UBCourtside

I’m about 95% sure we land this kid. I’ve only talked to one person about it, but it seems like he realizes how good of an opportunity he has here. We shall see.

Happy Malik Zachery day everyone! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

Williams is playing it looks like. Practiced this week and looked good, but I wasn’t there. Just what I heard. Good news for sure

Must win. This is one of the worst offensive teams in the country. Zone D is really good, and they are great at getting hands in passing lanes (#1 in the country in steals per game), but if we want to be a contender, you can’t drop this game. I have been sticking up for this squad, because I think improvement has been there defensively and individually with some young guys. Losing this game would make me doubt this team big time, and erase some of my optimism for the MAC tournament. Let’s get the job done, and look decisive doing it! 

Talked about it in my game preview at the site, but Western Michigan crushed this team in the paint and transition. Wouldn’t be surprised to see UB feed Mballa early and often, and deploy those bigger lineups. 

10 hours ago, UBCourtside said:

I reached out to the team to try and see what was wrong with Gabe, if anything. I didn’t get a response, and this guy usually answers if I have an injury related question. 

Just got confirmation back that Gabe Grant was not injured for this game, for those who were wondering.

1 hour ago, skrabukes said:

Additionally, I didn't see Grant on the bench today. Sick/hurt/something else? Anyone hear anything?

I reached out to the team to try and see what was wrong with Gabe, if anything. I didn’t get a response, and this guy usually answers if I have an injury related question. 

18 minutes ago, Ubbulls84 said:

Why do people think we getting back this star or big role player. Mballa will still start at the 5. Brock will be good for 5-8 minutes off the bench, that’s it. Fagan maybe couple min also but neither gonna play big roles. 

I would not sleep on the impact Fagan can make. Grant and Nickleberry haven’t exactly been great, and his advanced metrics and per 40 stats were fantastic a year ago in very limited minutes. 

1 minute ago, Kevin said:

I've expected him to play this weekend for a bit now.

I think he should be ready

Fagan looks really good today. Moving well, playing fast, shooting well. I’d be shocked if he’s not playing.

Did my preview for the website last night. Mballa has a nice matchup against a lanky 6’10’’ freshman who isn’t very fleet of foot. Good bounce back spot for Graves as well with his matchup. Jordan vs Malik Johnson should be fun!

11 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I think Whitesell is more of a teacher than a yeller. On the broadcast I saw him talking one on one to players. An example was when Johnson got the Tech for hanging on the rim. Whitesell immediately took him out sat him down and talked to him privately.

Also Whitesell lost his blazer too. Not as demonstrative as Reggie would but still. He cares. He just has a different approach.

He is 100% a teacher. Constantly stopping practice to get these guys to play within a team concept and do their job

3 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

A bit more details for tomorrow's game.  They are currently 4-5 after losing to Merrimack on Wednesday.  Kenpom has them ranked at #279 compared to our ranking at #104.  I expect spread in 15/16 points range.  Army scores about 69 points a game.  Their rebounding per game is only 33 total and 6 offensive.  Would expect that we should be able to have a good day rebounding the ball against them.  They struggle from FT line, only shooting 56% as a team.   Their top scorers are Thomas Funk (Sr / 5'11"/ G/ 14.2 ppg) and Matthew Wilson (Sr / 6'9"/ C/ 13.4 ppg).

If Buffalo takes care of business with tight defense and on the boards, this should be a game that the Bulls win comfortably.

Agree on your spread prediction. I thought the same thing. And I’m not sure if I have ever seen a team that’s worse shooting free throws. If Army somehow gets hot shooting 3s, I wouldn’t be surprised if UB starts hacking a little on the inside to throw off rhythm and send them to the line.

36 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

Any word on Brock's status? Would like to see him be able to come in and eat up some minutes. Reward him for the hard work he has put in.

He was out there moving around today, but not doing full team stuff at all

Definitely raising my hand in saying we werent talking about playing zone all the time. Simply pointing out that if, for some reason, our usual aggressive man to man doesn't work, this team has crumbled multiple times against zone. I also think there is a 0% chance we do it, but it doesn't hurt to bring it up as our opponents weakness

-4.5 now for Vandy...pretty decent line movement there

9 hours ago, 961819 said:

After watching the Vanderbilt vs Tulsa game just now I came away with some key takeaways that we need to do to come away with a win. 
 

Vandy plays very aggressive perimeter defense on guards, often times double teaming them. This leads to an open player somewhere on the court so a big key will be dribble penetration and finding that open man. Tulsa got many of their points slashing straight to the rim, as well as driving and taking advantage of the help defense with drop off passes down low to their big man for an easy basket. If we can get to the rim like we have been recently, we should be able to get easy points to Mballa, as well as wide open 3’s on dribble drive kick outs. 

What we can’t do is hold the ball deep into the shot clock. Vanderbilt has too much length and will cause a bad shot/blocked shot if we find ourselves scrambling to get a shot off in time. So drive penetration and look for the open man or score at the rim if it’s there, and don’t hold the ball long.

Defensively, Vanderbilt struggled when Tulsa switched to a 2-3 zone defense. The key with attacking any zone is to penetrate the middle of it around the foul line which leads to an open shot or easy assist when help defense comes to the ball. Vanderbilt didn’t even attempt to break the zone and instead opted for hero ball - dribbling into double teams/bad shots. The only drawback to having to play a 2-3 zone would be that since Vandy has good guards that can shoot very well from 3, it will have to be a high 2-3 to deny the perimeter which would then become prone to allowing wide open 3’s from the corners. Vanderbilt also rarely sets ball screens which should help us to better guard Nesmith at the perimeter. If we show a solid mix of tight man defense as well as zone defense, it should help to prevent Vandy from finding an offensive rhythm. 
 

Lastly, towards the end of the game Vanderbilt switched to a full court press which was really working well for them and gave Tulsa all kinds of issues. Their particular zone focuses on trapping the ball in the corners on the inbounds pass and then again in the corners once the ball crosses half court. 
 

So if we drive and look for the easy drop off pass or open man on the perimeter, keep them guessing on defense with some strong zone looks, and avoid the corners in their press we stand a really good chance of winning. They aren’t the most impressive SEC team but and SEC is still an SEC team with SEC talent. 
 

Looking forward to it, Go Bulls!
 

Spot on post man. I'm doing my preview now and in regards to the aggressive perimeter defense and struggling against a zone you hit the nail on the head. This wasn't just Tulsa either, in 2 other games I watched they did the same thing, but they were able to win due to inferior competition 

Not necessarily on topic here, but could you imagine if we played Dartmouth now instead of game 1? The team is so much more in sync. Bowling Green beat them last night and all I could think was, man, I want that back

26 minutes ago, 961819 said:

DePauls looking very good this year, if we come away with a win then we should be able to ride that momentum into conference play. I thought we handled W&M’s height rather well this game. 
 

My main takeaway from this one however is that this team is learning quickly and there weren’t any head scratching moments in this one where we gave up multiple offensive rebounds in a row. Showed flashes of the potential this team has 

 

Also Hardnett May not have filled up the stat sheet but he did his job very well in this one which is to give Mballa valuable rest time. His time will come but not until we get a true 5 so that he isn’t forced into a role he isn’t meant to be in

Agree on Hardnett 100%

Excellent team win. Faster paced than I thought it would be, but that definitely played into UBs favor. Loewe did better than I thought he would, he's a nice player for them. By the way, if Jayvon connects on that dunk over knight and sends him to his grave, it's all over sportscenter

17 minutes ago, Ubbulls84 said:

Nice preview agree with most your points there. Just hope your right about Johnson, been a big disappointment so far, 30% from the field not gonna cut it. I think he turns it around eventually, but it better happen soon- not so much for this game, but for the two following it we will need him to perform if we going to come out with wins. Williams also looked good last game, hopefully shows some more consistency there.

Yeah I mean Johnson shot 57 for 153 (37.2%) from 3 in his career at Middle Tennessee. 25.6% this year is really low. I gotta think that starts to normalize. Well, I hope at least. 

Just posted my full game preview for this tilt on my site. I think Knight will have a nice day, and probably Van Vliet too, but I'm fine with it. UB has a serious advantage at guard, and this team will have a really hard time defending us due to lack of overall speed and athleticism. Just don't give them wide open looks at 3 like DooleyBull06 said, and we should be able to run over this team. They are shooting at an unsustainable clip, I expect some regression

Site has been completely redesigned! Still a work in progress but we're making it happen! Thanks guys!

Thanks guys! It's up and running now, just need to change up the design a little bit to be a little more user friendly on the mobile version. I have a Web guy helping me out in the next week!

Hey guys! Just wanted to let everyone know that I've created a new website called UBcourtside.com . Before and after each game, I'll be posting detailed game previews and recaps, among other things. Also, if you're interested, follow @ubcourtside on twitter! I'm going to do some ticket giveaways for women's and men's games, give out interesting stats about the team I come across, and give updates as I scout our upcoming opponents. I just joined this forum and I plan to be very active on here as well! I'm not affiliated with the university at all, just a season ticket holder and a rabid college basketball fan. Go Bulls!