Coaches comments

[real fan]

Your thrown curveballs at times and you have to make adjustments ; I agree with the statement but disagree that the players are the ones that need to make the adjustments ; the coaching staff needs to change the style that we are playing because we lost our quickest player and a good 3 point shooter ; they need to adjust the offense to suit the team without Daniel ; did the coaches forget our offensive sets that we ran when they made it all the way to the sweet 16? I don"t as we passed the ball into the low post every possession down the court and played an inside-out game ; we got a lot better open 3 point shots then we do now and our bigs were put in a better position to score; those are the type of adjustments that I am looking for as we need to use our size more closer to the basket and not to just set screens outside .

[squirrel]

The reason the four guard offense worked last year is because we had 6 real 3 point threats:

Ruffin, Franklin, and Crouch were red hot. . .so you could not key on any one of them. But they occupied opponents defenses.

Tauai, Adams, and Warren were the benefactors of defenses concentrating on the other 3 guys.

This year, Crouch is not getting many open looks and having to work 2-3 times as hard working for shots. With Ruffin out. . .that style simply is not going to work.

I think they need to slow it down and start trying to grind out some games. IMO Maniscalco is a good point guard to have for that style.

[Beninator]

I agree with the points listed here so far but to add another point.... Another reason our offense isnt working this year as compared to last years team is that our passing is nowhere near as good. Ruffin, Crouch, and Franklin were hot as they got some wide open looks as a result of defenses being out of position as a result of our players making that extra ((((good))) pass.

[Lakeview Brave]

Your thrown curveballs at times and you have to make adjustments ; I agree with the statement but disagree that the players are the ones that need to make the adjustments ; the coaching staff needs to change the style that we are playing because we lost our quickest player and a good 3 point shooter ; they need to adjust the offense to suit the team without Daniel ; did the coaches forget our offensive sets that we ran when they made it all the way to the sweet 16? I don"t as we passed the ball into the low post every possession down the court and played an inside-out game ; we got a lot better open 3 point shots then we do now and our bigs were put in a better position to score; those are the type of adjustments that I am looking for as we need to use our size more closer to the basket and not to just set screens outside .

We had the ninth pick in the draft on that team! Do you see that player on this team? I see no point in throwing the ball inside to our current bigs, DC had 3 or 4 plays run for him and he didnt score on any of them. We also had Cellus who was better than anyone on this team and could play both inside and out. This team has no player in the league of those two so you cant run the same things.

[jasonpeoria911]

We don't have Cellus or POB but we do have 2 ultra quick players in TCS and Wilson that can jet to the rim as witnessed in many games. The shots weren't falling in the 1st half yesterday, needed to get to the rim more with those 2 and Les wasn't changing things up. What we have, only 4 FT's in the 1st half? Wilson and TCS should easily draw more fouls than that.

Jason

[Beninator]

We had the ninth pick in the draft on that team! Do you see that player on this team? I see no point in throwing the ball inside to our current bigs, DC had 3 or 4 plays run for him and he didnt score on any of them. We also had Cellus who was better than anyone on this team and could play both inside and out. This team has no player in the league of those two so you cant run the same things.

I know that our inside game is terrible, but most of the sets I see are utilizing our bigs to open up our guards. We at least need to establish a presence inside to make our opponents defense stop keying on our guards. Otherwise we are going to get the current hit and miss games relying totally on the three's going in.

[real fan]

Patrick was not a big time scorer on that team and we have 2 6-9 players and 1 7-0 on this team ; we also have a bulky 6-7 player who is capable of playing with his back to the basket; I do not expect them to score 20 points a game but I believe that they could contribute more if they were put in the right position ; Collins looked terrible on offense yesterday but he had not played much lately and earlier in the season was making the shots he missed yesterday; Singh will make his shots down low but is an excellent passer to kick the ball back out to any open shooters.
Looking at the valley boxscores from yesterday there are not many good 3 point shooting teams in the league so defensively we should be playing more zone and forcing teams to take outside shots ; these are the adjustments I would make to try to help this team win games as we cannot afford to keep playing the same way as it is not working and we do not have enough good 3 point shooters on this team and defensively we are not able to pressure the ball without Ruffins presence on the court.

[edmondo15]

Sure, go ahead and throw the ball in the post every possession. Do you honestly think that any team in the Valley is going to send a second man to double the post against this Bradley team? No. That was the only reason that the inside/out game was so effective in the previous seasons. BU had very solid post players who demanded respect on the block, therefore opening up more opportunities for kick outs to teammates whom the defense have not rotated to. This year almost every team has played BU one-on-one in the post. Throwing the ball into the post would almost guarantee 20 shots between Matt Salley and David Collins, is that really what BU needs to win?

[InMnBob1]

What we are missiing this year is the GO TO GUY who makes the big basket---Franklin was that guy last year.

How many games did we come from behind and have a shot to take the lead or put on a real run and we couldn't scrore. We had three shots at Vanderville to take the lead and missed. We had three possessions yesterday down 5 and didn't score. There was a time in the Butler game too where we had a chance but couldn't score.

How many open 3's did we miss yesterday.

That's the person we need most...the one guy who take the shot we have to make!

[real fan]

The go to guy is Crouch and everyone including the opposition knows it which is why he cannot get more open shots; I would not use Salley as my post man as he has bad hands and doesn"t finish most of the time when he does hang onto the ball; without an inside game we will struggle to win many games as you cannot rest your offense on 3 point shots when you do not have enough good 3 point shooters on this team.So I guess some of you believe in staying the course until Ruffin can play again which will be the easiest thing to do but not the best thing (in my opinion) for this team to win games.