Evansville @ Bradley Post Game 77-76 BU!

[shaunguth]

Yes, it is absurd to think that BU would be as good without Ruffin as they would have been with him. I don't think anyone seriously believes that...
However, it is more absurd that this BU team lost one player and went from a supposed NCAA-caliber team to one of the two worst teams in the Valley instantly...and it is equally absurd that some of you just continue to throw up the Ruffin excuse and accept this mess as if there is no way that this team could be expected to do anything except lose games until Ruffin comes back...
I'm tired of the Ruffin excuse...every year good players get hurt all over college basketball...and good teams just don't automatically go into the tank because of it.
You made the statement a while back in one of your 'no team can win without their best player rants'...something to the effect of "of course we are losing games...how do you think SIU would be without Falker or Drake would be without Josh Young?"
Well, Drake lost their best player...they certainly don't have any 4-star recruits sitting on the bench...and they are now 3-0 without him. so much for that theory...And we've all seen the Creighton example when they lost Funk for the entire season and still managed to win 18 or 19 games and make it to the NIT.
NCAA-caliber teams that are well-coached make adjustments and find a way to win games when they lose a key player...Unfortunately, as this season plays itself out, I am growing more convinced that we were never truly an NCAA-caliber team and that we are certainly not getting a very good performance out of our coaching staff this year.
There is still time for the coaching staff to redeem themselves this year, but it has to start tomorrow night...not next week, not when/if Ruff comes back.

I am personally not throwing up the Ruffin excuse as the sole reason we are losing these games. But it is absolutely absurd to say his absence has not cost us games when one of the statistically worst players on the roster is on the floor more than ever because of Ruffin's absence.

 

[Da Coach]

Please, stop the silliness. All the loss of Josh Young shows at Drake is that he wasn't so important to the success they were having. He got his points from the offense they run, and without him, they have other players capable of doing the same.

If you think it makes Jim Les a terrible coach because he can't replace the potential Valley Player of the Year, then nothing will change your mind.
We miss Ruffin on offense, but we probably miss him more on defense.

Sorry if you and a couple others are sick of hearing the Ruffin excuse. It is ridiculous to dismiss it when you assess how the team is playing. I am tired of the constant unjustified ripping of the team and coaches.
If a couple losses with our MVP injured are enough for some fans to bail out on this team, so be it. There are other forums that would love to comissurate with you.

 

[BradleyBrave]

It is absurd to think that Bradley should play as well without Ruffin as they would with him. I agree that Bradley would have won at least 5 or 6 more games with Ruffin, but no team will be a good or as competetive without their senior leader and leading scorer. Ruffin would have been, IMO, the Player of the Year in the MVC if he hadn't been injured.
No team, especially a midmajor team that doesn't have 4 and 5 star players waiting on the bench to get into the game, will be nearly as good without a player the caliber of Ruffin.

I don't think it is absurd to expect BU to beat two Valley play-in caliber teams AT HOME even without their best player. This is a team that was expected to contend for a league title. Other BU teams have weathered injuries to better players, other MVC teams have weathered injuries to better players. I didn't expect to win every game he was out for, but I certainly didn't expect to lose 5 straight at home, 2 of which were to teams that will likely be bottom 4 teams in this league. If you honestly can tell me those losses are acceptable than you must not have had very high hopes for this team.

Sorry if you and a couple others are sick of hearing the Ruffin excuse. It is ridiculous to dismiss it when you assess how the team is playing. I am tired of the constant unjustified ripping of the team and coaches. If a couple losses with our MVP injured are enough for some fans to bail out on this team, so be it. There are other forums that would love to comissurate with you.

I don't think anyone 'bailed' on this team after just a few losses. I certainly didn't. I think even after the UNI loss, people looked at the schedule and thought that it was in our favor to at least tread water until Daniel returns, contend for a top 4 seed, and be able to make some noise in St. Louis. At the very least, I think most people expected us to still be a very good home team. Teams that are expected to contend for a title should be able to at least weather the storm at home. At this point, it's going to be difficult to stay out of Thursday, let alone get a top 4 seed.

So what if we don't have 4- and 5- star players to replace Ruffin. Neither does any other Valley team, and that's who we're playing. Dana is winning with 9 newcomers, and Keno is winning with walk-on's. Sam's production has been nearly equal to that of Ruffin in league play. Ruffin's presence would have had little to no effect on the rebounding, and we all know that is why we lost our first 3 league games, 2 of which were to teams who have a combined league record of 4-10. I'm not going to apologize for having high expectations for this team, BELIEVING IN THEM that despite the injury they could weather the storm and still contend, and being extremely disappointed at how poorly they've played since the injury for reasons largely unrelated to his absence. I want BU to win as badly as anyone, I think that's been pretty obvious over the years.

 

[bu fan 9]

I did not have high hopes for this team.

 

[ph]

Ruff would be much more productive than TCS, but Sam would then be less productive because his minutes would be nearly cut in half. But you know as well as I do that we've lost 4 league games because we didn't rebound, 3 of those at home. In the 8 games (VCU included) that Ruffin has missed, we should have won at leat 5 of them, Ruff or no Ruff, TCS or no TCS.

With the return of Ruff, Sam's minutes would not have to be cut anywhere near in half. (Unless you are talking about minutes as the primary point guard vs total playing minutes)

With a 4 guard rotation that means there are 160 minutes split up. Divided among 5 quality guards + TCS (15) would still = 29 minutes per game for DR SM JC AW TW, (plus 15 for TCS)

 

[Dubl R 1]

I did not have high hopes for this team.

I bet anyone on this current team could move a rubber tree plant though!

 

[shaunguth]

With the return of Ruff, Sam's minutes would not have to be cut anywhere near in half. (Unless you are talking about minutes as the primary point guard vs total playing minutes)

With a 4 guard rotation that means there are 160 minutes split up. Divided among 5 quality guards + TCS (15) would still = 29 minutes per game for DR SM JC AW TW, (plus 15 for TCS)

I certainly hope TCS doesn't continue getting 15 minutes/game after Ruffin returns!

 

[BradleyBrave]

With the return of Ruff, Sam's minutes would not have to be cut anywhere near in half. (Unless you are talking about minutes as the primary point guard vs total playing minutes)

With a 4 guard rotation that means there are 160 minutes split up. Divided among 5 quality guards + TCS (15) would still = 29 minutes per game for DR SM JC AW TW, (plus 15 for TCS)

Here are his minutes prior to Ruffin's injury (since he was injured in practice prior to the Wright St game, we'll go up until the Michigan St game)

UIC 17
Iowa St 9
MDES 25
FGC 15
Iowa 11
Vandy 11
Loyola 13
SEMO 28
MSU 23

That averages to about 16.9 minutes per game. If I recall in another thread, it was noted that Maniscalco is leading the MVC in minutes per game at around 37. That's an increase of over 20 mpg. Now, I don't think his minutes will get cut that drastically, but considering our rebounding issues it is going to be hard to play Sam and Ruff at the same time. I wish we had a Zach or someone in the pivot so we could play them both for 30+ minutes, but we don't. I don't think saying they'll get cut 'nearly' in half is that far-fetched.

 

[BradleyBrave]

FWIW - Even after Ruff's injury and lackluster 2nd half defensive efforts against Butler and VCU, I still thought this team could win the league.

12. From what I have seen, this team is more than good enough to win this league. I look at the schedule, and I find it hard not to count 12-13 more wins, even with our current problems. Injuries could obviously change that, but we should not lose any more home games, and I think there are at least 3-5 road games that should be wins. 2006 taught us not to write a team off, and I certainly am not writing these guys off.

http://www.bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6256&highlight=christmas

 

[ph]

I don't think saying they'll get cut 'nearly' in half is that far-fetched.

You are correct that the idea is not far fetched. (Although I'd argue for different reasons)

Historcially this staff will ride the best 5 players with what I'd argue, is too heavy of minutes, which kinda caused our current problem of not having enough experience to cover DR's injury.
However, since SM is our 2nd best ball handler and we have done well running multiple points, Sam may have more positive intangables than any other guard...
Unless there are foul troubles or another injury, no guard should have to play 35+ minutes per game.

 

[BradleyBrave]

You are correct that the idea is not far fetched. (Although I'd argue for different reasons)

Historcially this staff will ride the best 5 players with what I'd argue, is too heavy of minutes, which kinda caused our current problem of not having enough experience to cover DR's injury.
However, since SM is our 2nd best ball handler and we have done well running multiple points, Sam may have more positive intangables than any other guard...
Unless there are foul troubles or another injury, no guard should have to play 35+ minutes per game.

In any other situation, I would play Ruff and SM together as much as possible ala Ruff and Franklin '05-'06 and '06-'07....Sam IS our new Will Franklin. Unfortunately, there's no way you can bench Warren, Crouch, or Wilson, and as bad as our bigs are we at least need one large body in the game.

What's really troubling is that even with Ruffin hurt, I think BU has the best guards in the league. With guards as good as ours, there's no way the team should be 9-10. No way. It's a guard league for God's sake!

 

[ph]

BB As I was trying to mention, If you want reasonable playing time among our 5 good guards (as I think a player is more likely to make that elusive "game changing play" in their 30th minute than theur 38th minute), you will not get 35+ minutes of DR, JC, AW, and TW. We do not have a line change that we can play for the other 5-10 minutes. Instead, we could have a rotation that constantly gives us different looks and good playing time for all the guards.

We do have many good scoring guards, but we are mising something that we had last year. Either that was ball handling (we laughed at the VCU and Drake pressure last year, we're bothered by it this year) or a good enough big to deflect attention from the guards.

Jim made a good point on the radio show. We won the game because Sam threw MS that wide open layup on our 2nd to last play. That allowed SM to draw the game winning FT's on the next play because for the first time this year the opposition couldn't leave MS open to help.

 

[ER3]

Please, stop the silliness. All the loss of Josh Young shows at Drake is that he wasn't so important to the success they were having. He got his points from the offense they run, and without him, they have other players capable of doing the same.

How about this? I would contend that it says that Drake has a coaching staff in place that has made better adjustments to the fact that their best player was not going to be available to them. That Drake has better overall offensive and defensive systems in place that allow them to have success regardless of whether their best player is involved. This is what it says to me...

If you think it makes Jim Les a terrible coach because he can't replace the potential Valley Player of the Year, then nothing will change your mind.

I have never said, nor do I feel that Les is a 'terrible coach'. I have said repeatedly that I thought he and his staff did an unbelievable job with last year's team...making adjustments to their personnel and tailoring a new offensive system that played perfectly to the strengths of that roster.
I just feel that he and his staff have done an equally lousy job with this year's team...It appears that they built their entire gameplan offensively and defensively around one player's talents, and now that he is out, they have not found a way to make the necessary adjustments to allow this team to continue to win games...And before anyone goes there...no, I cannot coach better than Jim Les and I don't have a 20 page plan with all of the 'necessary adjustments' that would allow this team to win games...that's his job, that's his responsibility.

Sorry if you and a couple others are sick of hearing the Ruffin excuse. It is ridiculous to dismiss it when you assess how the team is playing. I am tired of the constant unjustified ripping of the team and coaches.

No one is dismissing Ruffin's absence when assessing this team. An NCAA-caliber team should not become a doormat in the Valley after losing one player...that's my only point. I don't think it is fair that we lose one player and then certain fans simply pretend as though this team never had high expectations...as if we were never expected to be a Valley contender. It's just 'We lost Ruffin...of course we can't win games....oooh, but if we had him, we'd certainly be 15-4 right now...'. Teams lose good players all the time. Good teams with quality coaching staffs find ways to adjust and win games under those circumstances...
How can any criticism of the job this team or this coaching staff have done to this point be 'unjustified'? This was an incredibly talented, incredibly deep team according to the coaching staff when the year started...We lose one player and we are now on our way to being a play-in team? The coach himself told us how talented and deep this team would be...so I would think even he would consider the criticism to be justified if we continue on this downward spiral.
It is the job of the coaching staff to watch film, devise gameplans, work on weak areas in practice and prepare their team to win basketball games. This team goes out game after game after game and gets outrebounded, gives up a season high FG% to the opposition, and has too many moments with 'poor attention to detail' to count. The final 3:30 of that Drake game...that appeared to me to be a very, very poorly prepared BU team...
And that goes right back to the coaching staff and the job they have done...so I don't feel it is 'unjustified' at all to have the opinion that they should be held accountable for the way this team is losing games.

If a couple losses with our MVP injured are enough for some fans to bail out on this team, so be it. There are other forums that would love to comissurate with you.

If someone has a negative opinion about how things are going...if someone is frustrated with the lack of wins of the team at this point...if someone is disappointed with the inability of this coaching staff to make adjustments on a game-by-game basis to allow us to be better than the last time out...it does not unequivocally mean that we are 'bailing'. I'm not bailing...I hope more than anything that this team wins tomorrow and gets on a roll...but that doesn't change the fact that it is my opinion that Les has done a pretty lousy job with this year's team to this point.

 

[lefty]

It's all subject to opinion....and everyone sees it differently. The fact the DR can't play doesn't mean the our other players don't have to block out,move their feet on D(I see alot of reaching) and just some basic fundamentals...somehwere along the line something isn't working right..whether it's playing,recruiting,coaching whatever...it goes back on JL and no one else....I think he's trying his heart out so maybe it's the players..I don't know, I am NOT an expert but I DO have an opinion..like all of us..who says we have to agree?...evidently we were not that good to start with....one player doesn't make a team NCAA bound unless some other players are pretty god as well...and any good team is usually a very good fundamental team....sorry for the rambling.....DaCoach is trying to stay positive which is good..I am too but I can't blame others for criticizing....that's their choice..