Random thoughts on the UMKC game

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.44caliberkiller
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1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.

2. Dalton was also a major factor in our second half struggles. Time after time it seemed he would pass up a good shot and then end up forcing a bad shot. That seemed to be a trend in the second half as multiple guys failed to attempt wide open shots to later settle for bad shots, but Dalton was the main culprit as he did it several times. Maybe we're too hard on Dalton, but I think we have seen the type of player he can be and just get frustrated that he doesn't always play up to his capabilities.

3. So far on the season we are undefeated win James starts. 2-0 is nothing to be too excited about, but it's a wonder at what starting your best player can do. On the first possession of the game James hits his patented mid range jumper to give us the lead, a lead which we held for 39 minutes and 45 seconds. Maybe the Air Force game goes a little differently had he started. Not to rag on Edwards too much because "at the end of the day" I'm an Edwards supporter and I'm happy he is our head coach. But his rotations are darned frustrating at times.

4. Moemeka with a very solid performance (6pts/6reb). I'm not sure he will ever be more than a Derek Cooke Jr. on offense (i.e. limited to finishing at the rim), although he has shown some low posts moves in his limited action. But I think he has more basketball instincts than Cooke and he will be a force on the defensive end and quite possibly be a defensive player of the year candidate.

5. Say what you will about Lieberman but he played a fantastic game against UMKC. He was extremely efficient on offense, as he was 4/6 from the field with 7 assissts and only 1 turnover. And on defense he held their leading scorer to only 5pts on 1/12 shooting. Lieberman probably won't ever be a star but since the midway point of the season he has played winning basketball.

6. I thought that we played excellent defense for the most part. The one blemish to that is we gave up way too many offensive rebounds (16). Holding the opposing team to 34.4% from the field and 25% from three is marvelous, but when you consistently give up multiple shots per possession your opponent will eventually score. There are multiple problems preventing us from being a good rebounding team. First and the most obvious is that we're a very scrawny team, and quite a few teams can just push us around. Hopefully this gets addressed in the off-season and our guys put in the necessary work in the weight room. The second problem with our rebounding is that often times it feels like it's 3 on 5 fighting for the rebound. Lieberman/Mcmanamen/Gorski played a combined 72 minutes but they only collected 4 total rebounds. That is just unacceptable.

7. For the most part I thought we had a good offensive performance. We shot the ball very well 49% from the field, 43.5% from three, and 83.3% from the free throw line. I thought we were decent with a 18/13 assist to turnover ratio, however we did have several silly turnovers which seems to be our MO. I think at the pace we play, anything under 10 turnovers is acceptable and where we need to be at for next season to be an upper echelon MTN West team.

8. It was nice to see Naughton get some playing time. I thought he looked pretty good and I'm still optimistic he can be a very good player. I just wish that he had played more this season since we weren't a championship caliber team anyway, it would have been nice to play the young guys with high ceilings a little bit more. But now it seems like his progression has been stalled and he will begin next year not much more advanced than he was as a freshman.

9. I know some may not agree, but so far playing in the CBI has been a positive experience. We have got to play an extra 3 games and at the very least we didn't end our season with the Air Force debacle. Any Wyoming basketball win is a good thing, and so far we have gotten 2 more of those than I thought we would when I was sitting in the Thomas & Mac center staring at a 25-0 deficit.
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LanderPoke
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.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am 1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.
Edwards is a freaking idiot. Why he refuses to play his best players together blows my mind. Did he not notice the last game when the Adams/James combo was like +25? Does AE like watching Gorski and Lieberman's pathetic attempts to get a rebound or stay in front of a defender? Does he like watching Lieberman pound the basketball 30 ft from the basket and clog our offense? Horrible coaching. horrendous .

Also, Very impressed with James's overall game. JJ has been in control and has looked dominant for the last, well, whole season.

Moemeka is a fantastic defender and rebounder. We struggled when he wasn't out there.

We gave up so many O boards mostly because there was a parade into the lane from their guards. Moemeka, Herndon, James were forced to help, did a good job of contesting, but because they had to help their guy was open for a rebound.
cali2wyo
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LanderPoke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:59 am
.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am 1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.
Edwards is a freaking idiot. Why he refuses to play his best players together blows my mind. Did he not notice the last game when the Adams/James combo was like +25? Does AE like watching Gorski and Lieberman's pathetic attempts to get a rebound or stay in front of a defender? Does he like watching Lieberman pound the basketball 30 ft from the basket and clog our offense? Horrible coaching. horrendous .

Also, Very impressed with James's overall game. JJ has been in control and has looked dominant for the last, well, whole season.

Moemeka is a fantastic defender and rebounder. We struggled when he wasn't out there.

We gave up so many O boards mostly because there was a parade into the lane from their guards. Moemeka, Herndon, James were forced to help, did a good job of contesting, but because they had to help their guy was open for a rebound.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if you weren't so hard on Liebs... he has been playing awesome the past couple weeks. Your constant criticism of him is almost as bad as those who seem to blindly support Edwards' decisions. lol. I truly think he can be a PG for a MW championship team.
But yes, I agree that James/Adams should have taken the Gorski/Kelley minutes last night
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cali2wyo wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:19 am
LanderPoke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:59 am
.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am 1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.
Edwards is a freaking idiot. Why he refuses to play his best players together blows my mind. Did he not notice the last game when the Adams/James combo was like +25? Does AE like watching Gorski and Lieberman's pathetic attempts to get a rebound or stay in front of a defender? Does he like watching Lieberman pound the basketball 30 ft from the basket and clog our offense? Horrible coaching. horrendous .

Also, Very impressed with James's overall game. JJ has been in control and has looked dominant for the last, well, whole season.

Moemeka is a fantastic defender and rebounder. We struggled when he wasn't out there.

We gave up so many O boards mostly because there was a parade into the lane from their guards. Moemeka, Herndon, James were forced to help, did a good job of contesting, but because they had to help their guy was open for a rebound.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if you weren't so hard on Liebs... he has been playing awesome the past couple weeks. Your constant criticism of him is almost as bad as those who seem to blindly support Edwards' decisions. lol. I truly think he can be a PG for a MW championship team.
But yes, I agree that James/Adams should have taken the Gorski/Kelley minutes last night
Yeah, perhaps. His overall crappiness is being masked by decent shooting. He could shoot 75% and score 15 per game and he'd still be a net negative due to his pumpkin pounding that clogs the offense, literally no rebounding, and poor defense.
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.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am
4. Moemeka with a very solid performance (6pts/6reb). I'm not sure he will ever be more than a Derek Cooke Jr. on offense (i.e. limited to finishing at the rim), although he has shown some low posts moves in his limited action. But I think he has more basketball instincts than Cooke and he will be a force on the defensive end and quite possibly be a defensive player of the year candidate.
Moemeka actually can shoot a jumper and make it out to about the free throw line around. He just hasn't shown that yet because he hasn't had to because of everyone else shooting the ball. He will be far more effective offensively than Derek Cooke JR. was from the standpoint of having more moves to go to other than just a dunk.
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LanderPoke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:43 am
cali2wyo wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:19 am
LanderPoke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:59 am
.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am 1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.
Edwards is a freaking idiot. Why he refuses to play his best players together blows my mind. Did he not notice the last game when the Adams/James combo was like +25? Does AE like watching Gorski and Lieberman's pathetic attempts to get a rebound or stay in front of a defender? Does he like watching Lieberman pound the basketball 30 ft from the basket and clog our offense? Horrible coaching. horrendous .

Also, Very impressed with James's overall game. JJ has been in control and has looked dominant for the last, well, whole season.

Moemeka is a fantastic defender and rebounder. We struggled when he wasn't out there.

We gave up so many O boards mostly because there was a parade into the lane from their guards. Moemeka, Herndon, James were forced to help, did a good job of contesting, but because they had to help their guy was open for a rebound.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if you weren't so hard on Liebs... he has been playing awesome the past couple weeks. Your constant criticism of him is almost as bad as those who seem to blindly support Edwards' decisions. lol. I truly think he can be a PG for a MW championship team.
But yes, I agree that James/Adams should have taken the Gorski/Kelley minutes last night
Yeah, perhaps. His overall crappiness is being masked by decent shooting. He could shoot 75% and score 15 per game and he'd still be a net negative due to his pumpkin pounding that clogs the offense, literally no rebounding, and poor defense.
That's silly. He can be a pretty great defender(hasn't always been) and last night he was. He picked up their best player and defended him the length of the court and held him to 5 points on 1 of 12 shooting(as OP mentioned). He doesn't have the athleticism as some of our other guards but I enjoy watching him on denfense. Always pestering the other point guard and disrupting their offense.
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Gorski is bringing nothing to the table (but obviously eating well). Why he is getting any minutes while Adams sits is a mystery.

Barnes might have helped on the boards against the big guy from UMKC, but I guess we'll never know. Naughton has regressed in the past month or two, and looks out of sorts.

Say what you want about Shyatt's short bench, but I can't see going more than 7 deep with this group.

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WilyWapiti wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:37 pm Gorski is bringing nothing to the table (but obviously eating well). Why he is getting any minutes while Adams sits is a mystery.

Barnes might have helped on the boards against the big guy from UMKC, but I guess we'll never know. Naughton has regressed in the past month or two, and looks out of sorts.

Say what you want about Shyatt's short bench, but I can't see going more than 7 deep with this group.

WW
These two need to find a new home at a smaller school. They are not MWC athletes.
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cali2wyo wrote:
LanderPoke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:59 am
.44caliberkiller wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 7:09 am 1. Edwards played a tighter rotation, as 7 players played the majority of the time. The problem was that yet again the minutes weren't allocated to the correct players. Gorski played 15 minutes, most of which game in the second half when UMKC made their run. Coincidence? I would argue that Gorski being a vacuum, and sucking up minutes and giving us nothing (0pts/1reb/0asst/0stl/0blk) in return was a major reason for our second half struggles. Adams should have seen a majority of those minutes, but for some reason Edwards doesn't like playing James and Adams at the same time. Edwards said in the post game interview Adams didn't play more because "James kinda had it going." He mentioned something earlier in the season about not liking playing those two together, but I thought he had backed off that stance and started playing them more together. I fail to see how having multiple players on the court who are play makers is a bad thing.
Edwards is a freaking idiot. Why he refuses to play his best players together blows my mind. Did he not notice the last game when the Adams/James combo was like +25? Does AE like watching Gorski and Lieberman's pathetic attempts to get a rebound or stay in front of a defender? Does he like watching Lieberman pound the basketball 30 ft from the basket and clog our offense? Horrible coaching. horrendous .

Also, Very impressed with James's overall game. JJ has been in control and has looked dominant for the last, well, whole season.

Moemeka is a fantastic defender and rebounder. We struggled when he wasn't out there.

We gave up so many O boards mostly because there was a parade into the lane from their guards. Moemeka, Herndon, James were forced to help, did a good job of contesting, but because they had to help their guy was open for a rebound.
Your argument would be a lot stronger if you weren't so hard on Liebs... he has been playing awesome the past couple weeks. Your constant criticism of him is almost as bad as those who seem to blindly support Edwards' decisions. lol. I truly think he can be a PG for a MW championship team.
But yes, I agree that James/Adams should have taken the Gorski/Kelley minutes last night
I was thinking this as well. It's hard to take anything seriously when you say he's bad on D. He's a good defender and has been effective. Is he a star, no. But he's been knocking down his shots when he takes them and he hasn't been taking too many. McManimal is the real negative on the defense. Guys blow by him all day.


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WilyWapiti wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:37 pm Barnes might have helped on the boards against the big guy from UMKC, but I guess we'll never know. Naughton has regressed in the past month or two, and looks out of sorts.
Denver Post article:

http://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-denv ... 8967280579

Says trend is away from true centers and to bigs who can shoot (meaning other than point blank). This would seem to deemphasize the Barnes and Naughton type players and maybe even Moemeka.
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Adv8RU12 wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:30 am
WilyWapiti wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2017 1:37 pm Barnes might have helped on the boards against the big guy from UMKC, but I guess we'll never know. Naughton has regressed in the past month or two, and looks out of sorts.
Denver Post article:

http://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-denv ... 8967280579

Says trend is away from true centers and to bigs who can shoot (meaning other than point blank). This would seem to deemphasize the Barnes and Naughton type players and maybe even Moemeka.
I believe Moemeka will be a very good all around player for Wyoming for the future. A little more PT, experience, confidence, and bulk and he will be a force.
You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him/her.
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