• The KillerFrogs

Basketball Program is back to Trent Johnson era levels

Wexahu

Full Member
And certainly if you want to blame the coach for the fact that we don't have better players then that's valid.

I will blame the coach. It's his responsibility to understand what kind of team he wants to have and then go find players that fit what he wants to do. I watch our games and I have no idea what the plan is. I have no idea what we work on in practice. There is little to no skill development, sense of score/clock situations, or anything else that makes it evident this is a well-coached, well-prepared team. It's like the plan is to just kind of go out there and jack up shots and hope they go in.

Take Bane for example, he's been in the program for 4 years now and is presumably our best player, yet I see no special effort from the offense or the gameplan to get him open for shots. Nor has he developed any skills beyond shooting a three and taking the ball to the basket in the open court. His shooting motion is about as odd as can be, kind of a half set shot off one foot push shot, he obviously loves the weight room yet hasn't developed one bit of a back-to-the-basket inside game over his time here, even though he should be very valuable in that role. My question is what specific things have been going on in practice for the past four years to develop the offense, establish a plan, and develop guys skill sets in order to make the plan effective. That's coaching, and I see little evidence that we are getting much of it.
 

2314

Active Member
Y’all should consider getting less worked up over a game played by students. It’s pretty far down the scale of important things in life.
Good gosh, man. If this is how you feel then NEVER come on this board again. Of course it is but we don't need you to come on here and state that. Man, Peace, I thought you were cool until I read this. Who in the hell do you think you are? Good gosh. And don't play the "sarcasm meter" card. That is BS as well.
 

CountryFrog

Active Member
I will blame the coach. It's his responsibility to understand what kind of team he wants to have and then go find players that fit what he wants to do. I watch our games and I have no idea what the plan is. I have no idea what we work on in practice. There is little to no skill development, sense of score/clock situations, or anything else that makes it evident this is a well-coached, well-prepared team. It's like the plan is to just kind of go out there and jack up shots and hope they go in.

Take Bane for example, he's been in the program for 4 years now and is presumably our best player, yet I see no special effort from the offense or the gameplan to get him open for shots. Nor has he developed any skills beyond shooting a three and taking the ball to the basket in the open court. His shooting motion is about as odd as can be, kind of a half set shot off one foot push shot, he obviously loves the weight room yet hasn't developed one bit of a back-to-the-basket inside game over his time here, even though he should be very valuable in that role. My question is what specific things have been going on in practice for the past four years to develop the offense, establish a plan, and develop guys skill sets in order to make the plan effective. That's coaching, and I see little evidence that we are getting much of it.
Yes, the program needs better players than what the current roster has. They had better players the last couple years and will presumably have better players the next couple years. This year is clearly a rough season roster wise for all of the reasons that have been lamented on here ad nauseam for the last 14 months.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
Yes, the program needs better players than what the current roster has. They had better players the last couple years and will presumably have better players the next couple years. This year is clearly a rough season roster wise for all of the reasons that have been lamented on here ad nauseam for the last 14 months.

It needs better coaching as well. Your attitude seems to be we just need better players and for shots to start going in. There is WAY more to it than that and you don't pay a basketball coach over $3M/year to just recruit good players and hope they make their 3-point shots. I think you'd be surprised how much better some of these players would be if they had a coach who was doing a better job.
 

Eight

Member
You clearly weren't watching the team play the last 2 years with Fisher and Robinson doing the ball handling and Noi and Bane on the wings. When he has had the weapons then he's allowed them to play fast and take lots of shots. We simply don't have those kind of players right now except for Bane. Dennis tries sometimes to push the ball and almost always results in something bad happening. RJ is just as likely to fall down or dribble the ball off his foot in the open floor as he is to make a play. Farabello hasn't had a ton of opportunities so I'm not totally sure what he can do.

And certainly if you want to blame the coach for the fact that we don't have better players then that's valid.

at the risk of cherry picking numbers, in conference play desmond bane is 32 of 75 from 3 which is just under 43%

the rest of the team is 47 of 181 from 3 which is 26% and if you take out rj's last 5 minutes in regulation and the 5 minute overtime period that percentage falls below 25%.

not only do the frogs not have players who can consistently beat a defender off the dribble and either score or find a team mate, but the guys standing around the 3 point line are basically hitting 1 out of every 4 attempts from 3 and you don't need to be able to write let alone spell algorithm to know that isn't very good
 

RoyaltyWorePurple

Active Member
I will blame the coach. It's his responsibility to understand what kind of team he wants to have and then go find players that fit what he wants to do. I watch our games and I have no idea what the plan is. I have no idea what we work on in practice. There is little to no skill development, sense of score/clock situations, or anything else that makes it evident this is a well-coached, well-prepared team. It's like the plan is to just kind of go out there and jack up shots and hope they go in.

Take Bane for example, he's been in the program for 4 years now and is presumably our best player, yet I see no special effort from the offense or the gameplan to get him open for shots. Nor has he developed any skills beyond shooting a three and taking the ball to the basket in the open court. His shooting motion is about as odd as can be, kind of a half set shot off one foot push shot, he obviously loves the weight room yet hasn't developed one bit of a back-to-the-basket inside game over his time here, even though he should be very valuable in that role. My question is what specific things have been going on in practice for the past four years to develop the offense, establish a plan, and develop guys skill sets in order to make the plan effective. That's coaching, and I see little evidence that we are getting much of it.
When all you have is Bane as a shooter, you don't think the other team schemes defensively to eliminate him? I'd say it's worked pretty well. Samuel is limited away from the basket, and the others have proven that they are not scoring threats, despite their best efforts of chucking up shots from EVERYWHERE.

This team IS young. You've got mostly sophomores and freshman taking prime minutes. Grayer and Dennis have been disappointing (considering what we saw early on), but were needed for depth. I think the incoming players, transfers and build-up of current will be better. People WERE concerned about Jaime leaving. I still would be....my question is if he leaves....who ya got???

Aside: People who have never coached have NO idea how hard it is to draw something up perfectly, and have 18-21 year olds become BAFFLED as soon as the play starts. I've played and coached in college for the record.
 
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Wexahu

Full Member
When all you have is Bane as a shooter, you don't think the other team schemes defensively to eliminate him?

Sure, but what are we doing to counter that? I don't see Bane working much off the ball in the half-court offense, I don't see him coming off many screens, I don't see him doing much of anything to make himself difficult to guard. Which even if he isn't scoring would at the very least would take attention off the other players and theoretically give them better opportunities.

I know it's not easy and it's often slightly organized chaos on the basketball floor once the ref throws the ball up, but to my eyes there is little commitment to any kind of plan or structure. It's five athletic guys just kind of running around rather aimlessly trying to find any kind of opening where they can get up a shot.
 

satis1103

DAOTONPYH EHT LIAH LLA
Good gosh, man. If this is how you feel then NEVER come on this board again. Of course it is but we don't need you to come on here and state that. Man, Peace, I thought you were cool until I read this. Who in the hell do you think you are? Good gosh. And don't play the "sarcasm meter" card. That is BS as well.
Bro. Chill.

Like peace, I recognize we here on this board have zero control over whatever rolling ball of nails or rolling ball of feces our teams end up becoming. Some of us come here to commiserate and feel better, and others to spout hyperbolic criticism. It is what it is. Some people get off on burning it down but even that doesn't have any effect and is pyrrhic at best. People like peace and I (and I'm just spitballing, not putting words in your mouth man) get tired of the negativity feedback loop. It's doing nothing but reinforcing negative thoughts. It's not accomplishing a damn thing except making miserable people feel a little smarter.

Disagree with him but don't tear the man down.
 

tcudoc

Full Member
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Good gosh, man. If this is how you feel then NEVER come on this board again. Of course it is but we don't need you to come on here and state that. Man, Peace, I thought you were cool until I read this. Who in the hell do you think you are? Good gosh. And don't play the "sarcasm meter" card. That is BS as well.
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Francis Xav

Active Member
Day later I gotta say it sucked last night, but we have still exceeded this years expectations and can get 7-8 wins.

Serious.

To say that the last 4 years have been trent johnson is an insult to our program. The baseline has elevated and expectations are fine, but we are YOUNG.

Obviously, next year has to be better . No excuses.

But moronic to fire jamie right now.
 

jake102

Active Member
To which we don't have all the full (in the locker room, practices etc) stories. Looks like Alok flamed out with UCF. Kaden and Angus have been non-factors where they went to, and who knows what SMU is doing to keep Davis eligible.

It doesn't matter what the stories are. Dixon brought them in, they were his guys. The head coach is responsible for the result from start to finish.
 

Francis Xav

Active Member
It doesn't matter what the stories are. Dixon brought them in, they were his guys. The head coach is responsible for the result from start to finish.
Your 21 year old kid goes and kills someone...you responsible?

I get what youre getting at and to an extent I agree, but sometimes players end up being something diff than originally thought .
 

CountryFrog

Active Member
It needs better coaching as well. Your attitude seems to be we just need better players and for shots to start going in. There is WAY more to it than that and you don't pay a basketball coach over $3M/year to just recruit good players and hope they make their 3-point shots. I think you'd be surprised how much better some of these players would be if they had a coach who was doing a better job.
Yes my contention is that we need better players and better shooters since that's what wins basketball games. When we've had better players and better shooters in recent years then we've scored points and won games.
 

Boomhauer

Active Member
Your 21 year old kid goes and kills someone...you responsible?

I get what youre getting at and to an extent I agree, but sometimes players end up being something diff than originally thought .

What if 3-4 of his kids committed that crime? Wouldn’t people start to wonder if there was a parenting issue? This isn’t one player leaving. We lost half the team.
 

LawFrog504

Active Member
If he left I would buy tequila shots for the entire bar. So beyond tired of the pass this dude gets year after year. We should've said goodbye after that UCLA debacle last year. amazing how ridiculed I got for saying his offensive gameplans suck.
 
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