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Post by trimster on Jan 13, 2024 13:01:15 GMT -5
Free Throws, last three games. Opponents, 54-65 Holy Cross, 21-39
We've lost the last three games by an average of 12 points - and been outscored at the line by an average of 11.
Four of our core players have combined to try 20 free throws this season. Stunning.
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Post by trimster on Jan 12, 2024 12:30:43 GMT -5
I agree, 87, that change is not impossible, but (unless there are future, as yet unknown, developments) it is most unlikely. Now, might HC with other PL members modify the league to help our teams compete outside the PL on a more equal footing? I can only hope they do. What would you modify if it were up to you?
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Post by trimster on Jan 12, 2024 8:28:51 GMT -5
Read some rumblings about serious NIL infractions at FSU. Penalties are on the way. Don't know the details. Obviously, there is no connection to HC's 1843 Collective. My guess is what happened at FSU has been rampant at big time schools since the inception of NIL. Not sure why FSU has been singled out.
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Post by trimster on Jan 11, 2024 13:46:36 GMT -5
HC has no inside game so we shoot fewer free throws, and then only make 62% of them (versus our opponents 76%). Caleb Kenney scores all of his field goals with 5’ of the hoop so we do have some inside game.
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Post by trimster on Jan 11, 2024 13:00:20 GMT -5
We now rank dead last of 362 teams in KenPom’s defensive rankings. More colorful wall treatments for this cozy basement apartment.
Extra Scoring Chances/G - 354th. For the season, HC has allowed opponents an average of six extra scoring chances per. Last three games, they've allowed nine extra. Last night, Navy got fourteen. Simply impossible to win, when you don't get TOs (Turnover Margin - 344th), can't stop shooters (OppEFG%, 315th; Opp3FG%, 352nd), and fail to rebound adequately (DR%, 283rd). In all of these respects, we are worse than last year.
Also, all members of the team need to be equipped with GPS, so that they can find the free throw line (FT/G - 359th), even if we can't make them (FT% - 344th).
Only one team in D1 hoops scores fewer than HC's 8.1 ppg from the foul line; Army at 7.9.
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Post by trimster on Jan 11, 2024 8:58:47 GMT -5
Siena is below us in the bottom 6 per Ken Pom. It can always be worse. Siena board is in meltdown. If the season ended today, we would have our lowest Ken Pom rating ever. Yikes.
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Post by trimster on Jan 11, 2024 8:39:51 GMT -5
Games are often won and lost in the paint, and HC always comes up short. The guys are working hard so I feel bad for them. I thought tonight's game and Army's game were games HC would win. I'm starting to fear that my guess of 4 PL/playoff games was too high. How about 4 league wins, even; which would be half of what I predicted. How do you think I feel after predicting ten.
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Post by trimster on Jan 10, 2024 12:12:18 GMT -5
I think they should just join the Patriot League if we can just look past that they are a state school. Albeit an excellent college, whether state or private.
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Post by trimster on Jan 10, 2024 7:59:53 GMT -5
And no experts here ever answered my question if Jake Dobbs was eligible/could have played for JMU in their bowl game since he announced he was transferring prior to the bowl game? Presumably he signed whatever documents he had to do but is the timing effective only after the following season? This transfer portal is most confusing if, like me, you don't want to study this like some constitutional law issue. BTW, anyone else see the commercial panning the transfer portal like a black hole sucking in players? Think it's a Dr. Pepper commercial. Pretty funny. [But a "failure" of a commercial if I'm not 100% sure what the product is] It is a Dr. Pepper commercial. Not as good as Mayhem for All State but still a good commercial.
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Post by trimster on Jan 8, 2024 9:48:47 GMT -5
We scored nineteen points in the first half, and can't make free throws. You seriously can get kids at the park to play better basketball. Is the appeal of A) an HC diploma, B) having to do arduous school work for four years, C) travel on a bus across Pennsylvania, and D) not get paid all worth it? Add to the mix: are the kids who can play basketball "smart" enough to get into HC? Forget the last four years (the seemingly arbitrary time period prior posters are using to show progress/records/etc.)... HC basketball has been virtually embarrassing since RW left. Record post RW is 166-274 for all games played. Hopefully DP can prove Ralph wasn’t a unicorn.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 23:34:06 GMT -5
It sounds like it happened on a road with two lanes in each direction. It gets very dicey when a driver in one of those lanes stops to let someone walk and drivers in the next lane keep moving. More and more crosswalks have flashing pedestrian lights which help.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 21:58:45 GMT -5
I know nothing about this case, but as a lawyer my first thought when I saw this story is that the coach's son got special treatment. In 47 years I've never seen someone who ran over and killed a pedestrian charged with only a minor moving violation (failure to yield); I think it's rare. He could get off with a fine and loss of license. Probably should have stopped at "I know nothing about the case", and done the five minutes of googling needed to get better informed.
This isn't even the latest article... McCaffrey did in fact get sentenced to a $1,000 fine and 6-month lost of his license.
I bolded some key passages. Clearly a tragic situation all around, with zero evidence of preferential treatment.
"Drivers must yield to pedestrians even if they don't know they are there?" How is that doable.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 16:34:04 GMT -5
Put me in the camp of not caring about the stats against Elms. Out of curiosity, I reviewed PL games vs. D3 teams. Three teams didn't play any D3 games. Nine games were played and if you remove the outlier, (AWP defeated someone by 8), the other 8 games were decided by 40 points on average. What is the point in scheduling these games. If you want a tuneup before conference play, go find a D2 opponent. At least it is 2 rosters of scholarship players facing each other. BTW, 3 games were decided by 78, 58 and 51 points.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 12:00:59 GMT -5
Can we stop pretending like non-D1 games were not played? They are played (as they are by virtually all D1 teams, certainly by PL teams) and for HC the results do count. Please understand that "custom" stats which exclude some selected opponents will be ignored by many . If that is the case, you are not making a point. This seems to go well with the belief of some people that if we cannot currently beat PL teams, we should play tougher opponents to improve our program. I guess they bellieve losses against better opponents will be more positive in some way. Might "better losses" help recruiting? Possible, but I doubt it. Does showing all opponents and the results as HC games hurt HC? I don't see how. The stats from D3 games, imho, are meaningless. Frre throw % is one exception.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 10:58:37 GMT -5
Been tied up a bit cleaning snow and intended to post something like the above 3 immediate posts. They hit the right themes. As a fan/supporter of the basketball programs, it is indeed frustrating to watch BUT, a huge "but," it appears to me that the defense is coming together, perhaps not as quickly as we'd like, but definite progress. We still seem to be struggling offensively but as the guys gain experience, my hope is that too will fall into place but we were all warned from day one from DP that progress will take time. I don't think I ever recall a new coach saying right out of the gate to ignore the won/loss results and "look for progress." I think he knows what he's talking about. Yes, I will keep watching and attending home games too. Same thing as some previous games, although the dropoff was not as dramatic. Allowed 23 points in the first half, 47 in the second. Some of that, of course, was Army hitting the same 3 balls they missed in the first half. Some wasn't. Ironically, HC's offense picked up when the defense sagged a bit. First half was worse than bad- 9 turnovers and 0-7 from 3 point range (at least 5 of them were good looks, not beat-the-shot-clock heaves). Foul shooting is a joke. Incredibly, Holy Cross is NOT last in the league in that statistic. patriotleague.org/stats.aspx?path=mbball&year=2023&#team-stats Looks like we do a poor job on free throw defense as well.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 10:21:19 GMT -5
Not sure where the anti-PL critics realistically think we should migrate to whether basketball, football, full sport league but for me, the "big two" or "big three" sports going back to my student days are football and men's basketball and you can now throw in ladies basketball (I know that opens me up for criticism for the hockey fans on the board but JMO). Here's the thing. In the late 60's, there were between 2,500 and 2,800 men enrolled at Holy Cross. While the school's enrollment has increased to 3,100 +/-, we actually have fewer, a lot fewer, male students. So, for men's sports, we are actually a smaller school than in my day and many other posters here. Big East invitational days are way, waaaay, back in the rearview mirror. We are where we should be. Our goals should be, as always, to excel in everything including athletics - but at the appropriate level. To me, that's brining basketball back to the RW days and understanding that doesn't mean a national championship a la late 40's early 50's. In football, yes, I think an FCS national championship is possible, or at least routine national rankings like Villanova. Ladies basketball, my hope is MM can get us to a level where we thought we'd be when BG got scholarships and thought we'd get a national ranking. Might be a bridge too far but we should certainly be and remain PL champs or contenders every year. No reason not to be. Very reasonable and realistic thoughts.
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Post by trimster on Jan 7, 2024 9:54:22 GMT -5
Kit went with experienced D-1 coaches who understand HC intimately with his hires of Paulsen and Curran. Paulsen was in one of HC 's best coaching duels with RW. Curran grew up in a household that worshipped Holy Cross. What would you like next in Kit's taking the bull by the horns? I'm actually curious because I don't know what the logical next step is and I want HC Athletics to move ahead like the rest of us. I don’t think there is a next logical step to be had or planned for that matter. HC is all in on the PL and I have full confidence that Dave Paulsen will get the ship turned around. It will take time.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 21:57:28 GMT -5
Let's be honest for a second. Basketball is no longer HC's 'premiere' or whatever it was referred to as program. Football and even hockey IMO has moved ahead. There are three pages on the latest game and the third page is complaining. PL basketball, for as much as we crush PL football, is terrible. The PL of the Willard era is like Greek mythology at this point. Paulson might be an outstanding coach but who would want to play at any PL school? And even if you get talent to come they're gone in a year. Recruiting is impossible. I think the approach right now to recruiting kids is to show them what HC can do for them if they never set foot on the court. It has to be about a lot more than hoops and it should be that way even with a successful hoop program. I think coach DP really gets that.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 18:35:20 GMT -5
29-92 vs D1 over the last 4+ years will bring people down. It hasn’t easy being an HC hoop fan for a while now at least when it comes to those pesky wins and losses.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 18:19:43 GMT -5
Things could be worse. Detroit-Mercy is 0-17.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 16:44:27 GMT -5
What has happened to this program? - so discouraging Based on the last 4+ years, we have become one of the worst teams at least when it comes to wins and losses, in D1 basketball. Truly hard to fathom.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 16:42:41 GMT -5
Willard was 10-18 in 1st season with James Stowers as only sr, next year won 22 games with a lot of Fresh and Sophs. Doubt that will happen again, but 99-00’ was a dreadful season also. Willard's first team was truly decimated by injuries.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 13:34:31 GMT -5
Nice drive by Batch.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 13:27:48 GMT -5
Bucknell rerun.
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Post by trimster on Jan 6, 2024 8:49:04 GMT -5
After a long holiday layoff, Kingswood/Oxford has 4 games in the next 8 days.
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