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abochner

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Everything posted by abochner

  1. How could you not be delighted with this season? That was a tough physical game against UAB. We fought hard. Not making excuses but they had a good game plan and we were missing two key players in the post. The technical fouls against us really hurt. That was a 7 point swing and demoralizing. Refs could have called two technicals on UAB, but they didn't.
  2. ESPN: "USF now a lock to make the NCAA Tournament even if they falter in conference play (tournament)."
  3. Not to worry. This was a classic "sandwich" game as well as a big let down game emotionally. Players aren't machines. Have to love they way thy finished. With under four minutes left, they had their work cut out for them.
  4. RPI seems irrelevant now. We will likely be in the 80s tomorrow.
  5. We had them all the way. Some very questionable refereeing. Don't often see a 5 point play. But give credit to FAU, they are a character team. Fought hard. Not sure why we didn't see more of Youngblood in the 2nd half. Love our coaching. No panic at the end. Only weak ness on this team is in the paint. Hard to stop teams that drive the lane.
  6. Massey has us at 96, 5th in AAC.
  7. Wish we had another day of practice before taking on Cincy. But they played yesterday too. SMU is a better matchup for us. The key to next year will be whether Yetna comes back 100 per cent and can shoot with confidence, and Caleb Murphy. Gregory doesn't ordinarily like to play freshman, but Murphy is an exceptional athlete. I wouldn't count much on Luke Anderson until he gets on the court. Zach's high school play was even better than Anderso's and he has been slow to round into shape and gain his shooting confidence. I think, he will be much better next year. I have serious doubts about Mack. He is not Gregory's type of inside player. He seems lost when he gets on the court and is consistently out of position on defense. A shame neither of this year's recruits got any significant playing time. We are better than Temple...not so sure about UConn. They've had some impressive wins.
  8. Durr wears down and that has been a problem, but his last 5 or so games he has shown great improvement. He really shined late in the season last year as well. Paired with Yetna next year, thewy will both be juniors and should be as good as any frontcourt in the AAC. Speaking of guard recruit Caleb Murphy, he is currently rated the 6th top player in Georgia. Check out the tape of his game in the quarterfinals of the 7A State championship on youtube under, Caleb Murphy beats old school in state playoffs. He is a quick slashing guard.
  9. Two really tough losses in OT last year to Temple. Revenge is sweet. USF was definitely the more determined team down the stretch. Water finds its level. USF 0-6 against top 5 teams in the conference; 6-4 against the rest. Would love to end the season with a win against Cincinnati or SMU. Both are possible but not likely. With Yetna we could have been top 4 or 5. I admire Coach Gregory. He stayed tough through having to face a lot of adversity. Rebounding has been strong all season with the exception of two games against Houston, one of the best rebounding teams in the country. Free throw shooting vastly improved the past eight games and the offense is more diversified with the improved post play of Durr. Not easy to win on the road at Memphis and Temple. If we can make it to the start of the 2020-2021 seaason without serious injuries, this can be a 20 win team next year (assuming Yetna returns to form and the new 4* guard is the real deal. I love Q's hustle and defense, but he has some serious limitations on the offensive end. Zach should be a lot better next year as well. Let's get out to the games this week and support the team.
  10. Down 6 points with under 4 minutes left, the Bulls came back to beat an improving East Carolina team. They held Gardner, the top scorer and rebounder in the league to 3 rebounds with a terrific game plan that forced him to play hard defense. Coach Gregory has put together some great game plans, but he simply doesn't have all the pieces to execute them. USF does not have a power forward and frequently must play Collins and Williams against taller, stronger, legitimate power forwards. Brown is big enough, but it detracts from his offensive game and other than Zach we have no other shooters that can be relied on to hit 3s. Even so, USF has managed to outrebound at least three quarters of the teams they have played. Coach's move to bench Brown three weeks ago has proved smart as he has played much better the last two weeks. Still, most other teams in the league play 9 or 10 guys. USF relies on 7 or 8. Collins played 43 minutes last night and but for foul trouble Q would have logged about the same. This is the reason they often fade at the end of games. Also, other teams know our limitations. We've seen more and more zone defense against us, because we don't have outside shooters other than the streaky Brown. But Gregory can coach. I have no doubt about that even though the results this year have been disappointing. The foul shooting has improved and several players, most notably Durr, Q, and Brown have shown a lot of improvement the last month, though the wins have not come. If I have one criticism of Gregory it is that he the two freshman recruits have been totally neglected. They haven't gotten any of the much needed experience. I've been to all the conference games and the whole league seems tougher this year. If you want to see what Yetna meant to USF, just look at the play of Jayden Gardner last night. He was runner-up to yetna as best new player last year. After Gardner fouled out, USF dominated. Yes, one player can mean that much to a team when he is that good. Tke a deep breath and remember that in 2017, we were 0-19 in the conference and 16 of the losses were by double digits. When that season ended we lost all of the still eligible players. Gregory started literally with nothing--from scratch. Who wants to come to such a program. He must have been a hell of a salesman to get Collins and Brown, two players who would start or be first off the bench on most of the teams in the league.
  11. No, we do not need a massive talent upgrade in men's basketball. We are bring in a 4* guard; Zach is also a 4* guard who is just getting his game back after not playing for nearly two years, and Yetna was a recruiting steal. Is Houston and Memphis more talented? Yes, but we beat Memphis and should have beaten them twice. We started LITERALLY from scratch two years ago and, to his credit, Coach Gregory has laid a great foundation. Go listen to Houston coach's presser last night. He pointed out what a devastating loss Yetna was to this program. Rome wasn't built in a day as they say. We lose only Q and our back-up center next year and replace him with a top 50 recruit, and Yetna returns. And Collins will be our only senior next year. The top three teams in the conference are more talented--I won't argue with that. But the only team that has outclassed us has been Wichita State. I discount SMU because we just weren't ready to play. Still, it is hard to recruit top 100 players to USF BB and it is going to take some time until we become a regular 20+ win team. I believe in Gregory. One really good sign is that nobody is leaving the program. In three years, he has lost only one player who was in the regular rotation.
  12. I am not discouraged by the performance of the men's basketball team. Gregory came into an impossible situation and has brought class, pride, and hard work to the program. He started literally from scratch, then he had the misfortune of losing his best player the weekend before the opening of the season. No doubt at all in my mind that we would have been a 20 win team this year with Yetna. The future looks bright. Support the team.
  13. Houston is a really tough matchup for usf because of their dominant "length" and rebounding. Game should be competitive as our guys know what is at stake. I think USF can beat Tulsa, SMU, E. Carolina, and Temple (beat us by one point and in overtime last year). Connecticut appears much improved since we beat them and currently has a 71 NET rating, which means that should count as a Quad 1 qin as well. Not sure why it doesn't.
  14. Penny Hardaway called the loss to USF "a total embarrassment." Blamed the loss on foul trouble and injuries. Funny how we never hear Coach Gregory blaming injuries. We won without Durr; didn't have Zach on Saturday and Q was in foul trouble a good bit of the game. They shot 59% from the foul line; we shot 70 per cent. Those four foul shots were the difference in the game. Never said anything about our defense down the stretch. Collins converted 2 for 2 in one-on-one match-ups; they were 0 for 2. Not impressed with Hardaway's coaching. They started two 5 star recruits. We started a bunch of guys. We should have beaten them twice. This loss very well may have knocked them out of the NCAA Tournament. Would be nice to take a couple other teams out. Houston may just be too good but Cincinnati and Tulsa are beatable.
  15. Coach Gregory is a winner. Lots of adversity this year, having to reshape the team strategy a few days before the start of the season due to the loss of Yetna, then later injuries to several other players. He is an inspirational, no BS,coach, never making excuses and the guys appear to love to play for him. The conference is much better this year from top to bottom. The one point loss to UCF--we were robbed--and failure to finish against Florida State, Utah State, and Eastern Carolina likely cost us an NIT bid. The measure of coaching, however, is improvement over the course of the season and this team has improved markedly.
  16. Dominant win last night. Best game of the year for Q. Also, shows what a real homecourt advantage can do. Sagarin has USF at #107 this morning (highest since late last year) and Massey, though rating them much lower has USF as the #24 defensive team in the country. To beat UCF with no Durr and only 4 points from Collins is really impressive. UCF was determined to take Collins out of the game by clogging the middle. Ten steals yesterday--truly amazing. No doubt, we are an offensively challenged team, but Coach Gregory has done a great job in holding them together despite the adversity of injuries and youth. #Bright Future.
  17. They return 6 of the top 8, bring back Yetna, and assume development of a few younger players. Will be an 18-22 win team. Houston is the class of the conference. We can compete with the rest other than perhaps Memphis.
  18. Good road win. Glad to see BG finally remix the starting lineup. Brown plays hard but he has not given them much the last 5 weeks. Akec has the kind of length and energy this team has been lacking the last few weeks. He can play around the basket and also at the perimeter. He shot 48 per cent from 3 in High School. BG is very loyal to and protective of his players. They play hard for him. But sooner or later these young guys have to gain experience on the curt. Once Yetna was injured, it was clear this team would struggle in the frontcourt without a legitimate power forward. I'm a big fan of Coach Gregory, but I simply disagree with keeping Q and Collins on the court 35+ minutes a game. Q has been exhausted in the late stages of most of the close games. I'm glad to see Zach's minutes increasing. The game plan against Tulane was nearly perfect, and for once so was the execution. USF is the only team in the AAC that has played 5 of their first 8 conference games on the road. Looking for a much better second half.
  19. You can cherry pick results to show nearly anything. For example, last year USF won 7 games by 6 points or fewer, one game by a single point, and two games games by 2 points. Collins hit a three point shot at the buzzer at SMU to win the game. I'm not defending Collins. He can and should make better decisions at "winning" time, but he is a gamer and he leaves it all on the court.
  20. Gregory is not "adapting." Really? He lost the best player on his team a few days before their first game and lost his "6th man" to what certainly appeared to be a "discipline" issue. This left him with virtually no front court. Memphis played 10 guys. Only one played over 30 minutes. Collins and Dawson played 38. The game was lost largely, though not exclusively due to rebounding and fatigue. They were plus 11 on the boards. You don't win many games at -11 on the boards. Coach Gregory does not make excuses. Memphis has three Top 100 players starting for them. We have none. Go ahead blame it on recruiting. But there is a reason Vitale called the Tampa job, the toughest Division 1 in college basketball. Already the rumbling has begun. This is what happened to Gregory at Georgia Tech. He was building a program and they cut the rug from under him. How did that work out? I've been a season ticket holder for 28 years. I've seen them come and go and Coach Gregory is far and away the best we've had. Criticism is fair and necessary but the context counts. Gregory set up a play at the most crucial juncture of the game for Brown and he threw up an air ball. He did not play well in the second half. Collins made some bad decisions, but he gave his body for the team throughout the game and without him they lose by double digits. X did play well and they just didn't get the ball to Dawson down the stretch, who has improved dramatically since the beginning of the season. They got the ball to Durr for a dunk on a set play and he was filed but missed the dunk (barely). Instead of a possible 3 point play, he got one. But you also have to give credit to Memphis. Next year we have some big bodies coming in and a legitimate top 60 guard. Q is what we have. He plays hard but his offensive skills are limited to say the least. This is the most stable the basketball program has been in the last 25 years. Coach Gregory is building a winner. Expectations were high this year and I too am disappointed, but the team has earned far more support than they've received. At least a third of the crowd were from Memphis. That's pathetic.
  21. Interesting comments on Mack and Zack Dawson. Mack's game is quite different than Yetna's. He is a better post player and has a soft touch. But he can't compare as a rebounder and defender. That will take a lot more coaching. He had one rebound in 8 minutes. That won't cut it. But he's a freshman and has tremendous potential. Zack Dawson is now the key to the season. This was his first game in nearly two years. He seemed tentative. He is likely the most talented and diverse guard on the team based on what he did in high school, where he was one of the most recruited seniors in 2016. If he develops quickly, the Bulls are a 20+ win team. Boston College will be a tough out for a team that now has to change much of its approach so early in the season. They will have to shoot a lot better than they did last night, but you can always count on hustle and defense from this team. Gregory is impressive.
  22. Biggest question for USF Atletic Director: What will you do to keep Gregory? He came into an impossible situation and two years later, we are on the cusp of being a top 25 team. The guy is gold.
  23. Don't know why fans aren't shooting higher. I think we compete for the championship of the AAC. We beat Memphis last year and Houston loses two terrific senior guards. It won't be easy but we should be top 3.
  24. Sagarin had us lower overall due to schedule and failure to beat any teams in the top 50, but they hd us in the 50s based on "recent action."
  25. Very excited about this player. He fits the Gregory mode and should get a lot of playing time. We need a bigger guy who can shoot.
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