We Believe In Nothing, Lebowski

Going by last week’s game, Ed preached patience on offense, solid defense, etc, and they just wilted when Wiscy hit shots.

The only thing I think the coaches could improve is the free throw shooting. And I don’t know enough about basketball to know if that’s something that can be improved mid-season, but it can’t be that hard, right?

ned to start building on something for next year

Lions1997 at pennstatecentral.com. DeChellis must go.

This team’s problem is mental and I attribute a lot of that to coaching. They play well, get a lead, then you can see it happen before your eyes. They all expect bad things to happen, and sit and watch it unfold. They are pre-disposed to losing late in games.

Crap free throw shooting doesn’t help.

I watched the game up until we were leading 53-51 and then I had to go. I was really hoping we’d pull this one out, but…sigh.

I know this is wishful thinking, but this feels somewhat like the 2004 football season. Very disappointing, though the young team shows flashes of talent, and the next year we bring in a huge recruit.

Of course we are usually good at football, so it wasn’t that surprising we got good again. I am still excited for next year’s b-ball team, though.

I am amazed at how many bad breaks we are getting. Or perhaps better put, I am amazed that we can not create more breaks in our favor. Ed has taken our program in a positive direction. But I hang most of this loosing on him. That said, I think we need to be patient with him. We are loosing and I hate it. But I don’t think we should can him. He is really close. Not exactly the same thing but I remember when we were in the football dark years a couple of years ago. I was happy then and am still that we did not can Joe. Not that I am comparing Joe and Ed. Clearly there is not comparison in coaching talent but Ed does do something really well. We have some of the best talent we have ever had. We are in every game and it is not on guts and glory like it used to be. It is not like we are getting blown out. I think we are close to figuring this out and should stick by Ed at least to see what happens next year. I can think of a few items that we need to fix. There are clearly three items that need fixed and fixed quickly. Foul shooting needs fixed immediately if not sooner. We need to work the refs or we are going to continue getting the short end of the stick with calls. Maintaining Intensity for a whole game.

The foul shooting is such a huge issue. It should have been fixed last year. What ever they are doing they need to scrap it because it is crap. There is no way we can be this lousy at foul shooting if we are doing it right and practicing as much as others. If we just shot fouls better we would have won a bunch of these games this year and a bunch more last year. I don’t know what it takes but we need to do it.

Almost every successful basketball coach I have ever seen work the refs. They get on them for every single mistake they make that is not in their favor. What this does is gets the refs to a point where they do not want to miss something because they know they will hear from the coach. I would have have been screaming at them during the Indiana game for all the moving screens that were not called on #25 and the plastering Jackson got under the basket when #25 stuck his shoulder into him when he was running though the paint to cover his player. He almost got knocked into the ref. We got no call. Indiana then hit the open man for the 3 and that was the start of our Indiana loss. I see not focus at all on working the refs by us. And, no surprise, we get no calls. I have seen on many occasions this year where we do not get a call we should have and our opponent scores. I can just see the guys get that here we go again look. It happened last night at around 7 minutes. We were fouled on a 7 footer. No call. ILL went down and sunk a 3 pointer. To me, this was the turning point of the game.

Finally, we need an emotional leader. Battle is awesome but he is not motivating the other players to raise their game during critical ventures of the game the way Cornley did last year. He raises his game but one player does not get it done. So where else is it going to come from? If Ed does not recruit a leader then it needs to come from the coaches. He or someone on his staff need to provide it. Right now no one is and we are getting stung by it.