UMass Lowell

jbix80

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
968
They had 5 "and 1's" in the second half. Are we that weak or are we just reaching or that bad at defense or what? Ten missed free throws and a couple of those were on the front end of one-and-one. I said this earlier on the swarm board, but coach needs to shake the starting lineup up. We stink every game until the substitutions. The second team comes in and we go on nice runs. It happened both halves. Man, that's frustrating. Every stinkin year.
 

RamblinCharger

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,541
Location
Alabama
Ball movement was so good in the 2H of the GASO game but has disappeared. Terrible defense and sloppy with the ball on offense. Going to be a long season. Looking at 13/14 wins right now based on what I’ve seen the last two games.
 

Tech93

Helluva Engineer
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1,243
Ball movement was so good in the 2H of the GASO game but has disappeared. Terrible defense and sloppy with the ball on offense. Going to be a long season. Looking at 13/14 wins right now based on what I’ve seen the last two games.
Think we’ll be lucky to get 9-10 wins.
 

GaTech4ever

Helluva Engineer
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1,562
What bothered me the most is, during the biggest possession of the game (to that point) at the 6 minute mark down 11, we looked completely lost and disjointed. If Deebo hadn’t gotten us back in the game by himself, we would have lost by 15+.

Also, while I did like what I saw from Claude in the first couple of games energy-wise, he’s not springy enough to give us what Franklin gave us last year. I think he’ll be solid, but I’m not sure he has the ability to take over for an entire game.
 

Kmag

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
382
🤦‍♂️ This shouldn’t happen. Ever! I never complain about losses, but this is embarrassing. I know these guys are still gelling, but GEEZ!
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,726
I feel like our FT shooting has been subpar for a while now but these first 3 games have been pretty bad. Think we might be ~60%
We were 61% before tonight. It’s a bad loss, but hopefully it’s a wake up call. If we’d done any of a dozen things better, we’d have won easily.
I’m actually more bothered by our defense and our lack of structure on offense.
 

Tech93

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,243
Can someone explain what we are trying to run on offense? It looked like every man for himself in a backyard basketball game.
 

YlJacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,273
These guys have to decide they want to play with the energy and toughness it takes to win basketball games in D1. Until they do that the specifics don’t matter

We played it offense like we expected that any time we could go 1 on 5 and win. That isn’t going to happen. We have to run legit offensive sets that move the ball to get real shots or an open drive to the basket. We don’t do that right now

Our defense was actually decent tonight but we have a long way to go on the energy it takes to really play good defense. And I will echo some of the comments that CLAUDE is head shoulders and elbows above anybody else on offense but he is not a legit five on D
 

AUFC

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,994
Location
Atlanta
The worst part about this is I have an early flight tomorrow but I’m so nauseated by this loss I don’t know if I’ll sleep. Stoudamire says he wants to lead the ACC in assists and I’m simply not seeing how that happens with whatever backyard ball half court offense we run. There were a couple nice extra passes in the first half tonight but we couldn’t hit any of the open 3s.

Not that it matters but this is probably a Q4 loss when March rolls around. I don’t see us being in the discussion where that matters anyway.
 

Lone Star Jacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
285
🤦‍♂️ This shouldn’t happen. Ever! I never complain about losses, but this is embarrassing. I know these guys are still gelling, but GEEZ!
Did Pastner make a guest coaching appearance tonight? Continuing the recent tradition of losing to a nobody early in the season. This one probably actually worse than any of Pastner’s.
 

jbix80

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
968
Did Pastner make a guest coaching appearance tonight? Continuing the recent tradition of losing to a nobody early in the season. This one probably actually worse than any of Pastner’s.
I don’t think this is worse than some of the others. They’re all bad losses and inexcusable, but this is a 26-win team last year with four starters back. Lost in the finals to Vermont to go dancing.
 

ESPNjacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,531
Did Pastner make a guest coaching appearance tonight? Continuing the recent tradition of losing to a nobody early in the season. This one probably actually worse than any of Pastner’s.
That is a good team. We should be able to beat them on talent and size alone but that was a solid club who will contend in their league.

Kelly is in a shooting slump. Sturdivant had a terrible second half. Our inside guys continue to bail out opponents by chopping down for a foul after they pick up their dribble. We have a lot of basketball IQ stuff to learn. Obviously, they haven't played together much, but the bad decisions should be fixable quickly.

I think the team lacks confidence both collectively and individually. This isn't surprising with all of the roster turnover.
 

lv20gt

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,586
So one early loss isn't the end of the world. Maybe we can straighten the ship out and maybe Terry and Baye returning will have big impacts.

With that being said, I still cannot for the life of me understand our starting line up and why we are starting Gapare and Abram. Last year we finished the year winning 6 of our last 9 against ACC teams. Yes, there were some bad teams in there but it was still a bit of momentum. We were scheduled to lose Franklin but return the rest. We fire Pastner, do a very short coaching search and bring in a new staff who basically cleans house. However, we did return 4 of our top 5 players from last year's team. But instead of leaning on that core, we have two of them coming off the bench in favor of players that simply have not proven they deserve to be starting. And while people will argue it doesn't matter who starts, it absolutely sets the tone for the team and the game who the starters are. The longer this trend happens the more it just looks like a new coach favoring players he brought in. That is the way you ferment chemistry issues.
 
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