I still kinda think we're gonna make it, so I'm not sure it's completely blown to bits yet.

bobinator said:

---

I still kinda think we're gonna make it, so I'm not sure it's completely blown to bits yet.

---

I didn't think you ever thought, at any point since Bucky was hired, that A&M would make the tourney this season. For valid, rational reasons so I am not at all criticizing that - I was just surprised to see your response above.

I predicted we'd make it on the preseason predictions thread. So far we're only slightly below what I was expecting at this point in the season. I said on that same thread we'd probably lose a Quad 4 game and I expected us to get blown out several times. I think I even called on one of the threads here that we were going to killed by Oklahoma State.

The shooting has me a little concerned, but I also think it's partially a product of people just not being completely confident in what we're doing yet, but that's going to come.

The key, like I've said, is just not digging ourselves so deep a hole that we can't climb out of it.

We talked about this with some of Buzz's teams too but basketball is such an interconnected sport (unlike football) that the entire thing can look like a disjointed mess and then suddenly one thing clicks into place and the entire thing looks different.

For us, especially in Bucky's "four phases" system, everything effects everything. How we shoot impacts our ability to set up our defense, how we defend impacts our ability to get out on the break on offense, both of those impact our ability to keep the tempo up in games and get other teams into their bench, etc., etc.

I'm hoping the first of those things clicking into place is Mgbako's return.

Shooting 3 pointers in basketball comes down to confidence, rhythm, and being relaxed. When the clock is expiring, or there is no other way to score players typically throw up bricks.
When we are ahead and the player has made a few already, we are leading and a miss doesn't matter much you start making the shots.

The games we've lost at this point won't keep us out of the tournament on their own, but they don't inspire confidence that we'll beat the teams we need to to get there. I don't think I expected us to just come out of the gates playing perfect ball, but we've looked legitimately bad at times so far, which I did not expect. I knew we would struggle defensively, but I thought the offense would be able to neutralize that. We have not been able to get as clean of looks on offense as I expected and when we do we have passed a number of them up. Everything has been really clunky.

I still have faith Pop will get into a flow and figure it out, but I wouldn't mind seeing us give Lane more of Hill's minutes. To me Hill looks like a classic guy who put up good numbers as the best player on a really bad team.

Overall I have hope we can still figure it out as the guys get more time together because we definitely look like a collection of players and not a team. I am interested to see what Mgbako can bring to the team as far as level of play, but also how he can open things up for other guys. Preseason I really bought into Bucky being able to pull the best out of him, so I hope that is true.

I actually think Hill needs more minutes lol. Hes like the only guard I trust to actually attack the rim affectively. Hes basically a little lesser version of Boots

As a team we are overall extremely poor at finishing at the basket

Griffen was doing it vs MT and Bucky pulled him. When he came back into the game he barely touched the ball. Seemed really weird to me.

Hill and Griffen are statistically identical so far except Griffen has a much better Assist to turnover ratio and somewhat better fg%.

Simple. As I've said before. This is a stub year - it's about proof of concept for me. My primary concern is seeing improvement at the individual and team level. I don't expect to win the SEC, but I do expect the coach to be able to, you know - coach.

If we come into SEC play looking like we did against Okie State, I'll have major concerns.

AggieCrew44 said:

---

I actually think Hill needs more minutes lol. Hes like the only guard I trust to actually attack the rim affectively. Hes basically a little lesser version of Boots

As a team we are overall extremely poor at finishing at the basket

---

He's a lesser version of Phelps who is a lesser version of Boots.

Half court offense, I'm hopeful Mgbako is able to stretch the top to start the sets better than Agee/Clemence. The flow would be much better if we can pull defense up 2/3 feet beyond the top of the key. The short clip of Mgbako hitting that shot over and over a week or two ago on here gives me hope there. Right now, our motion doesn't have spacing to operate well because 1. we have to start closer to top of the key for Clemence/Agee to consider a shot, and 2. their big can sit back because Clemence/Agee can't make it anyways. Our motion there is pretty crowded right now on most sets.

We can't be < 50% on open corner threes but gut says we are so far. We're also getting less of these than I expected, but I think that's attributable to not being able to drive the lane due to not being able to get spacing to start our sets.

There's been enough stretches of moderate consistency to not be fully into concerned territory yet. Additionally, have to think beyond our best player being a stretch big is going to make everyone on the court a better player both individually and within the system.

I'm most surprised by Agees off ball defense. I thought he was going to be more of an effort player for us.

Method Man said:

---

AggieCrew44 said:

---

I actually think Hill needs more minutes lol. Hes like the only guard I trust to actually attack the rim affectively. Hes basically a little lesser version of Boots

As a team we are overall extremely poor at finishing at the basket

---

He's a lesser version of Phelps who is a lesser version of Boots.

---

I said Boots because of the left handedness

I think the thing I expected Agee to better at is scoring going downhill. He's good once he's got the ball in the low post but he can't drive there and score which I thought he'd be able to do. Combine that with the fact that right now he's shooting 12% from 3 and right now the paint is crowded because they essentially don't have to guard him. It's letting defenders help way too much.

That's the thing that hopefully Mgbako can add and that Griffen needs to do more of is attacking the basket when we do get lanes and finishing there.

I do think as we continue to get reps we'll see our smaller guards make better passes on the drive to Federiko, Agee, Vinson, etc.

Not worried about a thing.

I didn't know what to predict coming into this thing so no real expectations. Seeing the product-- yeah I think we are gonna get blown out in some conference games. But I think a DAWG or two will start to emerge soon and we will look a little tougher on a regular basis.

This team is just not good and I need to go look at the SEC schedule to see how many winnable games there are. So many of the SEC teams will be able to out rebound us easily because we just arent as physical I mean even OSU had big guys and they weren't as big as some of the SEC guys. My expectations arent high but I want to see us gain momentum in recruiting and portal additions for next year because thats really what we should grade Bucky on first. This first year was always going to be hard with the roster he put together.

Loyalag2001 said:

---

My expectations arent high but I want to see us gain momentum in recruiting

---

Have I got good news for you.

bobinator said:

---

Yeah but you're always worried about everything. You don't count.

---

That's fair.

CactusThomas said:

---

Not worried about a thing.

I didn't know what to predict coming into this thing so no real expectations. Seeing the product-- yeah I think we are gonna get blown out in some conference games. But I think a DAWG or two will start to emerge soon and we will look a little tougher on a regular basis.

---

I wasn't expecting Washington or Anderson on defense out of Agee, but I also wasn't expecting him having such low awareness. If Agee is playing low, we're giving up points in the paint uncontested. I just don't know that I've seen someone at this level of basketball have less awareness of what's going on around him.

If we can't hit the three with a big, I don't know if any of the guards can finish in traffic consistently. Bucky may have to incorporate some twos outside the paint to give our guards a chance.

We are a long way from there. But have time to get there???

I'm worried we will never be over 50% on lobs. You need guys like this and good passers to throw five lobs a game.

FGCU aka "DUNK CITY" (2013)#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/YRBuv7KmeB

— ThrowbackHoops (@ThrowbackHoops) March 3, 2023

It doesn't look like there are any true weaklings in the SEC again…. Maybe Ms St? If we don't improve quite a bit in the next month I have to agree that looks optimistic. There are some legit reasons to expect improvement, maybe even significant improvement but the issue is most of the rest of the field doesn't need nearly the same level of improvement.

I'm worried that we don't seem to score efficiently enough, despite scoring 120 pts last night. If you take away the massive difference in free throws that we made vs. them, then it's a much closer game and the final score is a lot less impressive.

We also allowed the smallest guy on the floor to go off for 32 pts and we never seemed to change how we defended him.

Yeah if you take away all of our points I'm sure the game would be a lot closer

If you take away all our points we would lose! Well I guess that settles it. Season's over. We got completely shutout.