Let me try to explain… We start 5 player’s 6’1, 6’3, 6’5, 6’5, and 6’6… We’re 3 & 0 holding opposing teams to basically nothing percentage wise. We’re playing stifling defense. The players seem extremely happy and have bought in. YET, I see posts concerned about our 3 point percentage??? Ya kidding me! Of course our 3 point percentage is going to be lower because of our size and lack of 3 point shooters. I was a MA GUY but certainly see improvement across the board with exception to Desi shooting the 3 ball but he’ll come out of his slump and playing excellent in other phases.
I expected to see positive posts, but amazed at John Wooden, Nolan posts that are back handed insults To Muss. They’re both great coaches but Muss is special in THIS ERA.
Having worked for Coach Richardson, I can assure the players had as detailed a scouting report as was available at that time. Individual players’ shooting percentages and tendencies were written up on the white board and gone over pre-game. Yes, Coach was more interested in what we were doing, but the players always knew who they were playing. Btw, Coach Richardson seems very high on Muss. Enough said.
You guys are so transparently bad. My point The Players have bot in… Go back and actually read what I posted. I responded to other posters who said Wooden & Nolan didn’t have, Etc., versus what Muss was doing today. It’s a different era. I’m truly amazed at the idiocy of this board. Instead of being happy for a team with OBVIOUS deficiencies we’re showing real improvement from some of the most unlikely of players. You may have worked for Nolan but in what capacity and for how long??
So what are you really saying? We suck? We start a team with High School measurements but we’re not shooting the 3 well. Seriously, tell me what you expect from this team… Please?
One particularly bad shooting night out of 3 isn’t a good gauge. But we’re going to struggle due to size in the paint at times. For the record, No way we should have beaten LSU and others on the road last year based on pure talent. I was an MA fan. His only problem was talent. What I see from Muss I like a lot. We will struggle in the SEC… Lack of size in the post.
That would be much easier if we had a post player. Counting a 6’1 starter we average 6’4 across the board. That’s my point… We’re pretty efficient given Zero inside prescience. We’re easily one of the smallest teams in the country… but love our tenacity. Will it last? Probably not but can’t fault the effort!!
I was a manager for Coach Richardson from 1991-1995. I have a National Championship ring. I don’t know what you are calling me out for. I agree with your stance on how well this team is doing with limited numbers and no size. My point was that Coach Richardson did, in fact, scout opponents. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It is also laughable to believe that Mike Anderson did not do scouting report and didn’t talk about it to his players. Not sure what Mason is talking about. I have heard Coach Watkins talk about how in this day it has become so much easier to evaluate what other teams are doing because most games are televised and it allows them to have a large library of games to look through. Back early in his days, you had to shop around for a film. They didn’t build this library for family viewing. We have heard Mike talk about they wanted a certain player to go left or right.
What is probably happening is that Coach Muss is showing them a much more detailed and analytic scouting report. I am sure Mike did not do any analytics. And Muss report is definitely a better prep for the game because analytics can show player habits that are not always noticeable to the naked eye.
It’s about projecting what this team will look like against better competition. Some of us want to discuss the objective state of the team, which will include what the team is not currently doing well. Since every team, professional and college, has deficiencies, it isn’t any major criticism of the coach or the team to point out that this team is not doing everything well.
Size is a bigger problem on D than O. A lot of teams would go small if they didn’t have to worry about defense because it’s easier to find 6’ 5’’ guys with skills than 6’ 9’’ players, not that everybody wouldn’t love to have big, good offensive players. Big good is better than small good, but you can use quickness mismatches to your advantage on O against bigger teams. When we have any two of Chaney, Bailey, and Cylla on the court we are arguably bigger than Auburn’s base lineup last year because our backcourt is bigger. If we aren’t good enough on offense, it will be because we can’t find enough scorers, which may be the case, not because we are too small.
The computers looked at our roster and ranked us in the 40’s preseason. We are currently in the top 30 in Pomeroy. This team and its coach has NCAAT aspirations. Maybe they won’t pan out, but I don’t find your argument persuasive that we should obviously be happy with whatever we are getting. The team almost certainly is expecting more out of themselves than you seem to be.
I don’t care if you’re playing Little Sisters of the Poor JV, 44 ppg through three games is pretty darn impressive. Our shorties can play D and get enough rebounds to prevent massive stickbacks. Will that continue against better opponents? Stay tuned.
There was a pretty interesting Twitter debate Saturday afternoon. UVa hoops official account posted that nobody in D-I had held their first three opponents under 50 points since 1948-49. Uh, not so fast, Cavaliers. Although admittedly, since they played earlier Saturday afternoon, they got there before we did by a few hours.
Stat update: UVa leads the nation in PPG defense at 36.7. Sacramento State is second (two games, only one against a D-I opponent). We’re third. SoCar is tied for fourth, Ole Miss is 6th. Of course that’s all against rent-a-wins.
My point has been that our obviously incredible defense is masking that the offense hasn’t been that good. There is really no valid criticism of the defense other than wondering how much regression to the mean there will be against better competition. We have played three of the worst ballhandling teams in the nation, and we are ironically currently third in the nation in forcing TOs but only #109 in defensive rbounding percentage against other smallish teams. I’m not even sure that TOs is a point of emphasis. These kids are good and willing defenders. We are going to be a solid to good defensive team, but just how good is obviously an open question. Once we start facing mismatches, some of the perimeter defense will start to break down. The TOs could disappear altogether.
How much of that has to do with who we played? Lunardi did a bracketology on Friday and has both Montana (who we just beat) and Texas Southern (who we play tomorrow) in a play-in game. Montana maybe a little better than many think. Makes what our D did even more impressive.
By the way South Dakota and W KY were also on his list. I believe SD is the game after Texas Southern, and of course we play W KY.
The shots they have take are high percentage shots as many are wide open. They just haven’t been falling like they should. Joe missed layups. It doesn’t get much more high percentage than a layup. So our shot selection is spot on, imo. It’ll come together. 77% from the FT is a huge improvement. In fact, it’s #1 in the league.
C’mon are You really saying our bigs are better Than Auburn’s last year from the perimeter? They could put 5 guy’s on the court that could stretch the floor. They had 5 guys shooting 3 ball. You actually make my point for me. My point was we are playing very well with Zero paint (Gafford) and our bigs (small bigs) pose virtually NO Post or 3 point threat.
I like our team and love how much better Bailey is playing, but we will struggle against teams with size that can stretch & post. Purely a size problem. To say it’s more of a problem defensively than offensively?? That works both ways. How good might our O be if opposing defenders had to actually cover an inside threat? Holy crap, Joe & Jones would rip teams in this system. Liked MA and always will but love this new system… Just need a few more bodies