I think Buzz just needs to play our better players more; give Solo, Obaseki and Carter more minutes. Have Hefner come off the bench. Stop playing Wilkins period

Muy said:

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stallion6 said:

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Muy said:

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Wade is good when Boots is 100%, scoring a lot and pulling players off of Wade. Until he's 100% healthy we are this.

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Wade has not been good this whole year, even when Boots was playing.

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Sounds like he's been reading the press clippings too much.

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Or he just hasn't played (shot) well

Y'all act like he isn't putting the effort in to get right

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I feel like this team lives and dies with how Wade plays and he's had his c- game so far this year

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This can't be going forward. For one, we have enough talent to be a top 25 team if Wade is "just good enough". He does NOT have to be a scorer.

Luke The Drifter said:

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Games like this show you why Buzz is a really good coach, but has a ways to go before he'll be a great coach. It's part of the maturation process and it's an area where Buzz struggles.

I'm not banging the pot and I'm not anti-Buzz in any way, but he struggles mightily when good opponents take us out of our game plan early. It's like he can't adjust or re-scheme on the fly.

He'll get there, but as we stand right now, Buzz still has work to do in the area of quick thinking and spur of the moment adjustments.

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Maturation after 6 years

Luke The Drifter said:

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Games like this show you why Buzz is a really good coach, but has a ways to go before he'll be a great coach. It's part of the maturation process and it's an area where Buzz struggles.

I'm not banging the pot and I'm not anti-Buzz in any way, but he struggles mightily when good opponents take us out of our game plan early. It's like he can't adjust or re-scheme on the fly.

He'll get there, but as we stand right now, Buzz still has work to do in the area of quick thinking and spur of the moment adjustments.

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Agreed. There should be a recent lesson on stubbornness in Aggie athletic programs.

F today.

Yeah. He's done maturing I think. How many games do we get cooked from 3? Not many. Just in all the losses.

Sterling82 said:

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We count on Wade to be at least a plus, if not a plus plus, player. Today he was a negative and the same could be said for the UVA loss. Not being hot from the field is one thing but losing numerous possessions because of careless ball handling is a killer. He needs to shape up and play his game.

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maybe the coach needs to figure out a way to win when Wade doesnt play perfectly

Not a basketball school either.

Wade just isn't a natural passer. If he was QB he'd be benched because he takes too many chances and makes careless turnovers.

Luke The Drifter said:

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Games like this show you why Buzz is a really good coach, but has a ways to go before he'll be a great coach. It's part of the maturation process and it's an area where Buzz struggles.

I'm not banging the pot and I'm not anti-Buzz in any way, but he struggles mightily when good opponents take us out of our game plan early. It's like he can't adjust or re-scheme on the fly.

He'll get there, but as we stand right now, Buzz still has work to do in the area of quick thinking and spur of the moment adjustments.

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Maturation process for a guy in his 17th year as a head coach?

The odd thing is that at VT his teams were very different. He recruited much better than he recruits here and his teams were some of the best shooting teams in college basketball.

S.A. Aggie said:

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Just not as good as we hoped. (see Jimbo fisher experiment).

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Stop posting

Keith70Chevelle said:

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This is all starting to look familiar. Buzz Fisher

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Blatant Longhorn. See history

The whole "Wade needs Radford in order to be good" is just looking for an explanation on Wade's poor play. Wade had plenty of bad games last year when Radford was in.

We saw bad games from Wade last year, but he countered them with 2-3x the good games so it was tolerable. The hope was he'd take that next step this year, but he's reverted.

My completely random theory from watching -- a whole lot of Wade's game last year was driving to the hoop, initiating contact, and getting to the foul line. Not exactly Harden-esque, but manipulating the game to get to the stripe was definitely a big part of his game and why he seemed so mature for his age.

In a few early games this year (I believe 1H Iowa State? Not sure), he was very obviously not getting those calls anymore - to the extent that I believe even one of the refs said something to him about "knowing who he is" or the like.

I think the tape got out on Wade and the opposing coaches early made sure the refs keyed in on that he was initiating the contact on the drives, not the other way around. Refs swallowed their whistles on it in some early games, and since then it seems like Wade has been reluctant to drive to the hoop at all. So what we've seen is rather than 10 deep shots not falling -- ok I'll drive to the hoop and get to the foul line... we're now seeing 10 deep shots not falling -- ok I'll chunk up another 10.

Not gonna win much with your star player taking 7 3pt shots a game and making 25%, or the team shooting <30%. Take last nights game and shoot last years avg from 3, and that's the difference.

czar_iv said:

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I think Buzz just needs to play our better players more; give Solo, Obaseki and Carter more minutes. Have Hefner come off the bench. Stop playing Wilkins period

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This. You know what we have in Hefner. More minutes for those other guys. Guys dont average 17 pts/game and get picked 2nd team all MO Valley that can't fill the basket. We need players that can (and I'm not sure Carter is the best of our options - but Hefner is not).

I would argue we were better yesterday when Hefner was on the court. He's flawed on defense but sometimes you need his offense.

BudFox7 said:

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Not gonna win much with your star player taking 7 3pt shots a game and making 25%, or the team shooting <30%. Take last nights game and shoot last years avg from 3, and that's the difference.

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Said player was also shooting from the Sabine River and Buzz didn't say a word

phorizt said:

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Luke The Drifter said:

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Games like this show you why Buzz is a really good coach, but has a ways to go before he'll be a great coach. It's part of the maturation process and it's an area where Buzz struggles.

I'm not banging the pot and I'm not anti-Buzz in any way, but he struggles mightily when good opponents take us out of our game plan early. It's like he can't adjust or re-scheme on the fly.

He'll get there, but as we stand right now, Buzz still has work to do in the area of quick thinking and spur of the moment adjustments.

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Maturation process for a guy in his 17th year as a head coach?

The odd thing is that at VT his teams were very different. He recruited much better than he recruits here and his teams were some of the best shooting teams in college basketball.

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Maturation should continue throughout his career - just like it should for everyone in his or her career. I've been in the industry I'm in since 1988 (counting internship time in college) and I feel I'm still maturing and learning 35 years later. Buzz has a nice career going right now and I believe he's one that learns something new everyday. He'll learn from the Memphis loss, apply it to future games, and continue to mature.

We'll be talking about this devastating loss for decades...

JJxvi said:

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We'll be talking about this devastating loss for decades...

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This crushing mid december loss to a team ranked 40th in NET will forever alter the future of our program.

There's a two-way thing here too with Wade where he needs to be able to drive to get good looks at threes but he also needs to hit threes to be able to drive. Throw out the long threes, he's even missing the good set threes off the pass. Last year he made his good shots at a really high rate. He shot at a high rate overall and that was even with some of his wilder shots.

So if he's making open threes at a high clip, you have to extend out and guard him, which then means he can draw you in for the fouls or he can drive it at you. But if he can't hit those, defenders don't have to crowd him, which then makes it harder to drive. Right now when he gets the ball at the three point line there's no reason for defenders to play him tight enough to where he could draw those fouls.

It's like anything else in basketball, one part of your game affects all the other parts. If Wade (and Boots and everyone else for that matter) can't hit open threes, then we get really easy to guard, especially for anyone with length and athleticism.

I also know it's like a war crime to attack the mid-range in basketball right now but if you can't shoot threes and you're undersized around the basket sometimes that's the best shot you can get and you need to go ahead and take it.

It would be very difficult to explain to someone the game of basketball if they saw Hefner yesterday make a move to clear himself open for a clean mid-range jumper and then seemingly dribble back a few feet to get behind the 3 point line (to then ultimately pass it because the defender recovered).

phorizt said:

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Luke The Drifter said:

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Games like this show you why Buzz is a really good coach, but has a ways to go before he'll be a great coach. It's part of the maturation process and it's an area where Buzz struggles.

I'm not banging the pot and I'm not anti-Buzz in any way, but he struggles mightily when good opponents take us out of our game plan early. It's like he can't adjust or re-scheme on the fly.

He'll get there, but as we stand right now, Buzz still has work to do in the area of quick thinking and spur of the moment adjustments.

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Maturation process for a guy in his 17th year as a head coach?

The odd thing is that at VT his teams were very different. He recruited much better than he recruits here and his teams were some of the best shooting teams in college basketball.

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Book club has changed the focus and priorities for Buzz and his players. And not for the better.

If he wants to go build up young men and leaders I'm sure there's a professorship somewhere on campus for him.

But fundamentally Buzz puts too much energy into the wrong things when it comes to #gettingbetter

Yeah that whole sequence was annoying. Just shoot the ball man. With how big and fast Memphis was any open shot is going to be a pretty good one.

I also hate when our bigs have an open look from like ten feet but then choose to drive it into a crowd. I wouldn't mind it if they were like Tyler Davis around the rim or when it's a 1v1 or they're trying to work an angle or whatever, but against a big team that open shot from 10 feet is gonna be better than whatever you end up getting around the rim most of the time.

These are certainly tiresome threads. We lost a 2 possession game vs Memphis with a starter out and our star player playing poorly. Boots was back and played decently but he only showed flashes of Boots. He will work himself back into rhythm. But given these issues that we were not blown out by a very good team is amazing.

I suggest we think more deeply about these games. Sure, I would like to win every game but no one does.

The answer is simple get the ball to Solo on the baseline. And then get the ball to obaseki, at the shooting guard spot when boots is not100%. Wade will look like his old self at the point when we go back to attacking the lane and the baseline. We are just pissing around trying to win games at the 3 pt line. Buzz is just kidding himself hoping his bad decisions with the lineup work out.

Buzz is slow to make in game adjustments. For example, if an opposing player is hot, Buzz is stubborn to change his defense to stop that player. We've seen it many times, most recently against Memphis.

Spot on. Been saying essentially this all year- and ripped for it. But glad to see you getting support for this observation. Naysayers beginning to crawl back into their caves.

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I also know it's like a war crime to attack the mid-range in basketball right now but if you can't shoot threes and you're undersized around the basket sometimes that's the best shot you can get and you need to go ahead and take it.

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I also hate when our bigs have an open look from like ten feet but then choose to drive it into a crowd.

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Both of these add up to what I've been saying. With us it has to be a 3 or a lay up. No mid range shots and that's how most other teams are killing us. They will and can shoot them, we don't even try.

Too much dribbling, not passing quick enough, not moving the ball consistently, and finally not protecting the three