Men's Basketball

[CajunEXPRESS]

I may be wrong, but I don't think Ced is healthy. He's had health issues his most of his career here.

We're not very talented overall and especially the bigs. We've also got a short point guard who isn't nearly good enough to overcome his lack of size on either end of the court

[Hudsheen#Fired]

Speaking of recruiting.. When we landed Ced Russell, it was touted as one of the best signings of the Marlin era. And I agreed. (I still think he's one of the best shooters we've had here in my lifetime).

For the life of me, I can not understand this staff's fixation on making Ced a combo guard. WHY WHY WHY do they not put him at the 2, and run plays for him to shoot the ball?? He is not a POINT GUARD. No knock on his ability at all, but his strength is shooting the ball. He also has a very good mid-range game that he is not allowed to showcase. I understand analytics and understand their strategy, but at some point, you have to go away from a plan that isn't working.

Cedric will be a SR next year. If something doesn't change dramatically, he will be the most underutilized talent in the last 15 years of this program. He is conference player of the year material being used incorrectly (IMHO) to plug recruiting gaps left by the staff. We don't space the floor, we don't run pick & pop motions for him, and we make him possess the ball way too much.

Somebody change my mind.

I'm with MAT let Ced play the 2 and let Mylik play the point.
Mylik is a beast but he is way too tentative on offense, let the man run the offense like elfrid did. Mylik has the ability to be a 15 point, 6 assist, 6 rebound type player but often I find he is just sitting behind the 3 point line. That is a complete waste of his ability as a player

[ManAboutTown]

I'm with MAT let Ced play the 2 and let Mylik play the point.
Mylik is a beast but he is way too tentative on offense, let the man run the offense like elfrid did. Mylik has the ability to be a 15 point, 6 assist, 6 rebound type player but often I find he is just sitting behind the 3 point line. That is a complete waste of his ability as a player

Wilson needs to be getting 34-36 minutes a game. In fact, all freshmen/sophomores need to be playing the bulk of the minutes, except for Cedric. Find out if Chrisitian Lafayette can play. Find out if all these bench guys can log real minutes in conference play. We all know we're not contending for a title this year.

You guys realize, all of the same "reasons" that are being given this year for the disappointing results (pre-injury bug) will be the same "reasons" for next year, right? "Young, inexperienced."

Still haven't addressed the size issue (when the trend in the SBC is getting bigger).

[ManAboutTown]

I may be wrong, but I don’t think Ced is healthy. He’s had health issues his most of his career here.

We’re not very talented overall and especially the Bigs. We’ve also got a shot point guard who isn’t nearly good enough to overcome his lack of size on either end of the court

When I suggested this earlier in the year, I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about...

[Cajunsmike]

When I suggested this earlier in the year, I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about...

I don’t think I was one who did that but if so I apologize. I agree he is likely not 100 percent. He had foot surgeries before both his freshman and sophomore years. This year he definitely had a hip issue in Las Vegas. Not sure if he is completely recovered from that. He may go his entire career without being healthy. Foot issues are something that is always a struggle for basketball players to recover from.

[CajunVic]

When I suggested this earlier in the year, I was told that I didn't know what I was talking about...

Naw, no one would tell you that.

[cajuns80]

Good points in this post. I agree that playing point impacts his effectiveness at the 2 guard spot at times. I was disappointed he did not knock more shots down in the second half as he had plenty of open looks which simply did not go down. He himself has said he prefers playing point but that should not be a factor in how they use him. Also agree that he should shoot more mid range shots. I have been advocating that aspect for years but most basketball folks don't agree. Maybe one day some will see the advantage of taking that shot as it is open, you don't get charges, shots blocked by the big guys as you drive, or injured on getting hit by the big guys. Addressing a couple of other points, I never saw where it was said LR was down three starters. Being at the game, they seemed to have a full roster and used them in a normal fashion. They did have guys in foul trouble and their leading scorer did miss much of the second half. That was due to him having four fouls. Wesley was doing a very good job defensively on him. However, that worked to the Trojans advantage as he was having a poor game and it caused Little Rock to focus on their inside game. They had an advantage there and they exploited it. Of course the leading scorer (five eight guard) came back in and hit a tough corner three to put them in the lead late in the game. Before he even let the ball go I turned to my buddy and said that will go in. That is the way things go when you are struggling and I knew it. Regardless of all that it is Christmas time and all those guys need to enjoy the holidays with their families. May do them good to get away from the game for awhile.

They had 3 in sweats, and one of which i know for sure was their second best player, as he dominated us last year.

[zephyr]

I'm having one now.

I'm just upset that basketball cleaned house last offseason.

Knowingly leaving the team with no depth.

We brought in more depth than what we had.

[zephyr]

I see little value in commenting about the basketball coaching staff situation. People have formed strong opinions and little I can say will change them one way or the other. I have no idea if what is said here will influence Dr. Maggard on any decisions he has to make and he is the main decision maker. I do know that posting here allows people to vent their concerns with the current situation and what we see now is definitely frustrating. Unfortunately, the roster limitations of the current squad make it unlikely they will be able to accomplish enough to change the view of people this season. The injury to Julien put them in a huge bind. There is no one of the roster capable of duplicating his 11 points and almost 6 boards a game. He brought more than that to the court with a strong overall floor game most nights. He was on his way to being freshman of the year. He may not have been a great player but we have no one else close to his ability. When games are called like last night, things really become a challenge. We simply don't have capable bodies to overcome our depth issues when everyone is in foul trouble. Tirus Smith was having a strong game with 15 points and 8 rebounds. However foul trouble limited him to 18 minutes. Had he played a normal amount of minutes, the Cajuns may have had a shot to pull it out. He likely will continue to have foul problems as players get reputations and that may become his. I have few suggestions on how to improve things this year and will simply wait to see what the AD does about the coaching situation at the end of the year.

Mike, I don't think anybody here wants or expects these changes to be made at this exact time. It would not be helpful for us to do that. I think people want our administration to know this is just not acceptable at this time and they should at least take a hard look at the staff at the end of season. Hopefully they take the input into consideration. I think we all want to finally be heard rather than told that mens basketball is the one sport he is NOT concerned about.

[zephyr]

NOT. THE. TIME.

Y’all are ____ing this up for us.

How is this even possible?