• Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts, upgrade to remove ads and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your BigSkyFans.com experience today!

10 Things to watch for tonight?

Webergrad02

Active member
Here are some of the issues we have had in the past, lets see if they have improved.

1. How do we handle the zone.
I would be surprised to see the Aggies play much man at all. Especially since they are thin in the post.

2. Senglin driving into the paint
Is he keeping his head up and looking to get others involved, or is his head ducked and hoping to get a foul. New restricted area may help Jeremy in this regard.

3. Interior Defense
How tough will we be in the post? We need Braxton to hold his ground and not give cheap fouls.

4. Those Dam Flash Cards
This is Senglins 3rd season at the point. Will he be able to make a lot of the play calls himself or will he be required to look at the flash cards every five seconds.

5. Bench play from Hill/Gittens
Having these guys on the bench is like having 7 starters on your team. We have the ability to have our second unit be stronger than our first. I am interested to see how they change the game when coming in.

6. Joels passing out of the double team.
I have a feeling that Joel will be drawing a crowd close to the basket. How well can he distribute will be key.

7. Ball movement on the perimeter
Last year the ball movement struggled on the perimeter. We have the shooters to move the ball weel out there and make the Aggies pay for packing it in our bigs.

8. Offensive rebounds
We should out rebound USU. Offensive boards will be key to our success. With Braxton, Bolomboy and Hill we should be getting lots of second chance points.

9. Chest pounding and other stupid behavior
This was one of our big problems last year. We displayed this behavior even while losing. I just want to see you go out and play hard.

10. Coaching Strategy - Game and time management
Last year we waited for nearly 10 minutes to call a time out when USU made that huge second half run. We have to make adjustments and get the troops collected.

Bring it on Aggies we want this one more!
 
I like your #4 thing :nod: Since Stew started it with Rahe & then Duryea, I wonder if Aggies will continue with it...if not maybe our coaches can try & confuse the Aggies by flashing those damn play cards in their faces. :lol:
 
Most of the #9 problem probably doesn't exist on the team any more, or at least until some of the newbs settle in. I do agree, however, just play ball-- show emotion but keep it within the context of the team.
 
1. Weber is not a very good jump-shooting team and 3PT shooting is inconsistent at best.
2. I thought Senglin made pretty good decisions and played well, however, it didn't seem like he was comfortable or in sync with the others much of the time. Maybe that's just my perception though.
3. I didn't think Braxton did bad, he's young and needs experience and we hope his offense develops quickly but he was OK. He, Joel, and Hill certainly were not the force in the paint they need to be. Taking in to consideration Collette quit, I'd say the post play wasn't too hot.
4. Would we ever expect Rahe to change anything?
5. Kiko=nothing; Hill=1 nice block, 1 nice play & thunderous dunk, 4 PF, and disappointing overall; Gittins=so-so play but too many mistakes and bad decisions; Cannon=decent, not going to be the most athletic but could end up being a solid hustle guy. USU 34/10; WSU 17/8 and overall it was worse than that.
6. Didn't really notice an impact either way.
7. Not sure it was bad but certainly wasn't great. USU was able to pressure Weber pretty easily and there were times when Weber had spacing problems related more to the wings than the paint.
8. Can I just throw out and F grade for this one? If Rahe can't play these three so they are in position to impose their build and talent in the paint then I think we will be sorely disappointed in the results.
9. Didn't notice anything here.
10. Nothing to see here. I think Rahe is out-coached way more often than not, more frustrating to me is that he more or less admits that he isn't able to have his team ready to compete until BSC play begins.

I'll add #11 -- Weber can no longer compete with the rest of the state with a HC not passionate about these games. They can't beat BYU anymore; they can't beat USU anymore; they wouldn't be able to beat the pukes anymore if LK wasn't the wuss he is; SUU has gotten the better of Weber in both FB & BB; and they can usually go about .500 with UVU anymore.
 
I often agree with much of what you say Weather, but often you get a little carried away with everything being negatives. How can 3 pt. shooting be inconsistent at best when we shot 42.1% last night? You want to venture what our 3 pt. % was in 2011-12 with Lillard And Bamforth? 39.1% You want to venture what it was the following year when we were one of the best in the Country? 41.6%
 
That's fair, I guess I'm talking out my @ss on the 3Pt comment. I was just stating what it seemed like watching it, and you're comparing season stats to this single game? Maybe mistakenly, I thought JRich should be our 3PT guy 0-1. I personally don't like the bigs out shooting the 3PT Joel 1-2, and Hill 0-1, for 1-3. Senglin 3-6 and Gittens 2-3 both solid. Probably where it seemed even worse than it was is with both Cannon and Baker going 1-3, but hey, that's .333, right? Not that they should have been in position to have to hit a 3 to send it to OT but I wanted to see Senglin, Gittens, or Richardson taking the shot but had a hunch it would be Cannon or Baker.

Edit: ....for what it's worth:
3PT 1st Half -- USU 4/9 .444 | WSU 4/11 .364
3PT 2nd Half -- USU 4/11 .364 | WSU 4/8 .500
 
SWWeatherCat said:
#11 -- Weber can no longer compete with the rest of the state with a HC not passionate about these games. They can't beat BYU anymore; they can't beat USU anymore; they wouldn't be able to beat the pukes anymore if LK wasn't the wuss he is; SUU has gotten the better of Weber in both FB & BB; and they can usually go about .500 with UVU anymore.

I disagree with you on it being on totally on Rahe, in my opinion it's the conference re-alignment that has caused WSU to tailspin against instate opponents. Every other team in the state has changed conference affiliation with WSU being the lone team staying put, continuous improvement states: "If you're not going forward, you're going backwards". I've addressed this to death on this forum, but since we continue to pile on marketing, scheduling, I guess I can keep beating on this issue. If WSU could improve their conference affiliation then marketing would improve, or at least more people might be interested just by being in a better conference would lead to better scheduling... last night's attendance was great because there was local interest in the game and it was a quality opponent. We won't see anything close to those numbers for the rest of the year. For the past few years our attendance figures have increased, I bet this year we see a drop.

I'm frustrated, pissed off, and honestly, bummed out, I don't expect Weber to beat any of the state Big-4 anymore home or especially away. The gulf between Utah/BYU/USU is too great and the gap between WSU/SUU/UVU is gone. The only way WSU is going to regain what they have lost is to figure out how to improve their conference affiliation that puts WSU above SUU and UVU not equal to them.
 
I don't disagree that the other teams improving their conference affiliation helps their program grow but I still say those teams are better prepared to start competing when the season begins, not when conference play begins. I would have to question your "continuous improvement" statement. So, when you're a P5 school and let's say it's a ACC or Big East P5 team, then what? I don't know how you improve your conference at that point, so you can only go backwards from there?

Other "mid-majors" (I hate the classification) seem to be able to remain in their conference and still have success against in-state rivals-- Colorado St., Wichita St., and Gonzaga all come to mind. I think it can be done, at least once in a while at home, despite being disadvantaged in the lesser conference. I guess I just assume the coaches of those teams would have more passion for OCC and especially in-state games. Let's say Weber upgraded their conference affiliation. OK, yes, the program should improve beginning with better "conference" recruiting and better attendance/money from more interest in higher quality teams. Does that change the approach and fire in the coach for OOC? Does the coach need to be replaced because like players, the conference is more attractive to better coaches?

I obviously share your feelings and it just makes it worse when your coach starts making excuses and saying your opponents are better than you, or the only thing that matters about the game is that it helps you get ready for conference play. What ticks me off as much as anything is I don't see as big of a recruiting impact from the Lillard effect as I thought there should be. It's not just the State of Utah Weber has had its struggles with, Montana's been getting it done too. It seems they've lost sight of the big 3 and lost ground to SUU, UVU, and UM as well. Pretty much all of Weber's history and success has been in the BSC and I don't see a better conference knocking on the door, maybe ever, so be the biggest fish in the small pond and big enough to compete in larger ponds, at least once in a while.
 
wsucatfan said:
I'm frustrated, pissed off, and honestly, bummed out, I don't expect Weber to beat any of the state Big-4 anymore home or especially away. The gulf between Utah/BYU/USU is too great and the gap between WSU/SUU/UVU is gone.

^^This
 
SWWeatherCat said:
I would have to question your "continuous improvement" statement. So, when you're a P5 school and let's say it's a ACC or Big East P5 team, then what? I don't know how you improve your conference at that point, so you can only go backwards from there?

The P5 conferences caused all this to begin with. The major shake up poaching the Big East and other conferences (Big 10/12 & Mtn West) to cherry pick the best teams and markets to improve their conferences and tv deals caused the ripple down affect. WAC gets raided by MWC and in desperation the BSC invites the low hanging fruit degrading our conference, and in effect degrading Weber.

You could also add in the player stipends to the improvements the P5 has added to pull away from the mid-major teams.

As we all know the next P5 improvement is to kick the ncaa out the door and start their own division.
 
wsucatfan said:
SWWeatherCat said:
I would have to question your "continuous improvement" statement. So, when you're a P5 school and let's say it's a ACC or Big East P5 team, then what? I don't know how you improve your conference at that point, so you can only go backwards from there?

The P5 conferences caused all this to begin with. The major shake up poaching the Big East and other conferences (Big 10/12 & Mtn West) to cherry pick the best teams and markets to improve their conferences and tv deals caused the ripple down affect. WAC gets raided by MWC and in desperation the BSC invites the low hanging fruit degrading our conference, and in effect degrading Weber.

You could also add in the player stipends to the improvements the P5 has added to pull away from the mid-major teams.

As we all know the next P5 improvement is to kick the ncaa out the door and start their own division.
I agree that a part of Weber's problem is that the conference they belong to has not improved and has probably worsened. But football has driven all of the realignment and with Weber's football program being what it is I don't know what other conference options there have been. At this point the only option to improve conferences might be to split off the strongest schools from the Big Sky and create another conference. But that would create problems of its own and at this point I'm not convinced Weber would even be considered one of the stronger schools in the conference.
 
We have digressed from where we were the end of last season. I feel like we can use the it takes time to learn the system at the beginning of every season.

Our interior defense is BAD. I am not sure how we could have gotten softer inside but we have done it. A smaller less athletic team tore us up in the paint last night. How does Hill look good and improved in every Purple and White game and then once the season starts he defends like a drunk duck? We let this team get 12 offensive rebounds on us.

Again, I am not sure how we could have had worse chemistry than last year, but we have it. Braxton & Bolomboy had 9 turnovers between them. We were simply sloppy and out of sink last night. Guys look confused on offense. Cannon keeps looking over at the flash cards every five seconds.

I am very frustrated at our coaching strategy.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top