Exhibition against Malone
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 3:30 pm
Wow...I guess it really speaks to the state of our Men's Hoops program (if you can call it that) that we are 24 hours removed from our first live action of the year and still not a single post about the "game". Well, I was bored so I went out to watch the exhibition. These games are never really good, they shouldn't even be remotely competitive, and the competition level is so bad you really can't even gauge where we're at with any accuracy. Still, I figured since I was probably one of only about 500-750 or so people there, I'd go ahead and post my thoughts on where we're at right now as a team.
Overall, this team might actually be interesting. Not because I think we'll be good. I think we're gonna be terrible. All too often yesterday the "offense" consisted of lobbing the ball high towards the rim and simply having Holmes, Parker, and Black all be too big/athletic for Malone to do anything against. I'd wager that 7-8 of the awesome 10 assists that Clarke had were just that...lobs towards the rim knowing that the competition was so inferior. You'd think they would have wanted to run something resembling an offense, but nope, it's still an Orr team. However, one thing that DOES make this team interesting is that there were times where there was actually some excitement and it wasn't just watching Crawford or Calhoun try to do something on an individual level every single possession.
Denny/Sealey -- Neither of them were dressed for this game. Anybody know if they were hurt? I really wanted to get a look at Denny's shooting stroke, and you'd think the coaches would have liked to see it as well in an exhibition contest. There were also about 4 other guys in khaki's & shooting shirts on the bench. Don't know if these are some walkons or what...can't believe we'd have 4 but who the hell knows since we're not using our scholarships anyhow.
Black/Holmes -- Both looked about the same as last year, and tough to gauge much in this game. Black was huge by comparison to Malone and Holmes was twice as athletic as anybody on their frontcourt. They both dominated the boards, both were the recipient of a lot of lobs inn the area of the hoop for easy buckets. Black had one or two nice post up possessions, and Holmes did step out once and hit an 8 footer. Overall though, didn't see anything to make me excited or upset with these two...they dominated the competition as they should have.
Parker -- Parker came in off the bench and clearly was the most athletic guy on the court. I think he scored 6 points in his first couple minutes. Unfortunately as the game wore on he definitely looked disinterested. A lot of times just half-assing it on defense, and standing still on offense. I suppose it's somewhat understandable in an exhibition, but I hope that's not a habit against real teams.
Clarke/Henderson -- I thought both of these guys showed some real nice things. Both were able to get to the rim (again competition level) and both had some real nice finishes in traffic up tight. Henderson had a sweet tomahawk slam too off the break. As I said earlier though, I was really disappointed to see them rely so heavily on just lobbing it up near the hoop as the method of "running the offense." That worked easily against Malone, but really won't against anybody else we play.
Tisdale -- Man he is a LONG guard. Dude is real tall and real could definitely be a matchup issue for other MAC guards. There was one time in particular that he flashed a REAL quick spin move to get some space, but missed a 12 foot jumper off the move. Really struggled in knowing what to do with the ball though, and didn't seem too confident in his shooting. His shot looked ok, but didn't really knock them down...and a lot of times he just looked as though he didn't wanna shoot and wasn't sure what to do with the ball.
C. Orr -- Meh. Typical Orr game. Made some shots, got some boards, made some passes. He's a fine player. Not somebody I want starting and playing 30+ mins a game, but on this squad he's probably going to be about the only consistent threat all season long. Reminds me of a poor man's Scott Thomas. The jumper did look a little better than it did at the beginning of last year, we're going to need him to score 15-20 points a game and hopefully not shoot 35% doing so.
Mayleben/Gomez -- Holy Hell do these two SCREAM Louis Orr craptastic basketball. I'm going to TRY and make this my last comment about them all year long, but I know I'll probably have a hard time doing that. But here's the rub. They aren't D1 talents. Hell, I'm not sure they'd log minutes for freaking MALONE! Slow. Lost. Unathletic. Completely outmatched...BY MALONE. Both of them were out of position constantly on defense and forced to foul. Hell I think Gomez actually fouled out of the game. Mayleben looked like he didn't know the object of offense was putting the ball in the hoop. He was being yelled at by Orr between nearly every possession as Louis tried to figure out why the eff he'd recruit him. Bottom line is that these two guys are the new age Erger, Dusan, pick whatever other name you want. Neither of them look like they should make the team as a walkon and they sure as hell shouldn't be getting a scholarship. If they're playing anything more than mop up duty in games we're getting waxed then we're completely screwed. I had very low expectations for this pair based on the fact that they sucked in HS, and they may have even fell short of those expectations. Sure they don't have much experience and could get better, but they are both completely devoid of athleticism.
That's it on those two. I'll say it now: Neither should be D1 basketball players, especially on scholarship. No point in piling on them the rest of the season, as I'm sure they're good kids. I don't know what the hell Orr saw in them, but I didn't see it in their minutes yesterday.
Oh well, that's pretty much it for me. It was nice to be in the Stroh again, and it was real nice to see that they now serve Beer in the concession stands other than the Falcon Club area. We're going to need it...
Overall, this team might actually be interesting. Not because I think we'll be good. I think we're gonna be terrible. All too often yesterday the "offense" consisted of lobbing the ball high towards the rim and simply having Holmes, Parker, and Black all be too big/athletic for Malone to do anything against. I'd wager that 7-8 of the awesome 10 assists that Clarke had were just that...lobs towards the rim knowing that the competition was so inferior. You'd think they would have wanted to run something resembling an offense, but nope, it's still an Orr team. However, one thing that DOES make this team interesting is that there were times where there was actually some excitement and it wasn't just watching Crawford or Calhoun try to do something on an individual level every single possession.
Denny/Sealey -- Neither of them were dressed for this game. Anybody know if they were hurt? I really wanted to get a look at Denny's shooting stroke, and you'd think the coaches would have liked to see it as well in an exhibition contest. There were also about 4 other guys in khaki's & shooting shirts on the bench. Don't know if these are some walkons or what...can't believe we'd have 4 but who the hell knows since we're not using our scholarships anyhow.
Black/Holmes -- Both looked about the same as last year, and tough to gauge much in this game. Black was huge by comparison to Malone and Holmes was twice as athletic as anybody on their frontcourt. They both dominated the boards, both were the recipient of a lot of lobs inn the area of the hoop for easy buckets. Black had one or two nice post up possessions, and Holmes did step out once and hit an 8 footer. Overall though, didn't see anything to make me excited or upset with these two...they dominated the competition as they should have.
Parker -- Parker came in off the bench and clearly was the most athletic guy on the court. I think he scored 6 points in his first couple minutes. Unfortunately as the game wore on he definitely looked disinterested. A lot of times just half-assing it on defense, and standing still on offense. I suppose it's somewhat understandable in an exhibition, but I hope that's not a habit against real teams.
Clarke/Henderson -- I thought both of these guys showed some real nice things. Both were able to get to the rim (again competition level) and both had some real nice finishes in traffic up tight. Henderson had a sweet tomahawk slam too off the break. As I said earlier though, I was really disappointed to see them rely so heavily on just lobbing it up near the hoop as the method of "running the offense." That worked easily against Malone, but really won't against anybody else we play.
Tisdale -- Man he is a LONG guard. Dude is real tall and real could definitely be a matchup issue for other MAC guards. There was one time in particular that he flashed a REAL quick spin move to get some space, but missed a 12 foot jumper off the move. Really struggled in knowing what to do with the ball though, and didn't seem too confident in his shooting. His shot looked ok, but didn't really knock them down...and a lot of times he just looked as though he didn't wanna shoot and wasn't sure what to do with the ball.
C. Orr -- Meh. Typical Orr game. Made some shots, got some boards, made some passes. He's a fine player. Not somebody I want starting and playing 30+ mins a game, but on this squad he's probably going to be about the only consistent threat all season long. Reminds me of a poor man's Scott Thomas. The jumper did look a little better than it did at the beginning of last year, we're going to need him to score 15-20 points a game and hopefully not shoot 35% doing so.
Mayleben/Gomez -- Holy Hell do these two SCREAM Louis Orr craptastic basketball. I'm going to TRY and make this my last comment about them all year long, but I know I'll probably have a hard time doing that. But here's the rub. They aren't D1 talents. Hell, I'm not sure they'd log minutes for freaking MALONE! Slow. Lost. Unathletic. Completely outmatched...BY MALONE. Both of them were out of position constantly on defense and forced to foul. Hell I think Gomez actually fouled out of the game. Mayleben looked like he didn't know the object of offense was putting the ball in the hoop. He was being yelled at by Orr between nearly every possession as Louis tried to figure out why the eff he'd recruit him. Bottom line is that these two guys are the new age Erger, Dusan, pick whatever other name you want. Neither of them look like they should make the team as a walkon and they sure as hell shouldn't be getting a scholarship. If they're playing anything more than mop up duty in games we're getting waxed then we're completely screwed. I had very low expectations for this pair based on the fact that they sucked in HS, and they may have even fell short of those expectations. Sure they don't have much experience and could get better, but they are both completely devoid of athleticism.
That's it on those two. I'll say it now: Neither should be D1 basketball players, especially on scholarship. No point in piling on them the rest of the season, as I'm sure they're good kids. I don't know what the hell Orr saw in them, but I didn't see it in their minutes yesterday.
Oh well, that's pretty much it for me. It was nice to be in the Stroh again, and it was real nice to see that they now serve Beer in the concession stands other than the Falcon Club area. We're going to need it...