Louisiana Tech (3/7/18)

[Mean Green Matt]

2 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Did I say he missed on anyone?  Read. I stated if the talent is not there it is because he missed on some recruits.  The majority of the squad are McCasland's recruits.   So I don't think as inferred in a post above that McCasland is being severely limited because he doesn't have open scholarships.  

Fair enough. 

[GrandGreen]

29 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

McCasland is now 7-13 in games played on or after February 1 as a Division I coach and 3-13 in games played on or after February 10.

That *might* be other coaches figuring him out -or- it could be that since both those seasons he was a first year coach blending his guys with leftovers and depth caught up -or- he's not made good decisions about strength and conditioning and the guys aren't physically ready for the full grind of the season.

I would presume depth until there is a greater sample of seasons.

It is definitely not a conditioning or effort issue.  I don't think it is a depth issue either.  Any coach is going to give heavy minutes to their best players.  

I obviously, don't know what happened at ASU.  At NT, he played a very slow offense that allowed NT to be in all the games until it didn't work.   He in the last few games, went to a faster game plan and that allowed more overall talented teams to take advantage of a poor NT interior defense.  

The thing that is forgotten, is McCastland does not have a lot of experience at the Division 1 level.   Hopefully, for NT fans ; this is just part of the growing progress.   In any case, next year will be a much better basis for his evaluation.  

[Harry]

Mac missed on some for sure but so did Benford.  Fuller has not helped much and we could use an extra big guy.

[UNTLifer]

I was really curious about Temara's reduction in minutes and productivity as the season wore on.  

[TIgreen01]

We have ONE guy who can legitimately shoot and score at this level.  A lot of over-analysis of this team and staff when it really just boils down to talent pool not being there yet.  IMO, of course.

If we don't address it during the offseason I'll be more concerned, but I expect it to take at least a few years to get back to having a complete and balanced roster.  With Tihkonenko, Gibson and the other Simmons already in the fold, it'll be interesting to see what we add.  It will also be interesting to watch Woolridge's development next year when we presumably have at least one more legitimate scoring option (Tihk...).  You don't get the feeling watching him that Woolridge prefers to have to take over games by himself---well, at least I don't get that feeling from what I've seen.  

[diehardUNTfan]

25 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

I was really curious about Temara's reduction in minutes and productivity as the season wore on.  

It's mainly because he is on the court for his perimeter shooting. As the season progressed his shooting numbers tanked and his defense is sub-par. As much as I love Shane, I feel like we won't be missing much in his departure. 

[Shark84]

6 hours ago, Cooley said:

Gibson is not the point guard some of you guys are hoping for. He’s more a small shooting guard. 

Sorry, I'm just going by what basketball staffers told me. Not a knock on what Wooldridge accomplished this year.

[cdizzle86]

On 3/7/2018 at 10:28 PM, cdizzle86 said:

I will admit that I haven’t watched one game this season until tonight, so take these notes with a grain of salt.

- Woolridge is not a starting PG. He makes too many mistakes and has no shot.

- Does anybody else on this team score other than Smart? 

- Smart has potential, but is also makes bad decisions too often. 

- I saw zero leadership from this team. Nobody holding each other accountable. 

I realize these comments are based only on one game, but at this point in the season we should be playing pretty clean basketball and that is not what I saw out there tonight. We’ve got a long ways to go to get back to our “glory days”.

Alright. I have to apologize to Woolridge. After watching the last few games, I've changed my opinion. He looks like a completely different player than he did against La Tech. When the rest of the team is shooting good, that's when he's playing his best as a floor general. I will now eat crow. 

[TreeFiddy]

True, but Woolridge needs to improve his assist to turnover ratio and free throw shooting to be an elite PG. 

No doubt he looks better when those around him are making shots. 

[UNTLifer]

1 hour ago, TreeFiddy said:

True, but Woolridge needs to improve his assist to turnover ratio and free throw shooting to be an elite PG. 

No doubt he looks better when those around him are making shots. 

Assist to turnover ratio?  It has been excellent the last few games. Love how he manages the game. I didn't realize how quick and fast he is with the ball. 

[TreeFiddy]

10 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Assist to turnover ratio?  It has been excellent the last few games. Love how he manages the game. I didn't realize how quick and fast he is with the ball. 

Going into the post season his ratio was about 1 to 1.  Want to see him up in the 2.5 to 1 or better range especially for a pass first point guard like him.

ETA: of course, passing the ball to someone that can actually make a shot helps the assist numbers a lot.

Edited March 22, 2018 by TreeFiddy

[UNTLifer]

Was the 1:1 ratio due to poor passes or others not shooting well?

[UNTFan23]

1 minute ago, TreeFiddy said:

Going into the post season his ratio was about 1 to 1.  Want to see him up in the 2.5 to 1 or better range especially for a pass first point guard like him.

Coming into tonight's game Woolridge has 196 Assists and 118 turnovers. Even if you take out the CBI and CUSA tournament stats, he is still around 1.7:1.

[TreeFiddy]

5 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

Coming into tonight's game Woolridge has 196 Assists and 118 turnovers. Even if you take out the CBI and CUSA tournament stats, he is still around 1.7:1.

My bad, I was looking at last year's numbers.  This year through 34 games he was 1.6 to 1.  Better, but still very poor for a pass first PG.  No question he can take over games at times though.  Would love to see him above the 2.5 range or better next year as a junior for the season and for heaven's sake get his FT % north of 70.