Is no excuse for what we saw Friday. This shouldn't be any sort of battle cry for the BK defenders. Yes. We shouldn't expect to make the tourney. It would be nice but we know it's not likely. That doesn't mean we can't play to our potential which is decent. Our bigs don't appear to be a weakness and hit FTs. Chandler and Flagg have improved. Johnny white Walker 3 is a player. Starks was preseason second team SEC. we get gilder and Mitchell back. This team can surprise but we can't settle into our crappy jack up bad shots offense and leave guys open for 3 defense.
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Everyone knew this would be a down year
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Last: 5 yr ago by TMartin
Conceding so soon that this group is not likely to make the NCAA tourney may be realistic, but I anticipate such an assessment will lessen the casual fans' interest in both following the team and attending games. Knowing what we think we know about this team, we shouldn't hear complaints about poor attendance.
God bless the season ticket holders.
God bless the season ticket holders.
I liked a lot of what I saw in those first two games, but these two issues:
a) Mitchell and Gilder on the bench (how lingering are their injuries going to be?)
b) Starks playing exceptionally bad
Will be almost impossible to overcome if they don't get addressed. At least one of them, anyways. Having both of those issues in combination, that dog won't hunt. So the good news is there is a lot to like outside of those two issues. The bad news is, those are two pretty big issues...
a) Mitchell and Gilder on the bench (how lingering are their injuries going to be?)
b) Starks playing exceptionally bad
Will be almost impossible to overcome if they don't get addressed. At least one of them, anyways. Having both of those issues in combination, that dog won't hunt. So the good news is there is a lot to like outside of those two issues. The bad news is, those are two pretty big issues...
Agreed with all
sharpdressedman said:
Conceding so soon that this group is not likely to make the NCAA tourney may be realistic, but I anticipate such an assessment will lessen the casual fans' interest in both following the team and attending games.
I think the team being picked 12 of 14 in the SEC sets a bad tone before the season even started. Teams hasnt shown anything yet to prove these predictions wrong.
I liked our new pieces to the point I don't think we will be as bad as people think even with a loss to UCI. Starks was so bad the last two games if we had anyone healthy he wouldn't be out there. Kinda similar to if Carter for women's team. If she has a bad run she will try to play her way out of it and the staff will let her until the point it can't be anymore. But Starks is no Carter on the men's team. We had basically no players on the floor that played last year other than Starks during a crunch time moment. Flagg and Chandler would have been on bench
I like the new players who look like they will play harder than anyone from last season sans Davis. But we have thought a 4 out one in system without two of our outs in street clothes coupled with Starks playing like crap at both ends of the floor is not going to win many games. Only issue I have with the staff from the last game is not taking Starks out and putting the ball in Flagg or Chandler's hands
I like the new players who look like they will play harder than anyone from last season sans Davis. But we have thought a 4 out one in system without two of our outs in street clothes coupled with Starks playing like crap at both ends of the floor is not going to win many games. Only issue I have with the staff from the last game is not taking Starks out and putting the ball in Flagg or Chandler's hands
I didn't KNOW it would be a down year. But I KNEW we had lost most of our starting lineup and we continue to not have a solution at the 1. I HOPED I would be surprised...
Is it weird to watch a home loss to UC-Irvine and feel encouraged? I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
I was encouraged about the future potential of this team, but yes, I think it is weird to be encouraged about this season.CJS4715 said:
Is it weird to watch a home loss to UC-Irvine and feel encouraged? I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
Of the 400 players in the five major conferences last year who played at least 40% of their team minutes, TJ ranked 397th in offensive efficiency.CJS4715 said:
I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
So while 3/15 shooting is not something we should expect every week, we should probably temper our expectations of him becoming an efficient player that can be trusted to lead the offense.
wacarnolds said:Of the 400 players in the five major conferences last year who played at least 40% of their team minutes, TJ ranked 397th in offensive efficiency.CJS4715 said:
I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
So while 3/15 shooting is not something we should expect every week, we should probably temper our expectations of him becoming an efficient player that can be trusted to lead the offense.
Umm...ouch...
Not surprised. I was remarking to someone at the tailgate on Saturday that his performance was the worst individual performance I can remember seeing from an Aggie basketball player.wacarnolds said:Of the 400 players in the five major conferences last year who played at least 40% of their team minutes, TJ ranked 397th in offensive efficiency.CJS4715 said:
I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
So while 3/15 shooting is not something we should expect every week, we should probably temper our expectations of him becoming an efficient player that can be trusted to lead the offense.
At least one positive aspect to poor attendance is being able to hear the olds heckling the refs
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
On pace for the 6th down year in 8 seasons with Kennedy. I find it hard to get upset about it though. Hard to feel anything other than ambivalent about Aggie basketball really.
BK shouldn't have made it past year 3
Everybody else on the team played well enough that night to not only win that game, but comfortably win it. Everyone else but Starks, I think I'd have described their overall performance as 'solid' to 'good'.GE said:Not surprised. I was remarking to someone at the tailgate on Saturday that his performance was the worst individual performance I can remember seeing from an Aggie basketball player.wacarnolds said:Of the 400 players in the five major conferences last year who played at least 40% of their team minutes, TJ ranked 397th in offensive efficiency.CJS4715 said:
I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
So while 3/15 shooting is not something we should expect every week, we should probably temper our expectations of him becoming an efficient player that can be trusted to lead the offense.
But Starks played so poorly that he essentially cancelled out all the positive contributions from the entire rest of the team.
Friday's game was really annoying. I can see why Kennedy wants Starks to play his way out of this funk he's in, but it cost us the game on Friday.
I was chatting with a buddy about it this weekend, and maybe Kennedy thinks that risking the loss was worth it in the long term because if Starks doesn't play a lot better then it's not really going to matter anyway, but it was pretty frustrating to have to watch.
I was chatting with a buddy about it this weekend, and maybe Kennedy thinks that risking the loss was worth it in the long term because if Starks doesn't play a lot better then it's not really going to matter anyway, but it was pretty frustrating to have to watch.
bobinator said:
Friday's game was really annoying. I can see why Kennedy wants Starks to play his way out of this funk he's in, but it cost us the game on Friday.
I was chatting with a buddy about it this weekend, and maybe Kennedy thinks that risking the loss was worth it in the long term because if Starks doesn't play a lot better then it's not really going to matter anyway, but it was pretty frustrating to have to watch.
I think many other coaches deserve the benefit of the doubt with playing the long-game on players and letting them shoot out of it.
But this is no different than how Kennedy handles opposing team big momentum runs with sitting on timeouts.
Sitting back and doing nothing isn't a strategy that is going to produce good outcomes -- especially in seasons where you don't have overwhelming talent on the floor.
Yeah, and it's not like he has a long history of developing young point guards or anything to fall back on either where you'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I resemble that remarkQuote:
At least one positive aspect to poor attendance is being able to hear the olds heckling the refs
No. It's stupid.Quote:
Is it weird to watch a home loss to UC-Irvine and feel encouraged?
I can see that argument, but to me UC Irvine at home was NOT the game to do that in. If it was Gonzaga or one of the other road/neutral P5 teams, sure, I think you can do that and see what happens, because the loss isn't as big of a deal and you just move on.bobinator said:
Friday's game was really annoying. I can see why Kennedy wants Starks to play his way out of this funk he's in, but it cost us the game on Friday.
I was chatting with a buddy about it this weekend, and maybe Kennedy thinks that risking the loss was worth it in the long term because if Starks doesn't play a lot better then it's not really going to matter anyway, but it was pretty frustrating to have to watch.
But against UC Irvine ... this game was supposed to be a semi-automatic win (I know, UC Irvine isn't bad) that is only good for contributing to the overall win column tally at the end of the year. Nobody was going to look at our resume in Feb/March and say "oh, big win over UC Irvine at home early in the season." But on the flip side, there is a decent chance that loss is a bad loss at the end of the year, and certainly gives us zero room to slip up over the next few weeks/month (which we most certainly will do, especially without Gilder and Mitchell).
At that juncture in the game, the way that it had gone, I viewed that as a "must-win" in the moment ... Kennedy played it like it didn't matter either way, which is typical.
wacarnolds said:Of the 400 players in the five major conferences last year who played at least 40% of their team minutes, TJ ranked 397th in offensive efficiency.CJS4715 said:
I liked a lot of what I saw excepting TJ. He can't continue to play that bad, right?
So while 3/15 shooting is not something we should expect every week, we should probably temper our expectations of him becoming an efficient player that can be trusted to lead the offense.
Well - ****, I was being a bit sarcastic about TJ playing better, but I didn't realize his stat line last year was that poor.
The counter to that is that if we don't get it figured out soon, it's not really going to matter. Starks could play extremely well and Gonzaga is probably going to smoke us anyway. He was probably hoping he'd figure it out and we'd do enough to win and maybe that would carry us into this next stretch.
The wildcard that we don't know is what the full situation is with Gilder and Mitchell. If they're expected back soon, then just standing there and watching that trainwreck Friday makes no sense. If they're not coming back for a while, then I guess I can see the benefit of letting Starks try to figure it out because without them and with him playing poorly we probably have next to no chance in these next three games anyway.
We'll see I guess, but man that was infuriating to watch.
The wildcard that we don't know is what the full situation is with Gilder and Mitchell. If they're expected back soon, then just standing there and watching that trainwreck Friday makes no sense. If they're not coming back for a while, then I guess I can see the benefit of letting Starks try to figure it out because without them and with him playing poorly we probably have next to no chance in these next three games anyway.
We'll see I guess, but man that was infuriating to watch.
Well, the problem with looking at Starks' statline from last season is that his role really changed over the course of the year, and is drastically changed from what it was expected to be coming into the season. And also I think most any of our players' numbers from last season are hard to really take much out of except for maybe Tyler Davis or the bigs.
We were like three different teams at various points of last season.
The disappointing thing with Starks, that you'd hope a year of preparation with both him and the coaching staff knowing that he's our most important player would prepare him for, is being mature enough to still control games when you aren't scoring the ball well.
I don't fault a freshman, especially one that wasn't really expecting to play point guard much, for not being able to do that, but a sophomore with a whole offseason to prepare should be able to handle that mentally and so far Starks can't.
We were like three different teams at various points of last season.
The disappointing thing with Starks, that you'd hope a year of preparation with both him and the coaching staff knowing that he's our most important player would prepare him for, is being mature enough to still control games when you aren't scoring the ball well.
I don't fault a freshman, especially one that wasn't really expecting to play point guard much, for not being able to do that, but a sophomore with a whole offseason to prepare should be able to handle that mentally and so far Starks can't.
Good point.
My biggest issue with the way that game ended was the second-to-last possession, not as much the last possession. If I remember correctly, there was a time out before UC Irvine's second-to-last possession, and then they either missed to stay down 1, or made to cut the lead to 1. Then we got the ball with like 50 second left, up 1 and 2-3 TOs left.
Then, we dribble down the court (right in front of our bench) and UC Irvine drops into that zone (can't remember if they had played it the previous few possessions). We go into deer in the headlights mode. We pass 3-4 times around the perimeter, waste the entire shot clock and then Starks jacks up a bad 3 and misses.
I'm not really that mad at Starks about the shot - at that point, it had to be taken, and he had the ball, so, shoot I guess. I'm mad a Starks for letting it get that far - penetrate, dribble around the perimeter more, set something up, DO SOMETHING!!
But what P*SSES me off to no end is seeing Kennedy just stand there and watch and do absolutely d*ck about it. Don't want to call a time out right when we inbound? No problem. Not even when we get into the front court? Sure. But he stood there and watched us have absolutely ZERO CLUE what to do while we wasted at least 10 second playing hot potato. The fact that he didn't call a time out and at least let our guys reset and figure out a way to at least get a decent, in-rhythm look at a 3 is inexcusable.
He could still have put the ball in Starks hands, but do something to wake the team up! There is a difference, IMO, in living and dying by a young, aggressive guard and being passive and dumping responsibility onto a kid that isn't ready.
Clearly Starks isn't ready to run the show fully without guidance. Its painfully obvious to everyone watching. And I don't think that really is a knock on him, he shouldn't be expected to based on the player we know he is. There is a reason we went out and signed Mitchell, so Starks (and Gilder) didn't have to run as much point. So Kennedy, freaking do something, man, to help coach up your struggling, lost guard who isn't ready to have complete control.
But he did nothing. He just stood there and did freaking nothing.
My biggest issue with the way that game ended was the second-to-last possession, not as much the last possession. If I remember correctly, there was a time out before UC Irvine's second-to-last possession, and then they either missed to stay down 1, or made to cut the lead to 1. Then we got the ball with like 50 second left, up 1 and 2-3 TOs left.
Then, we dribble down the court (right in front of our bench) and UC Irvine drops into that zone (can't remember if they had played it the previous few possessions). We go into deer in the headlights mode. We pass 3-4 times around the perimeter, waste the entire shot clock and then Starks jacks up a bad 3 and misses.
I'm not really that mad at Starks about the shot - at that point, it had to be taken, and he had the ball, so, shoot I guess. I'm mad a Starks for letting it get that far - penetrate, dribble around the perimeter more, set something up, DO SOMETHING!!
But what P*SSES me off to no end is seeing Kennedy just stand there and watch and do absolutely d*ck about it. Don't want to call a time out right when we inbound? No problem. Not even when we get into the front court? Sure. But he stood there and watched us have absolutely ZERO CLUE what to do while we wasted at least 10 second playing hot potato. The fact that he didn't call a time out and at least let our guys reset and figure out a way to at least get a decent, in-rhythm look at a 3 is inexcusable.
He could still have put the ball in Starks hands, but do something to wake the team up! There is a difference, IMO, in living and dying by a young, aggressive guard and being passive and dumping responsibility onto a kid that isn't ready.
Clearly Starks isn't ready to run the show fully without guidance. Its painfully obvious to everyone watching. And I don't think that really is a knock on him, he shouldn't be expected to based on the player we know he is. There is a reason we went out and signed Mitchell, so Starks (and Gilder) didn't have to run as much point. So Kennedy, freaking do something, man, to help coach up your struggling, lost guard who isn't ready to have complete control.
But he did nothing. He just stood there and did freaking nothing.
I think BK convinced himself it was either Starks or Collins...
Yeah, I mean I'm right there with you. Literally anything would have probably been a better way to handle those last few possessions.
I'm not trying to defend Kennedy for sure, just trying to think of any reason why he let that happen. There's no way anyone could have watched that whole game and thought we should have Starks on the floor those last couple of minutes, so there had to be some reason he let it play out that way (hopefully...).
But that was one of the more frustrating/annoying/choose-your-own-word games we've had in a while. Everyone else played more than well enough for us to win.
I'm not trying to defend Kennedy for sure, just trying to think of any reason why he let that happen. There's no way anyone could have watched that whole game and thought we should have Starks on the floor those last couple of minutes, so there had to be some reason he let it play out that way (hopefully...).
But that was one of the more frustrating/annoying/choose-your-own-word games we've had in a while. Everyone else played more than well enough for us to win.
This is what we don't know. If Mitchell/Gilder are out or iffy for at least next several games, then that seems like 'between a rock and a hard place' situation. If you yank him out the last couple of minutes, is that better or worse if trying to think longer term? So yeah I can see some logic for sticking with him and trying to ride the storm out (I see the other side too, just if Gilder/Mitchell are in street-clothes then I think the issue becomes a lot more murky on what to do).bobinator said:
The counter to that is that if we don't get it figured out soon, it's not really going to matter. Starks could play extremely well and Gonzaga is probably going to smoke us anyway. He was probably hoping he'd figure it out and we'd do enough to win and maybe that would carry us into this next stretch.
The wildcard that we don't know is what the full situation is with Gilder and Mitchell. If they're expected back soon, then just standing there and watching that trainwreck Friday makes no sense. If they're not coming back for a while, then I guess I can see the benefit of letting Starks try to figure it out because without them and with him playing poorly we probably have next to no chance in these next three games anyway.
We'll see I guess, but man that was infuriating to watch.
I hope Starks at least realizes right now how his play was primarily responsible for losing that UCI game, and is capable of some retrospection.
bobinator said:
The counter to that is that if we don't get it figured out soon, it's not really going to matter. Starks could play extremely well and Gonzaga is probably going to smoke us anyway. He was probably hoping he'd figure it out and we'd do enough to win and maybe that would carry us into this next stretch.
The wildcard that we don't know is what the full situation is with Gilder and Mitchell. If they're expected back soon, then just standing there and watching that trainwreck Friday makes no sense. If they're not coming back for a while, then I guess I can see the benefit of letting Starks try to figure it out because without them and with him playing poorly we probably have next to no chance in these next three games anyway.
We'll see I guess, but man that was infuriating to watch.
Yeah, while I don't think Kennedy had any higher-level strategy going on there, the idea that if Starks can't get out of his funk that this season is doomed isn't necessarily wrong.
But pick and choose your spots for lessons -- we have 10 more games before conference play and I'm guessing maybe 3 of them at best come down to the wire.... Use those other 7 to figure out those lessons, not one of the games we need to win to keep this season from tanking early.
As usual, Hayden is right on target.
Too bad our multi-million dollar head coach isn't nearly as insightful.
Too bad our multi-million dollar head coach isn't nearly as insightful.
That "we" is actually BK and "figuring it out soon" is not exactly his strong suit.Quote:
The counter to that is that if we don't get it figured out soon, it's not really going to matter.
Pretty sure I got banned for saying he wasn't the guy after year 2.Aggiebballfanatic said:
BK shouldn't have made it past year 3
It's not just that Starks is erratic it's that Kennedy and staff seem to have no control over him whatsoever. Starks gets beaten for a bucket so he immediately takes the inbound pass and races down the floor and jacks up a terrible shot or gets his shot blocked. Team ball....I think not.