The Fans Speak: Point Guard Palooza

Often the Poll of the Week results get rolled into some post or another, but this week I think the voice of the fans deserves its own space. We asked, "Who should start at point guard?", and the results are close indeed:

Steve Luptak: 13 (25%)
Daniel Munoz: 7 (13%)
Nick Hendra: 16 (31%)
Blake Jolivette: 15 (29%)
Total Votes: 51 (100%)

Hendra leads with 16 votes, which on one hand is surprising as he is the least like a true point guard of the four. On the other hand, he is definitely the biggest offensive spark and leads the team in assists, although is ball-handling skills and knowledge of the offense from the one spot might not be as great as the others.

Neck-and-neck with Hendra is Blake Jolivette, who has only seen about a minute and a half of play time this season. We've speculated for months as to why he's been riding the pine for about a year now, as last season he shared the starting spot with Danny Munoz up until late December. A fantastic 3-point conversion at West Virginia gave fuel to the "Let Blake Play" camp, although others are quick to point out that it was in the final seconds versus WVU's scrub team. Still, with a dearth of dribble penetration from our other guards, it still holds merit.

Following closely behind Jolivette is Steve Luptak, the first candidate to actually see significant play time at the point guard position this season. He's probably the best defender of the bunch, but the weakest on offense. His ball handling skills are not as tight as Danny's, but his bigger frame helps him hold onto the ball better in tight situations, and his experience as a Senior and accompanying leadership skills get him the starting spot as of now.

Last, surprisingly, is Danny Munoz. I think Steve and Danny coming in 3rd and 4th place respectively speaks to fans' collective disappointment with how weak this position is for us right now, but I didn't expect Danny to fall behind the rest of the pack quite so much. As stated, Danny probably has the best ball-handling skills of the bunch, can hit the occasional three, and against softer teams can make it to the basket every now and then. While I think he should be higher, that's just my opinion, and if my opinion was the only one that mattered then why take a poll?

Last, I do want to mention option #5, Wayne Simon II. As he's new to the team and stands little chance of starting this season, he wasn't included in the poll. This being said, in the years to come we will likely see a lot of him. He's tiny, but quick, and from what I've seen can drive to the basket and pick much larger defenders like it's nobody's business. He has the opportunity to get a bit bigger this summer too, and the cleanup minutes he's been seeing so far have hopefully been helping him adjust to the college game. When we lose Nick and Steve to graduation after this season, we'll likely look to Wayne to step up and contribute much more, along with fellow freshman Tony Wroblicky. This team has a bright future, and Wayne will definitely be a part of it.

Thanks to everyone who voted. AUHoops only gets better when there's more voices being heard. If you have further thoughts on the point guards (and I'm sure you do), share them with us in the comments, then vote in this week's poll, "Which Patriot League opponent will be our greatest contender for the title?" We'll be back shortly with a preview of tomorrow's UMBC game.

Pro Deo Et Patria and GO EAGLES!
Josh

Eagles Point Guard Battle Continues

Going into Thursday’s exhibition against Randolph-Macon, Eagles coach Jeff Jones said that his point guard race was a toss-up between Steve Luptak, Danny Munoz, Blake Jolivette, and dark horse contender Wayne Simon II. If Friday night was any indication, be prepared to see a lot of Luptak and Munoz.

“We wanted to approach it like it was a game, and we knew it was a quality opponent,” Coach Jones. “As you can see, we wanted to win the game. We weren’t just trying to get everybody minutes. We were trying to play as if the game counted.”

If that’s the case, then Jolivette and Simon could be in for a long year. Neither one of them cracked the rotation Thursday, as Munoz played 22 minutes while Luptak started the game and played 18 minutes.

Neither one had a flashy line, but the two combined for sufficient point guard play. Luptak scored four points (all free throws) with four rebounds and two assists with one turnover. Munoz put up seven points, two boards, two assists and a blocked shot, but he also committed three turnovers.

“I think different guys have different strengths,” Jones said. “I think Luptak is our best defender at that spot for sure. Danny’s the guy that if we were putting him in the first half to try to get some dribble penetration because I think he’s more comfortable doing that than Steve is.”

The depth at point guard might be a logjam, but it’s one that Jones prefers. He says this team’s total depth is among the best American has ever had. Both Luptak and Munoz could see starts this season.

“To be honest with you, I know they probably do, and maybe their girlfriends and parents care, but I don’t care who starts,” Jones said. “It’s been a very competitive battle – much more competitive than it was a year ago. We want both of them to continue playing well.”

Jones said that Jolivette was in the thick of the battle, but he never left the bench. He and other scratches will have their chance to impress coaches soon.

“The scrimmage on Saturday is a closed scrimmage,” Jones said. “So there really won’t be any public observation of it and we’ll have an opportunity to play more people.”

The scrimmage against Youngstown State won’t be a game, but it’ll be three second-halves in order to “build in” the late game pressure.

If Jolivette and Simon want playing time at the one, there’s the chance to earn it.

Until then, the Luptak/Munoz battle will power the team. There’s nothing quite like a coach giving totally equal playing time to two players fighting for one spot. Everything’s equal, and it’s up to each of them to make the most of each minute.

“We’re all just working,” Jones said. “But they’ve been competing to try to make that a strong position for us.”

Monday Wrap-up

Evening folks. Lots of stuff to talk about, so let's get down to business and spare the niceties.

Speculation Tuesday Wants to Know If We've Turned the Corner

If you're at all like me, you run a blog about AU basketball but are routinely outwitted by the very clever anonymous commenters who post there and keep you supplied with nice tidbits of news about said AU basketball team. Alternatively, you could be like me and still be basking in the glow of the win against Colgate this past Sunday.

The question is, is this the game where it finally sticks? After we beat DePaul on the road we came back to Bender and dropped a game against 0-10 UMBC. After we beat Brown we came back and played what was a very disappointing game against Columbia. Can we finally string together a two game winning streak this season? I think so, for a couple of reasons:

No Guts. No Glory, No Victory, No Niceties in the GOOD, the BAD, or the UGLY

I just. You know. As hard as it's been on the team I'm sure to lose all these games...10? 11? 12? How many is it? It's kind of hard to keep writing all of these recaps. I think this video adequately sums up how I feel about the season thus far....

We Played the Penn State Nittany Lions, Some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY Things Occurred. Supply Your Own Pith

Goooooooood evening AU fans! Well, no surprises here my friends, the Penn State Nittany Lions (by the way, what in the name of all that makes Jeff Jones angry is a Nittany Lion?) handed our AU Eagles their 10th loss of the season. Well, I shouldn't say no surprises. I was a little surprised that we were only down by 6 at the half. Let me tell you what I wasn't surprised by. I wasn't in the least surprised by the 15-1 run that PSU started the second half with. I was going to save this for Thursday's Open Letter to Jeff Jones, but I feel it can't wait, so let me give you a little sneak peak.

"Dear Jeff Jones,

I'm not sure exactly what you do or say to our Eagles at halftime that makes them come out EVERY SINGLE GAME sluggish and awful at the beginning of the second half, but for the love of all that makes you angry and profane, please stop doing it. Make them sit on the bench for halftime or something. Anything to keep them focused on the game, which is apparently the antithesis of whatever is going on in the locker room at halftime.

Love and kisses,
Barechested Bender Bill"

Oh, and JJ? Here's your dose of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY for the Penn State game.

As much GOOD as there was in the DePaul win, there's as much BAD and UGLY in the UMBC loss

Gooood evening AU fans. I'm not feeling very well (I didn't even make it to the game today), so this will be a pretty perfunctory edition of good, bad, and ugly. Sorry about that. In any event.

When you lose by 27 to your city's powerhouse team but it's not quite as bad as you thought it would be, there's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooooooood evening AU hoops fans! Well, our fateful road swing has begun, and it has begun just as we expected, with a loss, 73-46 to Georgetown at the Verizon Center. To read the recap, go here, and to find the box score, go here. Honestly, the game wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be. For the firat 8 mminutes or so we hung with the Hoyas pretty closely. We even had a lead! Don't believe me? Here's proof, in two forms!

First, from contributor Vidulicious (5-4):




And then from our own Josh (7-6):


If only the game had ended after the first seven minutes, we would've had the upset of the year! Alas, we had to play the remaining 33 minutes. It was filled with the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY. Stick with us and see what those elements were!

EAGLES WIN! EAGLES WIN! Speculation Tuesday and GOOD, BAD, and UGLY All in One? WHY NOT!? WE WON!

Gooooooooooood evening AU Hoops fans! We won! We won! We got a win! We were victorious! Ah, savor it. Having something other than a zero in the win column. Marvelous. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TEAM!

Ah, effusive joy and happiness concluded, it's time to get back to reality-ville. We won, but it was against an 0-7 team. And it was a very close game, 59-53. There is a lot to talk about in the good column tonight, but there's also some in the bad and ugly. We've also got a piece of news that will come at the end of this entry, and I'll do a very, very quick Speculation Tuesday at the end that will leave you with some questions to think about.

Alright here we goooooo with what should be a pretty long entry!

When you come back from a 14-1 deficit to make a game of it but still lose, you could say there's elements of GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Goooooood evening AUHoops.com followers, fans, and general hangers-on. Hope you all had a good night and a safe day of traveling for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Me? Oh, no, my traveling is not completed. Josh and I were both in Bender Arena tonight. Why? Because we're slaves to the blogosphere, that's why. I hope you appreciate the personal sacrifices we make for you. Meh, actually, it's okay if you don't, I'm going to go to the games and report on them anyway.

So, tonight. I predicted 84-70. Per usual, I showed that I am not good at things. The final score was Manhattan (Jaspers, what in the Great Wall of Lumpkins is a jasper? Is it like Casper the friendly ghost's mid-major basketball team cousin?) 69, AU 62. I was actually pretty pleased with our performance overall. What's that you say? You mean if I'm so pleased then why don't I shut up and just write a "Good" column instead of a "Good, Bad, and Ugly" column? Because this isn't rec soccer, there are winners and losers (even though tonight we're all losers, losers of six straight actually). You don't just get a trophy that says, "Good job." You get (maybe, if you're lucky) a designation as Good, Bad, or Ugly from a blogger with less skill in his whole body than Lumpkins has in his left knee.

So join me on this magical trip to Good, Bad, and Ugly land. It'll be an extra-long edition because I'm feeling generous! Yippee!

When you surpass 5,000 hits but the team you cover goes 0-5, it's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Goooooood evening AU Hoops fans. We are 0-5. Zero wins, five losses. Boy oh boy. We knew it was going to be a rebuilding year, but I don't think anyone thought it would be quite like this. The recap to the game is here, and the box score is here. In any event, there is definitely some good, bad, and ugly tonight. It's hard to keep being creative to these introductions. It's also hard to keep losing, and I do feel bad for the team. Still, away we go

When you play 10 really good minutes and 30 minutes full of putrescence, there's some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Well goooooooood afternoon AUHoops fans. If you were at the game today, I imagine you're probably trying to forget what you saw. But, like a deranged psychiatrist, I'm going to dredge up all those painful memories, make you confront them, and give you no closure about it! How do you like them apples?

The long story short is that we lost this game 81-69. We were down 16 at half, down 23 at one point in the second half, and we managed to claw back to within four. Ultimately though, the wheels came off and we're now sitting at 0-4 for the season.

Let me be honest, if I had had to write this entry at halftime, it would have looked like this:
GOOD - Matt Wilson, BAD - Mike Jarvis's career trajectory, UGLY - everything else about AU. Luckily, I didn't have to write it at halftime. Unluckily, I had to watch the second half.

Third Time's The Charm

It's preview time again here at AU Basketball Central, as our Eagles fly onto the hardwood of Bender Arena yet again tomorrow (Saturday) at noon. For those of you who stopped by last time to check out Bill's Mt. St. Mary's preview, I apologize for the Sylvester Stallone joke. I clearly would not condone such a reference in one of my own previews, unless it involved some sort of incredible Rocky/Rambo hybrid meant to symbolize Stephen Lumpkins' intimidating game-face. But I digress...

So here we are, three games into a five game homestand. The first two didn't go quite as planned, but there's a spring of endless optimism here at AU Basketball Central, and we drink from it every night just to stay sane. So as they say, third time's the charm! Let's see what we're up against tomorrow after the jump.

The....Florida Atlantic University Owls! Owls, you say? Owls?! Unless our mascot suddenly becomes the field mouse, I don't see these owls having any sort of real advantage tomorrow. Plus, owls are pretty far down on the "badass bird" scale, so we win there too. Could this mean we'll record our first win of the season? Why, I believe it could!

When a freshman birthday boy plays his heart out but the team still loses, there's a little bit of GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooooood evening AU fans. Josh wanted me to title this entry, "Again." I really thought about titling it "Again!?" But ultimately, you got what you're seeing. Fresh from Bender Arena, another evening, another loss. This is one, quite frankly, that I thought we would drop. This is what I wrote on August 10:

"Nov. 18 (Wed) - 7:30p - Mt. St. Mary's (@AU) - As mentioned above, the Mount really kicked in our teeth last year in our only home loss. The Eagles will really have to dig in deep if they want to reverse their fortunes this year, especially since Mt. St. Mary's returns its top four scorers from a year ago. Not looking forward to this game, folks. I'll bring the peroxide because there's a good chance our guys are going to get beat up."

Woo, I'm not awful at predicting things. We lost the game 73-62, and my prediction before the game on Twitter was that if we could keep it to under 10 points in a loss it'd be a moral win. I'll take 11 points, though, because I'm not good at math. In any event, plenty to talk about tonight, so let's get to the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY...

Will Jeff Jones tone down the profanity? Should the Blue Crew be the Red Crew? Is it Speculation Tuesday? Only one question can be answered YES

Why do I speculate on Tuesdays? It could be because I first had the idea to do a weekly post full of speculations on a Tuesday, or it could be because our site traffic needs a boost on Tuesday. But why hasn't there been a Speculation Tuesday entry since the first one like three weeks ago? It could be because I'm forgetful or easily distracted by shiny objects. Or it could be because the blue paint I use on myself isn't quite as non-toxic as it says it is on the label.

In any event, I'll be trying to make this a more regular feature on the site. Have things you want me to speculate about? Send them to auhoopsblog@gmail.com! I'll do my best to provide you some kind of answer, but of course it would just be pure speculation. Just like the rest of these...

When I'm Particularly Annoyed About a Loss, It Is GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

No time for niceties tonight. Here's the long and the short of it: we blew the game in the second half again. For those of you who weren't there or haven't heard, we lost to the Albany Great Danes tonight 51-50. Just like at St. Francis, the wheels came off the whole operation in the second half, and we blew a halftime lead. At this point I've got to think that conditioning is playing a part in this; we're just gassed by about the 10 minute mark in the second half. Some of that is that we've got a young team with players whose bodies don't have the benefit of 2-3 years with collegiate trainers and training regimens.

Before I get into this, nice to see play out of Mike Bersch tonight. The good news is, he got his first collegiate bucket. The bad news is, he went 0-3 from behind the arc.

Ugh what a bitter loss. Still incredulous that we lost this game. Still, there were some highlights, which brings me to...

This is Madness! THIS IS...THE RECAP!

Last night AU celebrated its storied basketball teams with the second annual American Madness pep rally. What we're all wondering now is, of course, "Was it any better than the first?" Well, as the Burger King commercial so wisely states, "that's more of an...opinion." This blogger's opinion, if it means anything, is that it was a step forward, if not a particularly big one.

For those of you who weren't able to make it to Bender Arena yesterday evening, whether it was because of work, great distance, or just the freezing rain keeping you indoors, it's OK - we've got you covered. The teams first danced their way to the court to the familiar tune of "The Final Countdown" (masterfully played by Bender's unsung [pun intended] heroes, the Screaming Eagles Pep Band) and clumsily missed a few baskets on purpose so that some students could win some fun prizes in good conscience. Sophomore Guard Joe Hill would have none of that, of course, proudly announcing he would beat three cocky Blue Crew members in a 3-pointer shooting contest by five. Amazingly, he won 8-3. Well done, Joe! Let's show St. Francis that same attitude on Friday!

The coaches then made their obligatory heartfelt speeches. Coach Jones echoed many of his sentiments from Patriot League Media Day (if you haven't read Bill's interview with Jones yet, check it out here), offering this succinct piece of insight which I think sums up this year quite well,

"We are not the Patriot League defending champions. That was last year's team. We have our own identity, and we're still searching for what it is."

Well said, coach, well said. The faithful Blue Crew responded with some pretty serious applause, which gives me hope that this year's growing pains will be seen as just that and nothing more sinister. On that note, attendance was pretty decent considering the cold, rainy weather that likely had many hunkering down in the dorms for the night. Not fantastic, mind you, but alright for the circumstances. If you weren't there, one awesome thing you did miss was the freshmen men's dance number with the dance team/cheerleaders. It lasted about three minutes, and all I know is that even if Blake Jolivette doesn't make a single basket this entire season, at least he can GET DOWN (Blake, if you're reading this, don't worry, I know you will score many, many points this season). Check out Hannah Rubin's great video, or my endearingly low-quality cell phone version below:

That's all for tonight, AU Hoops Fans, check back later for an exclusive AU Basketball Central preview of our season opener at St. Francis (PA).

GO EAGLES,
Josh

Playing a cross-town school in another athletic division often brings out the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

Goooooood evening American University basketball fans! Well, no matter what happens this season, one thing that's positive is that we will NOT go winless! The Eagles defeated the Catholic Cardinals (harf harf) 70-64 in Bender Arena today in a game that eased many of this blogger's worries and fears. Without further dalliance, let's get to today's edition of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!

THE GOOD

There's a lot that can go in this section as this game was a vast improvement over Tuesday's loss to Randolph Macon. Pretty much every area of the Eagles' game was better today, and it showed as they picked up the W. Some of the good:

- Four players with double-digit scoring: Lumpkins (21 points, career high), Munoz (15, career high), McCormack (12, career high), and Hendra (11). Steve Luptak just missed this cut with 8 points (also a career high).

- Two players with their first double-doubles: Lumpkins (21 points and 10 rebounds) and McCormack (12 points and 10 rebounds).

- Only 13 turnovers, 12 less than against Randolph-Macon. Overall we did a much better job of protecting the ball, and the dribbling was markedly improved.

- Lumpkins had a game that deserves a special shout-out here. To go along with his 21 points and 10 rebounds, he kicked in 4 assists, 3 blocks, and 2 steals and only committed one turnover. Now, Lumpkins only went 3-10 from the field, but he made up for it because he went 15-19 from the free throw line. If Lumpkins had only scored free throws, he would've still been tied for game high points. Marvelous performance from him. It's clear the team is relying on him, and he has really accepted the responsibility these past two games. He's also making it look good, near the end of the first half Lumpkins dished it to McCormack who put it in for two with a sweet reverse lay-in that fired up the crowd including President Neil Kerwin, who stood up and cheered for the play like he was an undergrad.

- Simon McCormack also deserves a pat on the back here. For a guy who got VERY minimal play time last year, he has looked fantastic so far this year. Great hustle, not giving up on plays, fighting for loose balls. +1 to you, sir. I think Jeff Jones has got quite a decision to make as four of the guards (Luptak, McCormack, Jolivette, and Munoz) all looked pretty good today.

- Free throw shooting. MUCH improved over last year. 32-38 as a team, including 8 in the last 32 seconds from Munoz to ice the game. We weren't bad, per se, from the line last season, but we weren't good by any stretch. Obviously we've put in some work on them during the off-season, and we ended up getting about half our points from the line tonight. Seems like that work paid off.

THE BAD

Unfortunately this wouldn't be much of a Good, Bad, and Ugly column without putting some things I thought were bad and could be improved upon. I hate to do it, but sometimes it's got to be done.

- I was a little disappointed by Riley Grafft's performance today. Here's the line: 17 minutes, 2 rebounds, 1 turnover. No points on 0-1 shooting, and the one shot was from three. Not a quality performance. I'm not sure if this is his fault or not, but Riley was out on the perimeter quite a lot, and I have no idea why. The team was trying to use him as some kind of a swing man, and it just didn't work. He should have been in the paint where he could've used his height to some advantage today against a short CUA team. Riley's got good hands for a big man, but using him on the perimeter as a swing man is not a good use of his talents.

- Daniel Fisher is someone else who could have had a better game. He was only in for seven minutes, but for most of those minutes he looked extremely uncomfortable in the paint. Calling for the ball when he was well guarded, not handling the ball well when they got it in to him. He did get to the line and sunk one of two. Just an off game, maybe, and I hope he'll recover and have a great one against St. Francis.

THE UGLY

- The passing today was very ugly. Especially in transition, but I'll get to that in a minute. These lazy bounce passes are not getting it done, and they were the cause of a lot of the turnovers this afternoon. The team needs to communicate better, think its passes through more completely, and most importantly, execute those passes. Too many passes were easily picked off today because we tried to force them. There were some pretty nice dishes, too, but not enough to keep this aspect of the game off the ugly list.

- The transition game was miserable. No points in transition today. Not one. And it isn't like we didn't have opportunities. The one bone I have to pick with Danny Munoz is that he has had some trouble running the point in transition in these two games. There have been some sloppy passes, not just by Danny, but he's done it the most. The transition game just needs some work, we're not getting back quick enough to take advantage of 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 situations. We're not making the right passes, and we're not converting.


Overall, you can see that from the comparative sizes of these sections this was a pretty good game. Vast improvement over Tuesday, and I think that we can at least be competitive for some of these opening regular season games. We saw some definite chemistry today that we didn't see on Tuesday. It also looks like we've got a plethora of candidates to run the point, and, whether he likes it or not, Jeff Jones may have to run point guard by committee. After these games, Luptak, McCormack, and Munoz have all proven they deserve the playing time they've been getting. Jolivette has been a little behind those three in terms of outputs, but he's still been playing pretty well.

While I was pretty perturbed after Tuesday, I feel much better after today. So, as always,

PRO DEO ET PATRIA AND GO EAGLES!

When your freshmen play as well as your juniors, it often brings out the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY

Helllooooo AU Hoops blogosphere! Well, last night was the night we were all waiting for, the beginning of the 2009-10 AU basketball season. It was a doozy of a game, and in case you weren't following the LiveTweeting, we lost. At the buzzer. 49-47. If you want a recap of the game, you can go see our friends at Athletics as it's pointless for us to write a redundant recap. Similarly, the box score is here. I think (read: hope) you readers come here for our charming analysis and obscure references, and so I'm going to offer you the former in this edition of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY.

THE GOOD

- The defense was solid last night. At one point in the first half we held Randolph-Macon scoreless for 13:44. We forced 18 turnovers. Had 10 steals. The benefit of having all these guards? Quick hands. We picked Randolph-Macon's pockets often times before they even realized what happened.

- The freshmen. Danny Munoz and Blake Jolivette (20 minutes each) both had pretty solid games. Daniel Fisher had a few more growing pains in his 17 minutes, but he still picked up three rebounds.

- Stephen Lumpkins. Looked dominant last night. 18 points and 6 rebounds in 28 minutes. Could see he was getting fired up after a couple of tough put-backs. He looks like a guy who has done a lot of maturing in the off-season, which is good, because we're going to put the team on his back this year.

- Simon McCormack. As far as I'm concerned he made the best case out of any of the guards for being the starting PG last night. He only got half the time that Blake and Danny did, but he looked more polished than either. Not giving up on plays, hustling like crazy, distributing (and taking care of) the ball. I think Jeff Jones would be remiss not to give him more play time on Sunday against Catholic.

- We got to see 10 players last night, nine of them for 10 minutes or more. Jeff Jones is using pre-season the right way, to try different combinations to see what works and what doesn't. The fact that a lot of it didn't last night brings us to...

THE BAD

- This section really could begin and end with two words: ball handling. 25 turnovers (eight of them from Nick Hendra, who also had a more than respectable 12 points and 7 rebounds, but 8 TOs negates that a little bit, as do the 6 TOs that Lumpkins gave away). We gave up 14 steals. The dribbling was sloppy. The passing was sloppy (we've got to stick with chest passes, these tortoise-esque bounce passes aren't going to cut it). The rebounding was sloppy. Just really ugly overall.

- We played this poorly against a Division 3 school that, to be frank, didn't look particularly good last night either. The overall quality of play was atrocious. It looked like Keystone Kops out there for most of the game. We've got to get our act together or any D1 school is going to make mincemeat of us.

- The 3 point shooting. 1-9 total. The 1, to be fair, was a beauty from Steve Luptak, from about 8 ft behind NBA range with 3 on the shot clock, but the rest of it was horrendous, which leads me to...

THE UGLY

The way we lost. Getting the ball back with 31.4 seconds left. I'm not sure what the set play was intended to do, but I know what ended up happening was Hendra tossing up an ugly three pointer, we fumbled the rebound, and Randolph-Macon's Eric Pugh streaked up the floor to put in the layup as time expired. Like I mentioned, we were 1-9 from 3, and our shot, for the win, was an unbalanced three pointer that Garrison Carr would've had trouble with?



Listen, I could be harder on this team. There's plenty more Bad and Ugly to write. Let me be fair though, this is the first pre-season game, and quite frankly, this writer expected us to lose this game. RMC is a very experienced and good team, D3 or no D3. The fact that the Eagles never got into a rhythm last night is because JJ was constantly cycling players in and out to see who could do what. When we have a firmer line-up down, the chemistry will come. There's a lot of bright spots from last night. The freshmen looked reliable. Riley and Lumpkins showed glimpses of a lot of promise as an inside duo. The defense was very good. There's a lot of room for improvement though, too. I hope you'll be there with me on Sunday as we watch the season continue to unfold against Catholic.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Media Day Report Part Two - Jeff Jones Telling It Like It Is

So I was a little bit of a fanboy when I first met Jeff Jones. After stammering my name, the name of the blog, and why I was bothering him, there was kind of an awkward pause before I asked, "So, do you want to maybe, uh, sit down and answer some questions?" Luckily for you, Coach is very forgiving of young pseudo-journalists and was more than generous with his time. What follows here are excerpts from what we talked about.

I started by asking Coach what the starting line-up would be if the Randolph-Macon game was today (last Thursday). His response: "I honestly don't know." JJ indicated that at this point there are three starters more or less locked in: Nick Hendra, Stephen Lumpkins, and, surprisingly, Riley Grafft. For the other two spots, there are "young guys battling for spots."

Right now for the point guard competition, JJ says that, "It's not who's the best player. It's who is the oil, who makes things run more smoothly. There's some good competition going on right now. Things have a lot of moving parts for our team right now with young guys learning and trying to figure college basketball out, much less how they're going to fit in [to a lineup]. I would encourage people not to be too concerned with the starting lineup for the Randolph-Macon game."

Well, Coach, sorry, but here in the blogosphere, we ARE concerned about those kinds of things. Even though we understand that the line-up will change, we still want to know who is emerging out of these pre-season practices looking the most promising.

On Vlad the Impaler: "...different players fit into different styles in different ways. Vlad loved GMU. He didn't leave there because he was unhappy with the coaches. He liked the players; he liked the coaches, but that wasn't the right fit for him basketball wise. His skillset fits what we're trying to do, and, quite honestly, we're trying to build around him and give him a lot of responsibility and have other people feed him...Vlad is an accomplished post-up player, not through bulk, but by being smart, being able to use both hands, and being crafty. He's also probably our best perimeter shooter. In the same way we made Garrison Carr the focus of our offense [last year], and then, depending on what the defense did, we created opportunities for other guys built off of that, we're trying to create those same opportunities around Vlad, Nick Hendra, and Stephen Lumpkins...As coaches we have to handle Vlad becoming eligible [midway through the season], it's not a decision I could make right now, it's not a decision I have to make right now."

On the perimeter game this year: "We're not capable of being the same kind of perimeter shooting team that we were a year ago. We don't have Garrison, no one does. Having a guy like [Brian] Gilmore, like Bryce [Simon], we just can't do that this year. We have shooters, but not the same kind."

On the biggest surprise so far this season: "Riley Grafft's performance thus far has maybe been the most pleasant surprise...People will say “wow” that's a big jump [when they see him on the court]...Riley's confidence, hopefully Riley's confidence, is very high. Another thing is Daniel Fisher, he's...a guy that we thought by his junior year might be able to help. He's proven at the very least he's going to be able to get in games as a back-up, I'm not going overboard, but it's something that we didn't expect."

I asked if in two years the Munoz-Jolivette-Snodgrass trio might end up being like the Mercer-Carr-Gilmore trifecta from last year: These three are "different than Carr, Mercer, and Gilmore. [Munoz and Jolivette] are more traditional point guards than Garrison Carr. Snodgrass is more of a wing player than Gilmore. It's important to note that when that class [class of 2009] were freshmen, we went through some rough times...[But] they didn't get crushed, they fought through it, they got better, they got more determined. When those guys were juniors, we were picked sixth [in the preseason Patriot League coaches' poll]. We had lost 90% of our scoring, a lot of our statistics...[but] the hope is the new guys can step in and help...[However,] last time we lost 6-7 players, we filled with juniors, not freshmen, and I don't think our freshmen are ready to step in to that degree...[We're going to have to,] I want to use the term patch together, but I'm not saying that like the Redskins offensive line, it's not a natural fit based on where we played a year ago...We'll be evolving."

On Riley Grafft: "Last year there was no thought that he'd be a guy who could contribute this year. We knew he had athleticism. He's 6'11”, so he's got length. He runs the court very well, but I think the biggest thing, well when we saw him in the recruiting process, he's got some skill that most other guys his height don't have...what he's shown us is to be able to show us some of those skills that we knew about a long time ago [during recruiting]...It's a confidence thing."

On the battle for point guard: "The thought coming in was that one of either Blake [Jolivette] or Danny [Munoz] would come in, and the other would back him up. At this point, Simon McCormack has made it a little bit more complicated, and he's head and shoulders better than where he was a year ago. There hasn't been a knockout" in terms of one point guard emerging as far and away the best. "Practices have been good, we've been doing some scrimmaging. Saturday we will do some scrimmaging situations that probably will determine who starts against Randolph-Macon. After Randolph-Macon, we'll have to take a look after that. Two of those three will get a really long hard look in the Randolph-Macon game." From there, the coaching staff will try to make some decisions to see who will start at point guard. JJ also noted that instead of platooning point guards and playing 2-3 equally, he would "rather have one guy earn the job and the other back him up. So that it's clear to everybody, he's our PG because I think that instills confidence." He also indicated that whoever is the starting point guard will play 25-27 minutes and his back-up will play 13-15 minutes.

I asked JJ if he thought Nick Hendra was ready to stand up and take leadership of the team because in the past he has sometimes opted to make the flashy play instead of the smart play.
JJ: "Frank [Borden, last year] played defense and didn't screw up. That's why he played in front of Hendra...If you look, Nick was in at the end of the games; he was playing more minutes. The maturity, the decisions were still an issue [last year]. He needs to make a bigger step from last year to this year because we're going to have to rely on him. [Last year] I could just yank him [if he made mistakes], we don't have that luxury this year...We had a practice where Nick was aggressive, made some great plays, then made some bonehead plays, and we didn't yank him because we need him to learn that we need the really good plays, but there's a line there, and you can't cross that line...From the time he got to AU until now he's made a lot of progress, but there's more progress [to be made]. In high school, you get volume, you get 30 shots a game. In college, you need to be efficient. It's an important lesson that he's going to need to learn even better...You look at Greg Sprink [from Navy] a couple of years ago. [We're saying to Hendra,] 'We're going to give you chances to do things with the ball, you need to make sure that you make good decisions. If you don't get an opportunity we're coming back to you.'"

On leadership on the team: "We don't believe in captains, we don't nominate captains. Assigning them a title, I can remember as a player at UVA and as a coach, that there were so many times that the team got it wrong because they're either the senior or the popular guy, so I was like, we're not doing that. Leaders lead, our leaders are going to lead, why do I need to put a letter on someone? Brian Gilmore was a vocal leader, Derrick Mercer was the guy everybody looked to, Garrison led by example, those guys were so competitive...They were so competitive, but they led in very different ways, but in very effective ways, but not any one of them was any more of a leader, it was just different ways. Luptak and Matt Wilson are really taking it to heart. Nick is trying to assert himself a little more. Lumpkins is trying to assert himself with his work ethic. Even Vlad, Vlad feels like he needs to be a leader on this team, he hasn't been around that long, he hasn't played in any games, and the guys look to him like 'okay, you're our best player', at Mason he was just another guy."

That's all I've got. Re-posting some of this, it makes me realize there's a LOT of good stuff in here. I want to thank Jeff Jones, though I doubt he reads this, for his candor. One other quote from JJ I want to add is on team motivation: "I made my career out of being pissed off at the other team." That actually made me laugh during the interview.

I'll cut this short now because I think this has already run pretty long, but I want to say I'm pretty surprised about the positive (and rave) reviews on Riley Grafft and Daniel Fisher. Those two, combined with Lumpkins and Vlad when he's available, have the opportunity to give the Eagles an inside game that I thought wasn't going to be possible. That's encouraging.

I think Josh is going to post a preview of Randolph-Macon tomorrow, so look forward to that. I will see you all, I hope, in Bender Arena at 7:30p on Tuesday!

THE SEASON IS UPON US!

PRO DEO ET PATRIA AND GO EAGLES!