Texas Tech is good!

COTY Jerome Tang and his 2023 Elite Eight Cats
Puffdad
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Re: Texas Tech is good!

Post by Puffdad » December 11th, 2019, 12:46 pm

katlander wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 12:33 pm
pulitzerdave wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 12:27 pm


Three pretty good teams to lose to. Super frosh Ramsey was hurt in the Iowa game and didn't play against Creighton and DePaul, both OT losses. Probably different results in two of those three games. I saw the Iowa game, and although Ramsey went out in the second half, Iowa still would have won with him in. However, TT could easily be 8-1.

Here's my point. They lost just as much as we did, yet here they are, capable of beating a #1 team. They have two dynamic freshmen who will be a force in the Big 12. Who do we have that is comparable? They reload, and we retract. Why? How do they get these players to come to Lubbock?
I guess my biggest concern with Coach Weber is our shooting. We seem to struggle in this area year in and year out. I've always said that shooting is the name of the game, putting the ball in the hoop. A couple guys who can fill it up makes everything work better. I have to wonder if the effort demanded on defense takes away from the emphasis on shooting? Are their legs tired, are they afraid to shoot, or is it a confidence issue? I feel the problem is primarily between the ears, either those of the players, or possibly of our coaches.
You are making a good point here Katlander and starting to get to the key of what needs to be looked at. Why is the shooting of a couple key players significantly worse than past years? But I wouldn’t totally put the blame for bad shooting for what’s between the ears.

That’s what I was trying to get us to look at in my previous posts on Cartiers sudden drop in shooting %. Again there could be several factors playing a small part but the primary one by far is that we don’t have Dean, Kam, and Barry distorting defenses and giving X, Cartier, and Mak wide, wide open shots. It makes a HUGE difference. And until somebody hopefully steps up to be someone who can distort a defense we WON’T be great shooters. Right now defenses can pressure shots on all 5 equally!

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Pick 'Em

Post by katlander » December 11th, 2019, 12:54 pm

pulitzerdave wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 12:32 pm
tmcats wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 11:59 am
... this and murphy has been out a month. it's hard for a freshman to star on the pine.
Murphy is a solid freshman, but he's not going to "star" this year.
I think both he and DeJuan will be very good by year end. Possibly Antonio as well. Some guys and some teams come out of the gate stronger and some take a while. I think patience is the order of the day and am actually quite excited about our prospects. It also appears that Tech is really strong right now with a fantastic young Coach. It may be better to compare ourselves to the average team. In that event we will fare much better.

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Pick 'Em

Post by katlander » December 11th, 2019, 12:56 pm

Puffdad wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 12:46 pm
katlander wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 12:33 pm


I guess my biggest concern with Coach Weber is our shooting. We seem to struggle in this area year in and year out. I've always said that shooting is the name of the game, putting the ball in the hoop. A couple guys who can fill it up makes everything work better. I have to wonder if the effort demanded on defense takes away from the emphasis on shooting? Are their legs tired, are they afraid to shoot, or is it a confidence issue? I feel the problem is primarily between the ears, either those of the players, or possibly of our coaches.
You are making a good point here Katlander and starting to get to the key of what needs to be looked at. Why is the shooting of a couple key players significantly worse than past years? But I wouldn’t totally put the blame for bad shooting for what’s between the ears.

That’s what I was trying to get us to look at in my previous posts on Cartiers sudden drop in shooting %. Again there could be several factors playing a small part but the primary one by far is that we don’t have Dean, Kam, and Barry distorting defenses and giving X, Cartier, and Mak wide, wide open shots. It makes a HUGE difference. And until somebody hopefully steps up to be someone who can distort a defense we WON’T be great shooters. Right now defenses can pressure shots on all 5 equally!
Right, that extra 1/4 of a second to get a shot off is huge.

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Post by Puffdad » December 11th, 2019, 2:29 pm

A mentor of mine likes to say, “He had time to eat a sandwich before that shot!”

That makes %’s go up.

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Post by Gorhoops » December 11th, 2019, 3:16 pm

Puff is making me tell my Acie law story. So my cousin is an assistant at CU for Coach Boyle. He was at WSU with Turgeon and went to A&M when Turgeon headed down there. In Billy Clyde's last year at A&M, he had Acie Law running the PG and Acie ended up being like the #6 pick in the draft. That year A&M had a kid named Carter I think that led the nation in 3 point shooting %. So after the 2007 season, Billy Clyde heads to Kentucky and Turg heads to A&M and Acie Law heads to the NBA. The next year, Carter is shooting about 12% worse from 3 than he had the year before. After the season I am talking to my cousin on the phone and ask him if Carter just had a rough year or what happened that he didn't shoot it as well. He proceeds to explain that Acie ALWAYS drew the opponents best defender AND Acie was a phenomenal driver/finisher and could kick if necessary. So Carter spent the year standing in the corner in shooting position as his defender helps on Acie, who would then pitch to Carter for a step-in driveway jumper. Fast forward a year and now Carter gets every teams best defender AND his PG isn't quite the #6 pick in the draft, so Carter is never open on the catch and has to figure out other ways to get buckets.

He also pointed out that at the D1 level, there is generally a pretty big difference between a teams best perimeter defender and their 2nd best. If you are at the top of the scouting report, you are going to have to work a bit harder to get clean looks.

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Post by learnin » December 11th, 2019, 3:22 pm

Puffdad wrote:
December 10th, 2019, 10:18 pm
They beat Louisville after three consecutive losses to DePaul, Creighton, and Iowa. Maybe typical young team?
Here's another question. Is Louisville # 1 good? I think they're probably overrated. As I watched that game last night, I saw a Texas Tech team that looked about like K-State. A really tough defensive team that struggled to score. They hit their free throws and generally scored when they really needed a basket. As I recall, around the 4 and half minute mark, the score was something like 50 something to 40 something. Looks just like a typical K-State game. The big difference? K-State can't hit free throws. As I stated in other posts, the discrepancy between bad and good is not so much any more. Heck, two top 5 teams went down last night. This makes 4 times that the number one team has gone down this year already.

So, it's the little things that end up being the decisive factor....like hitting free throws.

Would Texas Tech have beaten Louisville if they had 3 perimeter shooters who were shooting lights out like Marquette did against K-State? I think not.

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Post by learnin » December 11th, 2019, 3:29 pm

I agree with puffdad that all of our players are getting attention from the defense because our stars have graduated. Yet, this doesn't explain missing at the free throw line. There is no defense at the free throw line. Much, of this missing, is between the ears right now and it could be the added pressure now that those three seniors graduated.

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Post by learnin » December 11th, 2019, 3:36 pm

pulitzerdave wrote:
December 10th, 2019, 10:00 pm
The one freshman, who played tonight, is originally from Chicago, but went to a Florida prep school where he was heavily recruited. He landed at Tech. He's better than D. Gordon, IMO. More aggressive and a natural scorer. He was instrumental in their win tonight, making key shots down the stretch, and getting to the freethrow line by being aggressive. Damn, I wish we'd find a kid like that occasionally. I guess the last one was Marcus Foster, and he turned out to be a jerk. There are lots of good frosh out there who are contributing for their teams right away - making a difference. That's what we desperately need right now.

It's frustrating to see a program like Tech pull in these players and see them excel. Our guys look to be a notch below in talent. D. Gordon is supposed to be the jewel of our class, but so far has shown very little. There are those on this forum who are high on him, but I'm just not there yet.
Why is Tech's freshman doing better than D. Gordon? I'm not sure, but I do believe the system is a little different under our coaching staff in that seniority seems to hold a lot of sway. When you lose a great deal of your scoring punch, like K-State and Tech, you would think the coaching staff would be looking for a newcomer to step up in a scoring way. I would assume Tech's freshman has been given a lot more leash. Cartier and Xavier get quite a bit of leash in our system right now while the others get jerked pretty quickly after a missed shot or assignment.

When Marcus came in, there was a real void if I call correctly especially at the guard position. Perhaps this led to Marcus having more leash? I'm just thinking out loud right now.

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Post by KITNooga » December 11th, 2019, 4:11 pm

Puffdad wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 2:29 pm
A mentor of mine likes to say, “He had time to eat a sandwich before that shot!”

That makes %’s go up.

dumb question I suppose: why is KSU so continuously poor at free throws?
what do folks think?
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Post by Puffdad » December 11th, 2019, 5:02 pm

Gorhoops wrote:
December 11th, 2019, 3:16 pm
Puff is making me tell my Acie law story. So my cousin is an assistant at CU for Coach Boyle. He was at WSU with Turgeon and went to A&M when Turgeon headed down there. In Billy Clyde's last year at A&M, he had Acie Law running the PG and Acie ended up being like the #6 pick in the draft. That year A&M had a kid named Carter I think that led the nation in 3 point shooting %. So after the 2007 season, Billy Clyde heads to Kentucky and Turg heads to A&M and Acie Law heads to the NBA. The next year, Carter is shooting about 12% worse from 3 than he had the year before. After the season I am talking to my cousin on the phone and ask him if Carter just had a rough year or what happened that he didn't shoot it as well. He proceeds to explain that Acie ALWAYS drew the opponents best defender AND Acie was a phenomenal driver/finisher and could kick if necessary. So Carter spent the year standing in the corner in shooting position as his defender helps on Acie, who would then pitch to Carter for a step-in driveway jumper. Fast forward a year and now Carter gets every teams best defender AND his PG isn't quite the #6 pick in the draft, so Carter is never open on the catch and has to figure out other ways to get buckets.

He also pointed out that at the D1 level, there is generally a pretty big difference between a teams best perimeter defender and their 2nd best. If you are at the top of the scouting report, you are going to have to work a bit harder to get clean looks.
Exactly.... it makes such a huge difference! And the inside out pass is even easier to shoot because you are stepping right into your shot.

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