Goood afternoon AU Eagles fans. Hope you're all chipper today after the 66-53 victory last night over the UMBC Retrievers. Per usual, I have some thoughts to share with you, and I look forward to your thoughts in the comments.
Before I get to that, though, AU Hoops readers in the Chicago area would do well to check out this link for an AU Alumni event centered around the Northwestern-AU game. Be sure to sing the AU Fight Song! Go Eagles!
Onto last night:
- Obviously it's great that we won last night. Let me get nerdy for you for a moment. Our performance last night was kind of like the graph of y=sin(x). At the beginning, we were putrid. Completely rusty on offense, but pretty good on defense. Then things quickly improved until we hit our peak at halftime. Then things kind of descended in the second half before finally getting pretty ugly at the end. Although we did finish with a 13 point lead, we were outscored 37-31 in the 2nd half by a now 0-10 team. We continue to have a hard time closing out games for whatever reason. The first team was still in during the second half, so it wasn't like we had the second team in there giving up the, at one time, 23 point lead that we had.
- Troy Brewer. Wow. The past couple of games the guy has just been lights out. Last night he hit 3s on three straight possessions to push the lead to 17. He finished 6-12 from the field, including 4-8 from long range for 18 points, a team-high. He also had 7 boards and 2 assists and no turnovers in 33 minutes. Really, really nice game from Troy last night. The one bad part was that he picked up his 2nd technical of the season after going in for a jam late in the 2nd half and then saying something to/staring at the defender who fouled him on his way up. These are too soft T's, to be sure, hanging on the rim a bit too long and saying what appeared to be "good foul" to the defender, but Troy needs to watch it. Wouldn't want one of these T's to come back and bite us.
- Offensive explosion last night from the backcourt! Luptak and Munoz combined for 16 points on 5-5 shooting, including 4-4 from long range. Only 3 assists for the two of them, but no turnovers. Danny, especially in the first half, played tenacious defense against UMBC's De La Rosa. Great game from these two last night!
- Charles Hinkle's debut last night, and he made a strong impression. He provided a spark off the bench that ended the Eagles' offensive woes in the first half. First with a layup, then with a 3, then with a pass to, I think it was Hendra, that he made from the ground laying on his back. Hinkle ended the game with 8 points, 5 boards, 3 steals, and 2 assists. The impact he makes on the defensive end is palpable. He's athletic, quick, and has great hands. Really, really versatile. To have him down in the frontcourt with Vlad and Lump gives us size down low that no PL team will be able to handle for long. Welcome to the bunch, Charles!
- Lump picked up what has become his regular double-double last night with 11 points and 10 boards. His defense down low helped keep UMBC's Satchell and Fry to 2-11 from the field and 10 points total. He played 37 minutes and stayed out of foul trouble. He barely needed to be spelled by Daniel Fisher or Tony Wroblicky. Tony has been getting less time lately in favor of Fisher, so that's something we'll keep an eye on.
- Not sure if Simon McCormack was sick last night or unable to play, etc. He was on the bench and suited up, but he never got into the game. Unfortunately for him I think Hinkle's minutes are going to come from Simon. But it's comforting to know that Simon, who always seems to make the right play and is able to provide a spark and good decision-making off the bench, is there in case things go wrong.
- Defense last night from 1st half to 2nd was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-esque. In the first half we held them to 25% from the field, 14% from behind the arc, and to only 6 FT attempts. UMBC went into halftime with just 16 points. A truly tremendous defensive effort from the Eagles. The second half? More of a fall to earth. UMBC shot 52%, 57% from 3, and attempted 17 FTs for 37 points. True, this is partially attributable to their backcourt having a great game (King and De La Rosa shot 13-25 from the field and combined for 38 of 53 points, the rest of the team shot just 3-16), but we could've done a little better there.
- Overall, this was a game we expected to win. We showed off a lot of weapons last night and scored a bunch of points in the last 12 minutes of the first half. We did well even on a night when Vlad didn't play so hot (2-10, 9 points total). But Jeff Jones said at the half that he wanted to be "greedy" with how this team played in the 2nd half. I didn't see a team that wanted to be greedy, I saw a team that kind of coasted to a victory against a hapless opponent. Maybe they were displaying good sportsmanship or something.
Your thoughts about the game last night? And how do you think we'll match up with Northwestern?
Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!
I wasn't able to catch last night's game but so glad to see we got the W.
ReplyDeleteMy personal thoughts on the AU-NU game is that NU is going to be tough for the Eagles. For one, Carmody's Cats run the high-powered Princeton offense and have a Mercer like guard in Thompson and a three-point threat in Shurna.
Being from Chicago I have seen the Cats play and they are surely threat in the Big Ten this year. I expect this to be a tough battle for the Eagles but if we can play at our pace we can pull off another upset in Chi-Town (don't forget Depaul '09)!
GO EAGLES!
Robbie
This is AU Alum:
ReplyDeleteEarly in the game last night, when the team finally started to heat up, the rotation of Vlad, Brewer, Hinkle, Munoz and Lump was quite attractive. Also, the rotation of Vlad, Brewer, Hinkle, Munoz and Hendra seemed to work well too. In short, Hinkle's strength/size was able to compensate when Lump was on the bench, and his quickness/ball handling/passing abilities were able to compensate for Hendra when he was on the bench. I think the more these two mentioned rotations see game time, the more fluid the execution will become.
So, it's very nice to have Charles--he is a great early Xmas gift for us fans!!!
This is AU Alum again:
ReplyDeleteThere are some great quotes about Hinkle from Today's Examiner article found at:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/college/2010/12/his-debut-hinkle-lifts-au
It also includes a quote from Munoz, which demonstrates Hinkle's basketball IQ.
I was very discouraged by Vlad's play last night. This seemed like the kind of game that he could take over and dominate, but instead he hit only two shots from the floor. He's now gone 14 of 43 (32%) from the field in his last three games, and while he does score 4 ppg more than Troy, he also takes 5 more shots (on average). Vlad really needs to step up his game for us to have any chance against Northwestern and Pitt; JJ calls him the team's best player, but he sure isn't playing like it right now.
ReplyDeleteRandom thought:
ReplyDeleteThis team makes me fantasize about how it would have been if 2 years ago the team had Vlad, Troy, and Charles, coming off the bench as sophomores in the 08-09 season. Think we would have beaten Villanova? I think so. Our only weakness was depth.
As much as I love transfers, it'd be great if we could get these guys as freshmen. (And keep the freshmen we already have *Snodgrass, Holton, Technow (remember him?). Jones is great at recruiting older guys but sucks at recruiting younger ones, considering the last "great" players gotten as freshmen were on the '08-09 team. That's sad.
JDF: Lumpkins and Hendra were recruited as a freshmen (and both played in 08-09'). Danny, who still has a lot of potential (he's only a sophomore) was recruited as a freshman. Tony and Wayne, who will definitely be picking up a lot of slack next year, were recruited as freshman. Not every JJ recruit blossoms right away - Garrison Carr didn't break out until his junior year.
ReplyDeleteAs for the transfers in, Vlad, Brewer and Hinkle were all recruited by JJ as freshmen but ended up going elsewhere. Fortunately, when their original choices didn't work out as well as they had hoped, JJ already had a relationship with them.
Futhermore, while it's regrettable that Holton, Technow, and Snodgrass left, that's what happens when you have a roster the size of ours (especially for a mid-major). Would you call Jim Larranaga a bad coach because he lost Vlad? I'd be hesitant to say that.
Finally, their losses probably didn't have that much to do with basketball. While Technow is seeing moderate success at the Division II level at South Carolina-Aiken, to my knowledge Holton suffered from academic probation while at AU and is not currently playing, and Snodgrass is no longer on the roster at North Florida and left before he was eligible to play. So their choices were probably the best for them personally outside of basketball, as other things were not the best fit for them. I find it difficult to fault JJ for that.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think JJ is perfect, and I think there's plenty to criticize at times. JJ isn't the best recruiter in the world either, and from what I've heard and seen it's not his favorite part of the job. However, acknowledging that, he's still gotten us some pretty good players and is definitely the best coach we're going to see for a while.
Phew, had to get that out. Thanks for bearing with me. :)
What does it say about American East Conference that yet another team went down to the Patriot League?
ReplyDeleteIt had taken Coach Jones some time to know how to recruit the PL type player but he and his staff are doing a very good job for the past few years. An advantage AU has and should continue to maximize is our great location. AU now goes out and recruits kids who may be a bit over PL level, but once they see they are sitting at a higher level program and want to play, AU is a great place to play vs. places like Easton and Bethlehem Pa., and Lewistown, Pa. Proof- Vlad, Brewer (locals), and Hinkle. Getting to the Big Dance for 2 years legitimized our program. Kids pay attention. they want to play and go to a good program.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about Technow, but Snodgrass thought he could show up and start. I am not sure that he is even at U of NO. Florida anymore. That is how valuable he was to that great program. And Holton besides academics thought he also could show up out of shape and be given the keys to the lineup.
I thought that Jones took some of the air out of the ball in mid 2nd half last night when we were up 20 pts. That is how it looked from the stands. That seemed to halt the great offensive flow they were in. Once again our guards looked pitifully slow. No surprise that UMBC guards accounted for 2/3 of their points. Yes our guards took shots and made them (finally) but their guards ran circles around ours on their offensive end. If we had a quick and talented guard like UMBC's De LaRosa we would be dynamic at every position.
A couple of things. 1. I wholeheartedly agree with my co-writer on almost everything he said. Hendra isn't in the same league as Mercer and Carr, and I don't think he will be by the end of the season. Still, a solid four year contributor, he can't be called a bad recruit. Lump is already in the Mercer/Carr league as far as I'm concerned. I say that halfway through his junior year. Wait until next year.
ReplyDeleteAs far as JJ's recruiting goes, yes he's done well with the transfers, but he's no slouch recruiting freshmen. My only knock is that some of our freshmen leave before we (as fans) see what they bring to the table. I was livid last year when Snodgrass left. I'm still upset by it. He was a very highly ranked player for the PL, and we lost him. I think a lot of that is because JJ didn't play him and he wanted to be played. If he's off the team now at UNF that's too bad, but it still means we lost a potentially very good player.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that JJ isn't a coddler. Anyone who watches him on the sideline for more than 30 seconds and isn't disabled in more than 2 out of 5 senses knows he's into tough love. That's not for everyone. It's not for the three recruits we've lost in the past two years apparently.
I still maintain, as much as it causes me to bite through my tongue at times, that JJ is the best coach we'd be able to get at the PL (which is increasingly a piss poor league) level. That means you have to live with some of his flaws, including (arguably) his incapacity to deal with frosh players.
B^3, well said. I completely agree with you. What really bothered me the most is the inability to keep the players we have. That's something you gotta fix first before trying to get better freshmen.
ReplyDeleteKaplan: While Lumpkins is undoubtedly a big-time PL player, I can't say the same about Hendra, and I don't think anyone could really dispute that. So with that said, with the exception of transfers, Jones recruited a bunch of outstanding players in the class of 2006, basically no significant ones (Hendra may not even start anymore) in 2007, Lumpkins in 2008, and Munoz who has "potential" in 2009. All of this while losing 3 guys in only two years. Yes I realize that other players were recruited in those classes, but imagine having a team without the transfers, no Vlad, no Troy, no Hinkle. Bottom of the PL? I think so.
I take nothing away from Jones' ability to maintain enough relationships to get transfers. That certainly has been proven amazing, just by looking at this year alone. He's gotta be very skilled when it comes to recruiting transfers. But if AU wants to be a top PL team every single year, AU cannot rely on getting great transfers every two or so years. It's just not sustainable.
Sorry if I led to a discussion off topic. It has been an interesting conversation nonetheless.
Is John Thompson III somehow lacking as a coach because Vernon Macklin, Jeremiah Rivers and Mescheriakov (don't know his first name) all transferred within a year or two? Transfers happen at all levels of college basketball. Sometimes it's because a coach is doing something wrong, but most of the time it's because the kid wants to play and doesn't think he will where he is. I think JJ's track record with incoming transfers far outweighs those who left. Nothing against those young men and I wish them well. But I'd much rather have Vlad, Hinkle, Brewer for two years than Technow, Snodgrass, etc. for four.
ReplyDeleteI think we were all spoiled by the Class of '09. That kind of group doesn't come along all at once very often. It's much more common to have a one, maybe two-person class of impact. It's fair to say JJ hasn't yet cashed in on the success of the 08-09 teams the way we'd all like, but it hasn't been as bad as people seem to think. Hendra's class, the Class of '11, was being recruited before the breakthrough. So I don't think '11 is a reflection one way or another.
CLASS OF 12: Lump, McCormick (transfers: Hinkle, Brewer)--pretty solid group;
CLASS OF 13: Munoz, Bersch, Fisher, Jolivette (jury's still out, though not looking great at the moment);
CLASS OF 14: Wroblicky, Simon (potential to be strong)
One good group, one mediocre/bad group, one potentially very good group. That's not that bad, and could turn out even better.
It was fun to watch a nice win with, as noted, scoring from the backcourt -- and a relatively easy win with little help from Vlad (of course, over a lousy team) . . . Oh, Vlad did make several remarkable passes.
ReplyDeleteRegarding transfers, just for fun our bloggers should check out some of the "Whose transferring" or "Who transferred and will be eligible to play" websites. It's surprising how common transferring has become since my days at AU -- 1966-70 (Kermit's Freshman Year was my B-Ball highlight, till the Villanova game). Yes, I am old . . .But regardless, transfers out of an outstanding player would be disturbing, has that happened in JJ's tenure?? The opposite, I think, has occurred.
Anyway, it will be nice to watch our boys again tonight on the Big Ten Network.
To build on what NJJ said, while it's still too early to do anything but speculate, the class of 2015 (so far John Schoof and Kyle Kager) look to be strong as well, and the type of players who might not have shown up here prior to 07-08'. I certainly hope I'm not proven wrong there.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the comment equating Lump with Mercer/Carr. In their junior year, Mercer and Carr were a much better backcourt than the Maryland guards. That's why we won. And let's not forget about Gilmore, who was an outright better player than Lump is now, though Lump is solid and was a much better recruit.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about recruiting. PL recruiting is what it is, and probably won't change. It's all going to be about player development. The class of Mercer, Carr and Gilmore were a rarity - players at AU rarely develop, and I am going back VERY far. That class saw three players take an enormous leap in their junior season. 3 at once! That is what brought us into the NCAA tournament.
I have to admit I am a bit jealous of how some players develop at Navy. Sprink, Kina, Harris, and now Sugars is the fourth player in a row to become a league star. Every year they seem to have somebody come through the ranks to become a well-rounded and impressive player.
Aside from that one class, I have to say that AU rarely sees that kind of development, including pre-JJ.
I just want to throw out there how much I appreciate having insight from folks who have been around AU basketball much, much longer than myself.
ReplyDelete