Carter needs to Channel his inner Mark Fox

[jwolfpack]

and sit a kid on the bench for a while after making the same mistakes over and over.

I know there is a valid argument that Fox's players were too afraid to make a mistake and that took away from their game, but Carter needs to find some sort of balance. This team in now 13 games into the season and still practically giving games away.

Story was horrible, he should have been riding the pine.....having a poor shooting night is one thing, but not playing defense is unacceptable...


Burtons shot selection with a minute to go and down by 5 was also horrible....two badly missed 3's when he should have been driving into the lane against 2 fresno players with 4 FOULS......Thats partly on burton and partly on Carter. How the hell do you not take advantage of fresno players with 4 fouls trying to play defense against a great athlete...absolutley horrible decisions.

and one more thing....I'll cut Dario's stone hands some slack...cant be easy playing in the paint against bigger stronger guys, but if he isnt within 2 feet of the rim, he shouldnt be taking a shot.

another inner Mark Fox moment.....know your role!!!....Darios role isnt a 5 foot jumpshot


Last night was just plain Dumb basketball.

Now the positives

Olek....any question why he earned a scholarship from Duke

Burton....for a good portion of the second half he looked like he could drive at will against Fresno...why he went away from that in the final minutes is puzzling

Dario....another double double...if he could just play a little stronger in the post and take care of the ball just a bit better he would be an absolute monster

Despite crappiness, the pack battled and fought hard through most of the game, kept coming back from 10 down......Carter says they stopped playing in the final minutes...I dont disagree, but most of the game they never let Fresno run away.

[EZRowdy]

and sit a kid on the bench for a while after making the same mistakes over and over.

I know there is a valid argument that Fox's players were too afraid to make a mistake and that took away from their game, but Carter needs to find some sort of balance. This team in now 13 games into the season and still practically giving games away.

Story was horrible, he should have been riding the pine.....having a poor shooting night is one thing, but not playing defense is unacceptable...


Burtons shot selection with a minute to go and down by 5 was also horrible....two badly missed 3's when he should have been driving into the lane against 2 fresno players with 4 FOULS......Thats partly on burton and partly on Carter. How the hell do you not take advantage of fresno players with 4 fouls trying to play defense against a great athlete...absolutley horrible decisions.

and one more thing....I'll cut Dario's stone hands some slack...cant be easy playing in the paint against bigger stronger guys, but if he isnt within 2 feet of the rim, he shouldnt be taking a shot.

another inner Mark Fox moment.....know your role!!!....Darios role isnt a 5 foot jumpshot


Last night was just plain Dumb basketball.

Now the positives

Olek....any question why he earned a scholarship from Duke

Burton....for a good portion of the second half he looked like he could drive at will against Fresno...why he went away from that in the final minutes is puzzling

Dario....another double double...if he could just play a little stronger in the post and take care of the ball just a bit better he would be an absolute monster

Despite crappiness, the pack battled and fought hard through most of the game, kept coming back from 10 down......Carter says they stopped playing in the final minutes...I dont disagree, but most of the game they never let Fresno run away.

I think Hunt is close to putting that post game together. Those jump hooks of his last night weren't falling but he had a pretty nice touch on them. I'll bet he makes them in practice and it's just a matter of time before it translates to the game. His post game is 100 x better than last year. I'm willing to give him a couple more weeks to iron it out.

I love Czyz matched up against opposing teams 4's and 5's. They can not guard him.

[NevadaFan]

I think Hunt is close to putting that post game together. Those jump hooks of his last night weren't falling but he had a pretty nice touch on them. I'll bet he makes them in practice and it's just a matter of time before it translates to the game. His post game is 100 x better than last year. I'm willing to give him a couple more weeks to iron it out.

I love Czyz matched up against opposing teams 4's and 5's. They can not guard him.

I think Dario is much improved but he's the only kid we have that can play with his back to the basket and that's the biggest issue. He has horrible touch. And if he misses the chances of an offense rebound are remote fight now. His 5 TOs last night were killers as were Finn's 3.

I think Carter has to expand Burton's role because he can get to the basket at will and we need him to do that. I've watched enough of Finn and Conner to know that one kid is really struggling to make good decisions with the ball and the other can't score.

Plus, we need a 2. We need someone who can knock down open looks AND guard the 2. Story is a great shooter but his defense is horrible.

[Stuck in Seattle]

I think Dario is much improved but he's the only kid we have that can play with his back to the basket and that's the biggest issue. He has horrible touch. And if he misses the chances of an offense rebound are remote fight now. His 5 TOs last night were killers as were Finn's 3.

I think Carter has to expand Burton's role because he can get to the basket at will and we need him to do that. I've watched enough of Finn and Conner to know that one kid is really struggling to make good decisions with the ball and the other can't score.

Plus, we need a 2. We need someone who can knock down open looks AND guard the 2. Story is a great shooter but his defense is horrible.
I agree with you a lot more than some others on here.

Dario looks good trying to play with his back to the basket and is at least trying the jump hook...but he's aiming the ball and trying to "put" it in the hoop instead of shooting it with a nice release. So he never gets the roll. But I have no complaint with Dario...even when he has a bad turnover night he's bringing it every game against players that are bigger than he is.

Story, for now, is a pale reflection of the guy we thought he'd be...Marcellus Kemp. Not only does he not defend, he can't put the ball on the floor and get his own shot.

Checking his stats versus Kemp's sophomore stats it's clear as day:
2pt FG%-
Kemp 52.5%
Story 32.9%

Kemp also got to the line more frequently.

But Story's outstanding 3pt % definitely is a factor in keeping him on the floor, and perhaps we'll see improvement. But it hurts seeing him dribble.
On the other hand, Nevada is among the worst in the nation at forcing turnovers and making steals, so practice doesn't exactly force him to improve his ball handling skills.

How can we be 342nd in forcing turnovers yet be 262nd in opponents getting to the line? If you're forcing turnovers I get the fouling...but it's crazy to put teams on the line this frequently while never getting turnovers. We're just hacking the opponent and those are easy possessions when you get to the FT line.

Finally, opponents have at least a 20% turnover rate in every Nevada win and the Pack has only 2 losses when an opponent turns it over that frequently. Nevada's 2-6 when they have a 20% TO rate. It's pretty obvious that if the Pack can just keep the turnover rate close to that of their opponent they have a very good chance of winning. I'm not so much criticizing the Pack for not forcing turnovers...we didn't force turnovers under TJ or Fox either. That's by design. But that puts an emphasis on ball control and offensive efficiency along with making sure you do everything right on defense.

Our ball control sucks and our overall defense (thanks to fouls) sucks.

[lvwlfpckfan]

I have a hard time disagreeing with anything being said and much of it is due to the youth. Speed of the game, overall strength of players, and skill level all go up considerably at every position. Turnovers and rebounding are the glaring problems and can be fixed if the players make an effort. Things are beginning to slow down for these kids and it will happen. The strength part will have to wait until the off season. Players like Finn will improve just from becoming stronger. The one area that the whole team needs to concentrate on is rebounding. It seems that they lean on Dario too much and just expect for him to clean the glass. Olek has been great, but he was a rebounding machine in high school and he needs to work on getting at least 7 to 8 rebounds a game. Last year Luke, Dario, and Shaw all rebounded well and it helped the team in many ways.

[battle.borne]

In regards to Story's lack of ball handling skills, it seems to me he has terrible peripheral vision and/or spacial court awareness. He doesn't see the defense collapsing down and invariably dribbles the ball into their oncoming hands.

[Stuck in Seattle]

I have a hard time disagreeing with anything being said and much of it is due to the youth. Speed of the game, overall strength of players, and skill level all go up considerably at every position. Turnovers and rebounding are the glaring problems and can be fixed if the players make an effort. Things are beginning to slow down for these kids and it will happen. The strength part will have to wait until the off season. Players like Finn will improve just from becoming stronger. The one area that the whole team needs to concentrate on is rebounding. It seems that they lean on Dario too much and just expect for him to clean the glass. Olek has been great, but he was a rebounding machine in high school and he needs to work on getting at least 7 to 8 rebounds a game. Last year Luke, Dario, and Shaw all rebounded well and it helped the team in many ways.
Ranking the Pack's offensive rebounding:
Last year 203rd (31.9%). This year 81st (35.5%). Big improvement this season.

Ranking the defensive rebounding:
Last year 153rd (67.8%). This year 186th (66.9%). Little difference this season.

[Stuck in Seattle]

In regards to Story's lack of ball handling skills, it seems to me he has terrible peripheral vision and/or spacial court awareness. He doesn't see the defense collapsing down and invariably dribbles the ball into their oncoming hands.
Stays too tall, doesn't get low. He's a turnover waiting to happen.

[PackWard03]

I have a hard time disagreeing with anything being said and much of it is due to the youth. Speed of the game, overall strength of players, and skill level all go up considerably at every position. Turnovers and rebounding are the glaring problems and can be fixed if the players make an effort. Things are beginning to slow down for these kids and it will happen. The strength part will have to wait until the off season. Players like Finn will improve just from becoming stronger. The one area that the whole team needs to concentrate on is rebounding. It seems that they lean on Dario too much and just expect for him to clean the glass. Olek has been great, but he was a rebounding machine in high school and he needs to work on getting at least 7 to 8 rebounds a game. Last year Luke, Dario, and Shaw all rebounded well and it helped the team in many ways.

Carter talked about this after the game last night saying that he knows he can score but he needs more from Olek...i.e. rebounding, assists and the other stuff that doesn't get talked about.

He'll grow into that as the season progresses because I think it will be a benefit for us.

[Nosebleed]

I think the only way Carter will get more from Olek is perhaps to tie a broom to his tail and let him sweep the court while he is running up and down.

I felt like i was watching the one man Olek show last night. Of course he didn't do it all, but mostly if anything good was being done last night it was being done by Olek.

I said my piece before. I feel discipline is lacking on the team. Coach Carter is learning too, this being his second year as head coach. I do not see many effective head coaches that are not pretty emotional on the sidelines. I think Coach Carter will learn too a bit as the season goes on.

Rick