Recent Comments
I'm in Nantes, France, near the Atlantic coast. And actually that guest room was much nicer than my apartment is. If it wasn't so far from everything, I'd move back in a heartbeat
I've been wondering all winter when they started doing that. Right after I heard about how Winter Storm Gregory or whatever was going to screw all my shit up. Was it this year or was I just oblivious to it last year because there's now way this has been going on for over two years...
Who else here hates that The Weather Channel has started naming winter storms?
Thats something that goes all the way back to the beginning of the Seth Greenberg regime. Considering many considered JJ the architect of the offense under Greenberg (at least thats what I have heard numerous times) it does not surprise me one bit to see this continuing.
Drifted too much here in Roanoke to get a measurement. Wind is steady and up a bit but the snow is very light and dry.
Looks to be in excess of a foot but still coming down hard after a hiatus this morning,
Wow...so uhhh remember the whole worshipping the euro creators? Yeah.... I'm never doubting this thing again ...holy shit we easily have 14-16" and it looks like a blizzard outside, it wasnt being ambitious...it just knew it was right
This, This, a Thousand Times This:
"Other issue is that this is not a good passing team. They have guys in position to make plays and they don't pull the trigger on the pass. You see guys in the post with their man sealed to the outside and their inside hand extended and the pass never comes. Frustrating."
IMHO virtually all teams run offensive sets, not plays. Plays are for special situations and the times they've been run they've been pretty successful (the missed free throw tip in comes to mind last year). Teams run Flex, tight flex, Dukes 1-4 and various motion O's- all designed to create opportunities for the scorers to score.
My issue is not that they don't run set plays, its that the sets make no sense. For instance, Trevor Thompson for all appearances looks to be deadly from the high post but he's hardly taken a shot from there and when healthy Barksdale will hit a FT line jumper 60% of the time. What about some high-low post action with them and Raines?
Other issue is that this is not a good passing team. They have guys in position to make plays and they don't pull the trigger on the pass. You see guys in the post with their man sealed to the outside and their inside hand extended and the pass never comes. Frustrating.
Tebow also had teams that were stacked with talent and game changers, both at Florida and in Denver.
Do we have that at VT? I'm not so sure.
I've always wanted a banana tree but don't think I'll ever live somewhere they can be grown. I'll just vicariously live through you.
We went with the Jeep Wrangler 4 door.
Need room for the kids, 4WD for the wife and snows like this.
Top comes off when the weather is good (the jeep's top requires good weather) for fun stuff.
Decent gas mileage.
I would take a Tebow (at college level) ANY day. The kid was a winner. Bad form - so what. The kid WON. Period. Even the year Tebow was in Denver, you just saw that the kid could will a win. Sure it was ugly sometimes, but I'll take the win any day. At the college level you don't have to have perfect form or run a 4.25 40. Heart can get you a long ways. The intangibles matter much more than the NFL. Look at Chase Daniel at Missouri. Similar to Tebow in that way. That is also why I would take Randall over Glennon.
Agree. I read this as "they run an offense, but because of young, inexperienced players, they do not execute well."
I have watched a little bit of VT basketball, and they are very erratic with running sets, but we also have to consider that the opposing defense has a much easier time of defending those sets because VT has players that are tremendously limited offensively. For example, if VT runs a pick and roll for Emelogu and JVZ, JVZ's defender can play behind the screen to cut Emelogu from driving on the switch or take JVZ if he cuts to the basket. JVZ isn't a threat to roll and shoot a jump shot, and Emelogu isn't a good enough jump shooter off the dribble to risk jumping over the scream. There is a talent gap, made worse by the attrition of and complete lack of buy-in by Greenberg's recruits. This is made even worse because their top freshmen recruits like Mueller and Clark didn't qualify.
I think he just apparently has bananas growing in his backyard
really? I didn't realize it was that obscure
third day ----------- 3
fourteenth hour ---- 14
3.14
#PI
Why Beyer over Raines and Wood? Why? Why? Why?
And don't tell me it's effort. Of course he exhibits more effort, he has to because of the talent gap. I'm not saying Raines and Wood(kinda concerning about his regression) are All-ACC performers but they earned a scholarship for a reason.
Number one issue with JJ. I think it cost this team a win or two earlier on. Not like it truly matters. It just seemed way too personal from afar.
Maybe with his own guys, it'll be a different story, however the lack of basic fundamentals on this team, I severely doubt it.
I suffered a mild stroke on the 15th consecutive inbounding play into the corner against the VCU trap.
I agree with you here. Almost every time Devin crosses mid court, he looks to JJ on the bench for the call on what to run and then communicates it to the other players on the floor. Lack of execution plagues this team though.
Offensive sets. I actually will disagree with this part. For a long time the program has not been very good at offensive sets, systems or whatever you want to call it. And it has nothing to do with youth or depth. Whether it was Erick Green or Malcolm Delaney-led teams with experience, the "offensive sets" were something they went through the motions with. We would do the motion along the baseline using "screens" to free people up but the screens were meaningless. We did them half-heartedly, the led to nothing..including no real outside shots, no rolls, no screen and pops..nothing. Our offense for years has essentially been about guards or wings going 1-on-1 and shooting without regard for teammates. Whether it was Erick Green, MD, Vassallo, Eddie, or whomoever, that was our offense. It was not read and react, not motion, not flex, not whatever. NOW, actually for the first time in a long time we actually involved the posts...we had a semblance of a high low game against Syracuse. We did some screen and rolls. So actually we have more of a "system" than we did under Greenberg. But our offensive has been about 1-on-1 basketball in which guards have been too much freedom.
Came here to make this joke. Beat me to it.
I noted this in my McMillian review. It really isn't a matter of "which QB is better." The QB that has the advantage is the guy who is most comfortable in what Loeffler wants to do with the offense. Ford is a guy who would work well in the short passing game that Loeffler used for ball control last year before the running game started to blossom against Miami. Durkin fits the read/IV option running game coupled with bootlegs off zone stretch action that we saw at different points. McMillian is a very posed pocket passer with terrific fundamentals in the option game, much like a bigger/faster Anthony Boone at Duke. All three, in the offense that they are most comfortable in, have distinct advantages over the others. Everything depends on Loeffler. Will he be Michigan Loeffler? Temple Loeffler? Florida Loeffler? We don't really know yet because he had to tailor the offense to Logan because of the lack of other playmakers.
He can still be drafted, he can also attend the Regional Combines and qualify up to higher combines to improve his draft stock.
If this change goes through I'm sure in a couple years a change to allow coaches to challenge penalties will probably be brought up since the whole argument was that you can't review or retract a penalty.
It's more absurd to suggest Tech isn't running set plays. It's clear, at least to me, that's what Brian was saying.
"This team runs an offense. It runs offensive sets pretty regularly, yet it just has certain inadequacies to overcome, many of which can't be helped."
Well written and all in all I don't disagree with you on much. Maybe splitting hairs more than anything else.
As to the offensive sets, the comments you see from most people regarding this at least when they have the space like this to elaborate (Twitter and 144 characters makes elaboration a bit difficult) do allude to most of what you said regarding Tech on offensive sets. The lack of the swing man to run a clean sweep along the baseline to get around the outside screen, the inability of the big men to consistently be open to get the ball deep in the lane even in 1v1 matchups, and the failure to move without the ball all contribute to these comments. Tired legs, lack of depth, lack of talent all plague this team. We have covered the 10 players that should be here that aren't time and again but it all has an impact. Is it frustrating for JJ to watch? I damn sure hope so. The only real negative that I point to in all of this is that we consistently see the same mistakes from the same players game in and game out. That's the one thing that I put on JJ, regardless of the amount of time he gets with the players. The lack of improvement on basic skills of basketball to me goes on the coach.
The team has exactly the record they have earned. Be it from blowing leads, the inability to close out games, or the lack of talent or depth to even compete with teams in the ACC. Was losing to Pitt the way we did heartbreaking? Sure. I would take ten Pitt type losses over the VCU game everyday of the week.
Imagine how Pitt is feeling right now, with how they lost to Syracuse?
We all knew we weren't going to be a good team, and we expected losses. I think for many of the fans here, its the way we have lost games that is more troubling than anything else.
As to the feedback we see on Jarell Eddie, I believe that's more from the expectation that he should be the main player, the guy taking the last shot, the man that can create on his own if necessary. Has he hurt this team more than he has helped? He is the leading scorer on the roster, so obviously not. Most of the comments on him revolve more around when he disappears entirely, when Raines sitting the whole game on the bench contributed more offensively than Eddie. He has had several great games, Pitt being one of them even with the late mistakes, but he also has had the games where he goes 0-for-12 from the field and isn't even able to get to the free throw line. Its those games we usually lose by 20+. As Eddie goes offensively, so goes the flow of Tech games. And no, Emelogu should not be the one taking the three at the buzzer, at least not this year.
As for quitting, there have been specific games where that's exactly what I would classify the effort I saw from this team ... (not the season) Boston College away, VCU after the Havoc D, Michigan State in the second half....when performance declines as the opposing talent declines I look to effort and in those three games there wasn't an effort to get back into those games. Even Boston College played the end of their bench and opened their lead. Were those demoralizing circumstances in those three games, absolutely, but the second half of each of those games showed lackadaisical ball control, lack of hustle on defense especially after turnovers, and no sense of urgency on the offensive end of the court. Were those games out of reach? More than likely. Do I know if JJ told the team to slow the game? No but I do know what I saw, so don't be so quick to condemn the fans when they throw the term quitting out on Twitter or Facebook or even here, because they are reacting to what they see in the here and now. Even the football team gets tagged with it, when down by 21 late and they are running the ball or taking too much time to get the next play off. The Pitt game showed that they have not quit on the season but it doesn't mean they haven't quit on specific games.
Great fucking gif.