Category: NCAABB

1 Louisville 15-1

2 Michigan 16-1

3 Indiana 15-1

4 Duke 15-1

5 Kansas 14-1

6 Arizona 15-1

7 Florida 12-2

8 Syracuse 16-1

9   Gonzaga 16-1

10 Ohio State 13-3

BY HOYAFAN4LIFE

I hadn’t seen that Whittington was being suspended, so when Trawick was introduced my initial thought was that we are going to need Starks and someone else to step up.  My second thought was that we have no bench, so we were going to only be playing 6 or 7 people.  What a difference a game makes.  Luckily we had a number of people step up and our lead ballooned to a point where we were able to play a number of people who rarely see the floor.

 

Our defense remained on its game while our offense suddenly reappeared.  And fortunately, it was a real offense, with back door cuts, give-and-goes, the whole nine yards.  To be fair, it felt like our success was in part due to the lack of an offense by St Johns – one person in my section joked thatSt Johns had been scouting us too long and was running our offense from the last few games.  I think it was actually a case of St Johns playing NYC basketball – try 1-on-1 isolation and if that doesn’t work, pass it to the next person who will try 1-on-1 basketball until they force a shot.  But a game like this is just what the doctor ordered – up by 20 points for most of the game – and the 16 point margin of victory was actually skewed down by the fact that they hit 3 3-pointers in the last 2 minutes. 

 

Porter (19 pts, 5-11 fgs, 14 rebs, 2 asts, 3 stls) – A great game, almost had a double-double in the first half.  Did all sorts of Porter-ish things – rebounds, put backs, steals.  Also was great cutting to the basket in the Princeton office.

 

Whittington (DNP) – Did not play for “breaking team rules”.  JT3 wouldn’t say whether he would be playing in the next game.  I wonder if this is the type of thing that gets Whittington on track or pushes him to declare too early for the NBA.

 

Lubick (11 pts, 5-8 fgs, 6 rebs, 3 asts, 3 blks) – Player number 1 who stepped up when we needed them.  Started out the game well, looking for his offense, passing on a number of give and goes.  I also am a big fan of the in-bounds play where he inbounds and lobs into Porter, catching the defense sleeping.

 

Starks (17 pts, 7-13 fgs, 2-3 3pts, 4 rebs, 2 asts) – Player number 2 who stepped up when we needed them.  17 points, 2-3 from 3.  Was aggressive and efficient.

 

Hopkins (1 pts, 0-4 fgs, 1 rebs, 1 asts) – Clearly regressing to the player I thought he would be at the beginning of the year.  I mentioned to the guy I went to the game with that Hopkins often thinks that he is the guy that should be taking the shot and rarely is.  Had a bad game, even by his standards  Only played 10 minutes, had a HORRIBLE jump shot (why do our big men insist on taking jump shots when they can’t make layups?). One person in our section said, “well at least we know he plays defense, he had 5 fouls.”  Technically, that’s probably the opposite of the case, if you play good defense then you aren’t fouling out in 10 minutes – particularly against big men that aren’t terribly good on offense.

 

Trawick (4 pts, 1-3 fgs, 0-2 3pts, 0 rebs, 1 asts, 1 blks) –  Started the game in place of Whittington.  D’Vauntes actually played more minutes. Didn’t do much to differentiate himself.  There is a chance that DSR could start the next game.

 

Ayegba (2 pts, 1-1 fgs, 3 rebs, 1 asts) – Even with Hopkins in foul trouble and Whittington not playing, he only got 14 minutes of playing time.  Sounds about right.

 

Smith Rivera (8 pts, 3-11 fgs, 0-2 3pts, 10 rebs, 4 asts, 2 stls) –  8pts, 10 rebs and 4asts in 26 minutes sounds like a good game, but the 3-11 was the thing that stood out to me while the game was going on – I still don’t think I’ve seen what I would call a good game from him yet.  He forces too many things still – in fact, one of his shots got blocked twice – not sure I ever saw that before.  But the asts were good – especially when Starks doesn’t pass.  I can’t decide whether its impressive or pathetic that our back up point guard has more than twice as many rebounds as our two centers combined.

 

Bowen (5 pts, 2-4 fgs, 1-1 3pts, 1 rebs, 1 asts) – Played more minutes than usual. Near as I can tell – he can do two things – jump and shoot 3s.  He did both in this game with a sweet dunk where it looked like he jumped from one side of the lane, dunked and didn’t land until the other side of the lane (he also had an impressive dunk against Texas that I think I forget to mention which is one of the bigger oversights I’ve had).

 

Caprio (0 pts, 0-0 fgs, 3 rebs, 1 asts, 1 stls) – Actually played a minute in the first half, but somehow only ended up playing 3 minutes total.  Has no shot of playing during a meaningful minute of play, but was active. 

 

JT3 – I’m not sure what Whittington did, but I’m a fan of any time a coach suspends a player (even if it is my second favorite player on the team) – gets everyone on the same page about what needs to be done to be a successful team.  Meanwhile, he got us playing an actual offense and we started out with good defensive intensity.  Still not sure why he plays Porter so much during blowouts – unless, like me he was hoping Porter would score 20 points.  But in general, hard to complain about anything.

 

 

by: hoyafan4life

Probably one of the worst games I’ve seen in a while.  The defense held in well for the first half but there was absolutely nothing going on on the offensive end.  At the beginning of the game there were a lot of post ups, very little movement. They started zoning us in the second half and it got to the point where when we fell into our patented “pass the ball around the perimeter and take a 3 point shot from 3 feet behind the 3 point line” it was somehow an improvement. In the second half, our defense fell apart and Pitt was able to do whatever it wanted – we were horrible in the half court, didn’t get back in transition.  16% from 3-pt land, 35% from the floor, 16 turnovers compared to 5 assists, out rebounded 27-20.  There really isn’t anything good to say about the game, except maybe that it is over. 

 

Porter (9 pts, 2-6 fgs, 0-2 3pts, 3 rebs, 1 asts, 1 stls, 1 blks) – In what is likely to be recurring theme in this write up – this wasn’t a good game for him.  There were flashes of Porter doing Porter-ish things, like his rebound and put back in the second half, but they were few and far between.

 

Whittington (6 pts, 2-6 fgs, 1-3 3pts, 2 rebs) – A tough game for him.  Got into foul trouble early but really never got going. 

 

Lubick (7 pts, 3-3 fgs, 7 rebs, 0 asts) – Actually had a respectable game for him.  Lubick was aggressive early in the game, and posted up with a strong move.  But he still has the annoying tendency to pass out of the post – exhibit 2,578: he made a nice cut to the basket and instead of taking a layup, he passed out to the corner for a 3 (missed by Whittington). 

 

Starks (6 pts, 2-8 fgs, 1-3 3pts, 1 reb, 0 asts, 1 stls) – Not a good game.  Forced a few shots.  Another “0” in the assist column from our starting point guard.   

 

Hopkins (0 pts, 0-3 fgs, 1 rebs, 2 asts) – Didn’t play a lot – but I can’t say that bothered me.  Of course, when he comes out, someone has to replace him, which leads us to…

 

Ayegba (6 pts, 2-3 fgs, 3 rebs) – There are few scarier words to hear when you are down 8 points than “Moses Ayegba in the game for the first time”.  Ironically, his game wasn’t all that bad and was clearly his best of the year.  Played aggressive and hit his layups. Not someone you would ever draw up a play for, but if he keeps playing like this, there isn’t a big drop off from Hopkins.  Hmmm, not sure if I just complimented Ayegba or insultedHopkins – probably a bit of both.

 

Smith Rivera (7 pts, 1-5 fgs, 0-3 3pts, 2 rebs, 1 asts) – Still haven’t seen a great game from him.  Was aggressive, which you have to like, but forced too many things driving to the line. 

 

Trawick (4 pts, 1-3 fgs, 1 asts, 1 stls) – Pretty much a non-factor. 

 

JT3 – I like the press that we throw out from time to time, it seemed to create some problems for Pitt and has worked at other times during the year (e.g. Texas). But beyond that the poor all around play has to at least be partly attributable to JT3.  What really needs to happen is for him to have a tutorial on the Princeton offense, since I’m not sure that I have seen it much at all this year.  Pitt was playing some aggressive, in-your-face defense which should have been ripe for a back door offense.

 

1 Duke 14-0

2 Michigan 15-0

3 Arizona 14-0

4 Louisville 13-1

5 Indiana 13-1

6 Kansas 12-1

7 Minnesota 14-1

8 Florida 10-2

9 Syracuse 14-1

10 Gonzaga 15-1

I know everybody thought I was crazy when i picked Arizona to be runner-up but look around who is at number 3 sometimes even number 2….

 

1 Duke 12-0

2 Arizona 12-0

3  Michigan 13-0

4 Louisville 12-1

5 Kansas 11-1

6 Indiana 12-1

7 Minnesota 12-1

8 Ohio State 10-2

9 Syracuse 11-1

10 Georgetown 10-1

 

Jabari Parker the no. 1 HS prospect has chosen Duke to go play his college ball he was also considering MSU,STAN,BYU,FLA

the number 1 high school prospect Jabari Parker will make his college Desicion today 4 pm on ESPNU he is considering: BYU, Stanford, Florida, Michigan State , and Duke. I’d be suprised if he didn’t go with either MSU or Duke.

CSD’s PROJECTION

DUKE

1 DUKE 9-0

2 MICHIGAN 11-0

3 ARIZONA 8-0

4 SYRACUSE 9-0

5 INDIANA 9-1

6 LOUISVILLE 9-1

7 OHIO STATE 8-1

8 FLORIDA 7-1

9 KANSAS 8-1

10 ILLINOIS 12-0