The Official Beat the St. Mary's College of Maryland Seahawks in the Stu Thread

I wonder what the philosophy is behind playing a DIII school. It was great to see our guys play and for everyone to get time on the court but wondering what benefit we got out of it. Perhaps it's just to see how the team...and specifically the players understood the game plan and played within the system we use or to just see how our guys handle playing as a team against an outside team they haven't ever seen play. I guess they got that from UVa but this was with the lights and the crowd on hand.
Nonetheless, was good to see the players out there having fun and to see who stood out from the rest during the game.
 
At one moment I sat back and had this feeling like I'd forgotten something.

Then it hit me.

We all missed seeing Rodney last night!

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This is good analysis, in that it follows mine. A couple of areas of slight disagreement: as with last year, if Fermin had the ability to squeeze rebounds he gets his hands on he'd be elite. Even against this D3 squad, and facing no one taller than 6'7", there were multiple times when he had both hands on a ball but failed to come up with it. He also got a rebound and brought the ball down to midget level once and someone just took the ball out of his hands. A recurring theme, I know.

I also thought more of Luke's fluidity. I thought he moved well without the ball. Like most freshmen bigs, when he gets the ball close to the basket he is so anxious to do something with it he doesn't move smoothly to the basket. It's a fraction of a second he needs to take to get himself under control; something I am 100% certain he'll learn, and sooner rather than later.

Really impressed by Hill. Brandon had a tough night, but there is a ton to like there.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that we were switching on everything last night and Clark in particular did a really nice job playing on the perimeter against their guards. Again, consider the level of competition, but he did not look out of place. (To me, anyway; I am sure the St Mary's guards though the 6'10" guy was WAY out of place)
 
I wonder what the philosophy is behind playing a DIII school. It was great to see our guys play and for everyone to get time on the court but wondering what benefit we got out of it. Perhaps it's just to see how the team...and specifically the players understood the game plan and played within the system we use or to just see how our guys handle playing as a team against an outside team they haven't ever seen play. I guess they got that from UVa but this was with the lights and the crowd on hand.
Nonetheless, was good to see the players out there having fun and to see who stood out from the rest during the game.
all coaches are different but my take is that playing a D3 allows VCU basically to run their offense against a team that is unfamiliar with it and allows our players to see success in running the O -
remember we have been playing everyday in practice against players that know exactly what we are running offensively

some coaches like to push their teams against tougher competition before the season starts too

I would not read anything into one formula or another - november is still a month that teams are trying to figure out rotations or which players perform or don't perform once the bight lights are on

go Rams
 
I wonder what the philosophy is behind playing a DIII school. It was great to see our guys play and for everyone to get time on the court but wondering what benefit we got out of it. Perhaps it's just to see how the team...and specifically the players understood the game plan and played within the system we use or to just see how our guys handle playing as a team against an outside team they haven't ever seen play. I guess they got that from UVa but this was with the lights and the crowd on hand.
Nonetheless, was good to see the players out there having fun and to see who stood out from the rest during the game.
Well, we can't play a D1 school due to the rules for exhibitions. Sometimes you have to play whoever's willing to come to town and have the crap beat out of them. Bellarmine played D3 Centre College today (and won 92-68).

I was curious about this (here we go) so I went through the top 50 in Torvik to see who played an exhibition against a D3 or lower opponent. Here's what I found:

#8 Gonzaga - vs. Warner Pacific (NAIA)
#30 Indiana - vs. Marian (NAIA)
#40 Wisconsin - vs. UW-River Falls (D3)

...uh, yeah, that's it. A number of top 50 teams did not play any exhibitions at all, though, and a few more only played in charity exhibitions against other D1 teams.
 
In the post game presser Coach, talked a good bit about what they learned about the team by playing St. Mary's. Probably said here before (last year), but I thoroughly enjoy his pressers. I rank him right behind Shaka. Never missed his; fought like heck to avoid our last coach's pressers.
 
ANY time Zeb's not out there he's missed, but in all honesty, neither him or Martin were even remotely essential last night against this team. Though, of course, I'd have loved to see both in action. We KNOW that D2 and D3 teams are never a given beatdown despite their classification, we've seen proof of this in our recent past. We all know this I think. My niece despite being a D3 athlete is a holder of a pole vault state record and is a total BEAST on the field having played as a freshman position field hockey player at Atlee when she was still in 8th grade due to her abilities against other 8th graders. She's at D3 Rhodes b/c of their degree offerings, but doesn't change the fact she's a superior athlete.
Giving credit where it is due, I loved watching St Mary's Md in action, fun team to watch and a few good shooters who if left open can drop one as we all saw out there. The technical (I think it was) surprised me, shows the team is pugnacious and not going down without a fight. I'm not sure who they were missing if any of their essential pieces were injured. But they were scrappy and have a defense that at times provided challenges to our offense. I wish them success the rest of the season, playing VCU will tune them up a bit I'm sure, Kat's saying the same she thought about last night as well.
VCU is deep. We could see room for improvement last night, but in all honesty, like Phil said in the presser, most of what we saw are what we see to be quickly amended. We saw flashes of old time havoc last night, and I KNOW there's so much more to come from this team. There's something about a crafty emotionally abusive steal/deflection and an in turn dominating response on the other end that just makes my heart beat and we saw some of that last night. They've got the tools to be a really FUN team to watch this year, and to any of our soon to come opposition, best thing I can toll you is.. look out!
 
Well, we can't play a D1 school due to the rules for exhibitions. Sometimes you have to play whoever's willing to come to town and have the crap beat out of them. Bellarmine played D3 Centre College today (and won 92-68).

I was curious about this (here we go) so I went through the top 50 in Torvik to see who played an exhibition against a D3 or lower opponent. Here's what I found:

#8 Gonzaga - vs. Warner Pacific (NAIA)
#30 Indiana - vs. Marian (NAIA)
#40 Wisconsin - vs. UW-River Falls (D3)

...uh, yeah, that's it. A number of top 50 teams did not play any exhibitions at all, though, and a few more only played in charity exhibitions against other D1 teams.
NC State played a low level DII program today (Lees-McRae). Won by 4.
 
In the post game presser Coach, talked a good bit about what they learned about the team by playing St. Mary's. Probably said here before (last year), but I thoroughly enjoy his pressers. I rank him right behind Shaka. Never missed his; fought like heck to avoid our last coach's pressers.
Odom's pressers are always interesting. No fluff, just straight up facts.
 
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