Game 5 vs. Stony Brook, 12/9/20, 7 PM on Flosports

[joeg1]

Color commentary guy needs to keep it simple until he feels more comfortable. He's a student and will get better. Hate to pile on, but the broadcast is brutal at this point.

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

[Polito]

Next day thoughts:

The Good
-- Coburn is stepping up, and showing some consistency game to game - that's HUGE.
-- Burgess, my guy lol, have supported him since recruitment and he's starting to rise up - still a long way to go, but I believe in this kid - had some great plays yesterday, setting up his guys, and finally knocked down some shots. He will be KEY to any success this season. Only guy on the team who truly knows how to run and set the O.
-- Green finally showed something lol - again a long way to go here, but true frosh got at least a start to his game - keep it going.
-- Kante had a real good game - I still want more there because I think he can still do more (if he's getting fed) - but def a solid showing.
-- Some full court press! I know, they're not good at it right now, but that's what happens when you first start practicing during the season lol. Defense as a whole was better, and a big reason for the W. That will continue to be key as this group is not an offensive juggernaut.
-- Masic, I'm still not a believer just yet, but kudos on a big boy shot! P.S. I'll be happy to be proven wrong - Silverios role is up for grabs, take it if you got the goods.

The Bad
-- Ray continues to be disappointing thus far. Playing like JWF and Buie are still there to shoulder the weight, showing up for a shot or two. He was supposed to be the guy, I know the staff was counting on that, and he is either not ready, not willing, or not skilled to do so. Color me shocked. Big detriment to the team. Doesn't sound like a leader at all, or that he even wants to be. And I'm still not impressed with him running point - I know others are, I just don't dig it. Burgess def needs help, and certainly Ray is serviceable in spurts, I just don't think it's a big boost. Hoping Zion can perhaps help there at some point perhaps.
-- Cramer, I'm of course pumped for this young man, and it's been 3 years so can't really get too tough on him, but the FT's have to got to improve and he clearly needs to learn how to play proper D. Both should come in time.
-- Silverio. Sheez. Back to old I suppose. Disappointed and surprised there too - although maybe I shouldn't be. Really pegged him for a foundation year and a starting role next. But if he can't get it together by Jan, this staff needs to play him accordingly. He and ST have the same poor decisions and play. Half a dozen of one /other...

Cowart
I need to know! Someone pls tell me lol Will hurt not having him, a guy that figured to bring the seasoned maturity to the floor - hurts if he's gone. Although the benefit as mentioned could be now that CB knows it's ALL him, he rises up - some players need to know they are it, hope that's the case here.

Post-Game Note
-- Once again, I LOVE Farrelly, he gives actual insight and perspective - owns the bad, doesn't make excuses, calls out poor performance, AAHHH thank you coach!
-- With that, I do not agree that the team doesn't need Burgess to score much because they'll get scoring elsewhere. You're not though coach. This isn't last year and this team isn't showing that capability at all. Struggling mightily to score. A star sr guard sleeping half the game, a big not dominating yet, an X factor remains lost, inconsistency all over the floor, two top talents are freshmen, and half the team can't make FTs. I don't care what they're doing in practice, this is about what happens when the lights come on. CB absolutely needs to put up points, 10-15 a game minimum - that mindset and expectation should be instilled. And maybe they are behind the scenes - I don't want him to be / feel 'pressured' and throw off his game, but can't baby either - should be no secret in D1 that he still needs to score.


Got the win, early season with a still developing team, but it was far from inspiring yet. Much to do. Need to show up better against Monmouth, that's going to be a tough game. And then some serious A10 tests before beginning the journey that matters. Get better each game, that's the mantra!

[EvanJ]

CB absolutely needs to put up points, 10-15 a game minimum - that mindset and expectation should be instilled.

He needs to score, but if we need double-digits from a guy who averaged 0.7 last season, and under 0.5 per team game as he played in 23 of 34 games, we shouldn't have been picked first.

Kante is tied for 49th in the NCAA with 21 free throws made. The NCAA has free throws made total, but not per game, and the fact that they don't have it per game is even worse this season because of all the cancelations and postponements.

Cramer has made two-thirds of his twos, but he needs to improve his three-point shooting (1-8) or stop trying. His .214 free throw percentage and 1 foul per 8.64 minutes are also problems. To compare, Gustys averaged 1 foul per 5.37 minutes as a freshman when he started five games, and his highest foul rate as a starter was 1 per 8.03 minutes.

Kante, Cramer, Silverio, Cowart, and Masic have 5 assists and 23 turnovers this season. Cowart was the only one of them expected to be a PG, but even for other players it's a bad ratio for half the players we've used. Kante averaged 0.8 assists last season and doesn't have any in four games. Coburn is third averaging 1.25, and 37 of 50 assists (74 percent) have been from Ray or Burgess. As a senior Juan'ya Green averaged 7.15 assists. He and Denton Koon, who was a distant second on the team, combined for 58.0 percent of our assists. 76 of our 242 field goal attempts (31.4 percent) are by players shooting .250 or lower.

One bad thing about being a fan of a mid-major is not hearing news about players leaving a team. Schools in top conferences can have a guy who averaged 1 point in 5 minutes leave or be suspended and ESPN will have an article about them. Pro leagues have transactions that Newsday has every day. I wish the NCAA would make an official transactions list. Even if they sometimes can't say why a player left the roster, they could say when a player left a roster permanently. When players leave a school during a season, I'm assuming the fact that they left is not covered by HIPAA or any other privacy laws.

Our next home game is Saturday January 2 against W&M, which is 24 days after yesterday.

[Captain]

So if Cowart is officially gone, we could use another true point. (Burgess could be injured and then you're done.)
Columbia has a very capable point guard who is a senior. Immediately eligible since the Ivy League has cancelled their season. The kid's last name is Stefanini and he is good. (The other point from Columbia now starts for Michigan I believe...Mike Smith.)
Maybe the coaches are already on a one and done point guard with Jaquan Carlos coming next year.

[Wags]

Maybe Burgess grows into that role as the season progresses

3 Ast, 3 TO in the season opener at Rutgers
Since then, over the past three games: 16 Ast, 2 TO. And tonight, throw in the first double-digit scoring game of his career (12 pts) on efficient shooting (2/3 from 2 and the same from 3).

That recent 8:1 ratio is very impressive. Even 3:1 is considered good. There may be a lot of hope for him yet.

Not sure if it was intentional or just organically happened but seemed like ray took the ball up more than in the prior games which maybe took a bit of the pressure off him running the point all the time.

Good point. That would figure to help him. Partially that and could also be that this was now his fourth game in a much bigger role than last year, and that's just a natural progression for him. If that continues, Hofstra will have a good year because they will certainly need stability and good play at the PG spot, whether it's from Burgess or from some sort of hybrid situation with Ray and Burgess splitting those types of duties over the course of different games (depending on the opponent and that team's PG, etc.).

[Wags]

CB absolutely needs to put up points, 10-15 a game minimum - that mindset and expectation should be instilled.

He needs to score, but if we need double-digits from a guy who averaged 0.7 last season, and under 0.5 per team game as he played in 23 of 34 games, we shouldn't have been picked first.

If he continues what he's done since the first game with his outstanding AST:TO ratio and keep up the good D, he doesn't need to score that much.

Farrelly said last night Burgess scores 8-10 points, that would be great (implying slightly less would be decent) as long as the above continues. I agree.

[Polito]

Evan, friendly note here, you can't keep referencing data points from last year with players who never saw the floor - let's use the finance method, "past performance is not an indication of future success".

You can absolutely expect a starter to perform more with starter minutes than barely coming off the bench. And should - you have to anticipate starter production from new guys, that's part of the game. Otherwise there would've been zero hope for JWF and Buie and numerous others.

As for the PG topic, I do not agree at all that Burgess is fine scoring a handful a game - that's ridiculous to me - 10-12 from the starting PG is well within reason, and will be needed production. This team isn't scoring, NO starter is or should be off the hook. I get they don't want to have his mind tying up his feet so to speak, and that might be the play here to get him comfortable and confident, but believing that he doesn't need to score on this team is silly.

If I'm the staff, that's part of his development behind the scenes, if they want to promote something different to the outside. He MUST develop a scoring ability for this team to be successful and to keep other teams honest. Not replacing Buie with 6 pts a game lol.

And I believe and get that the strategy this year is likely very different, much more focused on playing tighter D to make up for the missing buckets. I'm onboard, it makes sense, but pretending like HU has plenty of points coming from the rest is not at all reality right now. If Ray steps up and wakes up, maybe. Until then, until an actual leader emerges, they need points from literally everywhere / everyone.

[HofstraMathew]

Polito - I get what you were saying but keep in mind buie only averaged 6.4 pts his sophomore year.

[EvanJ]

There's a difference between wanting starter production and expecting it. I'm not saying Burgess can't average double-digits. I'm saying that I predict he will average fewer than 10. If you double his points per minute from last season and give him 25 minutes, he would average 5.5 points. It would be nice if several guys other than Ray, Coburn, and Kante could score to be like UNCW's distribution last season. UNCW had their to four scorers average 11.8, 10.5, 9.5, 9.2, 6.1, 5.0, and 4.9. Players must play in three-quarters of the games to qualify, and they also had Ty Gadsden (10.6 points), who played in 17 of 32 games, and Kai Toews (5.5 points), who played in 13 games. Given that they combined to play 30 games, I think it makes sense to treat that as one player, which would make eight who averaged at least 4.9. I know UNCW was bad last season, but I'm just using it as an example that a starting five don't all have to be much better than the top subs. In 2008-2009, when Jenkins led us by far with 19.7 in the first season after Agudio, we had seven players average at least 4.2, and ten average at least 2.7. Including Miklos Szabo, who played in 19 games, we had eleven players average at least 10 minutes per team game.

[cactus]

Also, the officiating in the 2nd half was very sketchy. If fans were allowed, the refs would have heard about it from Cactus from the stands.

I could hear him tonight!

There was an egregious carry by a stonybrook player in the first half right in front of our seats that went uncalled and i was 100% ready to give it to them.
I could have put a "you guys stink" bubble coming out of my cutout a la Rachel Phelps aimed directly at the refs in the second half. A lot of iffy calls, late whistles, etc. that helped stonybrook get back into the game.

[Wags]

Evan, friendly note here, you can't keep referencing data points from last year with players who never saw the floor - let's use the finance method, "past performance is not an indication of future success".

You can absolutely expect a starter to perform more with starter minutes than barely coming off the bench. And should - you have to anticipate starter production from new guys, that's part of the game. Otherwise there would've been zero hope for JWF and Buie and numerous others.

As for the PG topic, I do not agree at all that Burgess is fine scoring a handful a game - that's ridiculous to me - 10-12 from the starting PG is well within reason, and will be needed production. This team isn't scoring, NO starter is or should be off the hook. I get they don't want to have his mind tying up his feet so to speak, and that might be the play here to get him comfortable and confident, but believing that he doesn't need to score on this team is silly.

If I'm the staff, that's part of his development behind the scenes, if they want to promote something different to the outside. He MUST develop a scoring ability for this team to be successful and to keep other teams honest. Not replacing Buie with 6 pts a game lol.

And I believe and get that the strategy this year is likely very different, much more focused on playing tighter D to make up for the missing buckets. I'm onboard, it makes sense, but pretending like HU has plenty of points coming from the rest is not at all reality right now. If Ray steps up and wakes up, maybe. Until then, until an actual leader emerges, they need points from literally everywhere / everyone.

Fair points, but I'd say that so far, despite the offensive deficiencies and concerns in certain individual areas, they've had enough offense to get by.

The two games they won, they won on defense but still had enough offense to get by as well (73 pts and 72 pts - nothing wrong with that).

The games they lost, only one they lost because of offense (but that was also going against a Rutgers team that was at a higher level defensively than what they'll typically see) and the other, they ultimately again had enough offense (74 points, though the shooting from the floor and was shaky), but they really lost on defense (allowing 82 pts to Iona).

For the season, they are about even, scoring as much (68.3 ppg) as what they're allowing (69.3 pgg); they've scored 275 and allowed 277, total. So far, that shows that despite the valid concerns offensively, they're so far generally finding enough scoring in way or another even if it's not always pretty. We'll see which direction that goes in January, starting in CAA play - because that's when it will really count offensively.

[Polito]

Allow me to clarify: in no way am I expecting Soph CB to be or replace Sr Buie. I know he's going to take time to develop, like every player, and deserves the fair time to do so. Pls keep in mind I have been singing his praises from pre-day 1! Big believer in him. But see that doesn't change the fact that points from the PG spot are needed now. Life doesn't care about or wait for what's fair.

So my point is, regardless of the above, the mantra from the staff cannot be that it's all good there we don't need scoring there etc. This program and system is highly dependent upon a productive 1. Period. And the idea that this team is scoring enough to make up for it is completely false. Scoring in the 60's??? That is extremely low in today's game and not enough. HU is playing good D for HU, but 'havoc' or UVA they are not. CB is going to have to mature ahead of schedule and score more.

And to that point about Buie, in his Soph year he played minimally because Deron Powers was the Sr. starting PG. And he averaged about 13 points per game - combine that with Buie's and it just proves my point. And by the way, it still wasn't enough to cut nets. The 1 needs to score about 10-12 min a game - more ideally. I think CB will get there, question is whether or not it will happen this year.

Now the strategy is going to be a bit more defensive dependent this year, I totally get that, and I think they have to do so considering the vastly different offensive production this year compared to last. They don't need to score like the last 2 years, they are going to be more of a strong D team to make up for it. Makes perfect sense. And they may also just be saying that publicly but working differently with him behind the scenes. Also very fair.

But the gist is this group isn't going to be so 'lock down' that they don't need scoring - the starting 1 absolutely needs to score. Wags, you nailed it for me:

they are about even, scoring as much (68.3 ppg) as what they're allowing (69.3 pgg); they've scored 275 and allowed 277, total.

They have squeaked out a couple of wins thanks to solid D, no complaints there from me - but also had a hugely disappointing showing / L against Iona and an entire team of total strangers because they couldn't put the ball in the hoop - those numbers are WAY too close and will likely not hold up long term. This team HAS to score more. And that includes every player on the floor.

[Wags]

They have squeaked out a couple of wins thanks to solid D, no complaints there from me - but also had a hugely disappointing showing / L against Iona and an entire team of total strangers because they couldn't put the ball in the hoop - those numbers are WAY too close and will likely not hold up long term. This team HAS to score more. And that includes every player on the floor.

See, I would say that although the shooting was bad against Iona, they nonetheless found a way to 74 points and lost that game because of defense, giving up 82.

It would always be nice to score more, and you can do some things to improve the offense, but sometimes shot just don't drop - which may happen often at times with this year's team.

But defense can be more of a constant, since a lot of it is about good communication and effort.

Sure enough, tonight at Monmouth so far - the offense has been good. They have 49 pts at halftime, but they only have a 2-point lead when that should be a lot more, because they've allowed 47 pts on 58% shooting, including 9/13 from 3.

Last year, they were ultimately regular season and tourney champs because of their defense more than anything else. They won't repeat that by hoping to score more and just outscore teams. They need to show on a consistent basis they type of D they showed in the second half against FDU this year - which in turn, helped create good offense in that half.

[Polito]

Great counter Wags, and I certainly can't and don't disagree. D is the difference maker, esp to be champs.

Two other points:
Splitting hairs a bit here, so I don't mean to beat a dead horse, just a note that the O has been and was pretty high powered, esp last year - it's just that the D finally caught up to the O's level. HU wasn't what I'd call a defensive team per say, they just finally played D on par with their O. I see the same need this year in reverse, oddly enough! of course we're talking about balance, and yeah who the heck doesn't want that!

My primary point is that I'm not comfortable at all with just chalking up the 1, 20% of your possible production, as a no O spot. This team isn't quite an O juggernaut (yet) to just nonchalantly throw an entire position aside. Everyone needs to score.

Again the staff may be working on just that with CB, I'm pretty confident they are, and likely just helping him to not feel pressure, to keep him loose. And that is of course the right move, don't want him to press just for the sake of scoring. It's just something that needs to develop - and my position here is that it in fact needs to develop, and being cool with 4-6pts a game there does not feel like enough, esp without another PG to boost.

--> Now the interesting development here is the staff seems to really believe in Masic, and they are starting to work him in more and test his ability to be a more 'regular' guy - if he can, and perhaps be the 'other' point, that might alleviate a lot of this!