Postgame thread-- VCU 79 Bradley 64

[BUBraves2006]

Les, like any coach, is hit and miss with recruiting. Nobody hits 100% and Les has had an uncanny knack of finding "diamonds in the rough." He certainly did that with Will Franklin and Zach Andrews.

Maybe Cole-Scott, Collins and Austin haven't turned out like he'd imagined, yet. Maybe they never will, but it's still too soon to tell. This stage in the season we need leaders to step forward and let these guys acquaint themselves more.

Jim Les needs to make up his mind. Austin or Collins. Fine if one is "behind" and the other is "in the doghouse." There's too much beef there to be rotting on the bench. One of them needs to start getting some minutes.

And again, stop ragging on Maniscalco. He's already WAY more disciplined than Ruffin was at point guard at this stage of his college career. He's not slow, he just plays his man often too tightly and gets burned. His offensive skills are only going to improve and he's going to have shut up a lot of people in the next few years.

I made that mistake by getting on JJ for his early problems. Sam M. better not get the ire that JJ did. He is the only guy I see that exerts the same tenacity each and every possession that JJ gave.

[Chico]

Maybe we better stop getting 9 point leads. Had 2 of them against Mich St also.

[edmondo15]

No need for panic...the things that cost BU this game are easy to fix and I'm sure that the staff will have them ready for the MVC opener against UNI.

First, it's hard to win without your starting PG, especially when he is as vital as Ruff is to BU. With that being said, SamM played very well as his replacement, but people cannot expect to see the same type of PG out of him as Ruff. Sam does a much better job of controlling the game and running plays consistently, much like a QB who rarely throws INT's and sticks to the game plan. Very reliable (ie: 0 turnovers last night). Ruff has alot of freestyle in his game, there are times where he will throw caution to the wind and do his own thing, which sometimes can turn out fantastically, and other times not so much. Think of a QB who throws alot of deep balls, sometimes there are some awesome TD catches, and sometimes alot of turnovers.

Did SamM play great defense last night? No. As most freshmen do, he will pick up techniques and tricks that will help him guard quicker players than him with experience, at this stage in his career though he has exceeded my expectations greatly.

Plain and simple, when you can't guard the ball well and you can't help off the ball well, you can't play good defense and you lose. There were many times last night where off-the-ball defenders lost track of the ball, which is deadly with Eric Maynor being the primary ball handler. This either leads to wide open layups for the ball handler or an easy drop off pass for a layup as the help rotation was extremely late last night. There will be alot of defensive breakdown segments in practice this week I'm certain to get back to the defensive fundamentals. This team will be fine.

[Beninator]

Plain and simple, when you can't guard the ball well and you can't help off the ball well, you can't play good defense and you lose. There were many times last night where off-the-ball defenders lost track of the ball, which is deadly with Eric Maynor being the primary ball handler. This either leads to wide open layups for the ball handler or an easy drop off pass for a layup as the help rotation was extremely late last night. There will be alot of defensive breakdown segments in practice this week I'm certain to get back to the defensive fundamentals. This team will be fine.

What I saw on numerous occasions last night was that when Maynor drove to the basket, our bigs would initially move in and fill the lane and then back off giving Maynor a wide open six foot shot. Help defense needs to be a major point of emhasis during practice this week.

[Bravesfan]

No need for panic...the things that cost BU this game are easy to fix and I'm sure that the staff will have them ready for the MVC opener against UNI.

First, it's hard to win without your starting PG, especially when he is as vital as Ruff is to BU. With that being said, SamM played very well as his replacement, but people cannot expect to see the same type of PG out of him as Ruff. Sam does a much better job of controlling the game and running plays consistently, much like a QB who rarely throws INT's and sticks to the game plan. Very reliable (ie: 0 turnovers last night). Ruff has alot of freestyle in his game, there are times where he will throw caution to the wind and do his own thing, which sometimes can turn out fantastically, and other times not so much. Think of a QB who throws alot of deep balls, sometimes there are some awesome TD catches, and sometimes alot of turnovers.

Did SamM play great defense last night? No. As most freshmen do, he will pick up techniques and tricks that will help him guard quicker players than him with experience, at this stage in his career though he has exceeded my expectations greatly.

Plain and simple, when you can't guard the ball well and you can't help off the ball well, you can't play good defense and you lose. There were many times last night where off-the-ball defenders lost track of the ball, which is deadly with Eric Maynor being the primary ball handler. This either leads to wide open layups for the ball handler or an easy drop off pass for a layup as the help rotation was extremely late last night. There will be alot of defensive breakdown segments in practice this week I'm certain to get back to the defensive fundamentals. This team will be fine.

I hope you're right. I agree these are all fixable problems. Hopefully though that the players learn to play as a team while not relying too much on one person who may or may not be back for awhile. If they don't learn how to play without Ruffin now, they certainly will need to learn how to do that by next season. He's not going to be around forever.

But agreed that a week off for Christmas and some good practices should turn things around for next Saturday. I expect a completely different result to what we saw last night, and hopefully things will be okay for the rest of the season.

[jasonpeoria911]

Ahh, had some time to cool down. Quite frankly, Saturdays game just didn't seem right from the start. It just seemed like the crowd was worn out, wasn't to interested to be at the game in the first place. Was very quiet, no team chants on D possessions and what was up with the player intros goof up. The music didn't start till we were on our 3rd player, the strength coach was interrupted at the beginning, just an overall bad and lazy night. Just a few of my thoughts below...

-Les please please please let DC play until he has at least 4 fouls. He's shooting 72% FG on the season but has no shots the last 2 games cuz he was canned for getting 2 quick cheap fouls within a few minutes. I just don't get it. I mean last nights game, Salley and Singh were leaving wide open gaping holes down the lane for easy layups the whole night while DC just rode the pine. I guess it didn't occur to Les to try something different and put DC in for another try. Couldn't have made things any worse.

-Losing Ruffin had huge implications on this game. It's like losing your top QB and putting the backup rookie in. You can lose a wing player or 2 but if you lose your PG/QB, the whole offense goes down the tubes. Sam did the best he could do I think but he now has this whole week to get stiffened up on the possibility of getting full time minutes if Ruff isn't healthy yet or re-aggravates it again. Next time Sam needs to shoot more and for the love of Bradley, please work on your quickness on the D. If you have to re-tone some of that upper body muscle to get quicker, please do so. Someone has to replace Ruffs points when he goes down.

-Wilson, Warren and Crouch, all 3 are studs and kept us afloat in the 2nd half. If Sam can get his scoring together then I will feel much better if Ruff goes down again.

-TCS, SS and Salley, keep building me my guest houses and bringing down the boards. Keep up the good work LOL. I've never seen 3 players on the same team getting loads of time miss so many chip shots down low. TCS can penetrate the lane good but the shot is often 4 inches to the left or right of the rim. Either that or getting blocked cuz he's so short. Least they keep us afloat in the rebounding category unlike last season.

-Bah humbug, I think thats all for now. Non-conference season didn't do us any good, have to dominate the valley now. Our RPI means nothing right now cuz we lost all the good games except for 1 moderate one. At this point, I think it's T minus 5 losses before it's a mandatory MVC tourney championship to get to da dance. It can only get better from here, can't get much worse than the last 2 games.

Jason

[amckillip]

I'm agreeing with you here Jason, even when we were up by 9 something didn't feel right. I wasn't in the student section, our student section got booted. The intros were goofy and the game just felt off. I agree with you mostly about SamM, I thought he did a good job for a frosh running the team, but he is just not ready to be the scorer that DRuff is.

However I am extremely disappointed with Crouch I feel he was the guy who should've stepped up and righted the ship when DRuff has been limited and he hasn't. He is supposed to be a Senior Leader and all I'm seeing from him is a glorified role player.

Does anyone AT ALL have a legitimate answer to the benching DC issue? I am so confused here. In my opinion he should be starting so why NO PT? I know everyone is asking this but gosh, can it be asked enough?

[basketball nut]

No one elses quotes just my observations after reading all these posts.
For all of you people that talk how great DC plays must be watching a different game then I was. First off when he came in we went to a zone and he was playing man to man. On one play he followed his man to the side while another player went for the basket in the areea he should have been covering and had an easy layup-on the next time down he was guarding someone at the 3 point line. He may be able to score if you give hi me the ball in his hands and no one is guarding him but he has no, I repeat no idea of how to play defense and has no hands.
SM plays great for a freshman and will only get better-not DR but then we only get one like that every 7 or 8 years-but he will be OK
As far as JC goes he tries harder then anyone on the floor. You will always get 120% from him. He is not the most athletic but tries. As for his shooting he needs screens (multiple ones at that) as he will never be one that creates his own shot. If everyone on the team worked as hard at the game and understood the game like JC does we would be a much better team. This even becomes more obvious when you watch JC and DR together-they are both coaches on the floor. I will admit their turnovers have gone up but that is due to players not being used to the passes they throw.
AW is doing OK for a soph. and TW has fit in real well also and comes w/a great understanding of the game. They will both be real leaders next year.
Egolf will be OK as he learns the college game and will be able to help out a lot in a year or 2.
Austin is the one that I hope copntinues to improve and may be the sleeper that we need come conf time which starts this Sat so we will see.

[shaunguth]

Ahh, had some time to cool down. Quite frankly, Saturdays game just didn't seem right from the start. It just seemed like the crowd was worn out, wasn't to interested to be at the game in the first place. Was very quiet, no team chants on D possessions and what was up with the player intros goof up. The music didn't start till we were on our 3rd player, the strength coach was interrupted at the beginning, just an overall bad and lazy night. Just a few of my thoughts below...

-Les please please please let DC play until he has at least 4 fouls. He's shooting 72% FG on the season but has no shots the last 2 games cuz he was canned for getting 2 quick cheap fouls within a few minutes. I just don't get it. I mean last nights game, Salley and Singh were leaving wide open gaping holes down the lane for easy layups the whole night while DC just rode the pine. I guess it didn't occur to Les to try something different and put DC in for another try. Couldn't have made things any worse.

-Losing Ruffin had huge implications on this game. It's like losing your top QB and putting the backup rookie in. You can lose a wing player or 2 but if you lose your PG/QB, the whole offense goes down the tubes. Sam did the best he could do I think but he now has this whole week to get stiffened up on the possibility of getting full time minutes if Ruff isn't healthy yet or re-aggravates it again. Next time Sam needs to shoot more and for the love of Bradley, please work on your quickness on the D. If you have to re-tone some of that upper body muscle to get quicker, please do so. Someone has to replace Ruffs points when he goes down.

-Wilson, Warren and Crouch, all 3 are studs and kept us afloat in the 2nd half. If Sam can get his scoring together then I will feel much better if Ruff goes down again.

-TCS, SS and Salley, keep building me my guest houses and bringing down the boards. Keep up the good work LOL. I've never seen 3 players on the same team getting loads of time miss so many chip shots down low. TCS can penetrate the lane good but the shot is often 4 inches to the left or right of the rim. Either that or getting blocked cuz he's so short. Least they keep us afloat in the rebounding category unlike last season.

-Bah humbug, I think thats all for now. Non-conference season didn't do us any good, have to dominate the valley now. Our RPI means nothing right now cuz we lost all the good games except for 1 moderate one. At this point, I think it's T minus 5 losses before it's a mandatory MVC tourney championship to get to da dance. It can only get better from here, can't get much worse than the last 2 games.

Jason

I agree on all of the above, especially regarding TCS, SS and Salley! I made mention of the others (besides TCS) that have to be considered disappointments thus far and SS, Salley, Egolf, and Austin were all on my list. If we could get positive, rather than negative, production on both ends of the floor from just 2 or 3 of these guys I think we'll be in good shape. That is, if DC gets more than 4 minutes/game.

[ER3]

No need for panic...the things that cost BU this game are easy to fix and I'm sure that the staff will have them ready for the MVC opener against UNI.

I'm sorry, Edmondo, but I don't agree with you in this quote. I don't know how you can say the things that cost BU in this game are "easy to fix" and they'll be all better by the UNI game in 5 days...
Lousy defensive awareness, impatience on offense, and an overall soft approach to the game of basketball...those are the things that you expect the coaches to 'clean up' in three days of practice after Christmas???
That would be magic. I hope you are right.

[RaiderOfBradley]

Hey gang,

First time to post here, so go easy on me!

I have seen our Braves play four times now...twice in TX at South Padre, Butler and there at home against VCU. Thought I would toss a few ideas in here:

1) The Butler and VCU games were the worst so far. With Ruff hurt, the offense doesn't seem to have any direction. Sam M. will be a competent point guard when he realizes that he doesn't have the ability (or the height) to drive the lane and shoots from the outside. Cole-Scott, on the other hand, is the slasher and driver that Ruff is without the ball handling abilitites, thus he needs someone like Sam to get the ball to him.

2) The reason that Collins isn't playing more is he lacks heart. He cannot or does not get physical with players (and I had the same knock on Salley before I saw him against Butler and VCU, but he was MUCH better) and thus he sits the bench in deferrence to Sam Singh or Salley.

3) Warren and Wilson would make a great guard combo, but they are playing outside their positions. With Ruff and J. C. at the guards, they are playing as forwards and it shows.

4) I would like to see more out of Austin too...but he obviously hasn't been able to work himself into the prime rotation.

The Braves have played some tough teams through the non-conference schedule and they have learned. It will toughen them up for the MVC season and I personally believe that the team will either win the regular season title or take the MVC tournament. Either way, I believe that the Braves are an at-large NCAA team or a high ranking NIT team. Let's see them go far either way.

Thanks guys and look forward to more games!

[lefty]

even if Ruff plays Maynor has a good second half. He was getting good shots in the first half fairly easily and just missing them, you knew he wouldn't miss them all game.

The game is over and BU will get better as the season goes

[Da Coach]

Maynor wasn't getting into the lane or driving to the basket for easy shots and dish-offs in the first half. Those all came in the 2nd half when he was not contained by Ruffin. The entire flow of the game changed when Ruff was out, including the last couple minutes of the first half when VCU took the lead, scored as the buzzer sounded, and got a lot of momentum from their little run.

With a healthy Ruffin, Bradley would have controlled the 2nd half and won that game. Even Maynor's outside shots were open in the 2nd half because we couldn't defend his drives, so the defenders played off him.

[BI_Brave_alum]

Maynor wasn't getting into the lane or driving to the basket for easy shots and dish-offs in the first half. Those all came in the 2nd half when he was not contained by Ruffin. The entire flow of the game changed when Ruff was out, including the last couple minutes of the first half when VCU took the lead, scored as the buzzer sounded, and got a lot of momentum from their little run.

With a healthy Ruffin, Bradley would have controlled the 2nd half and won that game. Even Maynor's outside shots were open in the 2nd half because we couldn't defend his drives, so the defenders played off him.

I agree DC, w/o Ruff, we had no answer on defense for Maynor..

[mrcoachdude]

TW guarded Maynor late and did a fine job...he should have had him form the tip-off....IMHO