Now What?

[SDHornet]

With the two OT losses by the Hornets (the Hornets had a chance to win both games in the final possession of the game) to the two other BSC bottom dwellers EWU and ISU, the season is pretty much done for. I don’t think the Hornets have a chance at winning until EWU and ISU visit the Nest.
My question to anyone still able to stomach this program is how should the Hornets play out the remainder of the season?

I say let the young players get some experience and hope they can develop to give some/any hope for this program in the future.

• • Play freshman Groom at PG for at least 10 minutes a game. There is not another PG on the roster and someone will need to be ready to fill in for TB after he exhausts his eligibility at the end of this season.
  • Continue to play freshman guard Carbajal. He wasn’t played much at ISU as Hoffman saw more time. Both players are probably on par as far as ability so I’d rather see time given to the younger player so he can develop. I see a lot of upside in Carbajal and some much needed experience will go a long way.
  • Sit Alpha until he is 120% healthy and ready to come back. No point risking re-injury of his ankle as there isn’t anything left to gain other than experience this season.
  • Play freshman center Rakocevic for at least 10 minutes a game. Same with Groom, get this guy some experience in hopes that he can develop into a player who can contribute.
  • Continue playing Dickson unless he gets injured.
  • Rotate all the JC players until Katz can identify which ones can be dependable next season. I haven’t seen anything consistent from any of them so hopefully somebody (Nelson, Jackson, Hoffman) can step up and make their presence felt.

With playing the freshmen, Katz can then hit the recruiting trail with the selling point of playing time to talented high school players. I really don’t know what else can draw athletic players to this program; it sure as hell won’t be Katz’ game plan.

Any other ideas? :|

 

[Green Cookie Monster]

I'll tell you what I am going to do...

wait for baseball season
wait for football season

 

[superhornet]

I'll tell you what I am going to do...

wait for baseball season
wait for football season

You're forgetting about two of the most successful sports at Sac in the last ten years: gymnastics and crew.

 

[DrMike]

from the glass-half-full, 2 OT losses on the road is somewhat encouraging compared to where the team was a few weeks ago (Utah Valley, Washington State). Weber is now very beatable with Damian Lillard out for the season. Sweep them, beat these two at home, and pull out a couple other home games and the Hornets could slip into the conference tournament.

how they lost is discouraging; hate to see games get away when the team doesn't seem to have a plan.

 

[SDHornet]

from the glass-half-full, 2 OT losses on the road is somewhat encouraging compared to where the team was a few weeks ago (Utah Valley, Washington State). Weber is now very beatable with Damian Lillard out for the season. Sweep them, beat these two at home, and pull out a couple other home games and the Hornets could slip into the conference tournament.

how they lost is discouraging; hate to see games get away when the team doesn't seem to have a plan.

I was able to stomach the close losses last year, but now that Katz is in his 3rd season, he needs to start winning these close ones. The team has played a lot better once Proctor left, but many good efforts have been squandered this season. The season opener against Bakersfield and the McNeese State games were games in which the Hornets had double digit second half leads and blew them. There is no excuse for dropping those. These last two games at EWU and ISU had the Hornets down early and they were able to battle back (Katz’ forte the past season and a half) only to have no clue on how to hold a late lead or make a play at the end of regulation. Katz just doesn’t know how to win and doesn’t know how to coach his way to victory in close games. I hope he can grab some wins but I’m not going to hold my breath.

 

[williestarbuck]

I definitely agree with SDHornet. I've questioned before why Groom hasn't gotten more minutes. Scouts rated him pretty high coming out of high school and when I've seen him play (what little that has been) I see a guy who has the ability to play at this level but needs more productive minutes, not token minutes. Katz needs to and should have earlier on made Groom a part of the game plan running a 2 pt guard offense. That would rest Toles-Bey some since Katz doesn't seem to want to take him out. It would give the team better ball handling and also allow T-B an opportunity to move without the ball. If Katz had done this earlier, Groom would be more comfortable on the floor and maybe Katz would feel better about playing 2 Freshmen guards and allowing T-B more time to rest. We could also see what our backcourt of the future looks like. I think Groom needs 15 minutes a game.

It makes no sense not to play Rakocevic more, at least 10 minutes per. I don't get it, but if you do, maybe you can explain it to me.

I thought Katz said this was going to be a good perimeter shooting team? What happened?

Overall, I guess I don't see what Katz is trying to do with this team? My guess is he wanted to take advantage of PSU's ineligibility and eak his way into the conference tournament. Well, so much for that. Play your freshmen.

 

[EarleHornet]

I'm confused. Did the league schedule change to two games??? I thought they played 16 games in league.

 

[SDHornet]

I'm confused. Did the league schedule change to two games??? I thought they played 16 games in league.

So you are telling me you have seen something from these coaches and this team that give you the impression that they can beat the better teams in the BSC? Please enlighten us.

I sure hope Katz can turn this around…but…

 

[EarleHornet]

I'm confused. Did the league schedule change to two games??? I thought they played 16 games in league.

So you are telling me you have seen something from these coaches and this team that give you the impression that they can beat the better teams in the BSC? Please enlighten us.

I sure hope Katz can turn this around…but…

I guess I'm just not the type to give up on my team until they are mathematically out of it. Certainly, not after the first two games of league.

As far as seeing positives from this team, the team appears to be playing better and better as the season goes along. The wins have not come but, losing in overtime twice, on the road, I believe shows a more competitive team. Winning on the road in the BSC is not easy, even to the teams that appear to be the lower tier of the BSC. Also, hopefully, someday Alpha will be healthy and back to play.

Maybe I'm wrong but, I'm not throwing in the towel just yet.

 

[SactoHornetAlum]

I'm confused. Did the league schedule change to two games??? I thought they played 16 games in league.

So you are telling me you have seen something from these coaches and this team that give you the impression that they can beat the better teams in the BSC? Please enlighten us.

I sure hope Katz can turn this around…but…

I guess I'm just not the type to give up on my team until they are mathematically out of it. Certainly, not after the first two games of league.

As far as seeing positives from this team, the team appears to be playing better and better as the season goes along. The wins have not come but, losing in overtime twice, on the road, I believe shows a more competitive team. Winning on the road in the BSC is not easy, even to the teams that appear to be the lower tier of the BSC. Also, hopefully, someday Alpha will be healthy and back to play.

Maybe I'm wrong but, I'm not throwing in the towel just yet.

We have lost 3 times in OT on this road trip. We are playing better. I'd rather have these losses than blowouts. Look, we had 3 returning guys from last year. That's hard to overcome. But Katz is adding more freshmen each year instead of JC transfers. We have to be a bit patient. I feel he is going to turn the corner, but he was left with a very bare cupboard towards the end of Jenkins' tenure. The fact he is convincing freshmen to come to the Hornets Nest is nothing short of amazing AFAIC.

 

[SDHornet]

Let’s not forget that we were competitive last season and we had to settle for these close losses. Katz needed to turn the corner this season and continue progress in the win column, which is most important to me. This isn’t happening and I felt this schedule was a pretty weak OOC schedule against other struggling programs. Essentially this season has been pretty identical to last season only we have less wins right now. I agree that the BSC games will not get any easier and we needed to beat the other “weak” programs to have a shot at the BSC Tournament. Maybe it’s just me not willing to settle for the “at least we were competitive” status quo that has seemingly been acceptable under the Katz regime.

We have lost 3 times in OT on this road trip. We are playing better. I'd rather have these losses than blowouts. Look, we had 3 returning guys from last year. That's hard to overcome. But Katz is adding more freshmen each year instead of JC transfers. We have to be a bit patient. I feel he is going to turn the corner, but he was left with a very bare cupboard towards the end of Jenkins' tenure. The fact he is convincing freshmen to come to the Hornets Nest is nothing short of amazing AFAIC.

I agree we are playing better, but these close games need to be wins. We have 5 returning guys, 3 of whom are returning starters. When you think about it, only one or two significant players were lost from a season ago: Eller and maybe Flaggs. It is nice to see Katz adding freshmen players and that is movement in the right direction, but does it mean much if they are sitting on the bench not getting experience? (Rakocevic and Groom)

The cupboard wasn’t completely bare. Eller and Leath were Jenkins’ carryovers. Katz has yet to replace Eller (Alpha was billed as the guy but he has been hurt). I don’t think anyone of Katz’ recruits have shown that they have the scoring ability Leath had. (Leath came close to setting the career Hornet scoring record right?) TB has been pretty solid but he is either dead on or totally off on any given night.

I understand it’s going to take time for this to completely turn around, and I agree that steps have been made in the right direction; but time after time Katz is coaching his way out of a double digit deficit against comparable competition and these recent last possession blown chances don’t reflect well on this turnaround.

 

[SactoHornetAlum]

I think Alpha being hurt has really crippled us. I think we have those 3 OT losses as wins if he had played. Look u can't count Jackson and Alpha as returnees just because they redshirt. It's not like they played a D-I season beforehand. We are getting better, we probably win those games had we been at home, IMO.

 

[SDHornet]

I think Alpha being hurt has really crippled us. I think we have those 3 OT losses as wins if he had played. Look u can't count Jackson and Alpha as returnees just because they redshirt. It's not like they played a D-I season beforehand. We are getting better, we probably win those games had we been at home, IMO.

Yup, Alpha probably makes a difference, however Nelson had a huge game at EWU and he did maintain an inside presence during that game. True Alpha and Jackson did not see playing time, but that redshirt season gave them time to learn the system and understand it better. It should have allowed them to hit the ground running. Jackson hasn't done much of anything this season. The Hornets are going to have to win away from the Nest if the program wants to make some noise. Traditionally this program has struggled on the road, and that needs to change.

 

[williestarbuck]

Here's an idea, place a premium on close game scenarios in practice. We've lost 4 OT games. 1 at home even. I only saw one of the OT loses we had on the road and that was EW, and I know for a fact we weren't prepared for that last possession. It was ugly. Those OT loses weren't because we didn't have Alpha, they were because we weren't prepared. But this isn't anything new. We always lose close games. We lose close games and we can't stop runs. That's Katz. I'm sorry, but fix it. If you like Katz, you say at least we're competitive. Well, I like Sac State and I say we we're supposed to be competitive. We should be winning.

And we're not tanking the season by playing Freshmen. I think Groom and Rak can help the team now if Katz play them. We have Montana and Montana State at home then we go out and play Weber State and Northern Arizona before we come home to find Northern Colorado waiting on us. You know how we get 2 wins out of that stretch? Play the Freshmen. Rak will provide some size down low and Groom can provide fresh legs for STB.

I will say Katz has done a fine recruiting job, but he don't have shooters like he said he has. STB, Duro and Carbajal are okay when they're on, but obviously they haven't been on enough to put up more W's. I like Rak, Alpha, Nelson and McCarver down low, but Katz won't give Rak and Mc the minutes. Alpha's been hurt and Nelson is good but he'll be more consistently effective with help down low.

And finally, Katz, IMO, lacks creativity. He has the pieces but the team has no personality. I will say this until I'm proven wrong, this team can be a BSC Tournament team if it's not too late and if the coaching gets better.