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Open Thread Thursday | March 11, 2010
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14 Responses to “Open Thread Thursday | March 11, 2010”
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Syracuse just lost its second consecutive game today. This coming to Georgetown in the Big East Tournament Quarter Finals.
To make it worse Arinze Onuaku left the game late due to an apparent right knee injury.
Oh boy. An Onuaku injury would not be good.
They’re calling it a right knee strain, and he has an MRI scheduled for tomorrow.
The Orange may have cost themselves a #1 seed with this loss today. But probably more important than that is Arinze’s knee.
Could see one of 2-3 Big 10 teams sliding into a #1 seed unless there are upsets there, too.
You play to win the game!
ND over Pitt 50-45. Have the Irish turned into Wisconsin? Did they jump center after every hoop? Did they run the “swinging gate”? Were they playing the Hickory Huskers? Shot well % wise … but only 46 shots from the field and were outrebounded this time. Too many turnovers, but managed to hang on. This team has discovered defense … just in time! Gody appeared to revert back to his old ways at times. But we’ll take the win, thank you very much
Too bad for SU. I was looking at them in my player pool; wanted players I figured would go deep in tourney. Looks like I may have to look closer at ND in that regard! Who’d've thunk!
PS: w/o Gody at all ND beats Pitt by 15!
Pete and Wally,
What do you think about the recent ND turnaround? They are the best team in the Big East over the past 2-3 weeks, winning 5 or 6 straight over tournament teams.
You guys couldn’t bash their coach or Harangody enough. I’ve seen 2 full games of theirs in the recent run and I have to say there is an obvious change in coaching style and philosophy. They’ve had a clear game plan and have executed extremely well even in pressure situations. Doesn’t that say something about the coaching?? Should he still be fired??
If yes, who would you guys be happy with??
Pete – I agree with your assessment of Harangody. He is like a little kid out there. He comes back and plays a role (THE role he should be playing). He is scoring around the basket. Things start to go well, so what does Harangody decide to do? He steps out on the perimeter and tries to score last night. ND DOES NOT need Harangody to be a perimeter scorer. They have plenty of guys who can do that. They need Harangody to help create space on the floor. I loved how late in the game last night Harangody was sitting on the bench, and Jay Bilas commented that Brey was going with his best defensive group on the floor. EXACTLY! Not only that, but Brey wanted to keep the five guys on the floor who consistently want to work together.
Too bad Tory Jackson had to play his entire college career with Harangody.
Dan – the “bashing” of Harangody on the Pine started about 14 months ago. Brother Rey initiated it. Originally, Wally defended Harangody.
Wally – yeah Pitt out-rebounded ND 22-16, but it didn’t seem like it. The Panthers had 8 offensive boards to ND’s 1. I think many of those offensive boards came on a couple of possessions where Pitt was playing volleyball with the backboard. They got a lot rebounds, but I don’t remember them scoring.
Dan, if they don’t fire Brey, they must at least limit him to recruiting only solid role players. NO SUPERSTARS! Harangody is a talented player, but Brey has not helped him understand his role within the team concept. When Gody sits, the other guys inherently understand that they must ALL perform if the TEAM is to do well. “Brey’s team” is almost doing well by default, and usually only when Gody is not in the line-up. Kudos to Rey for getting on to Gody’s shortcomings so early. I always just blamed the coaching, but did not realize until recently that it is how Brey coaches superstars that is the problem. He should have learned from his early mentor at Duke or his early archrival at UNC (who as Casey often points out is the only one ever to hold MJ under a 20 point average). They know how to accomplish that management; Brey hasn’t learned. At Delaware he did not have to manage superstars, hence his success there. I would fire Brey for the same reasons I wanted UnWeis fired; he doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. While UnWeis was arrogant and wouldn’t admit mistakes, I don’t believe that is the problem with Brey. Nevertheless, the end result is the same; a streak of mediocrity. ND will always be a clean and relatively competitive program under Brey, but if they want to take the program closer to the elite level, he has to go. He can’t handle superstars and you probably need some to make it to that level. What ND is doing now is temporary at best. Once teams adjust to their new style, it will be less effective. Besides, Gody’s back, and that compromises their future success for sure.
I’ll give Brey a good measure of credit for this late season resurgence by ND. The team is now playing DEFENSE and tough on the boards …. BUT, why did this take almost 10 seasons?!?!?!?
Wholeheartedly agree with Pete on Brey’s special handling of “the superstars” over the years, including Gody. It has really hurt the program’s success during Brey’s tenure.
As Pete and Wally have mentioned in the past, this is not the first time Brey has struggled with a superstar. Chris Thomas regressed under Brey’s tutelage.