Hey guys. It's been a while. How you all been?
Oh by the way, there is a basketball game tonight featuring the mighty Oregon State Beavers. It's the hottest ticket in town. You really need to see these guys ball. They are something special. Click me
Hehe. For those of you who truly care about this game, well, I feel sorry for you, but the official site has some good info if you're in a more serious mood than I.
http://www.osubeavers.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/022211aab.html
Back to hibernation for me.
You see Robin Ross is going to UNLV? At least we don’t have to worry about Riley hiring him as a replacement for Davis.
I did see that. Watch him turn out to be an all-world recruiter at UNLV.
I don’t remember the conversation about Robin Ross – and I’m too lazy to go through the archives – but I sense you wanted Riley to hire Robin Ross? I think Bobby Hauck would be a great guy to work with/for, so I wouldn’t be suprised if he is able to assemble a good crew.
I just hope they try to run something that looks like an offense.
Looks like you got your wish in the first half, but apparently this team is incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time as the defense rivaled some of there worst performances of the year. Good lord, this team is frustrating, but did you hear the FSN guy say that CR got a vote of confidence from BDC?
Beavers basketball wooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Beavs!!!! They’ll only lose by 10, I’m very confident of this. Joe Burton will kill someone with a pass and Calvin Haynes will airball at least 3 three pointers and there will be at least 10-15 missed lay-ups. Beavers basketball where amazing happens. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!
*like*
I don’t think there’s ever been a more boring time for OSU athletics than Monday through Wednesday this week. Not that Thursday is much better, but at least there is a major sport on TV. In general, there is absolutely nothing going on right now.
lolz
Amazing performance thus far. I should get out to Gill to watch this group. Joe Burton is comic relief without a doubt.
My fsn feed was down for the start. Did we win the tip? Appears the cable company was doing me a favor.
Roberto looks great thus far. He seems like he has his shot back. He made a great pass to Omari for a dunk. As usual though, Burton and Haynes have been beyond awful. Turnover machines. You guys see that pass by Haynes to try and throw it ahead of the pack to Nelson? about 10 feet too far out of bounds. Not even close. Burton and Haynes never disappoint.
I refer to Haynes as the “momentum sucker”!
The Keith Pankey of college hoops strikes again!
Does CR not see what the rest of the world sees? Haynes and Burton need to sit down for good.
It’s incredible what Craig needs to see before he makes a change. No shock when Cunningham, Starks, Nelson, Brandt and Collier on the floor the team looks competent offensively. Defense has been awful by the Beavers but that lineup looked good. Brandt, Nelson and Starks look confident, they have combined for 23 points. Hopefully all three are turning the corner now. Whenever there’s no Haynes and Burton on the floor the team looks halfway decent. We know the lineup won’t ever stay that way this season, it’s nice to see at times though.
Btw, what will it take for Craig to switch to a man-to-man defense. Each game it gets more obvious they need to switch it to that. They suck at zone defense. They have the athletes for man-to-man defense but he refuses to play it. They could contain a team to 50 points playing man-to-man defense but he would deny playing that defense was the reason. All he has to do is play it and better results on defense will it happen, IF he plays it for an entire game. I’ve tried all season to understand all the zone defense he has them playing, there’s no good reason for it.
Plus the man to man makes each player accountable. In the zone they just act like it wasn’t just threir guy and not really their bad if the opposition scores. Man to man seems like a good bet for awhile. Dig in and play some hard nosed basketball and take responsibility for you man.
We can win this thing! GO BEAVERS!!
Amazing. They shot 61%.
A relief to see some life.
Came back from a nice soak in the hot tub w/the lady beav to see we won the game. This was a good night.
Anyone want to give me a recap?
Not sure i want a recap of your soak.
Haha.
‘Twas a G-rated soak.
Basically, the Beavers kept it close in the second half, thanks to Jared Cunningham and……………Joe F***ing Burton. They took the lead but due to to their atrocious zone allowed Stanford to keep pushing the lead out. Then the last 6 minutes or so, they strictly went with a man-to-man defense and Stanford couldn’t handle it and the Beavers made them take bad shots. The Beavers moved the ball well on offense and set up easy lay-ups and threes. Thanks to the defense and strong offense at the end the Beavers got a late lead and held off Stanford for a 87-80 win.
Unbelievably Calvin Haynes hit a three to put the Beavers up 77-75 with a couple minutes left. I thought for sure it would be a brick. Beavers end the game on a 10-3 run and actually finish a game for once. Key to the game was, make lay-ins, hit wide open threes and play man-to-man defense. That wasn’t so hard. Craig went almost exclusively with young guys for big portions of second half, it really helped them. Hopefully Craig has finally understood that’s how you do it.
It wouldn’t be a Beaver game without a Calvin Haynes bonehead play though. With the Beavers up 82-79, Jared had a chance to salt the game away with two free throws. Calvin was supposed to be lined up behind the three point line, of course he stood on it and cost the team a point. How does that even happen? Can someone really be that dumb?!
On Saturday, if the young guys don’t play the majority of the minutes, and the team doesn’t play man-to-man exclusively, I will be livid. Craig saw tonight, that is how this team can win games. Here’s to hoping things have finally clicked for Craig.
Good summary. Thanks.
I hate hearing that Burton and Haynes had good games. It just means they’ll play more on Saturday and mess everything up.
I don’t know how Stanford holds opponents to 63 points a game as their man to man looked pretty weak, but maybe that is a little bit of a testament to the fact that the Beavers DO have athletes just not very good basketball players yet.
I agree about the man to man, time to start using it more. I think they expend a lot of injury on that stupid 1-3-1 and most of the league has figured it out. Every week some no-name has the 3pt game of a lifetime against the Beavs.
Unbelievable about Haynes too and that lane violation. Also, even Collier made a stupid play on that put back, on the replay it was a tough shot, he got kind of lucky that it went in. The play is to take it back outside and run clock, but it was a great rebound and one has to commend the effort.
“energy” not injury….lol
You can edit your posts ya know. ;)
Nothing like having bandwagon fans. Don’t care when they think we’re going to lose, care a lot when they hear we win.
This isn’t UO. Even if you don’t agree with the coach’s strategy or don’t think the team is very good, you should still care. Otherwise, you’re a bandwagon fan, and might as well support the yellow and green(or white and carbon).
I agree that OSU is behind the times, and that leadership and strategy should ALWAYS be questioned. But even so, I care whether we win or lose, as everyone should.
This is sort of ridiculous. People have hobbies and a life outside of OSU sports. JackBeav said it well, that he wouldn’t invest emotional energy into the team until they gave a reason to do so.
The bottom line is this team is draining to watch. CR lost fan interest when he kept playing the same error prone seniors. If it were a complete youth movement, we’d probably tune in and watch their progress, but Calvin Haynes isn’t going to suddenly be great his last five or six games. Roller coasters are fun until they aren’t.
By definition, anyone here discussing the game cares about it. Care disguises itself in many ways. Comedy is just one of them. That’s the state I’m in. The guy below brings up a good point about indifference, though. There’s very little talk about anything OSU anywhere right now. I think because things are slow, but maybe everyone is just sick of the losing.
Everyone here cares about the team. Why else would we watch and root for them to win? We were just in touch with reality coming into the game. Before the Stanford game and hell the first 10 minutes of the Stanford game, the team was just atrocious. We as fans hate it when they lose but expected them to lose, due to how brutal they had been. I was pleasantly surprised with how they played. I would like to see them actually build off this performance and beat Cal.
Also, most of us here I’m sure have a hard time getting excited when this team has been so bad, having not won back-to-back wins in nearly 2 months. Also, when guys like Burton and Haynes are playing, who have killed the team repeatedly and Craig continues to play them, it doesn’t exactly get a ton of fans fired up about the team.
“Even if you don’t agree with the coach’s strategy or don’t think the team is very good, you should still care.” – OneEyedKing
“Hate isn’t the opposite of love, indifference is.” – Barry Lopez
I think this is the real risk OSU athletics is running right now – fan indifference. By not being able to capitalize on progress, not taking the next step in terms of on-the-field accomplishments, and not improving both marketing and the fan experience, OSU faces something worse than hate, fan disappointment or yes, even fan anger – indifference.
Is it just because this is a slow period? I’m not so sure. BDC needs to give OSU athletics and the fan base a marketing shot in the arm; Riley needs to have a different set of problems next year (e.g. something besides slow starts), Robinson needs to start turning potential into victories, or OSU faces a steady descent into irrelevance that will be difficult to reverse.
From what I can tell, most fans are not indifferent. Going long-ish stretches without wins is hard, but then we beat UW, AU, or Stanford, and all that excitement swells back up.
People can say that they hate that Burton and Haynes play so much. That’s fine (DA). But if the reason you don’t go all-in on this team is because of those two guys, you’re missing a lot of great, exciting ballers.
Cunningham, Starks, Roberto, Angus, Collier; this team is young and exciting, and those guys are the future. I, for one, don’t want to miss any game they play in, even if it means putting up with Calvin Haynes and Burton doing stupid stuff.
I think by beating UW and AU, we’ve proven we can beat anyone on any night. If that’s not reason enough to tune in, then switch teams.
I am not so sure the man D was much better than our typical zones. The best defenses all night were actually when they flashed zone and went man. I think with all the zone the Beavers have played it is some solid ground work to really get creative on defense. I still maintain though that any good defense is based on man-to-man with different looks mixed in when teams get hot or to throw them off. If you look at the stats and watched the game you can’t really credit the win to playing man D, you have to credit the flow on offense.
So nice to see Cunningham get some assists. Just that threat gives him more room at the rim. Haynes is definitely a playground player but it is what it is. Nelson really sees the floor well and love him initiating the offense. Starks can be a loose cannon at times but when he is on he stretches the floor. Collier is solid and improving though. It will be interesting to see how the battle for post playing time works out next year with no clear front runner between Brandt, Brown, Burton, and possibly Moreland.
I absolutely agree that offensive flow was the difference in this game. The flow of the offense allowed shooters to shoot in motion and what do you know – they shot a much higher %.
I think Moreland will get significant minutes. In the game where he was hurt he looked very good – similar to Collier in athleticism and motor. We also have Gomis coming in and it has been said that he will challenge immediately.
Depth in the post should not be an issue, we should have plenty of bodies out there next year.
Gomis looked horrible the one game he was on TV this year. He cannot score at all. All the talk about his shot blocking ability appeared true, though.
That is exactly what we need though. A shot blocker that can erase the penetration of the opposing guards and challenge shots at the rim. Then our man D will be very effective and allow for perimeter defenders to play aggressive. The only offense Gomis will need at first is to handle a dump off pass and flush it through to keep the opposition from totally selling out and playing 5 on 4.
I am getting excited about this team again. Don’t even care if they win another game as long as there is flow on offense and effort with a variety of looks on D.
I just don’t understand why Coach Rob talks about man-to-man defense it as if it’s some high-brow, exotic concept that requires you to go 12 deep on the bench. There are dozens of college teams less athletic and thinner on the bench than this team that play man-to-man. The notion that this team somehow “isn’t ready for it,” is ludicrous.
+1
When 1-star guards from Corpus Christi are getting all Pearl Harbor on your ass, you’d think CR would say, “Man to man can’t be any worse than this” and just give it a shot. Someone mentioned that in man defense there’s accountability. That’s what it boils down to. Even a lazy bum like Calvin Haynes has some pride/ego and doesn’t want to be beaten one on one. Therefore, effort and effectiveness increase.
I agree the man D is the best base defense… but I also thing good teams can throw out a variety of looks on defense. Hopefully all the pain we have endured this year will lead to a solid foundation in the next couple of years.
I watched some of the St.Mary’s/Gonzaga game last night. It was like watching basketball on a different planet when compared to the Beavers. You would think at some point Randy Bennett would want a bigger stage, I don’t think he will quite be able to bring St.Mary’s to the national podium like Few with Gonzaga. It seems like in the mid-majors there is not room for two perennials in a league. Maybe I am wrong.
Did anyone catch that the Fox guys spoke with BDC and he gave CR a vote of confidence? Then they said that CR told them years 4 and 5 are when thinks will come together. I am ok with that.
Can anybody answer why you would ever have an offense where Devon Collier catches a ball outside of the three point line? That makes no sense to me, he obviously is not going to shoot out there and he is not really a driving force, so this is really wasted motion. I really think CR needs to evaluate his offensive philosophy to match his talent on the floor. We are no longer that 0-18 doormat, so why would we still play an offense and defense that tries to make up for lacking talent. It was obvious that OS was much more athletic than Stanford last night and we allowed them to shoot open threes and build a lead. Are movement on offense was significantly better than usual last night but some of the main components of the offense still don’t make sense to me. You rarely see any off-ball screens and there is very little inside-out movement of the ball.
Was nice to see a win though.
It resets the offense and can sometimes draw out opposing bigs from the key. It makes more sense in the NBA where you have illegal defense calls. Also allows the guards to free up if you run some off the ball screens and can create confusion and free up Collier to cut to the basket after he passes off.
You see the same thing with Burton on top, opponents drop off and clog the key. He has no outside shot and if he tries to drive from outside, he is just a turnover waiting to happen. The “Princeton” worked to some degree in the first two seasons because Schaft was at least of a threat from three. Brandt would be a proto-typical point-center if he had any confidence.
I would love to see some high/low with Cunningham posting up smaller guards and getting a simple (yes, I am talking to you Joe Burton) entry pass from the outside big man. Cunningham does not really get good looks on all of his drives, I think solid post ups would be a nice addition to his game.