Delaware - Basketball Powerhouse

[dukesfan71]

But even with all the excuses, we still had the ball down 1 with four minutes to play. There are 2 experienced point guards on the floor in Moore and Hitchens, but Davis, who I assume was playing small forward in this rotation, brings the ball up and takes a horrible shot without making a pass. Ball goes the other way for a basket and the foul, so suddenly in 20 seconds of game time what could have been an opportunity to take the lead turns into a 4 point deficit. This scenario plays out again, and again, and again, in every close game. That garbage is a combination of coaching and basketball IQ, injuries have nothing to do with it.

As much as I try to stay positive the above is what sticks in my head.

[JMUHarpoo]

Brady isn't wasting the redshirt because Pittman isn't good enough to make a difference; let's be honest. He already made this decision at the start of the year when he decided not to redshirt Hood. He needed one interior player to support the loss of Goins to his shoulder injury and Hood proved himself better than Pittman. Ideally, Neither Hood nor Pittman should be playing as they were the prototypical lanky tall Freshmen who could benefit from a year of strength conditioning.

[purplehazed]

We all think Pittman and Hood will be good CAA players. We all think Hood would have benefited from a red shirt this year. These two are similar to Semenov, lot's of promise as a 185lb freshman. Seme never gained the strength and weight, why?

Our HC should be looking at our strength and conditioning coaches expecting neither Pittman or Hood showing up next year looking like bean polls just waiting to be pushed all over by ODU/VCU/GMCC interior players breaking conference rebounding records every time they play JMU...

[Dukie]

Harpoo:

You hit the nail on the head. Look at Matt's recruits. Mostly long thin guys who are not big enough (notice I did not say tall enough) to play in the CAA. The guards can compensate for their lack of weight/strength but the interior guys just can't. Pittman, Hood, Semenov, Flores, Alvin Brown...every high school Senior big man recruited by Matt is rail thin. We never see a guy with any size to him. If Matt is going to recruit this type of player, then he better have a good nutritionist and strength coach that can put 30 pounds on the guy by his Sophomore year.

I think folks forget how bad Goins was in conference last season. He was barely playing come tournament time. He was big but he did not have the quickness to stay with the other 4s in the league. He played great against K. St. and Drexel but struggled against most of the CAA. He got his shot blocked a lot too. By the end of the season, he had lost confidence and could not hit the mid range jumper that made him valuable during the 15-3 start the team had. He also too a lot of bad shots.

Matt needed two strong interior recruits this season instead, he stayed with Millen (don't get me started on that) hoping he would be eligible, recruited two rail thin Freshman that are not ready for CAA play and gave a scholarship to Swindle. Seriously, can you defend all of that? I can defend two of the four player decisions but not all four together.

[Dukie]

Cent:

History tells us Pittman is a wasted recruit because Matt has not developed one high school Senior big in his four years at JMU. Matt also needed bigs this year and failed to recruit one solid big to go along with a not so good Goins. Hood has promise. If he gets in the weight room, film room and d hall, he can be a good CAA player for us. That will make him the first big man high school recruit of Brady to actually develop into a solid CAA player.

[JMUHarpoo]

I see Dukie is not a Goins fan, but I disagree on his effectiveness and what he means to the team. His strength is this team's weakness - rebounding. He led the Dukes in rebounds per minute last year. Yep, better than the 6'10" Bowles or anybody else for that matter.
His offensive skill set and his defensive skillset wouldn't necessarily improve the team, but his ability to gain possession of the ball through rebounding would most definitely improve the team.
Semenov and Hood have absolutely no chance to hold their ground against CAA bigs. It is more than just boxing out when you have 195 lb weaklings in the post.

[Dukeman]

Goins may be better than what we have now, but no way is the type of guy that is going to get us in the top half of the CAA.

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