quite frustrated. Team has become tough to watch. The guys are trying and working hard, but the strategy is awful and I just don't think they are as good as we all had hoped. Conf play could be very different hopefully, but it's hard to see this team getting the job done right now.

[HofstraMathew]

I was actually at this game and basically Thomas going 1 for 11 in the first half sunk us. A lot of those shots were pretty open too so it wasn't necessarily the defense. The shots just weren't falling for us. Our defense looked pretty good besides giving up some of the offensive rebounds we did. The box score makes it look a bit worse as the game kind of got away from us at the end.

Basically if Thomas even had an average shooting night we probably win this game or at least are in it at the end. At least it was $2 beer night at the arena though so was able to get a few of those early to make the game more palatable.

[Polito]

Glad to hear you were able to attend and represent HM. Certainly a huge issue when TT doesn't hit his shots. The thing is, I'm not so sure it's rare - TT is not an efficient shooter at all, quite the opposite, and has had a few games now where he hasn't shot well - that's not really an anomaly anymore to me, it's more of a concerning trend.

My other big concern is frankly I think it's become pretty easy to beat this team right now - the book is out on them - all you have to do is PRESS and play PHYSICAL and your odds of winning are high. And when HU isn't shooting well, which is happening too often, it's almost guaranteed. If HU can't figure out how to manage a press and/or start playing with some physicality instead of being soft, they will have to shoot lights out to win games, and I'm sorry to say I just don't think they are good enough shooters to do that.

This team needs to get tougher. And this program needs to start recruiting guys that play with power. Finesse is fine in some spots, but you can't have a team full of softies out there getting man-handled by guys playing like grown men. It's getting kind of embarrassing IMO. Staff needs to toughen these guys up and/or bring in some players that can play with strength and boldness.

As I've said for years, HU NEEDS DOGS. And unfortunately it appears they still do until proven otherwise.