UCR to face Boston College

I thought our defense was strong. Hillard really impresses me as he is poised and does not force the action at all. He took 4 shots and made them all. I also was glad to see Cheek not force the action even though he was not scoring. Three times in the second half he passed up wide open shots to make the extra pass. I thought Mouph got us going would have liked to see him get more shots in the second half.

St.Louis is going to be tough. They are disciplined and pass the ball well and are a very strong defensive team. This game concerns me. 

We better bring a helluva lot more than that tomorrow. Kennedy is not ready for this level and I’m not sure JVP will be this year either

I thought Ty Johnson would get a lot more time than he did.  I seriously doubt that Maalik can play back-to-back 35 minute games effectively.

Who the hell knows why Jay played Wayns those minutes. Johnson could have played the last 10 minutes of that game.

TEAM WORK WINS

I agree I would have given Johnson more minutes at the end. They did not have the offense to catch up to us.  

I agree Johnson coulda got some minutes late but Wayans needed to get back on track too. As far as inability to play all those minutes they are 20-22 yr old kids. They can play many minutes many days in a row. Kemba seemed to do alright in the BE tourney last yr rt.

I am enjoying watching a young team develop its personality and style of play.  They are definitely a work in progress and will take some lumps this year (perhaps tomorrow), but it is fun to see who is going to develop into a stud and really help this team in the future.  Certainly, Hilliard has been a nice surprise so far.  As JimDribble says, he plays under control and takes good shots.  He does a lot of things well.  And Wayns is taking on the challenge of leading this team well.  Good assist / turnover ratio today.

Johnson and Kennedy seem very hesitant I think their confidence could grow as they play more. Good defensive game for the cats.

Agree,but if they take their lumps tomorrow, the team with the talent will be the team taking the lump.

We have substantially more talent, let’s see how our coaches do!

Kennedy is a work in progress, he needs hands-on, he is soooo slow!!

For some reason, none of us seems to know why, TJ is the last man at the end of the bench.

Agree, Kennedy is a work in progress , he is sooo slow!!

JVP seems to wander around in his own world and is in a disconnect, I’m waiting for this “take it to the
rim beast” to explode on the scene.(1 shot)???

Malik and most 20 year olds can play 35 minutes per day. The question is….can they play
effectively and be consistent ? Don’t think the opponents coaching staff is dissecting 
his strengths and weaknesses RIGHT NOW ! Kennedy will be fine, but he does seem to
be putting on some weight recently. TJ ? I’m trying to recall the last “pure point guard” JW has 
coached ? Plz help me on this one ?

Our leading scorer and break out player of the year, or so I thought, filled the Box-Score with 0′s.

Not 1,1 freaking FG. 2FT = 2pts for the whole game. Nothing, absolutely nothing, not possible with that talent,
or so I thought, once again.

Had to leave after 10 minutes(terrible performance) down 10-12, arrived at destination to a blow-out.

Busted-on incessantly about Cheek!! No answers!! OH,for that talent.  Little late for that!!

Cheek reminds me of KK when I was complaining he should be getting 50 a night with all that talent.
 Cheek has it easy, I’m only screaming for 25 a night. 0′s not possible with all that talent.

But I do like that in this game and the last game(where Cheek had just two points in the first half) he did not force the action and shots. I think that is important.

Jim,
What is important is that after a 2 pt 1/2 he responded with 19 in the 2nd 1/2 for a total of 21.

What is important is that he had a 1st 1/2 with 20 pts and a 2nd 1/2 with 7 for a total of 27.

Jim he had a Box- Score of 0′s against a team that was not competitive.

He is not a luxury player, he is a must have player for us. I was stunned and disappointed when I saw the
Box – Score. I never thought I would see a performance like that again from Cheek.
I thought he had broken through mentally, realized his talent and had the confidence to play to that
talent level.

Obviously, I was wrong. With the play of JVP and Kennedy (OUCH) Cheek becomes all the more
important. I really thought he had turned the corner and was going to be a major break-out player.
We need him big time and we need him now, no more laters.

Where are the points coming from? Center-Mouph. Guard-Wayns. Wing-Cheek.
Plus whatever the new kids can give us.

Sorry for the rant, really disappointed, thought this was a corner we already turned.

You must be excited that the Assists/FGM ratio is up over last season then. Nova is passing much better than last season and Maalik Wayns is getting his teammates involved. He’s always going to be a scoring PG, but 7 assists is a pretty good number on a Jay Wright-coached team.

If you’ve ever seen the AAU tournaments they played in before college, you know that they can all play two or three games in a day for a few days in a row.

It’s not about an inability to play all those minutes as much as giving him fresh legs for the next 2 games.   No matter what the sport, players need time to regenerate their bodies to be at their peek form.  Any of these kids including the big men can play 4 games in a day but that doesn’t mean they will be at their best in that 3rd & 4th game.   Wayns likely had less of a defensive challenge than he receives in Villanova practice sessions.  
Playing Maalik for 35 minutes was totally uncalled for in that game unless you are trying to pad statistics for the guy.  

On  the flip side, Jay was whining only a few weeks ago about not having much depth at point guard and he only affords 8 minutes for TJ in a total blowout game.  This is a Top 70 recruit who was the star PG on the #2 HS team in the country last year?     TJ isn’t a mirage from some over-rated high school program.   He had match-up with Kabongo where he shut the kid down, he played Cook twice and we saw him on the National stage last April for Montrose hitting clutch shots and FT’s down the stretch of their ESPN RISE Championship.
  
I am not sure why Jay is still handling TJ with kid gloves and I still would like to see how the next 4 weeks play out before the Big East schedule but yesterday was absolutely a huge opportunity to put the kid on the court and let him incresae his confidence and learn from mistakes against a very weak opponent.
IF Jay doesn’t find a way to get TJ more time in the next month and something happens to Wayns as far as an injury, we could be up the creek without a prepared PG.   

tweeted by  Dave Telep —     Early season cruise around college yields a scarcity of pure PGs who run a team. So many without one and 2012 class isn’t deep for PGs. 

And in the near future, we have TJ and Arch on board who can score, distribute and with each around 6’3, can defend their position at the next level.   

Coach Wright as well as his 4 personal fouls limited Bell to only 13 minutes yesterday keeping his “pipes” rested for back to back games but it gave Yacoubou 20 minutes on the court.

Sutton & Kennedy combined for 10 rebounds in 27 minutes on the court.
When Kennedy pulls down 6 rebounds in 12min, I don’t think that is a bad game.   Maybe Jay raised the bar by talking publicly about starting Markus this year, but last summer most people here were just talking about a wide-body that coud give us 8-10 minutes a game as a freshman in the paint.   There are games Sutton will get more play and other games that Kennedy will be asked to contribute more. 

Pinkston remains an enigma for this team and I think he is just trying to find his role on a team where he is not one of the feature scorers.    He took 1 shot yesterday in 17 minutes. .
 1-1 FG…2-2 FT…5 rebounds..1 steal..1 block. 
 3 turnovers…4 personal fouls. 

Hilliard popped all of his 3′s and pulled down 4 rebounds as a long lean 6’5 wing.  
Nick Faust who?
And while we will be missing Armwood’s defensive precense in future match-ups, it certainly appears that we have replaced any offensive contributions that were expected.

Had an interesting conversation the other night with the parents of 2 of Darrun’s Liberty teammates.  They said Coach Landis at Bethlehem Liberty HS still uses Hilliard as an example of dedication & effort toward the rest of the program and this is a large public HS of over 3500 students.  He talks about finding Darrun in the gym alone on Saturday mornings even in the off-season working on his perimeter shots and free throws.  He talks about having Darrun being the first person on the court before every practice during HS career.  He talks about Hilliard never wanting to come off the floor in a big game.  

Team looks OK at this point.  Too many NBA distance shots except for Hillard, who can hit them.  Good to see Mouph going up for a layup without putting ball on the floor first.  All in all a good game, except for TJ not getting minutes, however can’t complain about a win.  Go team against St. Louis.

Spot ck I understand what you are saying. My point is that when he knows he is off he does not force the shots. Corey Fisher did that and I have to say that Fisher had more 2-15 or 3-14 games than anyone in Nova history. You could tell when he was off and he kept shooting and shooting.

I was down on the kid all summer. Then two days ago I posted how I was happy to see Cheek proving me wrong with his “consistent” scoring over the first 3 games, and then this display of a lack of understanding how to score in multiple ways when your shot isn’t falling.

I pulled a Fantasy Football jink on him with my complementary comment. Given that I am the kiss of death for an NFL player when I pick him up for my fantasy football team (I’m up to 3 torn ACLs right now), I’m going to do all of Villanova Nation a favor and now drop Cheek from my happy list so that he might get decent again.

Dear Mr Cheek,

Please grab the ball and dunk on some little guy or start collecting towels for Bell and Hilliard.

Sincerely,
A nova fan who thinks you should have had 5 dunks in that game…

JVP looks to be in excellent shape.  Where oh where has his offense gone? 

His freshman season is beginning to look very Cheeky.

with zero defense and no intensity

with zero defense and no intensity

with zero defense and no intensity

Barney, I agree.  I have got to believe that he is back at full strength and should be seeing more PT in these early season games.

Jim,
Gotcha!!
With Cheek’s talent in a ball game that’s not competitive, you take it to the rim, you bang the offensive glass,
(he’s better than I thought) you contribute in some way and then come back to your shot.
You don’t pack it in after 0-6!! Tough,confident players play through a bad shooting night, they don’t post 0′s!!

He only played 26 minutes,did he go into a pout and Jay pulled him?? I don’t have the answer, but for damn
sure we need his pts for any sense of balance.

Our anchor players are Mouph-C, Wayns-PG, Cheek-F, good balance + Bell(more aggressive) + Hilliard(pleasant surprise) + the bench(developing).

I jumped on the Cheek bandwagon and loved his game(defense needs a boost) + his new confident attitude.
Wishing won’t do it, I wished that 3rd anchor, without Cheek the balance comes apart and the pts are
a lot harder to come by.

I’ll feel a lot better when Cheek has 25 this afternoon and last night becomes an aberration, as we dictate
the pace and pounce on St. Louis and Jay earns his coaching wings on ESPN national. GO Jay!!

Once again its one game.  I agree as I’ve said all along on the Yarou season preview, we know what we are getting from Wayns and Yarou – and I see Cheek as the determining factor in what this team becomes this year.

That being said – It’s one game.  Let’s hope he comes up huge against this St. Louis team, that may give us problems. 

da do run run run, dar run run run.

And to make it worse, wherever it went, he ain’t looking for it! 1-Shot, Good Grief!!

What I don’t like is we still don’t make a concerted game long effort to get
Moof the ball on the block. Half is touches are 10 to 15 feet, and I like his midrange jumpshot. But if we establish the interior everything else becomes easier

And soooo soft. His big body means nothing as he doesn’t use it

I was unhappy with Maalik Wayns play in the part of the game i saw, the 2nd half.  We know he can drive to the hoop – why did Jay not grab him and say…”don’t do that until or unless it gets tight and we need you to win it for us,  this is a live scrimmage, so get the others involved, no dribble drives.”

sorry, i think your assessment is like complimenting roy halladay for striking out the other pitcher

boys – me too.  if you will not play your inexperienced players against UC Riverside – when you need at least 2 to blossom if the team is to have ANY depth this year…then what is the point of playing early season games like this. With due respect Barney I don’t care what TJ did against anyone in HS last year, but if TJ is to do anything against the BE, then we both agree we’ve got to see what he’s got today vs. college players.  If he stinks then so be it, he will learn and grow, and we were not in danger here.  Even Jay miscalculates the “learning” PT…  a bad loss early does not hurt.  A bunch of depth related close losses, Jan – Feb is killer.

Agree with both boys.  i think (hope ??) johnson is just deferring (too much)

Kennedy…  we knew he was not an “athlete” player anyway, but was advertised as a skill and technique guy with bulk, who can also pass well.  seems to me slow is never going to become more than a bit less slow.  but he seems to be getting the ball ripped out of his hands like half the time he is in traffic down low.  is this too much technique (head fakes, etc)  too much bounce once twice first, before going up… or just not strong hands/arms. ? 

i am asking much more than saying.  what do any of you think. yesterday’s 2nd half was the first i’ve seen except on the webcasts or radio.

seems to me all of that can be worked on, and he’s a 4 year player anyway.  He will never be dwayne mclain for bounce.  but he could become a john pinone / mike bradley type.  (please)

hell If Kennedy turns into Bruce Lefkowitz from the 88-90(ish, ??) era Penn teams, i’d be tickled.

Kennedy is 20.   He should be a jr.   

I think there is more to lack of playing time for TJ,   that we are not hearing about. 

What does the LIberty coach  say about  Kennedy and Pinkston?  

Jay Wright is really overrated as a coach.  He gets all 3,4, and 5 star players.   Other coaches in the area don’t get anyone over 3 stars and compete with Nova.

Jay is a great recruiter and a below average  coach. 

Tyrone Johnson looked really slowwww driving to the hoop.  I thought he was faster than what we saw yesterday. 

Statistically, Wright gets worse recruits than Rick Pitino, but produces stronger senior players. He also appears to  be a little better at developing players than Jim Calhoun.

http://basketball.realgm.com/article/216610/Are_The_Recruiting_Rankings_Correct#ixzz1dyQz4Wjk

I think you missed my point.  It was the level of competition he faced last year that most felt prepared him for a shot to see more immediate minutes as a freshman.   He didn’t go to some podunk public school or even some regional powerhouse like philly’s Roman Catholic.   Montrose plays an impressive national schedule and last year’s success for the most part was all about TJ & Justin Anderson and they put up a better record than the Kevin Durant led Montrose teams.   TJ was outstanding facing higher rated PG’s than himself who are now at programs like Duke & Texas.

College competition has teams full of higher caliber athletes (although maybe UC-R didn’t…lol).   To get Tyrone significant minutes against the like of UC-Riverside seemed like a no-brainer and then we see Wayns going 35 minutes??  I think we believe it’s was a real head-scratcher.     
I hope there isn’t something else going on that we don’t know but it’s early and I’ll leave it to Kish to run down the conspiracies.   But Jay himself is the one who was worried about PG depth going into the season.

I tend to lean toward the idea (which is a bit shortsighted if true) that Jay might be allowing Maalik to run up some stats in hopes of giving him the best opportunity next Spring if he tries to jump.  I dunno.  I guess we just have to wait and see how TJ develops.

And his age is no different that many college athetes.   Kennedy graduated from High School at 18 before his taking post-grad year at Brewster.    There are 18 year old athletes in their senior year of High School everywhere.   

JVP is 20 this weekend also and he got his HS diploma the same year as Kennedy. 

Ty Johnson is 19 since last July and didn’t do a post-grad year like Kennedy. 

Among the juniors…
Yarou has been 21 since last June.
Cheek turns 21 in a few weeks.   

Neither is a  true PGs at this point.    Both are really combo guards.   Arcidiacono is a shooter.   I think he will be SG in college.   He is not PG fast.   He will be Nova’s best shooter.     

Does that stat take into account that the top players leave early?  If you take a school like Kentucky the top players are only there for 1 year.  

The and, if or but and then again, rankings.