SFA / Seattle

8,004 Views | 95 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by TallTexan
MasterAxe
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Pilotgirl said:

MasterAxe said:

Slaughtered in Seattle.

Unless something drastic changes, we will be 8-8 overall against D-1 teams and 4-4 in the WAC.

I'm not a math major, but that is the absolute definition of an average team.

Yuck.
All facts here, unfortunately.
Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts.
RedRiverLa
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We're a pretty good team and that would be enough to be around the top in the Southland, but I think we're seeing where just a pretty good team places in the WAC. We'll get there soon I'm hoping but I feel we've settle in our middle place for this year. But anything can still happen, look at the SF 49ers who shouldn't even be playing ball now.
Lumberjack Battalion
Lumberjacks make great US Army Special Ops Officers - AxeEm!
MasterAxe
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RedRiverLa said:

We're a pretty good team and that would be enough to be around the top in the Southland, but I think we're seeing where just a pretty good team places in the WAC. We'll get there soon I'm hoping but I feel we've settle in our middle place for this year. But anything can still happen, look at the SF 49ers who shouldn't even be playing ball now.
To use that analogy...you are right, in that they were a meddling team throughout the year that got hot at the right time (WHICH WE COULD TOTALLY DO).

However, they have two players who are absolute ELITE on offense (Deebo & Kittle) and the same on defense (Bosa and Warner) and they have arguably the best play calling head coach in the league.

We do not have the star power that we have had before. No Kevon. No Shannon. No Walkup. No Parker. etc...

We thought Gavin would be that guy, but it just hasn't happened.

There is season left to figure it out, but without an elite player, we're gonna have to be dialed in every night from everyone, and that just does not look like it is happening.

But, who knows?
No-look
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We should put some wins together after tonight. Schedule gets lighter but we have to play better. Top teams still have play each other. Hopefully Nigel can get back in game shape. And our shooting will improve.
djsfw57
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No-look said:

Why are we leaving the three wide open? That's their strength???
Happens every game. It baffles me. Lots of things baffle me about this team.
SFA, Class of 1979
TallTexan
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No-look said:

We should put some wins together after tonight. Schedule gets lighter but we have to play better. Top teams still have play each other. Hopefully Nigel can get back in game shape. And our shooting will improve.
That was our first full strenghth game since Kansas right? And on a night when Gavin, David, & Jossell were battling injuries(honestly Jossell's probably the biggest) at the moment.

It sucks that our schedule was so frontloaded while also being pared with practically zero rest. We're still gonna peak later next month and these guys will bed playing the best basketball in the league.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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In a recent interview Keller admitted that we just don't have the horses to compete annually in the WAC (not his exact words, but that's what he insinuated). . Size matters. He also said that SFA's recruiting will have to change as far as the type of player we go after, starting with next season's class.

As others have said, the Jacks are a fair-to-middling team this year. But fair-to-middling is not going to win a WAC championship. That's difficult for me to admit, but the truth is smacking me in the face.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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Noticed that in the metropolitan Seattle area of 3.5 million people, SU totaled 1,620 in attendance.
No-look
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We will get better. Behind the arc shooting has to improve and it should. 26% won't win many games. Just an off night. Nigel only attempted two shots and you could tell he's been out of the mix.
Kensmil finished with 19 and 14 rebounds and drew a crowd all night…When we made our run it was Joshell making a couple threes….
sfajack05
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

In a recent interview Keller admitted that we just don't have the horses to compete annually in the WAC (not his exact words, but that's what he insinuated). . Size matters. He also said that SFA's recruiting will have to change as far as the type of player we go after, starting with next season's class.

As others have said, the Jacks are a fair-to-middling team this year. But fair-to-middling is not going to win a WAC championship. That's difficult for me to admit, but the truth is smacking me in the face.
We are a Southland Conference built team trying to compete in a top 20 league (I think that's where I saw the WAC rankings). NMSU was way bigger than us.
BigJack85
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

In a recent interview Keller admitted that we just don't have the horses to compete annually in the WAC (not his exact words, but that's what he insinuated). . Size matters. He also said that SFA's recruiting will have to change as far as the type of player we go after, starting with next season's class.

As others have said, the Jacks are a fair-to-middling team this year. But fair-to-middling is not going to win a WAC championship. That's difficult for me to admit, but the truth is smacking me in the face.


In general I agree. Last night was an example of our depth, or lack there of killing us. If we have a better rotation (Roti) I don't think we get down by 18. Maybe …..
No-look
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Losing the turnover and outside shooting battle was the difference. We can fix that.
PurpleOut
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Staff
Tough watch last night.

I honestly wasn't that impressed with Seattle. Darrion Trammell is really good, but he didn't play that well. The problem was we couldn't guard him. If we can't guard a teams PG or best Guard...we're done for the most part. That's mostly our bread and butter, on ball defending and not allowing the ball to get into the paint. When we do, we have to have help in the paint...which is why we leave so many open threes. Well mostly why, we missed several assignments last night and left open shooters.

Nobody could guard Trammell, leaving Grigsby and Tyson open ALL night. Luckily for us they actually didn't shoot as well as we think. It could have been much worse.

Offensively is just a mess. Good to see Kensmil have a good game, we just can't put together games where more than 1 or 2 players play well.

Have to think Jossell's injury is effecting his shot, and goodness, David wasn't even close.

Hawkins was nonexistent, but I don't really put much on him after being out for 3.5 games.

Could have just been my impression, but it seemed like it took 30 minutes of lackluster play to finally get some energy. Not that they didn't try...it just seemed slow and just trying to go through motions with what we always do. Only had 2 steals and 8 forced turnovers. The other part of our bread and butter.

I don't know what else to say right now, definitely a frustrating season. Hopefully we can get some consistency going in the coming months to be able to compete in Vegas...it's just hard to see it right now.
MasterAxe
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

In a recent interview Keller admitted that we just don't have the horses to compete annually in the WAC (not his exact words, but that's what he insinuated). . Size matters. He also said that SFA's recruiting will have to change as far as the type of player we go after, starting with next season's class.

As others have said, the Jacks are a fair-to-middling team this year. But fair-to-middling is not going to win a WAC championship. That's difficult for me to admit, but the truth is smacking me in the face.
The first part of fixing a problem is to recognize the problem.

Good for him to be able to self-analyze and see what needs to change.
SFAJack_76
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Ten games left. Five at home. Hoping they all take place as scheduled. 7-3 or stretch 8-2, is realistic. The game Saturday is arguably the biggest game of the season.
BigJack85
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PurpleOut said:

Tough watch last night.

I honestly wasn't that impressed with Seattle. Darrion Trammell is really good, but he didn't play that well. The problem was we couldn't guard him. If we can't guard a teams PG or best Guard...we're done for the most part. That's mostly our bread and butter, on ball defending and not allowing the ball to get into the paint. When we do, we have to have help in the paint...which is why we leave so many open threes. Well mostly why, we missed several assignments last night and left open shooters.

Nobody could guard Trammell, leaving Grigsby and Tyson open ALL night. Luckily for us they actually didn't shoot as well as we think. It could have been much worse.

Offensively is just a mess. Good to see Kensmil have a good game, we just can't put together games where more than 1 or 2 players play well.

Have to think Jossell's injury is effecting his shot, and goodness, David wasn't even close.

Hawkins was nonexistent, but I don't really put much on him after being out for 3.5 games.

Could have just been my impression, but it seemed like it took 30 minutes of lackluster play to finally get some energy. Not that they didn't try...it just seemed slow and just trying to go through motions with what we always do. Only had 2 steals and 8 forced turnovers. The other part of our bread and butter.

I don't know what else to say right now, definitely a frustrating season. Hopefully we can get some consistency going in the coming months to be able to compete in Vegas...it's just hard to see it right now.


Great points about the on ball pressure. We don't have the full terror type of pressure we typically have. And for gods sake let's make a few 3 pointers from time to time. Our mid range jumpers were also weak.
nacluth
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Interesting decision with Willis last night. Starter for the games Hawkins is gone, but Nigel comes back and Willis gets 0 minutes? Well one at the end of the game.

I'm still trying to figure out what we're doing on guard rotation.
PurpleOut
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Staff
nacluth said:

Interesting decision with Willis last night. Starter for the games Hawkins is gone, but Nigel comes back and Willis gets 0 minutes? Well one at the end of the game.

I'm still trying to figure out what we're doing on guard rotation.
I had this conversation with two different people last night. But Keller's management of substitutions is puzzling sometimes.

Willis being one of them, especially when nobody else is really knocking down shots...that's normally when he gets his chance. And the quick 20 seconds with Cofer was interesting too.

I am by no means really questioning him, I'm not a coach. It's just odd sometimes. In some of those situations, I'd rather see us go to 4 guards and Solomon as the big. Or just longer stints that's not Nana/Aku when Gavin needs to sit. It's not like Seattle was as big as the other teams we've faced.

Nana in towards the end I could have done without, he hasn't brought much to the table yet. Just my opinion, again as a non-coach. At some point you have to adapt and change things up.
SFA Jack Fanatic
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I'm not a fan of Willis. I've never understood why, with hundreds of guys in the portal, we signed someone who saw limited minutes and few points at his previous stop.

As to mid-range jumpers, I hope that Day Day spends the entire late Spring and Summer practicing those. He appears to be afraid to shoot anything outside of 8-10 feet from the basket. He's obviously very good around the basket, but he's not big enough to be a banger. He has got to expand his game.
SFAJack_76
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SFA Jack Fanatic said:

I'm not a fan of Willis. I've never understood why, with hundreds of guys in the portal, we signed someone who saw limited minutes and few points at his previous stop.

As to mid-range jumpers, I hope that Day Day spends the entire late Spring and Summer practicing those. He appears to be afraid to shoot anything outside of 8-10 feet from the basket. He's obviously very good around the basket, but he's not big enough to be a banger. He has got to expand his game.


Recruiting. Moor was a bust. Aku is a waste of a scholarship. Willis is a head scratcher. I know recruiting was tough due to pandemic restrictions, but others did much better than we did.
MasterAxe
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We may have to get to a point where we admit that we just simply are not talented enough, at least for this year. And the guys we thought were talented, are not.

Gavin is talented, I think. But, he's absolutely disappeared in games and you can minimize him with a double team.

David looks broken.
Hall can't/won't shoot from more than 3 feet away.
Nana seems pointless.
Aku seems pointless.
Willis is limited, at best.
Our "best" three point shooter shoots under 40%.
Soloman is a turnover machine.
Tezeno, Moor, Cofer exist.

We may have to come to a realization that while these guys generally give great effort, we just might not be good enough to be anything more than average.

At least for this year.

The way recruiting is now an how the transfer portal works, A LOT of this can be remedied in one off season.
TallTexan
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Did we sign Aku before or after Cox left? Cox works wonders with big men so the idea may have been that he could coach him up.

I have a good feeling about Willis' long term prospects.

We're definitely gonna need two day 1 ready transfer starters for David and Gavin though. That will be a big hole to fill. Good news is there will be tons of options in the portal as always.
nacluth
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We're definitely in a funk. Part of it is finding who we are without Roti and with injuries; part of it is who we are when we're not winning.

David is the most concerning to me this year. He's always been a momentum player. Does he have the grit to get back to a high level this year? I'm assuming that he's dealing with something more than just a cold streak, but it could be that.

Gavin is great, but no one is good against two camped defenders, and the team isn't giving the other team any reason to leave Gavin isolated.

Solomon is a solid producer that I will keep on any team at any time. He's not a star player, but a good basketball player that night in and night out does his job.

I'll take Nana as a big that can move and handle the ball as a minute reliever over scores of former players. Jossell is going to be really good in years to come. Love his attitude most nights.

Posey, Hawkins, and to a lesser degree Willis, Tezeno, Cofer are still huge question marks. Is Posey going to be a 20 minute, 7 ppg player or is he going to develop? I think that's on the coaches to find out. Hawkins has been erratic since day one, but he has a high potential. We just rarely see it.

It's been a killer schedule where we got our byes in our first two weeks and now it's a solid slate. The question now is are we going to grind out a season like Keller's second (fought until the end for a third place season and won the SLC tournament) or like his third (sporadic games through two thirds of the season then complete collapse)?

I truly think we'll settle in in February, but it could get ugly. I'm feeling like they will need my energy in Chicago.
Ljacks&Longnecks
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"Gavin is great, but no one is good against two camped defenders, and the team isn't giving the other team any reason to leave Gavin isolated."

This^^
Most criticism of Gavin is sadly misplaced. Heart of the team....without him not even a .500 club this year. Of course when he is double teamed and banged around most games that will limit his effectiveness at times but without his 30+ minutes, this team would be hard pressed to find many wins.
If we had shooters who could consistently knock down 8-10 footers or if we had any true 3 pt shooting every night then the middle would open up more for his inside work.
SFAJack_76
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TallTexan said:



I have a good feeling about Willis' long term prospects.
Long term? Willis is a senior. Maybe he has a Covid year?
TallTexan
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SFAJack_76 said:

TallTexan said:



I have a good feeling about Willis' long term prospects.
Long term? Willis is a senior. Maybe he has a Covid year?
Dang I thought he'd transferred from NJIT as a sophmore, not a junior. That said, he should still have an extra year with Covid.
 
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