Cant teach stroke. Now he needs confidence going to the hoop and getting fouled and he can start to become a real player. But I'll take the 3s for now.
Towson Game & Other Dribbles ...
- Thread starter DT_PITT
- Start date
Jeffress was quite good yesterday. He only attempted 5 shots which is ok. He needs to continue to pass more, shoot less, and stop dribble driving as much which gets him into turnover trouble and it will really help his offensive efficiency numbers.
Jeffress is shooting 6-9 from the midrange this year and 2-8 from within 5 feet with 0 dunk attempts to help his shooting percentage. He is going through the same issue as Toney in Toney's freshmen season, the short shots are spinning out and just not falling. They will fall, in time. The fact he is making the midrange shots now is very encouraging through 4 games. Its a start...
His shooting percentage needs to come up and his turnovers need to continue to come down. Everything else: rebounding, defense, passing (needs to just do more of it), is all there right now in the same breath as players like Patterson, Gilbert Brown, etc.. He has made some significant improvement to becoming a much better player and well rounded player. For a player as young as him, you want to see growth in his overall game. We are seeing that.
Yes, we are trying to rebuild in a very difficult period. We can get transfers in but who wants to transfer to a basement dweller aside from guys who are on the bench or want to transfer up? I feel like the NCAA has made it very difficult for struggling programs to rebuild and have any level of consistency.
Not excusing current staff as everyone is playing with the same rules. But it is what it is.
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Disagree:
Ryan Murphy (barely got off bench at Duq)
Gerald Drumgoole
Max Amadusun
Noah Collier (not ACC-level)
Will Jeffress (not ACC-level right now)
Chris Payton
About half of his HS/JUCO recruits haven't been ACC level
People are overthinking this.
Capel is holding onto his job by a thread. The likelihood of this team even reaching 10 wins is almost nil.
He could pick 5 random members of the Zoo (if there are even that many at the games) and put up a record not much worse in the ACC than he is going to do with this roster. Can't do worse than 0 wins, which is what we will likely get.
Capel playing any combination of 5 players on this garbage roster is not really different than any other 5.
So let the man pull the strings however he thinks is best for him to be able to save his job for another year.
Will it fail? Extremely likely.
So what?
He'll either pull the right strings and somehow Ted Lasso his way to having a miraculous 12+ win season and keep his job for another year, or he won't.
Fretting over whether he benches Hugley or Femi or anyone else is pointless. No player on this current roster is going to be an integral part of Pitt’s next winning season, whenever that happens.
Capel is holding onto his job by a thread. The likelihood of this team even reaching 10 wins is almost nil.
He could pick 5 random members of the Zoo (if there are even that many at the games) and put up a record not much worse in the ACC than he is going to do with this roster. Can't do worse than 0 wins, which is what we will likely get.
Capel playing any combination of 5 players on this garbage roster is not really different than any other 5.
So let the man pull the strings however he thinks is best for him to be able to save his job for another year.
Will it fail? Extremely likely.
So what?
He'll either pull the right strings and somehow Ted Lasso his way to having a miraculous 12+ win season and keep his job for another year, or he won't.
Fretting over whether he benches Hugley or Femi or anyone else is pointless. No player on this current roster is going to be an integral part of Pitt’s next winning season, whenever that happens.
Actually I think your memory is probably pretty good. The issue is that you are hoping that no one else's is.
The ACC is really bad. We are going to win a couple games. Honestly, I think 3 could get him another year but only to save $3 million. He desperately needs a great recruiting class but that seems impossible with everyone already signed.
This team is very bad and it is depressing that we have to find positives in a very ugly win against Towson
We are Pitt after all. We are not used to getting recruits that can shoot and have really nice shooting form. We are more accustomed to guys with horrible form, like Cameron Wright. So forgive us if we didn't trust you.
Cameron Wright would be really good on this team. Couldn’t shoot but played so hard, good athlete, great attitude. Team player.
Santos is much, much, much better than Parker Stewart right now. He has a pure stroke and will be a really good player for us.
You’re correct, Cam Wright would fit well on this team because just like every single player not named Nate Santos, he had absolutely no idea how to shoot a basketball, which is funny I know, since he was an ACC basketball player
Both you and Curtis Aiken likened Burton to Adrian Dantley. Really? Dantley was a powerful small forward
who could post up and was very hard to defend down low. Burton is a PG/lead guard & already one of the Big Three on this team b/c he has PG skills. Don't see the resemblance.
That said, the question, for me anyway, each year is: if everything goes as well as it could, what's the ceiling? Couldn't tell pre-season what the transfers/Santos were like--tho shooters typically need a yr
Yesterday, Collier emerged from his larval state and showed up for the 1st time--ever. Burton is already a big plus. Santos is ahead of schedule. Olidapo looks like a guy who'll do best against lesser competition but may get overwhelmed against ACC forwards. Can't figure out what JC is doing with Gueye and Payton--both could help and have size, speed & bounce for ACC play.
Then again, I often have no idea what JC is trying to do. They won. There was improvement. All good. It was a grim, grey struggle against a (mostly) undersized Towson team. Not so good. More relief than excitment. But there's more ceiling here. Maybe they reach it.
who could post up and was very hard to defend down low. Burton is a PG/lead guard & already one of the Big Three on this team b/c he has PG skills. Don't see the resemblance.
That said, the question, for me anyway, each year is: if everything goes as well as it could, what's the ceiling? Couldn't tell pre-season what the transfers/Santos were like--tho shooters typically need a yr
Yesterday, Collier emerged from his larval state and showed up for the 1st time--ever. Burton is already a big plus. Santos is ahead of schedule. Olidapo looks like a guy who'll do best against lesser competition but may get overwhelmed against ACC forwards. Can't figure out what JC is doing with Gueye and Payton--both could help and have size, speed & bounce for ACC play.
Then again, I often have no idea what JC is trying to do. They won. There was improvement. All good. It was a grim, grey struggle against a (mostly) undersized Towson team. Not so good. More relief than excitment. But there's more ceiling here. Maybe they reach it.
Please don’t get ahead of yourself, the ceiling for this roster is about 3 ACC wins
That actually isn't true. These are shooting percentages for this season through 4 games.
Big John- 49% FG
Femi- 41%, 40% from 3
Oladapo- 86%
The biggest issue with this current team, by far, is turnovers. Our half court defense has been decent. But we keep turning the basketball over on offense and giving opposing teams free layups and dunks because of it. Our own offense is hurting our team defensive numbers mostly because of careless passing and horrible team communication.
If our team would try to communicate better and start moving more on offense instead of standing around, things would look better.
Continuing to fix the turnover problem will help the team win games. Obviously we have a severe lack of 3 point shooters on the current roster. But for some strange reason Femi is not even trying to shoot 3's and he has proven over multiple years he can make the 3.
Of course he’s no Dantley — it was just a fun portrayal of how he was getting his offense.
Vader I’m not one of the posters who takes the time to read your 17 paragraph posts about mostly nothing, the biggest problem with this team is they have 2 or 3 players who actually belong in the ACC with 0 others on the way, also , anybody with half an eye can see Femi has 0 idea how to hold or a shoot a basketball and we obviously have nobody to teach him
Out of the 5 guys we start, Femi and Hugley would be the only guys who are on another ACC roster. And they’re reserves. Both A10 players. And not on a good A10 team like Dayton or VCU. It’s just a really really bad roster and there’s zero development. Ironically, the most development from anyone came from Justin during covid when he couldn’t see the coaches for 5 months.
Au'Diese Toney developed a lot over his time at Pitt with this staff. So did Justin. X and Trey not so much.
Hugley and Femi look improved but not gigantically.
I wasn't too high on Santos,
and that was never seeing him
play, and the fact that we had
four guards ahead of him. Now
that he's been forced to play
he certainly can shoot (Vader
did tell us that). He's grown
in every game so far, and he
appears to be getting used
to bball at this level. He has
excellent shooting technique.
As far as comparison to
Stewart when he was here,
Santos IMO has far more
of a floor game. He can
put the ball on the floor
and move. I really like
that he plays within himself
and doesn't try to do too
much. Team mates are
looking for him, but I'd
like to see more sets
focusing on getting him
more open J's.
Just to touch on the benching of Femi and Big John.
I rewatched the game highlights which is a 9 minute clip on youtube showing every score in the entire game and really focused on the 2nd half.
I did not see Femi cry, bitch, complain, or put his head down when he was on the bench. Every time I watched Pitt score, Femi was clapping and cheering on his teammates. I don't see the poor body language Capel or others are suggesting at all. I see him cheering his teammates on and it is evident when we scored on offense.
I saw Big John do some clapping very early in the 2nd half for his teammates. But as the 2nd half continued and John did not play, he was clearly upset and his body language clearly showed. He was primarily sitting the majority of the 2nd half when big shots were being made by Pitt players to win the game. Johns teammates were standing and clapping when big shots at the end of the game were made, he was not. He looked like Zavackas in the NCAA Tournament when Z took his shoes off. His body language was really poor and it showed.
Other observations.
We gave up 2 easy baskets because of horrible passing, 1 because of Big John, 1 because of Oladapo. 4 points given up on extremely bad decisions on passing which was a free transition layup for the other team. Neither should have happened.
Nate Santos needs to come to the ball. He needs to create space so his teammates can pass him the ball. I like what Santos has brought to the table so far. But he has to move and get open when his teammates are getting trapped with the ball. They cannot pass Nate the ball when Nate's defender is blocking him and Nate is not moving. If he is going to continue to get run as a 2, he need to be far better at moving without the ball.
I rewatched the game highlights which is a 9 minute clip on youtube showing every score in the entire game and really focused on the 2nd half.
I did not see Femi cry, bitch, complain, or put his head down when he was on the bench. Every time I watched Pitt score, Femi was clapping and cheering on his teammates. I don't see the poor body language Capel or others are suggesting at all. I see him cheering his teammates on and it is evident when we scored on offense.
I saw Big John do some clapping very early in the 2nd half for his teammates. But as the 2nd half continued and John did not play, he was clearly upset and his body language clearly showed. He was primarily sitting the majority of the 2nd half when big shots were being made by Pitt players to win the game. Johns teammates were standing and clapping when big shots at the end of the game were made, he was not. He looked like Zavackas in the NCAA Tournament when Z took his shoes off. His body language was really poor and it showed.
Other observations.
We gave up 2 easy baskets because of horrible passing, 1 because of Big John, 1 because of Oladapo. 4 points given up on extremely bad decisions on passing which was a free transition layup for the other team. Neither should have happened.
Nate Santos needs to come to the ball. He needs to create space so his teammates can pass him the ball. I like what Santos has brought to the table so far. But he has to move and get open when his teammates are getting trapped with the ball. They cannot pass Nate the ball when Nate's defender is blocking him and Nate is not moving. If he is going to continue to get run as a 2, he need to be far better at moving without the ball.
I give Santos a pass at this
point in his career. First of
all he's a freshman. Shooting
is his strong point, and if I'm
not mistaken, you originally
listed him as a three, not as
an off guard. He probably
hasn't had a lot of experience
doing what you're calling for
him to do. As I posted above,
he's way past Stewart, the
stand still shooting poster
boy. He's going to improve
his floor game, and especially
if Capel focuses on that. I
feel we should be working
to get him open...inside out
game, and sets directed at
setting him up for open J's.
The game highlights are below for all the scores for anyone that wants to see it, see players body language, etc..
Preseason I had Santos as a 3. He looks very much a 3 to me and I like him in that spot. I would actually like to see this lineup more often.
PG-Femi
SG-Burton
W-Santos
PF-Jeffress
That’s the worst lineup in ACC history and very depressing
As a fan, I feel bad for the kids on this team. They are trying to do their best and it's not good enough, no matter how hard they try. Are they poorly coached or do they just lack the basic talent? If they were on another team, would they excel like other players Capel has coached have done? It all comes back to one common factor: poor coaching.
Femi has no future in basketball, John most definitely does, of course he’s upset, he got benched by a coach who has no idea what he’s doing because he turned the ball over and committed a foul, things that happen in basketball, he knows he’s our best player by a mile and was rightfully upset as time went on and he realized he just wasn’t going back in
)
No future in basketball??? That's a rough assessment after a couple games on a team with barely no talent. Silly actually
If this team fixes the turnovers, just 1 thing, turnovers, it will win some games this year even with the current roster.
People, and I don't mean you, simply do not like to look at actual advanced statistics.
Our team is shooting 45% from the field this year. That is the highest FG team shooting percentage of any Pitt team currently going all the way back to the last time Pitt was in the NCAA Tournament under Dixon. Even without 3 point shooters, we are still converting just fine in our overall team field goal shooting percentage through 4 games for a young team. Our team shot 58% from the field on the road against West Virginia.
The problem is turnovers. We rank 338th in the country in turnover rate. The lack of guards on top of bad decision making is killing this team. Our own turnovers are killing our own offensive possessions while giving the opposing team free layups and dunks in transition every game.
Its very simple. Stop turning the ball over.
Ill take this a step further.
There are only 2 players on our team taking quality care of the ball. Jamarius Burton, who has done a real good job with ball control since coming back, he has 0 turnovers for the season. Noah Collier, who has been a reserve most of the year, also has 0 turnovers. The only other players that have turned the corner with ball control is Nate Santos who had 3 good games so far and 1 bad game at West Virginia with turnovers. And John Hugley who has a 15% turnover rate for the season which is just fine for a center. That was Blair's career average at Pitt, 15%.
Here are the problems:
Everyone else with ball control has been a disaster.
Mo Gueye and Oladapo are pushing 40% turnover rates which is insanely high. Oladaop has been decent besides his passing and his turnovers. That is why I said he needs to shoot more, pass less. If Oladaop stops passing, he will stop turning it over as much.
Ezeakudo is pushing a 60% turnover rate which is pushing for a D1 all time record as worst as in all time worst as an actual rotation player. He got benched last game, finally.
Chris Payton has a 64% turnover rate.
Femi has a 27% turnover rate and he needs help in the backcourt.
Will Jeffress had 2 horrendous turnover games against West Virginia and Wilmington where his turnover percentage was 38%, insanely high.
This is why I said we need to try this lineup some more
PG- Femi
SG-Burton
W- Santos
PF- Jeffress
Jeffress had 0 turnovers last game. He needs to build off that. The players that keep turning the ball over at will need to be benched until it is corrected, if it can get corrected.
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You honestly watch Femi play basketball and think this is his career path…?
A few more fun stats.
Pitt is shooting 41% from the midrange which is solid. Our best midrange shooters to date are Will Jeffress at 67% for the season and Oladapo who is 100% for the season.
Pitt is shooting 57% within 5 feet. Our worst interior finisher is Will Jeffress at 25%. Femi is currently the 2nd worst interior finisher at 48%. Femi finished his interior scoring at 58% last year as a freshmen.
John Hugley is shooting 64% from the field within 5 feet. Hugley is 4-17 shooting outside 5 feet, 23%.
Oladapo is shooting 82% within 5 feet.
Mo Gueye is shooting 11% outside 5 feet.
4 games isn't nearly enough to draw conclusions, the sample size is still small. However, any real coach will start making some adjustments looking at these stats going into the Vanderbilt game.
And I would be doing every thing I can to :
1) Get Hugley and Oladapo the ball within 5 feet of the basket
2) Get Jeffress more shots from the midrange, his sweet spot
3) Get Santos more open looks from 3
4) Give Femi the green light from 3
He got benched? Real
answer is Burton is finally
healthy and Santos is
getting used to college
Bball. There were no
other options after we
lost guards 1, 2, and 3.
Ezeakudo for three
years has helped when
called upon because
there was NOBODY else
to step in. He's a walk on
pg who shouldn't even
see the floor except for
garbage time. Cut him a
break will ya.
I will go with your starters
being Femi, Burton, Santos,
Jeffress....and I'm guessing
you meant Hugley also.
At no time should Femi
and Burton both be off
the floor at the same
time. That player group
along with Olidapo and
Gueye as subs should
help cut down TO's.
You honestly make reactions after a couple games for a young pg who had limited to zero talent around.
He has not played well at all.
I don't react to a few games.
Besides turnovers, Nate is a very big key. If we can get real 3 point production from him every game, it is going to open up a lot more space for Hugley and others underneath and open up the driving lane for Femi. 1 legit 3 point shooter changes a lot when you have other players capable of making shots from the midrange and down low, which we have.
I think Burton, in time and maybe after a few more games, is going to really help Femi out. These guys never played together before. There is going to be a process that takes some time with these guys building chemistry in real games, not in practice.
Most people probably don't know this, but Femi had the 2nd best midrange game shooting percentage on last years team with X, Toney, Horton, Champ, etc with a minimum of at least 30 shot attempts for every player.
He's capable. From midrange and from 3. Free Throws I think is a mental issue for him.
That lineup, Femi-Burton-Santos-Jeffress, is actually the lineup that was used in the final 5 minutes against Towson. That is the lineup that ultimately won the game and put the game away when we were losing by 3. Collier was the center.
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Also, with that lineup.
The sequence to win the game.
Odukale dribble drive into the paint dump off pass to Collier, Dunk
Burton pass to Collier in the low block, Dunk
Burton pass to Jeffress, Midrange jumper good
Burton pass to Odukale, made 3 by Odukale
We literally did everything I said we should do with what I wrote above to be more offensively efficient in terms of how players performed their first 4 games of the season.
Im not sure if Capels plan was to execute it this way, but we went on a +7 scoring run during this stretch of 5 minutes left in the game with this lineup. And it worked. Yes, I would run with it against Vanderbilt to see how it works.
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