Villanova Game Thread

[JacobPadilla]

Went long on the big swings in the game, the missed opportunities late and my take on the end of regulation.

https://hurrdatsports.com/college-baske ... villanova/

Mac summed it up well: "We scored six points the last 11 minutes in the second half. So I've got to do a better job of putting them in position to get quality shots and then we've got to do a better job collectively with some execution."

There are some things the coaching staff can do better, and it's fair to question the strategy decisions late in the game, but above all else this comes down to the players needing to be better if they want to achieve their goals. They're not going to win many games with Trey, Baylor and Steven shooting a combined 2-19 from 3 (although they just beat Alabama with a 4-15 mark from those three). Obviously it would be ideal to have a team that can win every possible way, but this team is what it is and they need to perform better in their areas of strength in order to compete for a conference title.

This is on a combination of the guards, coaches and the big man himself, but they can't let Kalkbrenner become a non-factor offensively like he was after halftime.

Ashworth needs to hit the shots he got in this game. He's shown throughout his career he's very capable of doing so and he's limited in other areas,so he has to make those opportunities count and make teams pay if they load up on the three stars.

Considering what he's done throughout this season, I think Baylor gets a pass for a rough game shooting, but 5 turnovers can't happen.

I've been pretty consistent with this, but what this team ultimately accomplishes this season will come down to what kind of player Trey can settle in as; after the departures, this season (with the personnel decisions) was a bet on him and he's been all over this place.

[go_jays]

In summation...

This was a slow paced iso oriented game on both ends of the court. The Jays rely on combination play both when they have the ball and when they don't. When they have the ball, they are a ball movement, share the ball and score through assists type of team. Nova took that away and made them have to play more iso-like... Baylor for one. When they don't have the ball, they are also a combination, almost zone-like defense when they play "help" and Drop Coverage. Nova was able to neutralize that to the point that it became one iso after another with Armstrong, Hart, Bamba and even Dixon.

Iso benefits the more athletic team. Teams that aren't as athletic need to rely on combination/team play. We are that. Plain and simple.

After posting this I thought I'd look at stats to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

We had 10 assists in this game. We average 17 through 12 games. Looks pretty iso.

We had 16 TOs when we average 10.75 per game through 12 games. I would guess that more than half of those were when we were in iso.

We just can't be forced to play this way. It's not us.

[Outlaw_Wales]

RE GAMEDAY atmosphere for this game — they had a lot of problems. During the pregame video, the music didn’t start, and then halfway through they started Wolfmother instead of the actual pregame video song. During the dance cam (not saying that is even a good thing, but …) the video didn’t work right — it’s been a split screen animation of none side and then fans copying on the other.

And it still makes no sense that during the pregame light show thing they keep the whole scoreboard black. They should light up the panels in that, too. From the upper bowl the light show doesn’t work because you can’t see what is happening on the underside of the scoreboard.

Last — the DJ added quite a it a few years ago when he started. Now, he’s nonexistent really. Can’t imagine it was his idea to play “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree” at timeouts when we were in the middle of 8 minutes without scoring.

[NUgradCUfan]

RE GAMEDAY atmosphere for this game — they had a lot of problems. During the pregame video, the music didn’t start, and then halfway through they started Wolfmother instead of the actual pregame video song. During the dance cam (not saying that is even a good thing, but …) the video didn’t work right — it’s been a split screen animation of none side and then fans copying on the other.

And it still makes no sense that during the pregame light show thing they keep the whole scoreboard black. They should light up the panels in that, too. From the upper bowl the light show doesn’t work because you can’t see what is happening on the underside of the scoreboard.

Last — the DJ added quite a it a few years ago when he started. Now, he’s nonexistent really. Can’t imagine it was his idea to play “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree” at timeouts when we were in the middle of 8 minutes without scoring.

I'm convinced if they just let the opening song/production and in-game production up to the fans in polls before the season that it'd be the best product we've had in years. If I were the new marketing guy, first thing I'd do after getting a significant pay bump is going straight to the fans and asking for ideas and feedback in order to get the best experience instead of throwing something at a wall every year and seeing if it sticks, and letting it sit on the floor for the entire season when it's realized early on it doesn't.

[westojay]

RE GAMEDAY atmosphere for this game — they had a lot of problems. During the pregame video, the music didn’t start, and then halfway through they started Wolfmother instead of the actual pregame video song. During the dance cam (not saying that is even a good thing, but …) the video didn’t work right — it’s been a split screen animation of none side and then fans copying on the other.

And it still makes no sense that during the pregame light show thing they keep the whole scoreboard black. They should light up the panels in that, too. From the upper bowl the light show doesn’t work because you can’t see what is happening on the underside of the scoreboard.

Last — the DJ added quite a it a few years ago when he started. Now, he’s nonexistent really. Can’t imagine it was his idea to play “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree” at timeouts when we were in the middle of 8 minutes without scoring.

Nothing like playing Christmas music during timeout with 3 minutes left in the game (crucial part of the game) to get the crowd going

[Alphawalt]

The Villanova game loss can be summed up by the two basic problems- weak ass passing, especially on entry passes to Kalk and attempting handoffs with Villanova players too close (in general too many turnovers) and Baylor missing free throws. Mac should run passing drills in the time off to next game. The entry passes to Kalk are definitely a worrisome continuing problem. Ashworth especially needs these drills.

[Chicagojayfan]

In summation...

This was a slow paced iso oriented game on both ends of the court. The Jays rely on combination play both when they have the ball and when they don't. When they have the ball, they are a ball movement, share the ball and score through assists type of team. Nova took that away and made them have to play more iso-like... Baylor for one. When they don't have the ball, they are also a combination, almost zone-like defense when they play "help" and Drop Coverage. Nova was able to neutralize that to the point that it became one iso after another with Armstrong, Hart, Bamba and even Dixon.

Iso benefits the more athletic team. Teams that aren't as athletic need to rely on combination/team play. We are that. Plain and simple.

After posting this I thought I'd look at stats to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

We had 10 assists in this game. We average 17 through 12 games. Looks pretty iso.

We had 16 TOs when we average 10.75 per game through 12 games. I would guess that more than half of those were when we were in iso.

We just can't be forced to play this way. It's not us.

Very on target on this. I was thinking in the game that the Nova D even acted a bit like a zone up on the top of the key. It gave us fits in moving the ball and made it more of an ISO game on offense where we just struggled to move the ball effectively

On D, the key to that was Dixon. So much of our D is set up to funnel to Kalk and when he had to chase Dixon it set us up to have to play more legit man to man on their guys, add in Dixon's success in attacking the basket and it was a problem for us.

That said, the first half D was pretty good, and as with some other games this year, when the offense struggled the D followed

What's sad is that even a couple fewer turnovers in this game means a win. With the kind of pace this game was at, we just can't afford that many lazy turnovers. It's even worse than 16 appears when you add in the slower pace of the game (19 per 100 possessions, worst rate of the year for us by far).. And to me, many were just lazy looking turnovers or coming from impatience... just yech

I thought Mac was up front about the problems after the game. Effort was there, but the decisions during the game weren't good in many cases. If we're playing a game with under around 68 possessions you can't give up 16 turnovers (13 pts off of turnovers also), and in general that pace makes us an average team (3-3 this year at under 68 possessions/40 pace)

[go_jays]

Good insight on how they disrupted our passing and turned it into iso... I was thinking in terms of them just clogging the passing lanes. But you had a better description when you talked about them playing zone-like around the 3 point line.

You don't have to be in a 1-3-1, 2-1-2 or 1-2-2 to be playing zone. We actually are playing a form of zone when we play our Drop Coverage. The point at which you determine whether you are playing zone is this... In man, you are defending player on player wherever they are on the court. In zone, you are "defending space". And that is what we are doing with Kalkbrenner when we play Drop Coverage. He is actually defending the 8-10 foot arc around the basket... And our "Help" defense also incorporates some zone principles.

So Nova was defending space. It just happened to be around the arc instead of around the rim like we do. That's really what turned it into an iso game for us. Because once we got inside of 19 feet, it was 1v1. And they were ok with that because they had the better athletes, it wasn't a big problem for them... even though they didn't really have a "rim protector".

I don't know who came up with their game-plan... But it was really solid. Kudos to them.

[Jaysfan100]

I again must bring up. Mac needs to develop Jason green . Every time he’s on the floor he brings a grit that will help in games like this. Yea he may not hit shots yet. But I feel he will bring something to the 3 and 4 that will help in these big East games.

No thank you. Unless he can drive to the basket, he should not be leaving the bench. Especially not in place of Miller, Traudt, or Baylor. I'd much rather give Dotzler a chance and take minutes from Ashworth and Bello

You’d rather leave an athletic, big body defender who in his limited action looked pretty good on the bench For a 6 ft 2 true freshman who had like 5 turnovers against central Michigan?

[LJay]

Please stop quoting idiots who ONLY post when there has been a bad game. I can see their blocked shit at that point.