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Holds the OU leading scorer to O points and still catches guff from this board. Unbelievable!!!!!!!!

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This have been overblown beyond belief!

I have been biting my tongue on this one and didn't want to say it because I like this kid and he is a walkon and so everybody knows he isn't going to be Joey Graham or Wayne Simien. The kid plays hard and how can you not root for him. I personally thought Walker played very poorly in the OU game though. I started a post after the Texas game praising the play of Leach and Walker because everybody was talking about Law and I said these guys deserve some credit. I didn't think he played good at all against OU. As I have said many time, I don't fault him though because I believe he is doing the best he can and that is all you can ask of a player. He simply is being asked to play out of position.

People talk about how we shut down the OU big men. Well we lost the OU game because of our post defense. We had to help out so much inside, double and triple team, that we left their outside guys to kill us. Even Sampson said after the game it is easy to stop Taj Gray when you double and triple team him every time, but he said that also makes it easy for them to beat you because their guards are too good for you to do that.

I thought he did an awful job of playing the high pick and roll. He didn't do as bad as Pompey did at defending it though. Both did a poor job. When OU ran the high pick and roll they didn't stay with their man and they didn't take the ball. They got caught in the middle every time. If anything they acted as a second screener for our guard who was trying to defend the play.

Also there were many times when Walker was fronting the post. He was fronting the post with his back to the ball. On many occassions the OU player with the ball drove to the basket and right by Walker because he had his back to the ball and didn't have a clue the guy was going by him.

Walker is not a threat on the offensive end and that hurts Jones. Teams are able to sag off of Walker and take their chance of him beating them. But none of the PFs appear to be much of a scoring threat right now. Pompey every now and then has a game where he gets to the line a few times.

Right now nobody is looking that great at the PF spot. Walker plays hard though and right now that appears to be the best option we have. But this Walker shut down Taj Gray mess has to stop because that wasn't the case at all. We couldn't defend them one on one and had to constantly help them out by cheating down.

Ok feel free to rip me and tell me I am stupid and wrong. I can take it! :-)

KSU should be a much more favorable matchup for Walker. Massey is talented but he isn't as big and isn't as strong as Gray or Bookout. Massey will score more points than Gray did, but Walker should be able to defend him one on one.

[This message has been edited by MarcAg (edited 1/21/2005 12:24p).]

thank you Marc, finally someone that knows what the hell he is talking about, if you don't know at least as much as he does about basketball you should NOT be running your mouth telling people their criticisms of our team is unjustified, like I said before there is plenty of room for criticism now and will be more and more as we face tougher teams, hopefully the losses will help us out and we can end the season strong

I assume these stat rats that are ranting about shutting down Gray are the same ignorant morons that were saying we were a top team in the big 12 because of our average win margin in preconference play or that we had the #1 scoring defense, or that we were had a better basketball program than tu after the upset, I will ask those posters again to never post on the basketball board again

you want 5 scoring threats, you don't want 5 score-first attitudes, you definetely want 10 all americans

This actually was what Sutton said.

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If you play Taj one-on-one, he's going to score a ton of points. Kevin will, too. If you double them down it doesn't mean that we can't score, it means they can't score.

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So basically he said we had no choice but to double down because their two inside guys would score a ton of points if we didn't do that. But doubling down means they will find someone else to score. So, no matter what anyone does, they were going to score. He basically said there is no way to stop their team.

With as much as I'd rather have a higher quality player playing as well, we don't have one! Unless you all are saying that Gillispie doesn't know how to put his best players on the floor.

Yes I agree with pretty much everything you said.

They were going to kick our butt inside if we didn't double and triple team. We were damned if we do and damned if we don't. Just wasn't a good matchup for us.

And you are right, none of the PFs look great. That is something that needs to be addressed in recruiting. I don't want Chris Walker to never play because he does do some good things, I would just like us to have a really good PF and use Walker in a lesser role. You can get away with playing him 12-15 minutes a night at PF.


[This message has been edited by MarcAg (edited 1/21/2005 1:28p).]

my original intention of this post was to get the discussion going about our PF position in general. people started to get upset thinking me (and others sharing my views) were out here to bash walker. that was a wrong assumption!!! the point was never to slam the guy for being undermanned in the position he was playing. i was just curious about what y'all though was wrong with the rest of our players in that spot. i haven't seen to many games until the last few, and i was interested to see if any of our other forwards were slacking, or clueless, or just plain ol' bricklayers.

Ag-EE - thats how I saw it (Sampson not Sutton of course). Listen, when you have great post players in college... you pretty much have to collapse to the middle on defense.

That said, I think and hope CW sticks around - I'd love to bring his energy off the bench personally.

[This message has been edited by CJS4715 (edited 1/21/2005 3:41p).]

Gordan,

From what I gather...it seems as though the others aren't cutting it defensively.

That is what Walker seems to be great at....even when outmanned.

So until someone comes in that can put together the defense, with the O, we're hurtin at that position.

I can't believe he is on the team. I've played with him in the rec and when I saw he had made the team, I couldn't help but be pessimistic about this season. With that being said, he has done better than I expected each time I've seen him.

well since we dont have an awesome PF...maybe everyone should come to the game today and start chants for MARTELLUS!

E. King Gill would have certainly given his all, had he actually gotten in the game.

He deserves his revered place as the origin of the 12th Man.

He is an icon and his statue is the symbol of that proud Aggie tradition.

However, we'll never know how well he would have done in a game.

He might have been a difference-maker on the field, he might have been a liability.

Chris Walker has gone far beyond merely being ready on the sideline.

Chris is our current reality and an effective, basketball-playing embodiment of our 12th Man Tradition.

I enjoy his extremely valuable participation and gutsy play for what it is, without dwelling overly long on what it isn't and could never be.

Help is coming.

Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.

Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.

[This message has been edited by FAST FRED (edited 2/4/2005 1:07p).]

How many times does this topic have to come up. Billy is obviously going to play him, so stop the crying and move on.

a walk-on gym rat starting in the big12..playing against guys 6" taller..
guy gets nothing but my respect!

the kid does so much that doesn't show up on the stat sheet. look how many balls he keeps alive on the boards...he's constantly doing things for this team.

he's like saymen from baylor last year...not the best player, but he makes things go and he does quite a bit for this team.

Question HoustonTexan, if you could replace Walker with another AW, Law or Jones? Now I love watching Walker play, hitting the floor every other trip down the floor, the playing defense 6 inches taller than he is, but I would trade him in a heartbeat for another average to good D-1 player, what about you?

This guy makes us go and all that, so would we fizzle without Walker? Just curious.

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but I would trade him in a heartbeat for another average to good D-1 player, what about you?

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Dumb post, dude. All of us would. The point is we don't have one.

Thats my point aggie grad. I know everyone would, I was asking texan b/c if you're going to say this player makes us go and all the other stuff he said, you would think he wouldn't give that player up. Basically trying to point out that that stuff is not true about Walker in my opinion.

People tend to go overbaord with things when they like someone. Walker is doing his best, but his best is a drain on our team. I love his intensity, but his absolute best is not enough. Don't try to say I'm knocking him people past his basketball ability, he's trying his best and I know this.

who's this walker y'all keep talking about?

pancho, another law, jones, or AW? i'd absolutely take another guy like that over chris in a second...

obviously i'd love to be coming out starting 5 MCd's AA's but it aint happening and this kid has been a pleasant suprise and shockingly enough, he does a ton of things for this team that people who just look at stats don't realize.

just like the saymen comparison earlier...obviously baylor would have liked a tj ford or a big time 2, but they ended up with saymen and coaches all over the big XII raved about his intangibles and how much he did for BU (bobby knight specifically). walker is the same type of deal.

Pancho I gotta wonder, did walker steal your girlfriend or what? You say nothing but "he's got to go, he aint good enough, we need someone better" about the guy that is constantly playing above himself. True anyone would trade for an AA to play the 4, but Walker does what he has to do to make the TEAM better.

yeah, there's something behind this....

i used to say the same about ress. it was honestly painful watching him play bball and i was mauled for saying this. i defend a kid who rarely, if ever, shoots and its like i'm the anti-Christ.

I believe BG determines the starters - and, if he says Walker is the starter, then I guess he is a starting PF.