Game 2 @ Rutgers, 11/29/20, 4 PM on BTN

[Jojogunne]

Great to see HU MBB in action once again! Looking forward to seeing what this team can do in the weeks ahead.

Ray showed why he deserves to be All-CAA. I loved Cramer's interception of that lob pass early on; he's going to be a fan favorite.

Hope we get to play all of the teams on our schedule.

[triplec2195]

There are a lot of good and well intention points being made here. If this had been a normal year we would have had a lot more practices and by now the rolls of players would be a lot more defined. I had also heard that our team at some point had to quarantine for a while further adding to the lack of practices. We need to be in the here and now and that reality is currently Ray is the number 1 player followed by Coburn. Clearly Ray can be that guy as I remember Eli saying that he (Ray) can score 25 a night. I don't doubt this because now he's going to get a lot more touches and he will shoot more. People have made good points about Coburn being a streaky shooter and yesterday his first shot albeit not a good one was off a wide open look. His overall game is so solid that you have to accept what he brings on a given night. As the point has been made Kante will flourish in the CAA he doesn't have the size to bang with P5 post players. Kante IMO looked tired in that game yesterday but maybe just emotionally drained having to deal with all their athletes. We already can see a small sample of what Cramer is going to bring to this team and what a standout he will become. Someone brought up the fact that he has developed an outside shot and when you add this to his high Flying act he's a very talented player. Take note of his alley oop Dunk yesterday and you can see why a lot of us are excited to see him play. Hopefully he's not a Rokus from the FT line. I hadn't mentioned Green in previous comments and I think his resume speaks for itself. The coaches assessment of him is enough for me to know he will be eventually one of the great players here if he develops. Now he's just a freshman. The biggest problem with this team right now and it was on full display yesterday is the PG play or lack thereof. Obviously a very important position and it appears that Burgess with all his hype from H.S. ISN'T READY FOR THE PRIME TIME. We'll see how this develops but Elmo has already played two years of college ball and he seems to be a no brainer to take over the PG position.
Just curious as to why Bethea wasn't in that game something has to be wrong with him being a N.J. kid he would have gotten minutes?? Trueheart's presence also may have given us a lift as well yesterday.
Let's see how we play in a mid major game then we will have more of an idea where we're at!!

[Pride97]

I thought i saw someone in an arm sling at the top of the bleachers in the Hofstra area yesterday. Do we know who that was?

[HUSID74]

Our PG play was horrendous...Burgess showed nothing offensively and I think the ycall him Elmo didn't show much either but at least he looked a little more aggressive in the second half...look for him to start tonight.
I think we were really hurt by Coburn getttting hit in the first half, missed the rest of the half and some of the second...took away our second opportunity...the new guys looked like new guys...not quite ready fro prime time except that Cramer's energy came through strongly...something we'll need a lot of. As for Kante he was singlehandedly battling two guys over 6-11...tough but I was disappoined, as Polito said in his body language and when he failed to dive for that loose ball in the second half.

All in all tough way to start the season against a ranked team with two games under its belt with their size, etc. Also look at Rutgers' record in that building last year...think they only lost one there!

[Polito]

This isn't the Rutgers of old, Pikiell has turned them around and they are a legit program with multiple top 100 recruits on their roster. They are brutal in the RAC, and have a really nice mix of veterans, new blood, size, D, athleticism, scoring, etc. HU actually played pretty good D against them, this team can easily drop 80-90. That was very encouraging. HU played pesky D against a massive, seasoned, skilled, and well-coached team.

Certainly have to give them some slack as this was the first game for HC Farrelly in that position, and they didn't even have Fast Eddie to bus them over! Cramer hasn't played organized competition ball in 2 yrs, Green is 'green'.. it's going to be a process. The whole thing just seemed a bit out of sorts overall, so it was a tough situation for them all.

The talent is there, but it's going to need time to gel and unify - but they don't have long to do it, every OOC game carries a lot of weight in terms of development. This season is short, so the growth from game to game needs to be significant.

The 2 biggest concerns are the horrid shooting and the PG play - both are concerns as this system simply won't be effective without either.

I mean not ONE of these guys can make a wide open shot? Ray was strong but not lights out either. Went right down the roster and except for him each was worse than the other. Yeah game 1, but they had loads of great looks and it was brick after brick. Looked worse than jr high. HU has had poor shooting and PG play in the past and it is a MAJOR hindrance to this systems success... we better see some proper D1 production against FDU.

TC was playing poor before the injury, not really an excuse for him in my book. After he was just as bad or worse, so it definitely had an impact. Regardless, he needs to step up, period. The days of hiding and popping out of a tree to make a couple of plays are over. You are a Sr starting leader, Ray can't do it alone, this team is depending on you, the season started my friend, get your head in the game and play aggressive from start to finish.

HUSID, that 'no-dive' play near the end was AWFUL - he should've gotten an earful from the staff IMO - he looked lazy and lethargic out there the majority of the time, even with the 17 grabs. I can tolerate getting beat by better players, and RU was, but lack of effort?? HELL NO. ESP from a starting Jr leader. Get your head on straight IK. Hope he got firmly taught a valuable lesson by the staff last night, that BS best stop immediately.

Not sure what everyone else saw, but Elmo did not impress. I expected some learning, but still more from a seasoned player. He played out of control, big TO risk, didn't run any O, didn't seem to understand some game situations, couldn't score (and he's actually a score first point), etc.

Burgess showed zero O, but he at least looked more commanding in the 1 spot - I at least trust him with the ball, just not sure he knows what to do with it either. Neither looks ready to lead, but I do also expect both to improve a lot - question is, how quickly??

Speedy, my man, we need MUCH better and that spot is your baby! The road to course correct begins tonight!

[EvanJ]

Evan when u say Green stunk what exactly does that mean. I really don’t remember seeing him much on the floor but recall him taking at least one decent three that went in and out.

He missed all 5 shots. In 16 minutes his only positive contribution was 1 rebound. He committed 2 fouls and 2 turnovers. Not everyone can be as good a freshman as Pemberton, but Green made me want to see Cramer play more tonight, and the freshman with the greatest expectations may not be the best. I read somewhere that Lester was expected to be better than Jenkins. They were freshmen in 2007-2008.

It is good when we can have everybody other than Ray shoot poorly, have nobody else score more than 8, and still match the spread, which was 14, 14.5, and 15 from different times and sources. We were great last season, but JWF and Taylor's graduations hurt our field goal percentage, which dropped from .486 in 2018-2019 to .450 in 2019-2020.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Jesus, the takes here are flaming hot!

I DVR'd the game and just had a chance to get through it, I thought we played pretty well considering it's our first game, against a top 25 team, without our two lead guards from last year.

We missed too many shots, and Rutgers did a great job protecting the paint for big chunks of the game, so we couldn't establish the type of game we want to play in the CAA. Burgess and Cowart need time, usually our lead scorer is also our primary ball-handler, so aspects of the offense will need to change, and that will depend on who wins the starting role at PG, and how many points can we expect from that position.

Happy with Cramer's performance, I think he looks good, happy to see Ray is the go-to guy. Didn't see anything too alarming from anyone else. Is Bethea hurt? Overall, FDU will be a better barometer to see where we stand at this point.

[EvanJ]

usually our lead scorer is also our primary ball-handler

2019-2020: Leading scorer Buie led in assists by far
2018-2019: Leading scorer JWF had much fewer assists than Buie, but JWF's 2.9 was significant
2017-2018: Leading scorer JWF tied Buie for the most assists with 100, and Buie played one fewer game, so he averaged more
2016-2017: Leading scorer JWF was fourth in assists with 31 percent of what Deron Powers had
2014-2015 and 2015-2016: Green led in both, but Tanksley was a close second in points
2013-2014: Leading scorer Zeke Upshaw had under half as many assists as Dion Nesmith
2012-2013: Leading scorer Taran Buie had 37 percent of Stevie Mejia's assists, but Mejia scored only 0.5 fewer
2011-2012: Leading scorer Mike Moore had 43 percent Dwan McMillan's assists
2010-2011: Leading scorer Jenkins led in assists

That's ten seasons. Powers was our second leading scorer in 2016-2017, and one of our top two scorers averaged at least 2.9 assists every season except for 2011-2012, when Moore averaged 2.1 assists, and second leading scorer Nathaniel Lester averaged exactly 1 assist. Our players to average under 10 points and at least 3 assists in a season in the CAA are Dwan McMillan (5.3 points and 4.8 assists in 2011-2012), Brad Kelleher (7.5 points and 3.3 assists in 2010-2011), Chaz Williams (9.8 points and 4.2 assists in 2009-2010), Greg Johnson (3.7 points and 3.6 assists in 2007-2008), and Woody Souffrant (3.4 points and 4.5 assists in 2001-2002 and 8.7 points and 4.5 assists in 2002-2003).