• The KillerFrogs

DMN: SMU and TCU's annual clash will serve as key non-conference litmus test

Eight

Member
frogs aren' the only big 12 team with an ugly loss in pre conference play.

horns beat arkansas in el paso and then beat unc only to sit the bed at home against radford. yeah, yeah, radford had already beaten notre dame and most likely wins their conference. if you can beat unc there is no excuse for sleep walking through a game with radford when you are up early 24-12.
 

helcap

Full Member
Agree.

I think remember Dixon saying that the NCAA committee was no longer was going to use RPI but a new system that rewarded quality of opponents, won vs loss record are taken into account, but quality losses no longer help like they used to. Unless I am remember it wrong. I just something changed.
Called the "Net" rankings. Like any system you need to get well into the season before really meaningful
https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings
Brief explanation
https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketbal...-what-know-about-college-basketballs-new-tool
To your point it does say more emphasis will be placed on quality wins
 

Farmfrog

Active Member
This schedule was put together by CJD because he knew we were going to be very young and wanted to grow up the team slowly. We are playing 5-6 games against teams that are good enough to get into the big dance. We aren’t fully healthy yet but the key injured guys are back and the team will trend upward IMO.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
This schedule was put together by CJD because he knew we were going to be very young and wanted to grow up the team slowly. We are playing 5-6 games against teams that are good enough to get into the big dance. We aren’t fully healthy yet but the key injured guys are back and the team will trend upward IMO.

This again? The meat of the team is two seniors and two juniors, and then the first guy off the bench is a sophomore who played major minutes last year. That's not young at all in college basketball terms. Every single team in the country is going to have frosh and soph playing significant minutes.
 

Farmfrog

Active Member
This again? The meat of the team is two seniors and two juniors, and then the first guy off the bench is a sophomore who played major minutes last year. That's not young at all in college basketball terms. Every single team in the country is going to have frosh and soph playing significant minutes.

So you think all you need is five players to win a game. Eight guys who had never played a college game. We are playing four to five guys a game with minimal experience. Very dumb post to me.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
So you think all you need is five players to win a game. Eight guys who had never played a college game. We are playing four to five guys a game with minimal experience. Very dumb post to me.

No, I'm saying its not unusual at all for college basketball teams to have multiple underclassmen in the rotation. And that we aren't that young a team. And we aren't, we're pretty average. In fact, we're probably a little more experienced than most.
 

Eight

Member
This schedule was put together by CJD because he knew we were going to be very young and wanted to grow up the team slowly. We are playing 5-6 games against teams that are good enough to get into the big dance. We aren’t fully healthy yet but the key injured guys are back and the team will trend upward IMO.

i agree with wex and don't buy the position this is a very young team especially when you consider college basketball is a guard dominated sport and tcu's returning experience is centered at the guard position.

robinson is a senior with over 100 games played and is a multi-year starter

bane is a junior with over 70 games played and is a multi-year starter

fisher is a junior with over 50 games played and is a multi-year starter

miller is a senior with over 100 games played and is a multi-year starter

yes, you do need more than 4 guys to play, but the only 2 players who have seen action this year that haven't been in college at least a year in some capacity are davis and archie and kendric shows more court awareness than damn near anyone else other than jaylen and jd.

what i see is a team on the offensive end struggling to find an identity. last year they knew if people singled up on vlad he was going to drop 16-20 on them from the low post and up at the free throw line on the pick and roll.

williams was going to get you points off the offensive glass so you had to have a body on him at all time. pretty simple in that drawing the focus on the defenses inside opened up the wing players such as bane and noi.

this year right now who can they count on for points? not knocking anyone, but bane is struggling, noi is rounding back to form, fisher has shown to be effective from behind the arc, and alex is alex.

tcu's offense in football got much better when they could run the ball and wasn't trying to solely live throwing the football. tcu's basketball team is going to continue to struggle living and die trying to run a 3-man weave 24-ft from the basket and high pick and rolls. they need an inside presence and they need a big man who can hang up by the free throw line and hit that free throw jumper to prevent his defender from collapsing back on alex on the drive.

who can do that? i really think they hoped alok could provide some of that and he just looks lost and seems to get more frustrated each game. samuel can give you the low post, but not the up high pnr threat and as smu showed he is a defensive liability away from the basketball. chris just isn't a big guy who can guard 15 feet out.

the answer to me might be to ask samuel and alok to play the role of williams in offensive put backs, feeds off drives, and some low post game and use miller in the role of vlad. he isn't as big, but can play face up to the basket at the free throw line and showed some nice low post game against fresno.

agree the schedule was set for a reason, but i don't accept the youth angle. too many teams can incorporate new players into their systems and be effective and as i pointed out davis has shown a better understanding than some of the more experienced players.

i see it as finding roles and they have to find some type of inside threat to create opportunities on the perimeter for bane, noi, and others.
 

Farmfrog

Active Member
If we want Archie, RJ and, to a lesser degree, Alok to get better we need to play them and live with the mistakes they will make. Our bigs are not good defenders out on the perimeter which leaves us susceptible to drives and easy buckets. One thing we could do is play Noi or Archie at the three but to do that Mayen needs to be healthy.

I think if we continue to struggle with the bigs we might actually try to speed up things to get as many touches and attempts at the hoop as we can. When that happens we should play as big as we can with JD, Noi, Archie and Bane along with either Fisher or ARob at point.

Last thing but I think we need to feature Fisher as our go to guy. He is more assertive than anyone we have and doesn’t seem fazed in crunch time.
 

Eight

Member
If we want Archie, RJ and, to a lesser degree, Alok to get better we need to play them and live with the mistakes they will make. Our bigs are not good defenders out on the perimeter which leaves us susceptible to drives and easy buckets. One thing we could do is play Noi or Archie at the three but to do that Mayen needs to be healthy.

I think if we continue to struggle with the bigs we might actually try to speed up things to get as many touches and attempts at the hoop as we can. When that happens we should play as big as we can with JD, Noi, Archie and Bane along with either Fisher or ARob at point.

Last thing but I think we need to feature Fisher as our go to guy. He is more assertive than anyone we have and doesn’t seem fazed in crunch time.

i do agree the bigs struggle away from the basket defensively and i am curious if we see some teams in conference play try to bring them out and force dixon's hand on keeping them in or going small.

small lineup is intriguing, but frogs got crushed on the boards. i do like the idea of miller getting more post up opportunities.

thoughts on whether we see tcu go to a zone defensively. frogs have stuck with man for the most part and that will be another thing to watch as conference play unfolds.
 
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