The basketball season is very young, but we are already seeing patterns. On Sunday BC once again took a halftime lead without looking great. Once again a bigger team overpowered the guys close to the glass. The difference Sunday was that BC didn't blow their lead and held on for their first victory of the year. I don't know what to make of it all. I don't think the adjustments were the difference. I also don't think it was the return of Lonnie Jackson. Maybe this game it was more about our style prevailing over their style. Since BC converted most of the free throws, made four more 3s than FAU, and played better defense, it worked. Yet BC only won by 3.
Is the team coming together or was this just a game BC was always going to win? We won't find out until the games in Madison Square Garden. I think there were a few clues to how BC should play going forward.
-- Hanlan needs to score 30 a night. With the new rules very few teams can stop him. Having him penetrate over and over might not get others involved, but it is highly efficient.
-- Stick with the man defense for now. Magarity and Owens saw more minutes and both acquitted themselves well. Both offered a little more energy on the defensive end. At times it was just a matter of moving with your defensive assignment. Huckabee even said that Donahue decided there wouldn't be switches. The team is just going to play the basics and hope it helps.
-- Tipping out rebounds. It is so prevalent on the team it must be taught. I don't love it, but it might be a necessary evil. Tipping the ball to a teammate on the perimeter might create more open looks than fighting for the rebound and resetting the offense.
The energy seemed different Sunday. I think the new blood and Hanlan's assertiveness made a difference. But there are still some huge questions after the 0-3 start. I hope a corner has been turned, but I am in a wait and see mode.
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Donohue appears to be an excellent coach. However, he appears to want to bring his "little engine that could" mentality from the Ivy League to Tobacco Road. It won't work. You just cannot win with the "hearts of lions" who are six inches shorter than the Monsters of the Midway. Jared Dudley is an excellent example of height and heart. Minority bigs can't pass the admission requirements. The basketball O'Brien found that out and left for Ohio St when his three prize recruits (white, black, Latino) were all rejected by admissions. Here's a thought. Gonzaga recruits French Canadian lumberjacks while St. Louis University with Rick Majerus went to Australia and New Zealand to find 7 footers to blend with the few talented Jared Dudley types. With Donohue's recruiting philosophy, I am surprised that they won one game. They may not win again until they get some size. The coach is great. His recruiting as Mary Tyler Moore would state "stinks".
Wow! "Minority bigs can't pass the admission requirements." You have some strange posts in the past, but this is way over the top. Weird stuff for sure. Why? Genetic? racial? Let's hear it! O' Brien was run out of town and then even run out of Ohio. Disgraced.
I've never understood why Coach Donahue insists on man-to-man when he has lesser talent than his opponents in the ACC. Why can't BC use more zone?
With the new rules, it would appear logical to sit back in the zone to try to protect your players from fouls.
If Jim Boeheim can make a Hall-of Fame career out of his 2-3 zone philosophy, Donahue ought to at least buy some precious minutes during the game.
To all appearances, Donahue seems to be one of the "good guys"; but he suffers from a common failing with BC coaches; i.e., a stubborn streak when it comes to change and adaptation.
Lets turn it around against UConn.
That 7:17 post is hilarious.
Between that and a previous post that said AW needs to run into 10 in the box to prove himself....good stuff.
BTW, FAU lost to Duke by 33.
"Minority bigs can't pass the admission requirements."
Haha wow
Anyways the frustrating thing with Donahue is rebound has been an issue for years and nothing has been done about it.
I been thinking about the "minority bigs" thing. Is it because they are minority or big? How about minority not-so-big? Or even minority smallers?
JBQ
Agbai,Williams,Southern
JBQ
Agbai,Williams,Southern
I've been reading this blog for about 7 years, and that comment by JBQ was probably the dumbest, most offensive and racist remark I have read on this blog. As a minority who graduated from BC in the last decade, I am sure glad that I stopped growing at 6'2". Otherwise, I am sure my SAT score would have dropped a couple hundred points.
Not sure what you guys are on about, but medium half minorities are the new hotness...SAT passing abilities still TBD though....
@Joseph, @CT, @Claver2010, @Unknown, @I.M copping two, @andrew britt: You need only go to the memory of Patrick Ewing to know that I am right. He was recruited and rejected by BC out of Boston Latin. Coach O left because his recruits were rejected. Basketball is a "black man's game". Most very good black basketball players don't consider education as a priority. I taught in an urban high school which rose to number 2 in USA Today and went to Akron to play LeBron. Their players couldn't pass admission standards for most schools. A neighboring black Catholic school had three bigs go to GT, Duke, and Wake and do well in both school and court. Again, most black bigs don't have the background to pass admission requirements for BC. As Jack Nicholson said in "A few Good Men", the truth, you can't handle the truth" even at 7:17.
JBQ, you are truly disgusting.
"Ewing said that Georgetown was his first choice and his second choice was UCLA. And even that Hall of Fame Tar Heels coach Dean Smith advised him to go to Georgetown if he was not going to pick North Carolina" Where did you get the story that BC rejected him. Do you think that Georgetown is a crap school?
It is also interesting to think about Lew Alcindor (kareem Abdul Jabbar). "So far, 60 colleges have invited Lew to look them over. Boston College Coach Bob Cousy writes him mash notes; Princeton, Cincinnati and St. John's would all like invitations to his graduation this June."
The books are filled with very good black players who were recruited by and attended good schools.
BB is a very big sport in urban areas because it doesn't take a lot of space to have a court.
It is sad but true that our corrupt system of AAU BB conspires to get great players to work on the game rather than the academics. You can blame the entire system of recruiting for the lack of academic achievement. There is just too much money to be made by and on these kids. It takes a strong kid from a strong family to resist the promises of fame, glory and money.
By the way, you can't even get Ewings school right. He went to Cambridge Ringe & Latin. NOT Boston Latin. I have no idea about his academic record, but if he had gone to Boston Latin, you can be sure that one of the best public schools in the country would have prepared him very well for the most demanding colleges.
Not worth getting into the debate but...
"Do you think that Georgetown is a crap school?"
It is well known that GTown has minimal academic standards for their basketball players, Allen Iverson says hello!
@Joseph: Thank you for your assessment which can buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks if you throw in a dollar. According to the Chicago Tribune in 1993, Patrick Ewing had cut his choices to three: GT, BC, BU. Rick Pitino was the BU coach. He stated that Ewing could not pass admissions to BU. BC fans chanted "Patrick can't read" which he couldn't being an immigrant from Jamaica which speaks Brit. When pressed on how GT accepted him, President Healy, SJ, became very testy. Patrick had his own tutor who it turns out was playing "paddy cake" with Coach Thompson. Guess who the coach was at Boston Latin? It was that well known disciplinarian and academician, Mike Jarvis, who turned a good St. John's program to "mud". Patrick Ewing could not handle a college regimen. This is sad but what is even more sad is that GT gave him a pass in the name of helping Blacks. GT has turned to the far left and Wild Bill was probably given a pass in law school as well. BC had standards and unfortunately Patrick Ewing could not come close to passing them. He states that he wanted to leave town and that he was just stringing along both Boston schools. As stated, Rick Pitino didn't back down and stated the facts. BC made no official comments but there were plenty of whispers. Unfortunately, Ewing "still can't read" and the liberal GT did him no favors. A comment talked about Iverson who was charged with murder as a gang member and still ended up at GT with the blessing of Governor Wilder. It's called unfortunate reality. You can be sure that the black athletes at BC earned their way there. GT sold their soul a long time ago.
Good lord, do you like to spin stories as if they were real. Maybe you can't read. It was not BOSTON Latin. So Jamaicans can't read because of the Brit influence. Scary stuff. Is your head shaved? Do you have Arian nation tattoos all over.
Now take a deep breath and tell us about "Black bigs" in a nice thoughtful way and cite your sources of all your genetic evidence to back up your racism.
Hoib said
Here's some fuel for the fire from recent nyt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-the-nba-zip-code-matters.html?_r=0
BTW, it's Good "Lord" and not "lord". I also believe that it is "Aryan" and not "Arian". The education system in Jamaica per a Navy visit is quite bad. There is just no way that Ewing had the academic background to pass the entrance requirements for BC. GT did some heavy manipulating as alluded to by Rick Pitino at BU. Good Lord, have a nice day.
Good lord (I like it like this, if it bothers you).
Ewing went to High School in Cambridge Mass at CAMBRIDGE Ringe and Latin School. Not Boston Latin and NOT in Jamaica. Not far from Jamaica Plain, but NOT Jamaica.
He did graduate in four years with a BS.
Jarvis' performance as a coach after he coached Ewing had nothing to do with Ewing's performance.
The abuse that fans heaped on him was so very typical of fans everywhere and had very little to do with reality.
have a nice day (somewhere else that will like your kind of racist BS-- Alabama or Mississippi might be welcoming)
@Joseph: It is more than obvious that you have trouble coping with reality. Ewing lived in Jamaica till he was 12. That is a lot of empty school time to overcome. If you have ever heard him speak, he is anything but literate. Jarvis is a typical inner city coach who exploited a star player to reach the big time. Even though Ewing is obviously good hearted, he has always been academically challenged and he would have never made it into BC or BU as stated by Rick Pitino. With John Thompson (us against them), it was a forgone conclusion that he would become a Hoya and not become a physics major. GT would have given "Little Bo Peep" a scholarship if she was black and could dunk. All this is very understandable in the context of Bill Clinton being a GT Law graduate and becoming "the first black president". As someone who spent four years of shipboard homeported out of Charleston, I would urge you to take a big breath of reality on the ground floor and to practice yelling "Roll Tide". The South has a way of life which Northern liberals are working hard to destroy in the name of supposed equality and not equal opportunity. Ewing is only one of many examples.
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