Home opener- Sacred Heart Tuesday, 7 pm

That sounds promising. Thanks for the post. I no longer feel "the world is ending" after each loss. There are some things to improve, clearly, but there are also some good things these guys are doing. That burst of energy at the end on the last run HC made was something I see happening more in the future (even if not needed in some games where HC has a late lead). 

81's observations are right on. I remind folks that DP has said that this season may well be "2 steps forward and 1 or 1 and a half steps back" and to look for progress not necessarily results. This was a case of SH legitimately beating us rather than us losing to them. Our guys fought to they very end. Oh, SH is better than Georgetown, IMHO.

Batch seemed to go to the whole more often than usual last night.   Six 2 point field goal attempts.  That might suggest that he will eventually be going to the line

I think Nugent has two 2 point field goal attempts for the season.  He is also a fairly solid looking 6'6".  I think he'd be capable of doing more down low (and in so doing getting to the line)

Did SHU take 25 free throws on the road? That's pretty damn high, and a 2.5x discrepancy against the home team. I wonder if attacking just isn't our game-- usually you'll put the ball on the floor if shots aren't falling. If we're shooting near 40% + it's not as urgent, but few teams are going to win with that big of a charity stripe discrepancy.

SHU shot 10 free throws in the final 40 seconds when HC was fouling.  FT's are a much more even 15-10 when those are taken out.

Scored 18.   Got burned on D a few times down the stretch

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Offensively speaking, 4 bench points last night (all from Coulibaly)

Singleton and Ryan basically had cameos last night.   The bench seems to be getting shorter

Minor tangent to short bench. . . Tse wasn't dressed last night

As I posted prior to this game, I watched SHU against Iona and noted that their main offensive goal was clearly to get to the basket. They were very successful against a quicker team than us in Iona and, not surprisingly, again last night.

This made me think about HC basketball over the last 25 years and the defensive schemes that have been successful for us.

The two strategies that come to mind are (1) Willard's matchup zone and (2) for a limited period of time, Carmody's 1-3-1.

This causes me to wonder if, even with a fine coach like Paulsen, whether we can experience sustained success playing strictly MTM.

Maybe Paulsen will recruit the kind of players that WILL play MTM well. So I am hopeful looking forward.

However, with this group of players, especially Batch, Nugent, Louth, and Ryan, I can't help but wonder if we could mask some of our lack of foot speed with a zone defense occasionally.

Love to hear others view on this issue.

Hey, I predicted 1,200.   Had to be a winnah if we were playing The Price Is Right!

A few points
1- Very few teams play predominantly zone today. The dramatic increase of 3 point attempts has dissuaded even staunch zone disciples, I.e. Boeheim former assistant Mike Hopkins of Washington, Even Boeheim himself said on his way out the door, that if he were coaching in the future , he would severely limit his (in)famous 2-3
2- Thus almost all coaches play all man D, some very well, some average, some poorly. No matter what the conference. The lowly PL has had many top teams play man: Flannery and Paulsen at Bucknell. Langel at Colgate.
3-There are no RWs around who can come close to teaching his very complex match-up.
4- Carmody’s 1-3-1 was effective for fewer than probably 10 games in his years at HC


Paulsen is a very good man to man coach, when he has the personnel.( As is true for almost all coaches)
Hopefully that will happen at HC. 

People forget that Willard’s defense was really a hybrid of a 2-3 zone with man to man principles.

A fine idea

I think some unpaid guy who doesn't actually coach, but tracks things like where shots were taken from etc.