Game Thread: Rider (11/29/12)

[Deleted]

Nov 29, 2012 20:35:38 GMT -5 explorerman said:

Dunn playing why?

He went into the rotation when all the foul trouble started

[SICguy84]

Rider plays Journey after loss!

[MisterD]

Most impressive thing I'm taking from the box score is that it looks like someone or someones completely locked Lindsay down. That's huge.

[lasallescreamer]

Its nice not to play your best game at a difficult place to play and still win! Too, remeber that Z is a work in progress and will not have a great game every nite. The young man is trying , can play better and he will. This was a good nite.

[calsufan]

I wouldn't say it was a good night. It was an "ehh" night. But at least they won even while playing less than stellar ball.

[luhoopsfan]

It started incredible and ended ok. It's an above average night and a win is a win no matter what. When it got tight our guys were able to impose their will again. Rider is a good team and its a win on the road. Would it have been nice to win by 30 but as typically happens in sports, things average out- our guys got cold their guys warmed up a bit.
The TOs upset me because many were careless but Zack also had 6 on his own.

[JoeFedorowicz]

Philahoops Game Story by James Hill

www.philahoops.com/la-salle-63-rider-52-hot-start-pressure-defense-sends-explorers-to-victory/

~Joe Fedorowicz
Philahoops.com

[coqui900]

Just got back. Here are some notes:

1) During the first ten minutes of the first half, they could have beaten anyone in the country. They couldn't miss and were playing absolutely ferocious defense. But that wasn't going to last and they came back down to earth.

2) A few guys had some really bad games, I thought. DJ Peterson had the worst game of his career, IMO. This is saying something because I don't think DJ has had a bad game yet. He just made all kinds of mistakes and was completely lost on offense. He got too complacent on offense and passed up a few open looks. He got scolded for that. Then the night down the court, he had an open look but decided to move behind the three point line to take the shot and completely whiffed. It's not a bad idea in theory -- a long 2 is the worst shot in the game -- but it was so out of rhythm.

That's why Dunn got so many minutes. He missed his shots but he at least was in the right place on the court.

2) I thought Sam had a rough game, too. He's just not good taking guys off the dribble or finishing in the lane. He's a good spot-up shooter (or off one dribble) and an excellent defender. He's not good at getting into the lane and he's not good at finishing/dishing when he's in the lane, either.

3) Our offense "stalled" because G kept on calling for a four corners set where it's essentially pick after pick after pick. The guard then drives, passes to the big or kicks out. We have a few problems with it. First, our bigs were rolling too early. They were kind of setting half-picks. Second, they ran the set too much with Sam, especially late in the shot clock. Rider did a good job of trapping Ramon so he couldn't run the play.

Get ready for a lot of this action in the coming months. Ty's a few weeks away. It will work better with him. It worked really well with Earl last year at times. We just don't have enough ballhandlers right this minute to run it as much as we did tonight.

3) Yes, G has a leash on Ramon. He pulled Ramon right after he broke off a play in order to take a really awful shot.

4) Jerrell and Steve didn't have their best games. I think the refs quick whistles on traveling calls (I think there were about 8 in the first half between both teams) rattled them and made them thing too much. Jerrell also needs to sometimes set a full pick. But even with those two playing like crap, they still did good work on the boards.

5) There are a lot of really valid criticisms from tonight's game. But this team knows how to play defense. You can survive really streaky shooting and stale offense if you can get stops. That they did. Rider inched back into it because we couldn't do a thing on offense. Rider had only a few good looks at the basket all night long.

6) I met some of Nuri Lindsay's family/friends. They were REALLY nice and funny. But you can tell that kid has a ton on his mind, and it showed tonight. I think Nuri didn't even come close to playing his game tonight. Our defense had something to do with it but I also think something else is up.

[ltrain38]

I didn't expect Lindsey to have a great game tonight. I always like our chances against offensively talented guards, with Ramon and Sam to defend. Sounds like a lot went wrong (I didn't see the game, my adviser volunteered me to coordinate a lecture tonight) but I think, in the end, it's a decent win.

[coqui900]

Wait, Tyreke had 20 points on six shots???

There's no big scoreboards or video screens at the Broncs' Zoo so I had no idea how many points anyone had. Tyreke played really well but I had no idea he had 20 points on six shots!

[ericmurry]

Another putrid game for Zack. 3 pts and 6 turnovers?!? He has really regressed since the season opener.

[MisterD]

It's only been 5 games and his 2nd best game (14 boards) was Game 4. Not how regression works.

[DE-LSU84]

After reviewing the box score I have just a few comments. First, I have said this before, going 12 for 20 from the line is not good. 60% is unacceptable. If this trend continues this will cause us to lose a game we might need to make the big dance. Second, I am surprised we got out rebounded by Rider. If Zack was having a bad night, why didn't Rohan see more than 5 minutes? Hopefully someone who was in attendence can shed some light on my box score observation ( I was not able to attend last night).

[Shout out to my Cousin Bern]

I know everyone is used to be negative as shit, but I think this season is going well and I am happy about our prospects.

We haven't played a single cohesive game, but we're still winning. We always said that good teams win when they're not playing well. Whenever we lost a game where we thought we should win against a better team, someone on the board would say: "That's what good teams do....wah wah."

People don't like to hear this but in year's past we would have lost to Rider. We would have let them back in it when they made their 2nd half run, and found a way to lose. I think this team is going to have another bad loss in them this year, but I also really believe they'll have another few good wins. I am also excited to see what we look like with Garland.

[coqui900]

G went with four guards and a center. Rohan can't be the one big on the floor. I like him but that's too much responsibility for someone in his fifth game of basketball.

[coqui900]

Also, a lot of the missed FTs came at the end of the game. I think it was total fatigue. They didn't even get to the line until real late in the second half.

[La Salle 08]

What was the crowd like? The box says it was pretty much a sellout but on the broadcast it sounded like there was a good La Salle base there.

How many do you think go to see the PSU game? Over/under 4500?

[player71]

It was a nice crowd. There was a good LaSalle following there. We were not going to shoot that well the entire game so you knew Rider would make a run. Too many turnovers but it seemed like the refs were just anticipating travel calls. While I may be biased, my favorite part of the game was the halftime interview...haha

[1stflooredwards]

PSU game: It's 9:00 p.m. mid week. I think it's under 4500.

[Deleted]

Read DJ's article. He saw the same things I saw.
www.philly.com/philly/sports/colleges/la_salle/20121130_Explorers_avoid__Nova_hangover_in_win_at_Rider.html

La Salle expended so much energy the first ten minutes of the game, you could see them wear down a bit. That was by far the best this team played this season. We sat very close to the floor behind the La Salle bench and the effort and intensity these guys showed on the defensive end was flat out impressive, especially in the first ten minutes.

After that, they struggled offensively, but the defensive effort was consistent throughout the whole game and they were able to gut out the win. The refs didn't help either. Lots of bogus calls in the second half, putting Rider in the bonus with 10 minutes left. La Salle would have never gotten to the line if Rider wasn't forced to foul intentionally the last couple minutes, and even then, it took a complete mugging for the refs to call it.

[luhoopsfan]

Getting Garland is going to really be huge and will hopefully set the team back into the style they're more accustomed to playing. It's nice to know, however, we can go 3 guards and 2 bigs and still win games. Garland lets guys like Tyreek and Sam get a few breaks and not have to play 39 minutes a night, get gassed and get sloppy with a big lead. Garland gets them at least 5 minutes more rest each and allows us to go 4-guards with Wright or Zack for extended mintues if the match up dictates it. Or go in a rotation with Duren, Mills and Galloway while Petersen, Wright, Brown and Zack rotate. There's even a scenario where you could go Garland, Petersen, Brown, Zack and Duren - that's 4/5 guys that played limtied minutes last year and are still coming along, but when the game gets tight and we need good ball handlers and FT shooters we could see Duren, mills, Galloway, Garland and Wright.

I think we might be under-playing the impact Garland can have with this team as a mid-season injection and are over-playing how this team is currently performing as an issue. to be 4-1 with a good chance to be 6-1 before Garland plays a game.

We threw out one clunker of a game so far and still ahd a chance to win that one. The game last night was sort of the inverse of the CCSU game, except that unlike CCSU, our guys never relinquished a lead and when it got tight, hunkered down on defense and got the lead back to 12 points.

If the biggest lead was 15 in the first half and we won by 11, no one would be complaining. There was no way to maintain that disparity in terms of pace for 40 minutes. The concerning issues last night were the poor FT shooting and TOs. The FT shooting is a lack of focus if you ask me - remember that these guys are all pretty young (in term sof being full-grown men) and are likely to have lapses in focus when winning by double digits against a team on the road that no one will really notice - we weren't playing at Cameron indoor where every once of focus would be needed. The TOs were a focus thing as well, but Zack also basically played a lousy game at that end of the floor, but continued to work on the definsive end and grabbed key rebounds and never got out of the game. He's only a sophmore and will continue to have ups and downs, key is that now it seems the ups are more frequent than the downs.

beat PSU and grab a couple headlines because of the name PSU and that will help awareness a bit and then continue to win games from there. Hit the A10 on a roll and see what shakes out.

[explorerman]

I will be very interested to see how the team goes with playing time...

Garland is a plus defender and a plus finisher around the basket, I hope he has worked on his perimeter shooting in the last year because he should find himself in a similar role to Mills, who should be a great comparison actually.

Slightly undersized for the position, which for us, is a 2 guard. Very quick and a good defender with a lot of energy. The only difference being Garland is a better finisher around the basket and is probably more reliable in a situation where he needs to create his own shot. Garland can penetrate to the basketball with the best of them.

Our offense sometimes gets into situations where we spread the court and rely on Galloway and Duren to penetrate to the basket with Mills or Peterson in the corner. The offense would be more potent if they could go 3 wide, identify the weakest on the ball defender and attack until the other team makes an adjustment.

[explorerman]

Nov 30, 2012 8:44:54 GMT -5 MisterD said:

It's only been 5 games and his 2nd best game (14 boards) was Game 4. Not how regression works.

Sorry, Zack has played well since Game 1.

The Nova game he did not play well. You can not cherry pick stats and say 14 rebounds as if that automatically qualifies a good game. At 6'11 and with all the minutes he played he better have 14 rebounds in that game.

He made bad plays on defense with poor angling and missed assignments and missed numerous layups (including a couple air balls). The only reason why Nova was in the game was because they get the ball to their big men and they would go by Zack. Zack was too slow for them.

Still, Wright didn't help because he wasn't playing but do not say he played well. The numerous bad plays in key situations is not made up for by 14 rebounds and 2 free throws.

His Rider game, of which I watched, confirms my sediment.

[MisterD]

Your "sediment" seems to be expecting way too much out of a true sophomore big man project who entered this season with a total of 300 minutes experience. Basically, you're expecting what we need out of a center rather than what should be expected out of a player of his profile.

[stlexplorer]

Nov 30, 2012 14:53:36 GMT -5 MisterD said:

Your "sediment" seems to be expecting way too much out of a true sophomore big man project who entered this season with a total of 300 minutes experience. Basically, you're expecting what we need out of a center rather than what should be expected out of a player of his profile.

I have to agree with this. We have to remember the type of player Steve Zack is/was. He was not Aaric Murray coming to La Salle with all the accolades. He's a project and I think ahead of schedule.

[jellybean]

Team Free Threw Percentages
2012-13 .709
2011-12 .721
2010-11 .709

Decent numbers for a team. Law of Averages say that you will have a game where you make something like 22 out of 24(which we did) and one which will be a real clunker. Last night was slightly below par. Duren couldn't miss except for 3 from the line. Down the stretch he was he usual Mr. Ice Water. For me, he's the one I want on the line. Zack and Wright are close your eyes and hope. I know Wright has worked real hard at FT shooting but I somehow get the feeling he'll be a career 5 for 8 type guy. The guy who concerns me right now is Galloway (8-14). Sam never gets to the line so why worry.

Overall, last night had more positives than negative but you would never know it here. It was an 11 point win on the road.

BTW, the famous Rider Starbuck's is NOT in the arena. It's in the new Student Union and you need to leave the gym to get there. In typical Rider tradition, their concession stand is a folding table (glad they saved it after the nice new paint job inside the gym) in the hallway with Pizza boxes piled up on one side and a tray of hot dogs on the other. If you want a soda, they have them in coolers. Not 5 stars for sure.

[las71]

Zack deserves a little more respect. Without his play there is a good chance we lose to Delaware and Villanova. I like 4- 1 better than 2- 3.

[lasallescreamer]

I hate to say it AGAIN and AGAIN- but its very difficult to get through a great season without depth especially at point and center. We r fine at the point, although Duren is a key; but no depth at center. We must be patient with Zack. He does not have a world of ath. ability but does have lots of heart. He did not play well against Del. and get 14 boards against Nova by accident. He looks better now than Milko looked in his first 2 years and better than Garrett Bragg did in his senior year. YMM had more ath talent, but reall wasnt that big and was not a center.

[jellybean]

Face it, we need to land a Steve Zack coming out of HS. We are not getting the Yarou's of the world.

Zack needs 8 points to break his FR production---could have in the NEXT game. That's his 6th game of his SO year. His FG% is .483 vs. .364. FT% is .75 vs. .545.
He's on pace to grab more rebounds and block more shots than he had as a FR in the 10th or 11th game of this season (1/3 of the season roughly).

Only negative I see is the turnovers.

If Steve Zack were a stock, I'd be a buyer. I am also excited about his future and glad to have him.

Screamer I'll take 14 rebounds against Nova or any one anytime.