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Wyoming vs. Chadron State.....let's get it on.
- Thread starter Cowboy Junky
- Start date
LanderPoke
Well-known member
What is Chadron? NAIA?
Cowboy Junky
Well-known member
wiley wapiti said:
I think people need to get used to the idea that point guards like Grabau, Lieberman, and Kelly will always have a place on Wyoming's team. They don't lose you games.
I don't know if our staff will ever recruit a Brandon Ewing, or Ladrell Whitehead: ball hog point.
Our coaches seem to prefer guys that don't have to score a point to be happy, that don't turn the ball over, that can hit free throws down the stretch of close ball games, and have a calming effect on the offense.
It' not flashy, but they win you games.
Kelly needed to take better care of the ball last night. So did every other player on the team. I've seen no reason to believe that he can't have very good ball security at Wyoming.
Kelly is going to play: a lot, most likely.
joshvanklomp
Well-known member
D2LanderPoke said:
McPeachy
Well-known member
Cowboy Junky said:
If Cody Kelley gets a ton of minutes, we will be a < .500 team. And, if he doesn't win us many games, and doesn't lose us many games...will he "tie" us a bunch? I don't get that statement Junky...LOL! If he isn't on the court winning games for us at the point, get him off the court.
LanderPoke
Well-known member
It would be nice not to have a midget for a pg
joshvanklomp
Well-known member
Well, our last staff anyways. Remains to be seen if Edwards' philosophy changes as the head man.Cowboy Junky said:
Cowboy Junky
Well-known member
McPeachy said:
Yeah, that's the same thing everyone said when Grabau got here, when Jack Bentz got minutes, when Lieberman started at the point last season.....
Our staff likes point guards that have a lot of similarities. They take care of the ball. They have a calming effect on the team. They can make free throws to become a weapon in close games down the stretch. They usually aren't very athletic. They don't have to score to be happy.
Those guys win you a lot of games, by NOT LOSING them, by allowing the Larry Nance's, the Josh Adams, and guys like that to do the scoring for you.
Brandon Ewing scored a lot of points at Wyoming. He missed a crap load of game winning shots too. He turned the ball over way more than he should have. He gave the ball back to the other team so fast you would miss it if you blinked sometimes. Our coaches want a security blanket at point.
I'm not saying any of those guys are as talented as Brandon Ewing, but they're the type of point guard our coaches have played consistently.
You may not agree with Cody Kelly getting minutes, but our coaches do. Cody Kelly is part four of the Riley Grabau series, proceeded by Riley, Jack Bentz, Jeremy Lieberman, and now Cody Kelly.
Don't be shocked if he plays a lot.
McPeachy
Well-known member
Cowboy Junky said:
Your love for Jack Bentz terrifies me a bit. Riley was / is in complete different category...hell solar system, than Bentz. So is Lieberman. But you may be onto something, Bentz & Kelley are looking to be fairly equal. Just look at Jack's stat line from his senior year:
183 minutes played in 22 of 35 games, 8.3 minutes average per game played in
2 - 18 from the field
0 - 6 from 3 point land
4 - 6 from the charity stripe
19 Rebounds, 25 assists, 4 Steals
8 Fouls, 6 Turnovers, 8 total points
107 of the 183 minutes he played...24 came against Southern, 10 against Regis, 16 against Florida A&M, 20 against USU and New Mexico, and 17 against USU again.
As I stated, if Wyoming is relying (as you indicated) on heavy minutes for Kelley, we are a < .500 team. Just as we would have been, if Bentz would have gotten Riley-type minutes in 2014-2015.
Cowboy Junky
Well-known member
McPeachy said:
I'm not saying I agree with the coaches decision to play those guys. I'm just saying what we should expect. I think Kelly will play a lot of minutes and I'm 100 percent positive that it won't result in us being a sub 500 team.
I wish we would recruit a big tall point guard like Penny Hardaway or Magic Johnson. That's my preference. If it were my team I would try to find a 6'5" guy at point.
The one thing I agree with these coaches about is that they don't look to the point guard to score. After the Mclain/Schroyer era of Wyoming basketball, I was sick and tired of point guards that touched the ball every play and felt like they had to score 25 points a game. When your point guard feels like he has to score so much and he touches the ball every play, you end up with a lot of offensive series where the point takes a shot before running the offense, before letting rebounders get in position under the rim.......You end up with a shit load of empty possessions.
I was curious as to why Jack Bentz played as much as he did, until the MWC tournament, when he played really well and saved our ass. I don't know if we would have won the tournament without him.
I just don't agree that Cody Kelly makes us a sub 500 team, by playing minutes as the back up point guard. If he's costing us games, he won't play. It's that simple. I think the coaches are working him into the line up because they know he won't cost us games.
We'll see. I just know how this basketball board is. People thought Riley sucked and he won Wyoming a dozen games at the least by being the guy they got the ball to with the game on the line, that got fouled and made his free throws.
NowherePoke
Well-known member
Cowboy Junky said:
A few points here CJ:
1. As McPeachy notes, you have to stop lumping Bentz in with Grabau (let's see how Lieberman and Kelley's careers turn out). Grabau was the POY in Colorado as a HS senior and was a legitimate mid-major D1 recruit that spring (he chose UW over an offer from WKU, a solid program). He was also a solid ball handler with the ability to not only hit the perimeter shot, but pull up and drain mid-range jumpers. Grabau was all the things you talk about in terms of a steady floor general, but he had more game than you give him credit for. He could have gone to somewhere like Northern Colorado and averaged double figures and been a Top 2 player on the team. Bentz was a classic walk-on. He was a great teammate and knew his limitations so he didn't hurt the team in the event he was needed for spot minutes. But his impact was very limited, as was his game.
2. For the record, we were a sub .500 team last year with Lieberman starting (I am not blaming Lieberman for that, just to be clear).
3. I don't think you can necessarily say that Lieberman/Grabau were even the PG's over the last 2-3 years. If you go back and watch those games, you will see that Josh Adams took on the PG responsibilities (bring the ball up the floor, call the play, initiate the offense) a significant portion of the time. In case you have forgotten, he can score a little bit, but it didn't make him a poor PG.
4. Your dislike of Brandon Ewing is irrational. I guarantee you that Shyatt and Edwards would have loved to have Ewing on their team. Under Shyatt his role would have been more along the lines of what we saw from Josh Adams and he would have excelled (hell, he excelled anyway, he was so good he carried a Schroyer coached team to 19 wins).
5. Having said all of that, I am higher on Kelley than others on this thread. He is only a RS. Fr. (albeit an old one due to a prep year) and to me he brings a lot more to the table than Bentz ever did. I do think he will be a rotation player at some point in his career, possibly this year.
I thought Lieberman played poorly last night, but overall I still think he can be solid for us. He needs to not play scared going to the rim. Take it hard with the intent to score and let the chips fall where they may. He may get his shot swatted into the second row occasionally, but if he doesn't even try (or looks so tentative that he airballs it from 18" away like last night) the defense will really apply a lot of pressure on the ball and they won't feel much urgency in their rotations. We love to have our bigs hang out on the baseline and catch the dump-off for a jam when the penetrating guard draws the D. Naughton had a nice one last night and we have seen DC, Nance, and Herndon with literally 100 of those over the last few years. They don't work well if there is zero threat of the guard actually finishing.
One thing that did kind of change in my thinking last night though, is that I think we will see some periods of time without either Lieberman or Kelley on the floor. I think we will see lineups with 3 of our wings (Adams/James/JMac/Gorski/Marshall) on the floor together. I didn't think we would see much, but after last night I don't know how the staff can't be looking for ways to get James, Adams, and JMac as many minutes as possible.
Cowboy Junky
Well-known member
NowherePoke said:
1. I'm not saying Bentz was as good as Grabau. I was never part of the Riley Grabau hater club. I loved his game. I was part of the Jack Bentz hater club, up until the very end, when he played well for us down the stretch and in the MWC tournament.
2. We we're a sub .500 team with Lieberman starting. Who cares? We lost 5 seniors the year before. We probably would have been a sub .500 team with Tim Hardaway starting at point.
3. Yeah, other guys played point. Grabau and Lieberman rarely played other positions. Point is their primary spot on the floor. When the game was on the line, the coaches set up inbounds plays to get the ball into their hands. They're the ones the coaches trusted to get the ball up the floor the most, with the game on the line.
4. No one said I didn't like Brandon Ewing. I loved Brandon Ewing. I didn't like undisciplined, selfish system that our coaches rolled out when Ewing was on the team. I didn't like playing street ball, and having a bunch of guys attack the rim in double coverage to hoist up missed lay-ups or bring the ball down the floor to jack up and miss an NBA ranged three ball before anyone else on the team was under the rim. That's not Brandons fault. He was recruited to and coached for that system. It's a shame that he didn't play under Shy or Edwards, because I think both of those guys would have turned Brandon into a far better player than McClain/Schroyer ever could have.
My point is that we can win with Cody Kelly on the floor at back up point. Do I think he's better than Louis Adams, AKA Gorski, JJ, or Lieberman? No, I don't. He's a better point than Morris Marshall. That doesn't mean we're going to finish .500 if Cody Kelly plays minutes this year.
Like I said, I would rather us recruit a 6'5" point guard that's unselfish.
I agree with the current coaching staff. I don't want my point guard to feel obligated to score 25 points a game. I want him to be the most unselfish player on the team since he touches the ball every play.
calpoke25
Well-known member
These days I think you have to move past the old school definition of a basketball lineup, i.e. PG, SG, SF, PF, C. I don't think rosters are really constructed that way anymore. I think our best lineup consists of 3 wings (Adams, JMac, James), a stretch 4 (Herndon), and a center (Naughton). There isnt a PG on the floor but I think that doesn't really matter.
pokecountant
Well-known member
calpoke25 said:
This is EXACTLY what I think. :agree: That line up will provide the most athleticism, best ability to score, and likely the best defenders as well. I'm all for it.
wiley wapiti
Well-known member
Anyone who says Cody Kelly had a calming effect on our team did not watch the game. Every time he had the ball it was like "holy schite" let me get rid of it asap. He can not, at least at this juncture, handle any type of pressure. Right now, he is our Jack Bentz...maybe a better shooter, but you can't trust him with the ball.
Cowboy Junky
Well-known member
wiley wapiti said:
You can say that for everyone on the team. It was an exhibition game. They all horked up a bunch of turnovers.
If you read my posts above, you'll see specifically where I said that Kelly needs to clean up his ball security. I've already covered that subject.
ItSucksToBeACSURam
Well-known member
None of this was consistent until his senior season. He was never a "scoring" threat for our team or the one opponents schemed around.NowherePoke said:
I was and still am part of the "Never Understood the Grabau Love" club. He was a decent player with ridiculous free throw ability. Nothing else. I love that he was a Cowboy and love what he helped bring to Laramie. But that said, going forward, I hope the type of players we recruit on not on Grabaus level but much much higher....
