It looks like the “Getting Dykesed” thread has been shut down, and good riddance. While there are a few good points in that thread, we are, as usual, too predictable, as we heap blame and bash a coach or a player or two after a bad loss.
The team did improve some over the course of the last season, and some players have clearly improved individually, so there is some coaching going on. Look at RMB shoot a free throw now. Watch his eyes, and how he focuses and imagines the shot before he shoots it. He is starting to grasp the mental side of shooting a free throw. He was 4-4 in last night’s game. Kinglsey Okoroh shoots bricks most of the time. Last night he was 4-4 on free throws. One poster in the aforementioned thread says our free throw shooting last night was “abysmal”. 72% is abysmal? No, last season, at 65%, was poor. 55% is abysmal. Someone else said Singer had an awful game. With the promotion of Moore to PG, and Bird out, Singer is relegated to playing the 2 guard some of the time (Shooting guard). Singer is not a shooting guard and does not belong there. It is not easy to bounce back and forth between two positions during a game.
My impression of the game is that I can’t remember a Cal team that had such a huge shooting percentage differential, 72% on free throws, and 32% on field goals. Cal’s defense was poor. Both teams shot poorly, but San Diego State was missing mostly open shots, while most the Cal shots were tightly contested and defended. Cal shared the ball a lot, but after a few passes, it was one player taking it on himself to create his own shot, and the SDSU defense was waiting for him. People have decried my use of assists as a measure of team play. Well, we had even fewer assists in this game, 7 in total. 16 turnovers is awful. You won’t win many, or maybe any games with that assist/turnover ratio. The Bears played totally out of control. Instead of “taking it to the rim”, they seemed to want to drive and take to a defender, and settle for the free throws, and never mind about making a shot, which has almost no chance of going in the basket. I’ve never seen that many wild shots in a game. Do they practice those wild shots? And Moore is not exempt from this, believe me. On the other side of the coin, we outrebounded a very athletic team by 13 rebounds, and shot a good 72% on free throws. Last season, SDSU outrebounded us 44-36, and we shot FTs at an awful 58%. Last year, we made only 5 assists, and we made 15 turnovers. Look familiar? It was another early game against a well coached team.
I have my own reservations about Cuonzo. There are many things I need to see first before I pronounce him “Dykesian”, with systemic problems that have not been addressed. But before we write off Cuonzo as a coach, we need to remind ourselves that one key player was out, and two other key players were playing their first game back from injury and had little or no practice reps. Cuonzo decided on who his point guard was to be only a couple of days before the game. You all want us to whip a team which killed us last season with this little practice or preparation?
This is a team that beat us easily last season, also in an early season game, and when we supposedly had better talent than we do this season. This is game #3, for goodness sake! Can we get a grip?
The team did improve some over the course of the last season, and some players have clearly improved individually, so there is some coaching going on. Look at RMB shoot a free throw now. Watch his eyes, and how he focuses and imagines the shot before he shoots it. He is starting to grasp the mental side of shooting a free throw. He was 4-4 in last night’s game. Kinglsey Okoroh shoots bricks most of the time. Last night he was 4-4 on free throws. One poster in the aforementioned thread says our free throw shooting last night was “abysmal”. 72% is abysmal? No, last season, at 65%, was poor. 55% is abysmal. Someone else said Singer had an awful game. With the promotion of Moore to PG, and Bird out, Singer is relegated to playing the 2 guard some of the time (Shooting guard). Singer is not a shooting guard and does not belong there. It is not easy to bounce back and forth between two positions during a game.
My impression of the game is that I can’t remember a Cal team that had such a huge shooting percentage differential, 72% on free throws, and 32% on field goals. Cal’s defense was poor. Both teams shot poorly, but San Diego State was missing mostly open shots, while most the Cal shots were tightly contested and defended. Cal shared the ball a lot, but after a few passes, it was one player taking it on himself to create his own shot, and the SDSU defense was waiting for him. People have decried my use of assists as a measure of team play. Well, we had even fewer assists in this game, 7 in total. 16 turnovers is awful. You won’t win many, or maybe any games with that assist/turnover ratio. The Bears played totally out of control. Instead of “taking it to the rim”, they seemed to want to drive and take to a defender, and settle for the free throws, and never mind about making a shot, which has almost no chance of going in the basket. I’ve never seen that many wild shots in a game. Do they practice those wild shots? And Moore is not exempt from this, believe me. On the other side of the coin, we outrebounded a very athletic team by 13 rebounds, and shot a good 72% on free throws. Last season, SDSU outrebounded us 44-36, and we shot FTs at an awful 58%. Last year, we made only 5 assists, and we made 15 turnovers. Look familiar? It was another early game against a well coached team.
I have my own reservations about Cuonzo. There are many things I need to see first before I pronounce him “Dykesian”, with systemic problems that have not been addressed. But before we write off Cuonzo as a coach, we need to remind ourselves that one key player was out, and two other key players were playing their first game back from injury and had little or no practice reps. Cuonzo decided on who his point guard was to be only a couple of days before the game. You all want us to whip a team which killed us last season with this little practice or preparation?
This is a team that beat us easily last season, also in an early season game, and when we supposedly had better talent than we do this season. This is game #3, for goodness sake! Can we get a grip?