Game 23: AT University of Richmond, Wednesday, February 6th, 7 PM, MASN2/ESPN+

[Washingtonian]

Teams planned to stop a lot of our great players over the years. If they stopped Will Thomas, then Folarin got you. Or John Vaughn got you. Everyone knew their role. I'm not sure everyone understands their role under Paulsen. It's almost like everyone is trying to do too much. Or maybe we aren't that good. Probably the latter.

Dre Smith getting 10 for 10 at JMU is another example.

 

[GSII]

Dre Smith getting 10 for 10 at JMU is another example.

Great example indeed!

I don't know if a player would even get into a groove like that under DP. Seems like he'd have to ask permission to go off.

 

[GSII]

*correction* our tweet that GSII was referencing said, “Expectation on Saturday was that he should be good to go”

For future reference, we enjoy getting called out for being wrong, sometimes we are wrong (there’s 8 people involved, it’s going to happen)...we appreciate being corrected because it proves people are paying attention. But to question our credibility as an entire outlet because of one tweet relaying info that we received based on expectations set by a staff member is ridiculous. Sometimes players have setbacks, sometimes it’s a game time decision, unfortunately DP doesn’t want to give anyone this info, which we understand. Don’t want to harp on this anymore but couldn’t look past this one. We will never definitively know who’s playing until we are told, sometimes that’s not until game time.

In other injury news, when I asked DP about Kiers hand, he was not willing to blame the injury for Kiers last couple games. Sounds like his hand is fine.

Sorry, tell me again....did I miss the ByGeorge update that Hartwell was out?

 

[gmujim92]

Teams planned to stop a lot of our great players over the years. If they stopped Will Thomas, then Folarin got you. Or John Vaughn got you. Everyone knew their role. I'm not sure everyone understands their role under Paulsen. It's almost like everyone is trying to do too much. Or maybe we aren't that good. Probably the latter.

Or ... we had a couple bad games. Heaven forbid our players behave like human beings.

 

[GSII]

I don't think their is much shame losing at vcu - look at their track record at home over the last 6 or 7 years (except maybe last year which was an outlier for them).

Their is shame for last night's loss. To me, this is a much bigger gut check than losing at vcu.

No shame in losing at vcu. But it should create some sparks so that the next opponent (richmond) gets our best effort. I was looking for that, you know, that 'we hate losing' or 'we ain't losing' attitude last night...but they showed none of that. Maybe i'm too old school.

 

[dr. gunnie]

Don’t you just love coming to the boards after a loss and see everyone turning on each other and treating each other like garbage? It’s the best! (not at all)

Please win on Sunday.

 

[GSII]

Or ... we had a couple bad games. Heaven forbid our players behave like human beings.

Jim,
I agree with you. But these event's I mentioned in summary happened. Our human players actually ripped teams hearts out and ate them at mid court.

 

[GreenLantern]

This game didn't go to overtime. I blame you all!

 

[smccart5]

Yes, 3-2 zone was used throughout.

Paulsen owns up a little bit in the press release: https://gomason.com/news/2019/2/6/m...s-mason-comeback-falls-short-at-richmond.aspx

Thanks for sharing the article. We started to get into some offensive rhythm earlier this year and one team tried zone on us and we totally stalled. I thought "ugh oh- everyone is going to play us zone now"...and they have. Our shooting is not good enough to get people out of it. We were able to get some ugly wins against the zone, but we have to rely on extremely good defense to win. If the opposing team gets hot at all (vcu in final 5 mins, Richmond) we are cooked.

 

[GMUgemini]

Thanks for sharing the article. We started to get into some offensive rhythm earlier this year and one team tried zone on us and we totally stalled. I thought "ugh oh- everyone is going to play us zone now"...and they have. Our shooting is not good enough to get people out of it. We were able to get some ugly wins against the zone, but we have to rely on extremely good defense to win. If the opposing team gets hot at all (vcu in final 5 mins, Richmond) we are cooked.

Putting Kier in the middle of the zone with AJ on the baseline seems like a perfect way to bust the zone without needing 3 point shooting, necessarily. Miller, Greene and Otis on the wings.

Boyd also has to stop falling in love with the 3 when his mid-range game is better. Drive it to the FT line and stop and pop, my man. Once the bigs have to move up to stop Kier, have AJ and Miller cutting hard to the basket for passes over the top of the zone.

There is no need to be lights out from 3 m. All you have to do is move the zone to guard spaces it’s not meant to guard.

 

[By George.]

Thanks for sharing the article. We started to get into some offensive rhythm earlier this year and one team tried zone on us and we totally stalled. I thought "ugh oh- everyone is going to play us zone now"...and they have. Our shooting is not good enough to get people out of it. We were able to get some ugly wins against the zone, but we have to rely on extremely good defense to win. If the opposing team gets hot at all (vcu in final 5 mins, Richmond) we are cooked.

I asked DP about the amount of zone we’ve faced after the GW game. I was curious if it was something that coaches were seeing from our offense. He wrote it off that we had faced teams that typically run zone, he wasn’t wrong. I also think teams are realizing that they can cause problems for our guards by trapping up top, that we’re not a good 3 point shooting team and that our bigs can score but probably can’t win games for us yet.

So, I’m not totally sure the answer as to why we’ve seen a lot of zone recently but it’s probably a combination of all of the above.

Kier is a zone killer but mostly if we are also hitting 3s and he’s aggressive cutting in and out of the paint both on on the baseline and from the foul line extended.

 

[mason89]

The bottom line is as long as we can't hit threes, teams will continue to play zone against us. They're just daring us to shoot them since they know we're not going to hit them at a high percentage.

 

[smccart5]

The bottom line is as long as we can't hit threes, teams will continue to play zone against us. They're just daring us to shoot them since they know we're not going to hit them at a high percentage.

Completely agree.