Pope”s chess game

[AJG-15]

I love the Coach is playing the mind strategy game with his players. Nice way to relate to them and also to test each other intellect.

By the way today, the former math professors was better at chess than the former Columbia med student. We played into Bama’ s game high scoring game , fast pace. Typically, we outscore and outpace most teams if it a scoring open contest. See for referee Duke, UL, Florida ,Gonzaga games…..there is one team in the country that is better at offense than we are : Bama.

This not a dissatisfaction with our coach, which I love, but sometimes you need to know the limits of your strength and also of the opponent and adjust the game strategy accordingly. I think if we would have tried to show press to Bama would have slow them down a bit and increased our chances to win. In a contest who gets first to 100 wins, with the current squads Bama wiould win 7 out of 10 games.

Still love my coach and team!

 

[Butters' Dad]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

 

[Blue wood]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

Shut up, we lost by 5. And youre an iduot

 

[Ron Mehico]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

How sad for you that you’ve chosen to spend free time of yours to troll a college basketball message board. If you would be too embarrassed to mention this to anyone in real life we would all understand.

 

[AJG-15]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

Not an excuse We have the players for a certain type of game . This team was build in 3 weeks with the mind set to outscore the opponents. Today we played a better team at out scoring the opponents. All I am saying perhaps we should look at the numbers matrix and have had a different game strategy .

 

[DraftCat]

You can't press the entire game.... maybe a few possessions here and there would of worked.

I'm not one to really complain about adjustments... Pope makes more adjustments in 1 game usually than I've seen in a decade.

 

[CHAMPCAT11]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

You post the stupidest sh*t I’ve ever read. You’re almost as bad as HH and that’s bad.

 

[catben]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

5 pt margin against a Final 4 team that shot 14 MORE FT's than we did and you think we don't have the players????!!!!! Especially after BEATING the previous 5 ranked opponents we've played.

Bama is a GREAT team!!! we just gave them too many good looks and didn't make enough of ours. Learn from this loss and continue to get better. The SEC is LOADED this season. Just have to improve on a few more things(defense, rebounding, getting the best scorers more shots). I have FULL confidence Coach Pope can get us there.

 

[BarefootBeach]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

How is your Arkansas team doing butters?

 

[yoshukai]

I love the Coach is playing the mind strategy game with his players. Nice way to relate to them and also to test each other intellect.

By the way today, the former math professors was better at chess than the former Columbia med student. We played into Bama’ s game high scoring game , fast pace. Typically, we outscore and outpace most teams if it a scoring open contest. See for referee Duke, UL, Florida ,Gonzaga games…..there is one team in the country that is better at offense than we are : Bama.

This not a dissatisfaction with our coach, which I love, but sometimes you need to know the limits of your strength and also of the opponent and adjust the game strategy accordingly. I think if we would have tried to show press to Bama would have slow them down a bit and increased our chances to win. In a contest who gets first to 100 wins, with the current squads Bama wiould win 7 out of 10 games.

Still love my coach and team!

That’s the only way we can win .

 

[twwilliams9]

I love the Coach is playing the mind strategy game with his players. Nice way to relate to them and also to test each other intellect.

By the way today, the former math professors was better at chess than the former Columbia med student. We played into Bama’ s game high scoring game , fast pace. Typically, we outscore and outpace most teams if it a scoring open contest. See for referee Duke, UL, Florida ,Gonzaga games…..there is one team in the country that is better at offense than we are : Bama.

This not a dissatisfaction with our coach, which I love, but sometimes you need to know the limits of your strength and also of the opponent and adjust the game strategy accordingly. I think if we would have tried to show press to Bama would have slow them down a bit and increased our chances to win. In a contest who gets first to 100 wins, with the current squads Bama wiould win 7 out of 10 games.

Still love my coach and team!

We lost a tight game that was nip & tuck the entire game. Could have gone either way. You’re acting like it was a blowout.

 

[AJG-15]

We lost a tight game that was nip & tuck the entire game. Could have gone either way. You’re acting like it was a blowout.

I not at all. Pope is a numbers guy and very analytical. Bama is just better in the offense department. Not by much . They also have multiple players that played a final 4 … our team is experienced but new.

 

[wildcat_nation28]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

THIS!

 

[NociHTTP]

You post the stupidest sh*t I’ve ever read. You’re almost as bad as HH and that’s bad.

I wonder why Butters never posts. Are he and his dad sharing the same account?

 

[Cawood86]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

Tell Gonzaga, Florida, Miss St, Texas A&M, and the dookies that

 

[Slowwalker]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

We don’t have the players yet have beat what, 3 top 10 teams? GTFO.

 

[bnewt]

It's wild how many excuses most of you make to avoid admitting we just do not have the players.

Sometimes just have to admit the other team was better

 

[billoliver40]

Y'know...sometime it's just another team's day.
That was today.
On to the next game.

 

[HalHR2500]

It was obvious Oats attacked UK weaker defenders

 

[GoAndRunIsGoneAndDone]

Bama simply made plays that we didn't and at crucial times. They also made free throws at an above average percentage. Sure, we need to improve defense and rebounding. No argument there from me. I thought we'd be a little more physical but foul trouble probably played a part in that. The two teams were very evenly matched, overall and both have strengths and weaknesses. Yesterday, they were the better team but it was very close even though they played maybe their best game and we deserve a B- maybe C+ grade. We certainly didn't play our best, when we really needed to bring it. Lots of little things that could have changed the outcome. I'm not afraid of them and look forward to another good game when we play them again.

 

[ukcatfaninsc]

I love the Coach is playing the mind strategy game with his players. Nice way to relate to them and also to test each other intellect.

By the way today, the former math professors was better at chess than the former Columbia med student. We played into Bama’ s game high scoring game , fast pace. Typically, we outscore and outpace most teams if it a scoring open contest. See for referee Duke, UL, Florida ,Gonzaga games…..there is one team in the country that is better at offense than we are : Bama.

This not a dissatisfaction with our coach, which I love, but sometimes you need to know the limits of your strength and also of the opponent and adjust the game strategy accordingly. I think if we would have tried to show press to Bama would have slow them down a bit and increased our chances to win. In a contest who gets first to 100 wins, with the current squads Bama wiould win 7 out of 10 games.

Still love my coach and team!

Not bashing, just legit BBall discussion. Pressing Bama would be a recipe for disaster. Trying to press the best PG in the league (maybe the country), a stretch 4 that can handle the ball and an elite finishing 5 with wings that shoot like Bama does would get a team buried in 2 minutes.

The best defense against Bama is an efficient offense so they’re taking the ball out of the net, forced to run half court, and limiting their fast break chances.

 

[AJG-15]

After Vandy loss, Pope alluded about turnovers in the presser and also about the team being tired after a week of break. He was not very clear on the causes maybe he will elaborate on the next press conference or radio show.

It’s possible that they utilized the week to solve some of the fouls and rebounding issues and focus less on offense and butler being injured to factor on high number of turnovers they had which caused them to lose the game.

I think though Pope lost the chess game with former JMU coach. Vandy doesn’t have shot blocker but has guards that are smaller and quicker and cause some issues in our transition or ball movement around the 3pt arc…my opinion that was more by design by Vandy Coach than our Butler playing injured or Carr being unavailable.

The natural response on how Vandy was defending in transition and half court is to attack the soft press and also pound the ball inside either via dribble drive or parking Amari or Garrison inside instead of 3 point line center forward role.

Pope did a great job adjusting second half . We were successful in the second half on scoring because of the adjustments Pope made , using Oweh natural ability to drive when Vandy doesn’t have a shot blocker. He even tried Amari and Garrison together but everyone can see that would not work unless Pope changes the offensive e principle on how to use the big. This would have been an ideal game to punish Vandy inside first with the bigs in addition to Oweh which would open the 3 points shot for our non contact loving players : Brea, JR, Almanor.

I don’t think Pope practiced much with Amari and Garrison together not as offensive initiator how currently he is using them but as traditional bigs , high-low.

Anyhow , great adjustments at half , lost the battle on fist half for not properly using our current roster strengths / weakness vs exploiting Vandy strengths/ weaknesses.

 

[megablue]

Half-time adjustments are a thing. No question !! Coaches definitely use the half for that, especially in football. With the lengthy timeouts in basketball and only five (5) players, I’ve never understood why most adjustments can’t be made during the game ??

 

[AJG-15]

Another note is that without Carr our offense is becoming on half court more stagnant. Carr is smarter player on on game decisions than Amari and Garrison at this point on their career.

Our offensive is moving the ball to much east / west instead of north / south. Not having Kriisa and having a banged up Butler contributed to that.

I would use more the freshman and give those boys time to heal properly. But you can’t use all freshman together like in the first half against Vandy. One at the time would best. That would be 20% of our team on the floor. More than that and you risk not running what you ask as a coach.

 

[AJG-15]

Half-time adjustments are a thing. No question !! Coaches definitely use the half for that, especially in football. With the lengthy timeouts in basketball and only five (5) players, I’ve never understood why most adjustments can’t be made during the game ??

Bigger decisions on how to play are taking at half time because you have time to talk to assistants coaches and the team can hear you properly.

 

[fisherscatfan]

Another note is that without Carr our offense is becoming on half court more stagnant. Carr is smarter player on on game decisions than Amari and Garrison at this point on their career.

Our offensive is moving the ball to much east / west instead of north / south. Not having Kriisa and having a banged up Butler contributed to that.

I would use more the freshman and give those boys time to heal properly. But you can’t use all freshman together like in the first half against Vandy. One at the time would best. That would be 20% of our team on the floor. More than that and you risk not running what you ask as a coach.

Agree but the offense really becomes stagnant when Amari gets the ball at the top. Amari,gets pressed up on and if the players move it is just different than when Carr or Garrison have the ball. Amari often holds the ball, lets 3 options go by then starts to back down. When he doesn’t turn it over, it far too often becomes a poor Amari shot or he kicks it out late in the shot clock. Problem is, outside Oweh nobody can create their own good look.