POSTGAME THREAD: The blueprint for beating the Cougs is firmly established
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 11:58 AM PST
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PrintYou know how they say that styles make boxing matches? Well, I think it's pretty clear at this point that there's a style that this edition of the Cougs just can't compete with -- full court ball pressure and hard half-court traps.
The deciding factor was this: We could not play the defensive personnel we needed to play because those players couldn't give us anything on offense. Capers and Casto were positively terrible, and it ended up becoming a vicious cycle we couldn't stop.
It'll be tempting to overreact to this loss. Don't cave to the temptation.
The strides this team has made over the past month are still there. I'm really not sure why we can't cope with this kind of pressure, but we really just seem to lack personnel with the requisite athleticism and maturity to combat what teams like Washington and Arizona throw at you. I honestly thought it was something that would be solved by the growth we've exhibited over the past month. That's just not the case.
Fortunately, those are really the only two teams in the conference that can do this to us. If you're smart, you won't get too down about this one. Yes, we were up in this game, but it became a completely different game when Arizona decided to turn up the heat. We hoped for a split this weekend, and that's what we got.
We sure would have liked to cement ourselves as a legitimate bubble team with a win today, but let's be honest: Didn't we probably let our hopes get in the way of reality just a little bit? Despite the superhuman effort of Klay on Thursday, this team still is what it is.
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that was calmer than i was expecting!
yeah, all day yesterday and this morning, i just had this feeling it was going to be gonzaga/uw bad. those 3 teams are all so similar. UA is much better than anybody wants to believe, though, and i think if they stay focused they’re a tourney team. Wise, Budinger and Hill are as good as any trio in the conference and dare i say country….
we were who we thought we were.
I really thought we were past this
But I’m now convinced that it’s just a personnel thing. It reminds me of those 3 losses to Stanford last year — it really didn’t matter what we did, we weren’t all of a sudden going to have the guys to stop two seven footers.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:15 PM PST up reply actions
final plus/minus
forgot daven wasn’t in when arizona went on their run.
Harmeling 18
Lodwick 14
Capers 10
Forrest -2
Casto -4
Koprivica -8
Rochestie -10
Baynes -12
Thompson -16
Capers and Cato must have built those numbers in the first half
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:16 PM PST up reply actions
Capers benefitted
from coming in after righting the ship after nik’s initial fuckups.
look, nik's not my favorite player :)
i just don’t understand the blind-hatred.
my blog post started with me e-mailing my friends about people’s blind casto-devotion, when he was flat-out awful against the LA schools, and nik got booed for doing pretty much the same thing. that evolved into me getting about a thousand texts on nik’s first TO today…
Gotcha
I think people just expect more out of a junior. He should be better than he was, and you can actually make a legitimate argument that he’s worse than he was. It’s frustrating for fans.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:26 PM PST up reply actions
We are who we thought we were...
Which I think is not a bad thing…
Here are my thoughts, as they are, on why we shoudn’t be too worked up over this loss. As Nuss said, we don’t handle the pressure traps well. And that is logical. Our best defensive team, the team we want to be able to go with for stretches to stop runs, includes Casto and Capers. Two true freshmen. One thing true freshmen have never seen is truly effective pressure traps. High school players don’t have the size, physical tools, or training to trap like that. In high school, Casto and Capers could simply pass over many traps (likely being taller then at least one defender) or dribble through traps (likely being stronger then both defenders). Now, they can’t do either of those things, and panick sets in.
Once we started running to beat their press, we opened up a can of worms. It was great to see, but suddenly the game was their pace and we had to hope they would cave and give up the press before we started making mistakes. UA didn’t break, stayed with the pressure, and eventually got to us. That was a different style of team in the second half, and it’s impossible to compare the first and second half performances of the Cougs because UA made clear adjustments to turn up the pressure and force our youth to make decisions.
Sorry to ramble...
I just kept typing, and it got long.
If it gets that long, put it up in a FanPost
That’s a great place to make sure everyone gets a chance to read it.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:17 PM PST up reply actions
digger said something this morning that i agree with
after 20 games, you can’t chalk it up to “freshman mistakes”.
by now, this is a tony issue. If Klay and Capers can’t beat a press, that is what should be drilled in practice.
daily.
But how do you do it daily when you only see it a few times a year?
I have a feeling we would have handled it much better had this been the Thursday game.
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:27 PM PST up reply actions
I agree with that
And I don’t agree…at all…that after 20 games you can’t chalk up “freshmen” mistakes. Hey, if your talking about Duke, NC, etc. (as Digger normally is) then yeah, the level of freshmen is completely different. Their 1 or 2 and done anyway. But a guy that is going to play for 4, and is 7 months into his college experience, has so much growth ahead. Summer games, off season workouts, there is plenty of growth for guys like Capers and Casto. And Klay handled the press decently today, not great, but not as bad as others.
agreed
i think that of course the ceiling is higher for a freshman than, say, a junior, but i think after a certain amount of time in the program, you have to be held accountable for your mistakes. 20 games isn’t a bad barometer.
well we've now seen it four times
and have failed against it all four times (Gonzaga, UW, Oregon State and today), and will see it at least 3 more times (probably more if coaches are worth their paychecks).
i do agree that if we played this thursday we would’ve stood a better chance. another take is that arizona just owns us :)
I don't agree that we failed against it with OSU
by Jeff Nusser on Jan 31, 2009 12:46 PM PST up reply actions
And there is growth
UA is not a top notch team…but they did just beat UW and us. So they aren’t bad.
GU – loss by 22, and we quit
UW – loss by 20 (and some of my dignity), and we quit
Today – loss by 10, we never quit, eventually settled ourselves a little
Yes, it’s baby steps, but that’s what coaching is at times. Frustrating to fans, but progress is progress.
Harms sat on the bench for too long
One problem I noticed is the lack of anyone wanting to handle the ball. Guys continue to pass too early to try to break the press.
It was a nightmare that I just turned off with 4 minutes left to play.
I think that there are some basic principles that "should" be known...
by now for all players (including the freshman). For example, dribbling into the corner (any corner)…giving up your dribble when there is no need to do that…getting to a spot to help your teammate when he’s in a bind (and being trapped in a double-team). These guys will learn from this. I just hope that UW, Zona, et al can’t get away with the trap crap from here on out.
by westsidecougar1 on Jan 31, 2009 3:18 PM PST reply actions
Head scratcher
Why does Tony rarely call a time-out to stop momentum swings, especially with a young team? I love having him as a coach, but it’s one part of him that has troubled me. It is hard watching the Cougs give away games in the second half when using some of his time outs could help settle the team down and refocus.
Hats off to Baynes – he was amazing for the first 2/3 of the game. He looked like he might have some kind of future in the NBA after all.
I wondered the same thing around the lack of a timeout
I was thinking at 39-38 or whatever the score was that a timeout was coming. Then I think after a timeout down 7 they came back with Rotchestie, Capers, Thompson, Casto, and Baynes. Just too much for the freshmen to handle in that situation.
Still, if they can convert the open shots they were getting in 5 straight possessions they could have stuck around. Arizona was allowing them to get back into the game and nobody could get a shot to go down. Some were poor decisions (quick 3’s, alley oop to Forrest) but they needed to convert.
What makes it so difficult is they played so well the first 28 minutes. They made mistakes (Harmleing and Forrest missing layins) but they looked as good as they have all season. They can’t lose sight of that fact because they have 2 games next weeks that they can get on the road. Stanford is very questionable at this point and Cal isn’t much better than WSU at this point.
That Forrest alley-oop attempt would have been awesome had...
it worked. But I agree that there was no need for that high-risk of a play at that point in the game.
by westsidecougar1 on Jan 31, 2009 6:14 PM PST reply actions
Worst layup team in the nation? At least Pac 10?
Forrest bricks one in the first half that he should have gone up and dunked. Harmeling misses a pretty easy put back. Then Forrest can’t quite finish the alley oop. Those are important points. Instead of 5 at half it would have been 9. You never are going to be perfect but those are points they could have used along with too many missed open looks.
You still have to look at this weekend as a success. The problem is the 1-4 record at home. They need to finish with 4 home wins to get over .500. Stanford and SC are probably a must on the road. The at least 1 against UCLA, Cal, and UW. That would get them to 11 wins and this season probably in the top 5. That’s a lot to ask though the way they have closed out games. Possible but a lot to ask.
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