+/- for the Ordination in Oregon

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Last night in Eugene, Oregon, the Reverend Windham finally received his long overdue Holy Orders. He was proclaimed Bishop of the Backcourt in a 2 hour ceremony, during which he casually performed several miracles, to the utter astonishment of his mentor, who greatly preferred an impostor.

Player	Minutes	NU Pts	Ore Pts	Raw +/-	Player +/-	Net +/-	Box Pts
Windham	26	50	43	+7	+4.25	+5.65	9.60
Berry	37	67	67	+0	+4.86	+4.86	11.90
Nicholson	22	42	43	-1	+3.20	+3.00	7.05
Ciaravino	5	7	13	-6	+0.48	-0.72	0.75
Fitzmorris	17	28	32	-4	+0.57	-0.23	2.15
Hunger	2	0	4	-4	-0.90	-1.70	-1.70
Martinelli	38	70	73	-3	-2.29	-2.89	2.10
Mullins	33	64	65	-1	-5.79	-5.99	1.90
Clayton	15	22	35	-13	-4.38	-6.98	-3.00

I threw out the last 70 seconds. Collins was swapping Ciaravino in for Nicholson defensively and we were fouling intentionally.

Ty Berry, KJ Windham and Matt Nicholson came to play. Unfortunately, it seemed like their coach was somewhat disengaged from the proceedings.
The Wildcats fell behind immediately 11-4, with Jordan Clayton getting the start at point guard.
There was a lot of loose talk before the game about how well Clayton had played in his debut, but a deeper look at the stats exposed that for misguided puffery.
Clayton had been a disaster on the defensive end against Washington, a reality conveniently ignored by some fans, coaches and random tv commentators.
That was somewhat excusable, I guess, as long as a major effort was made to get Clayton into the same general defensive zipcode as his teammates.
I'm not going to belabor it, Clayton played poorly against Oregon. I yelled at my tv a lot. It seemed to me that we were almost trying to lose, based on the lineups we were putting on the floor.

Justin Mullins fell back into his shooting funk. I could take a guess as to why - he had played really well in the loss to Washington, whereas his teammate Clayton had played poorly and cost us the game. You wouldn't have known that based on the postgame accolades. Of course I could be wrong - its just really weird how Mullins' performance yo-yos. Personally, I'd make sure he felt appreciated.

As I have said since Jalen Leach went down with his ACL, the lineups that we should focus on are Nicholson/Martinelli and some combination of Mullins, Ciaravino, Berry and Windham.
Obviously, Fitzmorris or Hunger has to spell Nicholson as necessary.
Against Washington we used lineups featuring those players for about 5:30, and outscored Washington 12-2.
Last night, against Oregon, Collins used Nicholson/Martinelli/Ciaravino/Berry/Windham for 2:13 midway thru the first half. We got outscored 5-4.
Nicholson only played 8 minutes in the first half. Fitzmorris played 12. Nicholson was not in foul trouble. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever - like we were trying to lose.

Coming out of halftime, trailing 39-25, the Cats could never sustain any momentum until finally, with 8:34 to play trailing 64-51, Collins put Windham on the floor with Nicholson/Martinelli/Mullins/Berry. Finally! Come on guys! Lets go!
Martinelli missed a shot. Oregon's big guy (Bittle) tried to go the the basket and Nicholson stuffed him - loose ball to Oregon and a rattled Bittle misses a 3.
Windham swishes a 3 on a designed play where he threw it to Matt at top of key, Nicholson holds ball, sets screen, Windham runs around screen to far corner, Nicholson throws pass over the top and Windham buries open 3.
Oregon turns the ball over when Windham jumps a passing lane, steals it, then misses a contested layup, but Berry is fouled on the rebound. Berry makes two free throws. 64-56 Oregon.
Oregon makes a jumper.
Windham and Nicholson run the exact same play and Windham buries another 3. 66-59 Oregon.
Oregon misses a 3. Rebound Nicholson.
Martinelli misses a 2, Oregon rebounds.
Windham commits a foul. Oregon makes 2 free throws.
Windham buries another 3. 67-62. Timeout Oregon.
Oregon nails a 3 as shot clock is expiring.
Windham sees Nicholson with open space in the paint, lobs a pass over the top, Nicholson collects it and lays it in.
Oregon makes 1 of 2 free throws.
Mullins misses a 3. Oregon misses a 3.
Martinelli scores in the paint. 71-66 Oregon, with 2:52 to go.
Ultimately, NU put together a 19-11 run, but could never overcome the huge hole that had been dug earlier.

A few tidbits. When Mullins and Windham were on the court together, NU outscored Oregon 44-33 in about 21 minutes.
When Mullins and Clayton were on the court together, Oregon outscored us 32-20 in just over 12 minutes.
Nicholson and Windham? 29-22 in 13 minutes.
Nicholson and Clayton? 15-24 in 11 minutes.

Lastly, Evan Miyakawa, the stats wiz behind EvanMiya.com, has numeric rankings for every player on every team - both offense and defense.
In the Big Ten, there are 212 players who have played at least 25 possessions. Of those 212 players, Jordan Clayton is rated as the 211th best defender, with Luke Hunger at #200 and Keenan Fitzmorris at #206. Nicholson is rated #9.

 

[No Chores]

Last night in Eugene, Oregon, the Reverend Windham finally received his long overdue Holy Orders. He was proclaimed Bishop of the Backcourt in a 2 hour ceremony, during which he casually performed several miracles, to the utter astonishment of his mentor, who greatly preferred an impostor.

Player	Minutes	NU Pts	Ore Pts	Raw +/-	Player +/-	Net +/-	Box Pts
Windham	26	50	43	+7	+4.25	+5.65	9.60
Berry	37	67	67	+0	+4.86	+4.86	11.90
Nicholson	22	42	43	-1	+3.20	+3.00	7.05
Ciaravino	5	7	13	-6	+0.48	-0.72	0.75
Fitzmorris	17	28	32	-4	+0.57	-0.23	2.15
Hunger	2	0	4	-4	-0.90	-1.70	-1.70
Martinelli	38	70	73	-3	-2.29	-2.89	2.10
Mullins	33	64	65	-1	-5.79	-5.99	1.90
Clayton	15	22	35	-13	-4.38	-6.98	-3.00

I threw out the last 70 seconds. Collins was swapping Ciaravino in for Nicholson defensively and we were fouling intentionally.

Ty Berry, KJ Windham and Matt Nicholson came to play. Unfortunately, it seemed like their coach was somewhat disengaged from the proceedings.
The Wildcats fell behind immediately 11-4, with Jordan Clayton getting the start at point guard.
There was a lot of loose talk before the game about how well Clayton had played in his debut, but a deeper look at the stats exposed that for misguided puffery.
Clayton had been a disaster on the defensive end against Washington, a reality conveniently ignored by some fans, coaches and random tv commentators.
That was somewhat excusable, I guess, as long as a major effort was made to get Clayton into the same general defensive zipcode as his teammates.
I'm not going to belabor it, Clayton played poorly against Oregon. I yelled at my tv a lot. It seemed to me that we were almost trying to lose, based on the lineups we were putting on the floor.

Justin Mullins fell back into his shooting funk. I could take a guess as to why - he had played really well in the loss to Washington, whereas his teammate Clayton had played poorly and cost us the game. You wouldn't have known that based on the postgame accolades. Of course I could be wrong - its just really weird how Mullins' performance yo-yos. Personally, I'd make sure he felt appreciated.

As I have said since Jalen Leach went down with his ACL, the lineups that we should focus on are Nicholson/Martinelli and some combination of Mullins, Ciaravino, Berry and Windham.
Obviously, Fitzmorris or Hunger has to spell Nicholson as necessary.
Against Washington we used lineups featuring those players for about 5:30, and outscored Washington 12-2.
Last night, against Oregon, Collins used Nicholson/Martinelli/Ciaravino/Berry/Windham for 2:13 midway thru the first half. We got outscored 5-4.
Nicholson only played 8 minutes in the first half. Fitzmorris played 12. Nicholson was not in foul trouble. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever - like we were trying to lose.

Coming out of halftime, trailing 39-25, the Cats could never sustain any momentum until finally, with 8:34 to play trailing 64-51, Collins put Windham on the floor with Nicholson/Martinelli/Mullins/Berry. Finally! Come on guys! Lets go!
Martinelli missed a shot. Oregon's big guy (Bittle) tried to go the the basket and Nicholson stuffed him - loose ball to Oregon and a rattled Bittle misses a 3.
Windham swishes a 3 on a designed play where he threw it to Matt at top of key, Nicholson holds ball, sets screen, Windham runs around screen to far corner, Nicholson throws pass over the top and Windham buries open 3.
Oregon turns the ball over when Windham jumps a passing lane, steals it, then misses a contested layup, but Berry is fouled on the rebound. Berry makes two free throws. 64-56 Oregon.
Oregon makes a jumper.
Windham and Nicholson run the exact same play and Windham buries another 3. 66-59 Oregon.
Oregon misses a 3. Rebound Nicholson.
Martinelli misses a 2, Oregon rebounds.
Windham commits a foul. Oregon makes 2 free throws.
Windham buries another 3. 67-62. Timeout Oregon.
Oregon nails a 3 as shot clock is expiring.
Windham sees Nicholson with open space in the paint, lobs a pass over the top, Nicholson collects it and lays it in.
Oregon makes 1 of 2 free throws.
Mullins misses a 3. Oregon misses a 3.
Martinelli scores in the paint. 71-66 Oregon, with 2:52 to go.
Ultimately, NU put together a 19-11 run, but could never overcome the huge hole that had been dug earlier.

A few tidbits. When Mullins and Windham were on the court together, NU outscored Oregon 44-33 in about 21 minutes.
When Mullins and Clayton were on the court together, Oregon outscored us 32-20 in just over 12 minutes.
Nicholson and Windham? 29-22 in 13 minutes.
Nicholson and Clayton? 15-24 in 11 minutes.

Lastly, Evan Miyakawa, the stats wiz behind EvanMiya.com, has numeric rankings for every player on every team - both offense and defense.
In the Big Ten, there are 212 players who have played at least 25 possessions. Of those 212 players, Jordan Clayton is rated as the 211th best defender, with Luke Hunger at #200 and Keenan Fitzmorris at #206. Nicholson is rated #9.

I enjoyed this analysis, primarily because it confirmed what my own eyes told me. Clayton offers no value whatsoever, He can't shoot and he can't defend, and his passing last night was atrocious. Likewise, Hunger is valueless in all respects, and we'll need a transfer big man next year without question. I'd also try to land a transfer to replace Berry/Leach and who can make 85%of their free throws. Shooters win basketball games.

 

[Southport Cat]

Clayton can bring the ball up the floor with some pace while defended. This would absolutely have provided value during the early season stretch where teams showed full court press against us on every possession and Leach seemed to dribble it off his own foot two or three times a game and the ball handling load was dragging down his natural offensive gifts.

Now it would seem that Clayton’s lack of natural scoring gifts offsets that gain, making the decision to burn the redshirt that much stranger.

I do not believe Windham played poorly enough to be leapfrogged when Leach went down. Seems like we are missing some piece of the puzzle to explain the thought process.

Mullins is a player whose mental state of mind seems to have a tangible impact on his game. Given our shortage of resources right now, I concur this should be played to the team’s advantage rather than vice versa. Just let him play 35 minutes as he consistently adds more than he subtracts in the aggregate.

 

[MC_Cat]

Clayton objectively played very poorly last night. Picked up his dribble just past half court (shades of tentative Leach from early season), dribbled off his foot, threw bad passes (did he even have any assists?), and hoisted some bad shots. His defense wasn't good either but he got picked off on screens a bunch of times and couldn't fight through.

Windham was better in all respects; especially on offense with his aggressive drives to the rim and prowess from 3. He also did a better job staying in front of Shelstad which is no easy task.

Windham absolutely earned the start against Nebraska.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

Last night in Eugene, Oregon, the Reverend Windham finally received his long overdue Holy Orders. He was proclaimed Bishop of the Backcourt in a 2 hour ceremony, during which he casually performed several miracles, to the utter astonishment of his mentor, who greatly preferred an impostor.

Player	Minutes	NU Pts	Ore Pts	Raw +/-	Player +/-	Net +/-	Box Pts
Windham	26	50	43	+7	+4.25	+5.65	9.60
Berry	37	67	67	+0	+4.86	+4.86	11.90
Nicholson	22	42	43	-1	+3.20	+3.00	7.05
Ciaravino	5	7	13	-6	+0.48	-0.72	0.75
Fitzmorris	17	28	32	-4	+0.57	-0.23	2.15
Hunger	2	0	4	-4	-0.90	-1.70	-1.70
Martinelli	38	70	73	-3	-2.29	-2.89	2.10
Mullins	33	64	65	-1	-5.79	-5.99	1.90
Clayton	15	22	35	-13	-4.38	-6.98	-3.00

I threw out the last 70 seconds. Collins was swapping Ciaravino in for Nicholson defensively and we were fouling intentionally.

Ty Berry, KJ Windham and Matt Nicholson came to play. Unfortunately, it seemed like their coach was somewhat disengaged from the proceedings.
The Wildcats fell behind immediately 11-4, with Jordan Clayton getting the start at point guard.
There was a lot of loose talk before the game about how well Clayton had played in his debut, but a deeper look at the stats exposed that for misguided puffery.
Clayton had been a disaster on the defensive end against Washington, a reality conveniently ignored by some fans, coaches and random tv commentators.
That was somewhat excusable, I guess, as long as a major effort was made to get Clayton into the same general defensive zipcode as his teammates.
I'm not going to belabor it, Clayton played poorly against Oregon. I yelled at my tv a lot. It seemed to me that we were almost trying to lose, based on the lineups we were putting on the floor.

Justin Mullins fell back into his shooting funk. I could take a guess as to why - he had played really well in the loss to Washington, whereas his teammate Clayton had played poorly and cost us the game. You wouldn't have known that based on the postgame accolades. Of course I could be wrong - its just really weird how Mullins' performance yo-yos. Personally, I'd make sure he felt appreciated.

As I have said since Jalen Leach went down with his ACL, the lineups that we should focus on are Nicholson/Martinelli and some combination of Mullins, Ciaravino, Berry and Windham.
Obviously, Fitzmorris or Hunger has to spell Nicholson as necessary.
Against Washington we used lineups featuring those players for about 5:30, and outscored Washington 12-2.
Last night, against Oregon, Collins used Nicholson/Martinelli/Ciaravino/Berry/Windham for 2:13 midway thru the first half. We got outscored 5-4.
Nicholson only played 8 minutes in the first half. Fitzmorris played 12. Nicholson was not in foul trouble. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever - like we were trying to lose.

Coming out of halftime, trailing 39-25, the Cats could never sustain any momentum until finally, with 8:34 to play trailing 64-51, Collins put Windham on the floor with Nicholson/Martinelli/Mullins/Berry. Finally! Come on guys! Lets go!
Martinelli missed a shot. Oregon's big guy (Bittle) tried to go the the basket and Nicholson stuffed him - loose ball to Oregon and a rattled Bittle misses a 3.
Windham swishes a 3 on a designed play where he threw it to Matt at top of key, Nicholson holds ball, sets screen, Windham runs around screen to far corner, Nicholson throws pass over the top and Windham buries open 3.
Oregon turns the ball over when Windham jumps a passing lane, steals it, then misses a contested layup, but Berry is fouled on the rebound. Berry makes two free throws. 64-56 Oregon.
Oregon makes a jumper.
Windham and Nicholson run the exact same play and Windham buries another 3. 66-59 Oregon.
Oregon misses a 3. Rebound Nicholson.
Martinelli misses a 2, Oregon rebounds.
Windham commits a foul. Oregon makes 2 free throws.
Windham buries another 3. 67-62. Timeout Oregon.
Oregon nails a 3 as shot clock is expiring.
Windham sees Nicholson with open space in the paint, lobs a pass over the top, Nicholson collects it and lays it in.
Oregon makes 1 of 2 free throws.
Mullins misses a 3. Oregon misses a 3.
Martinelli scores in the paint. 71-66 Oregon, with 2:52 to go.
Ultimately, NU put together a 19-11 run, but could never overcome the huge hole that had been dug earlier.

A few tidbits. When Mullins and Windham were on the court together, NU outscored Oregon 44-33 in about 21 minutes.
When Mullins and Clayton were on the court together, Oregon outscored us 32-20 in just over 12 minutes.
Nicholson and Windham? 29-22 in 13 minutes.
Nicholson and Clayton? 15-24 in 11 minutes.

Lastly, Evan Miyakawa, the stats wiz behind EvanMiya.com, has numeric rankings for every player on every team - both offense and defense.
In the Big Ten, there are 212 players who have played at least 25 possessions. Of those 212 players, Jordan Clayton is rated as the 211th best defender, with Luke Hunger at #200 and Keenan Fitzmorris at #206. Nicholson is rated #9.

I don’t wtf has happened to you since we started losing. If I didn’t know better I would think this is a troll account. Since I know better, I have to think your obvious bias is related to some inside information you got from your daughter or she dates Big Matt. If it’s not that, I conclude you either never played team sports or know very little about them.

+/-is cute conversation starter. You act like CcC and his staff are the biggest morons to ever coach a team. Do you really think these nonsense conclusions on line up combinations are something that our staff doesn’t know or consider. Do you really think they had less data than your rudimentary spreadsheet contains or that they are so arrogant they just ignore for no reason? If it was as easy as you paint it, we should Fire CCC and put you in charge. The “certainty” of your comments is near comical. Decades of Playing or Coaching at a high level or PWB’s crackerjack analysis? I know which one I trust more.

The kicker is you claim you don’t “blast” the Coaching of this team. What a joke. At least have the balls to own up to your distaste for CCC instead of the childish passive aggressive approach that you just double down on every comment.

I keep hoping you will post these numbers without interjecting your bias into every point. It might actually be worth reading and responding too.

 

[Hungry Jack]

Can't we all just get along?

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Clayton objectively played very poorly last night. Picked up his dribble just past half court (shades of tentative Leach from early season), dribbled off his foot, threw bad passes (did he even have any assists?), and hoisted some bad shots. His defense wasn't good either but he got picked off on screens a bunch of times and couldn't fight through.

Windham was better in all respects; especially on offense with his aggressive drives to the rim and prowess from 3. He also did a better job staying in front of Shelstad which is no easy task.

Windham absolutely earned the start against Nebraska.

I believe it was you who gave us the heads-up on Shelstad. If so, nicely done. I liked that guy even though he was playing well against us. (he wasn't a jerk). I was watching NU try to defend against the ball - I think Oregon had a few guys who tried to penetrate, but Windham was generally doing a pretty good job moving his feet, as was Mullins. Its ok to get beat every now and then by a good player.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Clayton can bring the ball up the floor with some pace while defended. This would absolutely have provided value during the early season stretch where teams showed full court press against us on every possession and Leach seemed to dribble it off his own foot two or three times a game and the ball handling load was dragging down his natural offensive gifts.

Now it would seem that Clayton’s lack of natural scoring gifts offsets that gain, making the decision to burn the redshirt that much stranger.

I do not believe Windham played poorly enough to be leapfrogged when Leach went down. Seems like we are missing some piece of the puzzle to explain the thought process.

Mullins is a player whose mental state of mind seems to have a tangible impact on his game. Given our shortage of resources right now, I concur this should be played to the team’s advantage rather than vice versa. Just let him play 35 minutes as he consistently adds more than he subtracts in the aggregate.

When Mullins air-balled his first 3 point try, I got an immediate "uh-oh" reaction.

I'm rooting for Clayton to improve. I was definitely upset that he jumped Windham - it made no sense to me. But that isn't Clayton's fault. It almost felt like the old days of kid's athletics, when the coach's kid is mediocre, but he gets all the opportunities and excess praise.

The one thing that bugged me about Clayton is that he would shoot as soon as he entered the game. Happened several times vs Oregon. It struck me as selfish - especially when a 5th year guy named Ty Berry is making every shot he takes.

It just seemed like the coaches needed to tell him - look you're the 5th option. Run the offense, look to set up the scorers. Instead he acted like he'd been told to shoot anytime he had a look.

 

[Hungry Jack]

I believe it was you who gave us the heads-up on Shelstad. If so, nicely done. I liked that guy even though he was playing well against us. (he wasn't a jerk). I was watching NU try to defend against the ball - I think Oregon had a few guys who tried to penetrate, but Windham was generally doing a pretty good job moving his feet, as was Mullins. Its ok to get beat every now and then by a good player.

Shelstad might be the quickest guard I have seen in the conference. He's really quick. The other guy that comes to mind is Fears at MSU, though I think Shelstad is quicker.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

I don’t wtf has happened to you since we started losing. If I didn’t know better I would think this is a troll account. Since I know better, I have to think your obvious bias is related to some inside information you got from your daughter or she dates Big Matt. If it’s not that, I conclude you either never played team sports or know very little about them.

+/-is cute conversation starter. You act like CcC and his staff are the biggest morons to ever coach a team. Do you really think these nonsense conclusions on line up combinations are something that our staff doesn’t know or consider. Do you really think they had less data than your rudimentary spreadsheet contains or that they are so arrogant they just ignore for no reason? If it was as easy as you paint it, we should Fire CCC and put you in charge. The “certainty” of your comments is near comical. Decades of Playing or Coaching at a high level or PWB’s crackerjack analysis? I know which one I trust more.

The kicker is you claim you don’t “blast” the Coaching of this team. What a joke. At least have the balls to own up to your distaste for CCC instead of the childish passive aggressive approach that you just double down on every comment.

I keep hoping you will post these numbers without interjecting your bias into every point. It might actually be worth reading and responding too.

So you want me to post the numbers and not care enough to comment?
I care about the team. I run the lineup numbers to get a better understanding of what is working and not working.
You can look at the table and not read my comments, if that suits you better.

I was annoyed at Collins for starting Clayton.
I was annoyed at Collins for putting Blake Smith into the game when Leach got injured.
We haven't seen Smith for one second since that decision almost cost us that game.
History has proven the folly of sitting Nicholson for no reason.
The coach makes good decisions and he makes bad decisions.
I can't fathom why that subject is verboten.

 

[SimpsonElmwood]

When Mullins air-balled his first 3 point try, I got an immediate "uh-oh" reaction.

I'm rooting for Clayton to improve. I was definitely upset that he jumped Windham - it made no sense to me. But that isn't Clayton's fault. It almost felt like the old days of kid's athletics, when the coach's kid is mediocre, but he gets all the opportunities and excess praise.

The one thing that bugged me about Clayton is that he would shoot as soon as he entered the game. Happened several times vs Oregon. It struck me as selfish - especially when a 5th year guy named Ty Berry is making every shot he takes.

It just seemed like the coaches needed to tell him - look you're the 5th option. Run the offense, look to set up the scorers. Instead he acted like he'd been told to shoot anytime he had a look.

I appreciate the data you provide, but your analysis includes emotions you project on the players. This warps the analysis. Given the limited margin of error the team has, I am 100% sure Collins is not excessively praising some players and playing mediocre ones. He feels they are going to do the best job.

Regarding shooting, Clayton is not being selfish. He's wide open. We've seen Collins go off on Mullins because he's not shooting. Other players see that, so when they are open, they shoot. The Cats struggle to get open without Barnhizer and Leach, so it's hard to strike a balance between waiting deeper into the possession for the better shooter to get open or to fire off the open shot.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

I appreciate the data you provide, but your analysis includes emotions you project on the players. This warps the analysis. Given the limited margin of error the team has, I am 100% sure Collins is not excessively praising some players and playing mediocre ones. He feels they are going to do the best job.

Regarding shooting, Clayton is not being selfish. He's wide open. We've seen Collins go off on Mullins because he's not shooting. Other players see that, so when they are open, they shoot. The Cats struggle to get open without Barnhizer and Leach, so it's hard to strike a balance between waiting deeper into the possession for the better shooter to get open or to fire off the open shot.

Well, Clayton has gotten some open looks, for sure. I find that our offense has looked less stagnant since Barnhizer went down. Clayton did try to go 1 on 2 to the rim early in the Oregon game and it looked like Biddle was just sitting there waiting to swat his contested layup attempt. That sort of thing sticks out.

I'm not going to knock Leach, he was playing well and could occasionally get to the rim, played hard, was usually reliable, even in the midrange. Average rebounder, average defender. I really would have liked to have seen him out there more with Windham, playing the off guard, looking for shots.

It seems to me that Collins goes off on specific players regularly and never says a word to others.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

So you want me to post the numbers and not care enough to comment?
I care about the team. I run the lineup numbers to get a better understanding of what is working and not working.
You can look at the table and not read my comments, if that suits you better.

I was annoyed at Collins for starting Clayton.
I was annoyed at Collins for putting Blake Smith into the game when Leach got injured.
We haven't seen Smith for one second since that decision almost cost us that game.
History has proven the folly of sitting Nicholson for no reason.
The coach makes good decisions and he makes bad decisions.
I can't fathom why that subject is verboten.

You lost me when you said it looks like the Coach wants to lose. I found that a ridiculous statement.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

It seems to me that Collins goes off on specific players regularly and never says a word to others.

That's true of every coach ever. Some do it because they have favorites and are generally assholes. Most (including, I believe, Collins) do it because some players react better to coaches getting in their faces while others need a more encouraging approach. Good coaching is knowing which players need which.

As for Mullins, his shooting may have nothing to do with his confidence. He may just be a streaky shooter, like 90 percent of college players.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

The one thing that bugged me about Clayton is that he would shoot as soon as he entered the game.

This makes some sense. The opposing team's scouting report likely says, "Clayton can't shoot. Defender should leave him for double teams and rotational help." If Clayton has an early, open shot, he should take it. If he happens to make it, then he creates a problem for the defense which now thinks it has to guard him for the rest of the game. If not, oh well. Generally worth the risk. Clayton did not shoot much more after that initial shot which makes me think it was a defined strategy rather than "selfish" as you so objectively called it.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

You lost me when you said it looks like the Coach wants to lose. I found that a ridiculous statement.

I wrote "It seemed to me that we were almost trying to lose, based on the lineups we were putting on the floor."

That means I think we were using crappy lineups - which are not likely to be successful - based on past results.

Collins wants to win, obviously, but his performances in the Washington ad Oregon games conveyed (to me) something like "I can't believe this is happening to me."

Matter of interpretation, obviously, but it started with getting kicked out in the first half of the Washington game. I just haven't seen any positivity from Collins since Leach went down.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

I wrote "It seemed to me that we were almost trying to lose, based on the lineups we were putting on the floor."

That means I think we were using crappy lineups - which are not likely to be successful - based on past results.

Collins wants to win, obviously, but his performances in the Washington ad Oregon games conveyed (to me) something like "I can't believe this is happening to me."

Matter of interpretation, obviously, but it started with getting kicked out in the first half of the Washington game. I just haven't seen any positivity from Collins since Leach went down.

See now you are discussing! Not that hard