Get the next one. Go Bears

Hard to believe a former Duke guy can play such horrendous defense.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Roach has lived up to his Duke stats. 10-15ppg. 2-4 assists a game. Gets caught ball watching more than hoped for

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Yeah. I don't want to call him a bust because he hasn't been a bust relative to what he's always produced. He is doing basically what he's always done. The bust is that we basically paid him as if he were going to become an overnight gamechanger and he was never going to be that.

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He's a bust because Drew brought him here to ball handle and he cannot. That's a talent evaluation problem

I'd like to have some older guys coached up in the system. Would never say no to a guy like Omier coming in and don't mind one or two 5* frosh here and there but strolling out a new starting 5 every year makes it tough to have any consistency. Coach Cal won one title at Kentucky and I'm pretty sure that roster wasn't straight freshman

Big 12 regular season records the past two seasons:

Houston (26-4)
Iowa State (21-9)
Texas Tech (20-10)
Baylor (18-13)
Kansas (17-13) https://t.co/bU3KIE0fQq

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) February 11, 2025

Big12Fan2024 said:

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IowaBear said:

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Get old, stay old. It works contrary to this boards believe that doing so is impossible in the NIL era

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Yeah. That's why it hurts watching Roberts of UH so much. He reminds me somewhat of Freddie Gillespie in that Freddie came in with not a ton of skills and improved each year until his senior year when he was extremely difficult to guard and just a solid overall player. Roberts started off very raw at UH and has made a similar climb over his career.

I hope we can get back to having some guys develop through the program like Freddie.

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It's a delicate balance, especially in the transfer portal era, but I think we can say with some confidence that our current roster building strategy creates high-floor, low ceiling teams.

We're talented enough to overwhelm most of the teams on our schedule, but almost every time we play one of the good teams on our schedule that also has developed some chemistry, we look like a collection of players rather than a team in comparison.

That has been especially true this year, when we've gotten blown out by almost every good team we've played.

I think we've got to find a way to get back to building toward something. You have to have a developmental core or you're just dealing with the same problems and general lack of cohesiveness every single year.

58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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Those are positives. But you're not going to win many games shooting 15 fewer shots than your opponent.

Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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Our starters shot 71 percent from the field and 82 percent from 3 tonight. That's insane.

Unfortunately, we got literally nothing from the two bench players.

Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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I saw it from court level. Hou is physical and incredibly disciplined. But our offense spread them out and honestly put in work. And that's with Wright and Nunn missing what seemed like 6-7 fairly clean layups and runners

Their defensive principles broke down getting spread out. But theyre going to waste it with absolutely terrible defense and ball security

Quinton said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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I saw it from court level. Hou is physical and incredibly disciplined. But our offense spread them out and honestly put in work. And that's with Wright and Nunn missing what seemed like 6-7 fairly clean layups and runners

Their defensive principles broke down getting spread out. But theyre going to waste it with absolutely terrible defense and ball security

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I swear our program misses more layups / chippies than most any program I watch. Definitely harder on us than any other team as it's my team but we miss A LOT of bunnies

ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla to @PaperCityMag after Kelvin Sampson's University of Houston team rolls Baylor: "This is the quietest sixth ranked team in America. "... Everybody's putting Houston on the back burner, but that is absolutely a national championship contender."

— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) February 11, 2025

I y try honk I would rather have Houston win the natty than just about anyone else. Certainly I don't want anyone from the P2 conferences or a traditional blue blood.

Fre3dombear said:

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Quinton said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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I saw it from court level. Hou is physical and incredibly disciplined. But our offense spread them out and honestly put in work. And that's with Wright and Nunn missing what seemed like 6-7 fairly clean layups and runners

Their defensive principles broke down getting spread out. But theyre going to waste it with absolutely terrible defense and ball security

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I swear our program misses more layups / chippies than most any program I watch. Definitely harder on us than any other team as it's my team but we miss A LOT of bunnies

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Specifically Nunn. He gotta lead the nation in missed layups, if that is a stat. He is like the opposite of Teague, Butler, and Mitchell who were so elite at finishing in the paint for their size.

Fre3dombear said:

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Quinton said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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I saw it from court level. Hou is physical and incredibly disciplined. But our offense spread them out and honestly put in work. And that's with Wright and Nunn missing what seemed like 6-7 fairly clean layups and runners

Their defensive principles broke down getting spread out. But theyre going to waste it with absolutely terrible defense and ball security

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I swear our program misses more layups / chippies than most any program I watch. Definitely harder on us than any other team as it's my team but we miss A LOT of bunnies

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Nunn's ability to miss point blank lay ups is almost impossible. Not sure if it's hand size or what but it's strange. Wright also had 3 legitimate easy scoop type finishes and 2 more decent looks and clanked all of them.

They would have shot 60%+ had they finished even two of those easy looks. We played a very very poor man's version of nba small ball but with zero defense or rebounding,

So what you are saying is all the disadvantages of small ball, with none of the advantages of it. Fun times.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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So what you are saying is all the disadvantages of small ball, with none of the advantages of it. Fun times.

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I wouldn't go that far. Made their defense look pretty limited. That spread look had their forwards on islands and we got all the shots we wanted. Strictly first shot offense I'm talking. Just have to limit TOs

Shot 60% (with multiple easy misses) and looked fairly comfortable.

Rebounding and D was terrible as the critical X man Celestine was completely mia. No energy. So agree there. Just no solution when you don't have at the very least three solid (non guard) rebounders on a roster.

The puzzling thing with Nunn is that he's played 4 years of college ball (2 at the highest level and 2 at a really good mid major) and during that time apparently never worked on a running floater or realized he's short compared to bigs under the basket so at times it seems like 50% of his misses on running layups are just plain misses and the other 50% are blocked. Watch UH's guards last night. I counted 18 points alone between Uzan, LJ and Sharp on running floaters in the lane or going for layups that had no chance of being blocked by anyone.

Fre3dombear said:

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Quinton said:

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Stefano DiMera said:

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58% from field..and 60% from 3....damn

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I saw it from court level. Hou is physical and incredibly disciplined. But our offense spread them out and honestly put in work. And that's with Wright and Nunn missing what seemed like 6-7 fairly clean layups and runners

Their defensive principles broke down getting spread out. But theyre going to waste it with absolutely terrible defense and ball security

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I swear our program misses more layups / chippies than most any program I watch. Definitely harder on us than any other team as it's my team but we miss A LOT of bunnies

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We miss more bunny shots than Elmer Fudd.

Quinton said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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So what you are saying is all the disadvantages of small ball, with none of the advantages of it. Fun times.

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I wouldn't go that far. Made their defense look pretty limited. That spread look had their forwards on islands and we got all the shots we wanted. Strictly first shot offense I'm talking. Just have to limit TOs

Shot 60% (with multiple easy misses) and looked fairly comfortable.

Rebounding and D was terrible as the critical X man Celestine was completely mia. No energy. So agree there. Just no solution when you don't have at the very least three solid (non guard) rebounders on a roster.

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Did roach record any stats?

Smashmouth said:

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Hard to believe a former Duke guy can play such horrendous defense.

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He was an okay defender (not great) and was part of a top 20 defense. Cryer was one of the worst defenders I've ever seen and now he's a mediocre defender on a top 5 defense. Unfortunately the common thread is our staff.

If we make a deep tournament run Edgecombe will finish close to Cryer's point production.

Defense is as much a culture and Coach issue as any player.

Quinton said:

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Smashmouth said:

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Hard to believe a former Duke guy can play such horrendous defense.

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He was an okay defender (not great) and was part of a top 20 defense. Cryer was one of the worst defenders I've ever seen and now he's a mediocre defender on a top 5 defense. Unfortunately the common thread is our staff.

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That rep won't hurt us as a pre-NBA stop. The NBA doesn't give a rat's @$$ about defense.

Killing Floor said:

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If we make a deep tournament run Edgecombe will finish close to Cryer's point production.

Defense is as much a culture and Coach issue as any player.

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If we make a deep tournament run, something will have to be fixed between now and March.

Getting past the first weekend is looking increasingly unlikely barring a dramatic stroke of luck with seeding and improved playing.

-We don't have enough consistent defense. Too often our players watch opposing teams score, seemingly at will. It was cool that Davion Mitchell was there. I wonder if he was embarrassed by the pathetic defense he witnessed. Too bad his presence gif not inspire better results.

-And our offense cannot seem to develop much consistency. I noticed only one run last night vs Arizona in the second half. Their coach called timeout which effectively ended whatever momentum we had that could have carried us through to victory.

Our opponents, at least the better ones, are clearly paying better basketball. It's looking to be another disappointing season. This will be four in a row. I genuinely hope I'm wrong.