NJIT Game Discussion

We played our worst first half of the year and we shot poorly today.  Great effort in second half.  Teams can't beat us when we defend like that.  Take this win and move on.  We won't play this poorly very often.  Glad they stepped it up and avoided a loss.

Wow...good day for me so far.   SJU grinds out a win on a "bad" day.    My Hokie's just knocked off #15 OK State by double digits and remain UNDEFEATED.

Alls left us UCLA/San Diego State tonight.    Kyle matched up with Polee, maybe? 

Wow...good day for me so far.   SJU grinds out a win on a "bad" day.    My Hokie's just knocked off #15 OK State by double digits and remain UNDEFEATED.

Alls left us UCLA/San Diego State tonight.    Kyle matched up with Polee, maybe? 

CR, considering the loss of players, new coach, et., Va Tech has done well. Good coaching, surprising players or something else? Thx!

did anyone else notice when Lavin RIPPED into Amir and DLo? i've never seen coach so angry. he pulled them by the shirts sat'em down and just ripped them.  he was so angry he turned red.  never seen that type of anger from coach

Amir, relax and use your legs. Sink these two

He's not bending his knees...easy fix.  He tightened up after he missed the first couple and it got in his head. He didn't have a chance the last three!   Great effort on the boards for Sampson.  If it's not going to him or Garrett, we probably lose the rebound at this point.  Obekpa has to do a much better job on the glass. 

I'd rather win a game like this over a blowout any day of the week.  The kids need to learn how to win when things aren't falling, and they need to learn to deal with adversity.  The response in the second half was very nice. They looked like a different team defensively. 

Anyone notice we had Pointer playing under the basket in the zone in the first half and we used our Harrison and Greene  to pressure the ball. This was a change from past games---Harrison and Pointer basically switched places in the zone. Probably an attempt to get more rebounds by switching zone assignments and using Pointer underneath. Other teams had also been isolating Harrison on a bigger man down low. But No 1 on NJIT was killing us in the first half and neither Harrison nor Greene could stop his drives. He had 10 points at half. Pointer took no 1 in the man defense in second half and shut him down. No 1 had no points in second half. That helped shut down their offense.

did anyone else notice when Lavin RIPPED into Amir and DLo? i've never seen coach so angry. he pulled them by the shirts sat'em down and just ripped them.  he was so angry he turned red.  never seen that type of anger from coach

Yeah, it was great.  Good to see Lavin fired up.  He was pissed about something D'Lo did or didn't do as well as overall lack of hustle on court.  Lavin's starting to get in a groove and looks more comfortable out there than any point in his time here.

Quote from: Mparty7441 on December 01, 2012, 03:07:58 PM

Garrett was 0 of 9 on FT's. Really? Wow.

I'd make the entire team run laps and shoot 500 free throws for the effort at the line today

Then you could make'em run to the airport holding their bags over their heads. Coach will probably just ask nice if they could start knocking them down. 

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on December 01, 2012, 03:04:08 PM

Amir, relax and use your legs. Sink these two

He's not bending his knees...easy fix.  He tightened up after he missed the first couple and it got in his head. He didn't have a chance the last three!   Great effort on the boards for Sampson.  If it's not going to him or Garrett, we probably lose the rebound at this point.  Obekpa has to do a much better job on the glass. 

I'd rather win a game like this over a blowout any day of the week.  The kids need to learn how to win when things aren't falling, and they need to learn to deal with adversity.  The response in the second half was very nice. They looked like a different team defensively.

  If Christian Jones went 0-9 from the FT line you be asking coach to release him from scholarship...   

Very happy to escape with a win today. At halftime I thought we were done but the guys really responded out of the gate. Obviously the free throw shooting was awful. Hopefully this was just an an anomaly. Amir was definitely in his own head and you could tell there was no way he was going to make the shots after he missed the first few. Jekarr had a very good game on the boards. He missed a few offensive put backs but he was extremely active. D'Angelo wasn't great but he hit some big shots when we needed them. I loved how he set up his defender on that one out of bounds play and then went back door on him for lay up. Obekpa had two huge buckets at the end of the game. On the first he faked a give and go with D'Angelo and then drove to the bucket for a monster slam. I definitely didn't think he had that move in his arsenal. He followed that up with a 17 foot jumper. I agree with crgreen, I thought he had more than 5 blocks. As others have mentioned before, he does get too block happy sometimes and go after shots he has no chance of blocking. He left his man once or twice today to try to block a shot that he had no chance to block and his man ended up with an offensive rebound. That being said, he's been better both offensively and defensively than I could have imagined.

Felix didn't have a great day shooting the ball from the field but the energy was there. He was also the only guy to shoot above 55% from the line. Dom had a good game. His length started to bother NJIT defensively in the second half. We saw a lot of the same on defense. We switched on almost every screen when we played man to man. The zone in defense worked for the most part although they did miss some open looks. I thought this game was going to be a loss similar to the Northeastern game last year. Thankfully the team showed some heart and fought back. We have a ways to go but we are getting there.

Quote from: crgreen on December 01, 2012, 04:07:35 PM

Wow...good day for me so far.   SJU grinds out a win on a "bad" day.    My Hokie's just knocked off #15 OK State by double digits and remain UNDEFEATED.

Alls left us UCLA/San Diego State tonight.    Kyle matched up with Polee, maybe? 

CR, considering the loss of players, new coach, et., Va Tech has done well. Good coaching, surprising players or something else? Thx!

Something else... Erick Green has stuck around 4 years and become the best PG in the ACC.  Now averaging 24.3 pts, 5.2 assists and  3.5 rebs, shooting 51% from the floor,  87% from the line.  6'7 Jr. Jerrell  Eddie almost left when Seth got fired, but stayed after former asst. James Johnson was hired as HC.    17 pts,  55% from ther floor, 55% on 3s (17-31), and 91% from the line,  Also leads the team in boards with 7 a game.

Don't know if they can sustain it - they've got a thin, inexperienced  bench.  Been getting really unexpected production off the bench from two unheralded freshmen bigs (the heralded ones decommitted after the firing) - if they continue to contribute, Tech could surprise in the ACC.

Not a lot of positives to take from this game.   I have a hard time complimenting the guys on upping their intensity in the second half - THEY SHOULD BE PLAYING HARD ALL GAME !
There's a lot that this team needs to clean up between now and conference play, but until today I never thought effort would be a problem.   

Wasn't able to watch the game, but 17 rebounds for Sampson was great to hear.  I guess he took it upon himself to answer coaches prayers about rebounding.  I know NJIT is not a power-to say the least, but they did have a big rebounding margin over the course of their earlier games. If he gets double digit boards on a fairly consistent basis, and Amir can pull down 5-7 a game, to say nothing of Dlo's contributions on the boards- we have a good start. I know that's a lot of wishful thinking, but 17 boards-yes!

Hope the team doesn't sleep on NJIT. They have a player over 6'7" and half a dozen who weigh more than 200 pounds. Hope they don't out-muscle us. They'll be pumped just having handed mighty Lyndon State College their first and only loss of the year - by 50 points. Should be a good test for our young squad.

Good foresight...Exactly what happened...

Not to take anything away from NJIT as I am impressed at how they have gotten competitive after turning D1 only a few years ago (I think they won one game in the inaugural season at this level).

Our defense got us back in the game which was good to see.  Harrison had a great second half and Obekpa's spin move dunk was great.  Lavin was really animated today on the sidelines. More animated than I've seen him possibly ever before.  Maybe it was the jeans.

did anyone else notice when Lavin RIPPED into Amir and DLo? i've never seen coach so angry. he pulled them by the shirts sat'em down and just ripped them.  he was so angry he turned red.  never seen that type of anger from coach

Absolutely...I was shocked but glad to see..I think the players need to know that you won't be coddled if you're playing carelessly which I believe was the reason for his rant...

Also, I love D-Lo but he still needs to learn to act like a captain...there was one point where the team had a group huddle after a foul call and he was too busy sulking...He had to be pulled into the huddle by one of  the guys...something he should be doing...I try  to remember that he, himself, is still only a soph...but leadership is something he needs to demonstrate

Quote from: Amaseinyourface2 on December 01, 2012, 03:04:08 PM

Amir, relax and use your legs. Sink these two

He's not bending his knees...easy fix.  He tightened up after he missed the first couple and it got in his head. He didn't have a chance the last three!   

He and a few others, including Obekpa, have a tendency to sway/lean backwards as they start their shot...and others, like Balamou, take too much time (like  I do when standing over my next golf shot)...allows too much time for bad thoughts to creep in...

Not a lot of positives to take from this game.   I have a hard time complimenting the guys on upping their intensity in the second half - THEY SHOULD BE PLAYING HARD ALL GAME !
There's a lot that this team needs to clean up between now and conference play, but until today I never thought effort would be a problem.   

Right on point Desco!

Walking in to the game today my wife said that it seems like we were just here--yes we left only 39 hours earlier.  Guess the guys overlooked this NJ team and thought they could sleep walk through the game.  I was also thinking ahead to Fordham thinking that could be a problem after a game ending at midnight eastern time on the west coast and having to turn around and fly back to play FU in 40+ hours. 

No one mentioned it but this had to be Phil the 4th's worst game.  Maybe he is a vampire and doesn't function in daylight--too many twilight movies for him.  Would love to have been in locker room at half time. 

A win is a win is a win; hopefully it creates a learning moment that the team can't let up and mail it in versus anyone.  as noted the switch to zone in second half really lit a fire under buts and they shut down the 2 platyers who killed them in the 1st half.  Enjoy the sourdough and Fisherman's wharf.

Walking in to the game today my wife said that it seems like we were just here--yes we left only 39 hours earlier.  Guess the guys overlooked this NJ team and thought they could sleep walk through the game.  I was also thinking ahead to Fordham thinking that could be a problem after a game ending at midnight eastern time on the west coast and having to turn around and fly back to play FU in 40+ hours. 

I hope they don't let down against Fordham. I love to beat them and Pecora up. And I certainly don't want to hear Michael Kay boasting.