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What's the most frustrating thing about this basketball team? The fight is gone.

Buffnik

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
For me, it's not anything about skill or scheme.

I look back to the Tad teams that I loved and what they had. I never got that mad when I saw guys not moving much on offense and long possessions that ended up with a rushed, bad shot by the Buffs. It was frustrating, but I wasn't mad.

These days, it makes me mad.

So, what's different? I thought maybe it could be a building frustration I'd had over the years, but it's not that.

The difference is that I can't get mad at guys when I see them selling out with everything they've got to deny the other team. Tad's teams used to play like they were on a mission. Every possession was a mission to get a stop. There was a fight for every rebound and loose ball. Turnovers by the offense were inflated by how often CU would get called for a charge. That was a team that was fighting and attacking even when we watched 5+ minute stretches when it didn't make a shot.

I can cheer for a team like that without any reservations. Actually, I can cheer for a team like that more than I can a super-skilled finesse team that wins more than Tad's best teams ever did (last year's UCLA, for example).

It's the same as like with my football teams. That "you may beat us, but you'll know you were in a fight" thing where the gambling community knows to bet against the team that just played the Buffs in their next game because they're physically and emotionally wrung out.

I don't know what Tad needs to do, but this team needs to find that again.
 
Agreed.

If you're getting blown out, but are giving it all you have then there isn't much you can say. But if you're getting blown out, while being disinterested in giving effort, then that's a big issue.

This team has been bending over and taking it without putting up a fight for sometime now. It's getting really tough to support this team knowing that the majority of them don't care about being there. I honestly think we should play some walk on's to send a message, I know they'd give anything to be able to get big minutes for this team.
 
Tad needs to meet with a couple of players in the offseason and give them the "it would be in both our best interests if you moved on" speech.
 
Goose said:
99% certain that all 3 will be back next year.
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If so, that will be another nail in the coffin for Boyle. Having said that, unless RG does not care about basketball, Boyle will likely be gone after next season anyway without a major overhaul in the roster.
 
My thoughts on those 3 guys:

XJ - I believe he's the most gifted basketball player on the team and I still think it's addition by subtraction if he's not a Buff next year based on what's gone on this year. That's a big statement to make and I stand by it.

XT - I can cheer for XT. He looks lost this year for some reason. But the dude takes charges and looks like he's working. There's a good reason why Tad gives him the minutes he does despite the lost confidence in his offensive game, the turnovers and the lack of production. I want him back.

Eli - When he's in he plays hard and I've never heard of anyone having a problem with him in the locker room. He's also a guy who has a marginal skill set for this level of basketball -- and I can live with that part. Chen had a marginal skill set for this level and he remains one of my favorite Buffs I've ever cheered for. The thing with Eli is that he doesn't live and breathe basketball. If a guy is marginal, he has to be a bulldog and gym rat. Eli isn't. I'd have no problem with him moving on to other endeavors.
 
Buffnik said:
My thoughts on those 3 guys:

XJ - I believe he's the most gifted basketball player on the team and I still think it's addition by subtraction if he's not a Buff next year based on what's gone on this year. That's a big statement to make and I stand by it. Agreed. XJ needs to move on for many reasons.

XT - I can cheer for XT. He looks lost this year for some reason. But the dude takes charges and looks like he's working. There's a good reason why Tad gives him the minutes he does despite the lost confidence in his offensive game, the turnovers and the lack of production. I want him back. Never good enough, but will be a SR next year, so he's not going anywhere.

Eli - When he's in he plays hard and I've never heard of anyone having a problem with him in the locker room. He's also a guy who has a marginal skill set for this level of basketball -- and I can live with that part. Chen had a marginal skill set for this level and he remains one of my favorite Buffs I've ever cheered for. The thing with Eli is that he doesn't live and breathe basketball. If a guy is marginal, he has to be a bulldog and gym rat. Eli isn't. I'd have no problem with him moving on to other endeavors.
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​Eli is a bit player. His going or staying won't effect much.

Another name to throw in the hat - Wes Gordon. If his attitude doesn't change in the offseason he may not move on, but his minutes will be reduced and given to others.
 
Da Lama said:
​Eli is a bit player. His going or staying won't effect much.

Another name to throw in the hat - Wes Gordon. If his attitude doesn't change in the offseason he may not move on, but his minutes will be reduced and given to others.
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I would start giving minutes to Miller already. He makes mistakes but at least it looks like he gives a f***.
 
Da Lama said:
​Eli is a bit player. His going or staying won't effect much.

Another name to throw in the hat - Wes Gordon. If his attitude doesn't change in the offseason he may not move on, but his minutes will be reduced and given to others.
Click to expand...


is this sarcasm font?
 
Gordon's got to get more aggressive on offense. I don't think he took a shot last night. At times it was obvious that he was looking to pass. On one play, he had the ball about halfway down the paint. He pumped to make a pass and pulled it back because it wasn't there. His defender backed way off him when it happened.

What did Wes do? Pivot and look for someone else he could pass to while looking like he was caught in no man's land.

What should Wes have done? Used that pivot to make a power move to the rim.

Until that psychology changes, he'll never reach his potential.
 
Da Lama said:
​Eli is a bit player. His going or staying won't effect much.

Another name to throw in the hat - Wes Gordon. If his attitude doesn't change in the offseason he may not move on, but his minutes will be reduced and given to others.
Click to expand...
Eli leaving would be big, it'd open a scholarship to bring in a guy who can contribute. Eli has played 9.1% of the total possible minutes this year...the closest to him has played is Miller at 20.1%, that's a huge gap considering Tory is a freshman and Eli is a junior.
 
Last night was just sad. The team never looked like they wanted it. A couple looked like they did, Tory and DT come to mind. But the vast majority played soft on D and did not give much effort. This team got schooled on the boards as well and that is all effort. It has been a long season of losing for this team and it appears to have finally taken a toll which is being seen in the effort they are putting in.

Listened to Tad on the radio on the drive home. As outspoken and pissed as I have heard him. Said the 4 hours he was allowed with the team each day over the next two days will be time the players will not forget and it was going to be rough. He is going to open a can of whoopass on this team for the next two days based on what he said. It was the first time I have heard him say that the effort was not there and the team looked like it quit. He apologized to the fans and put it on him for not getting them ready so he did not throw individuals under the bus and took the blame. Said changes in how he was going to address the issues were coming. He was very pissed as he should have been.
 
This team is composed of a bunch of sheep, no wolves from a mental/attacking standpoint. Outside of Josh (when healthy) and Ski, I think the next person on the team that I've seen attack is DT, and XJ at times. Maybe instead of SEAL training, somebody needs to take the team and get them in a good street fight next year.
 
Buffnik said:
Gordon's got to get more aggressive on offense. I don't think he took a shot last night. At times it was obvious that he was looking to pass. On one play, he had the ball about halfway down the paint. He pumped to make a pass and pulled it back because it wasn't there. His defender backed way off him when it happened.

What did Wes do? Pivot and look for someone else he could pass to while looking like he was caught in no man's land.

What should Wes have done? Used that pivot to make a power move to the rim.

Until that psychology changes, he'll never reach his potential.
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Nice post. Gordon is very frustrating because he does have a ton of potential.

It will be interesting to see where this program goes next year and beyond. Lots of questions right now.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I'm not sure who, if anyone, absolutely needs to go. I just know that this season needed to end about two months ago, and these guys need to get into the offseason pronto. I expect that Tad will keep the same team and put them through a bunch of offseason team building type activities, that will force them to rely on each other and force a few guys to develop as team leaders. Someone currently on the roster needs to step up and lead (assuming Fortune won't be that guy, although Carlon certainly was).

It was like watching a really bad NBA team this year that was tanking for a draft pick. I'm choosing to forget it and go into next year with a clean slate and optimism.
 
Here are a few things that drive me nuts.

When Talton (and Dom did it last night too), have a weak drive attempt and head for the basket, get cut off and go straight out of bounds and throw the ball across the paint to try and find an open man. It is just not smart basketball because they are committing to a play without having a lot of options on where to put the ball (it was like ski getting caught in mid air as a freshman).

Last night Arizona would constantly flash a big guy at the top of the key and we would always 100% of the time dribble around them to the center of the floor. We would never reverse direction, we would never pass to the big man that had set the screen for us. It made us predictable and at times, they could extend their defense to half court and attempt a trap.

There are guys that have no idea what they are doing when we attempt to do a trap. We have guys just standing around, waiting for a guy to come to them instead of attacking.
 
The thing about wes is that for 3 years, it's been said that he's had the most NBA potential on the team (and that includes 1 first round draft pick and one should-have-been first round draft pick). The fact that he's not aggressive on offense is a killer. It stuns me how passive a guy that big can be. He's the same size (ish) as tory, yet tory is 100% more agressive.

As far as effort last night, I thought tory did well (****ing fouled out in garbage time, For Fux sake). DT was aggressive as usual, and also gave up a dumb foul. I have no idea what's wrong with XT. Seems like after that utah game a year ago, he's come apart at the seams. XJ that guy should be playing way better than he is. Simple fact is he doesnt want it bad enough. When things are going well for XJ, he's fired up and ready to play and fun to watch. when things are not going well, he's not into it.

I get that these guys have a tough go. They've got a bunch of 24-54 year old morons behind computers dissecting their game 2x per week (or more) - not to mention the media - and they cant really enjoy the college life that we all did. The thing is, they knew about that coming in. Lots of these guys want to make it to the next level. There's at least 4 guys on the team right now that probably can with hard work (tory, josh, wes & XJ). They'd rather be out partying or whatever. No shame in that, it's what we all did in college, but we all werent athletes.

They just need to make choices.

One last thing. Even though the football team has been in the toilet for 10 years, they were way easier to root for (this year) than this years basketball team. they didnt ****ing quit one time this season. not once. they won 2 games, and would need to triple their win total to get to .500 (which is near where we'll be this year for bball). They were easier to root for than watching all these guys that seem to want to be 15 other places, and when they actually want to be on the court, they are too weak to take a shot to the jaw and keep fighting.
 
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Two forwards (XJ, Gordon) took a total of 3 FGs. And we wonder why Ski feels like he has to shoot every possession. Only one player in double-digits and he took 16 shots to get there. Out rebounded by 13. 57% on FT shooting. 6 assists and 12 turnovers. I mean there is definitely a bigger talent gap with AZ now but come on a lot of the above is effort (or lack thereof).
 
Gordon should be taking 5 shots a game minimum. Would like to see Miller get more minutes in these final games. He was playing hard until fouling out with a few minutes to go last night. Dom needs more minutes as well so the game slows down and learns to handle the pressure and make better decisions.

Most frustrating thing - coaches using the same defensive approach each game regardless of whether it is effective. It was obvious we couldn't compete with AZ last night night for most of the game but we didn't try anything different. How did OSU beat AZ? I am guessing it included some aggressive zone defense which we won't play since coach doesn't like it. Having JHop or Fletcher playing the top of a zone defense would put pressure on the point guard and lead to turnovers with their size and quickness.
 
tante said:
When Talton (and Dom did it last night too), have a weak drive attempt and head for the basket, get cut off and go straight out of bounds and throw the ball across the paint to try and find an open man.
Click to expand...

This is more about dom, but last night in the second half when he was driving and drove right into tarzewski and just fell over under the cup while the ball rolled out of bounds? That's a freshman move. Someone with more exprience would have kicked it out or gone up hard and tried to make the bucket. it was like dom was shocked he got cut off and didnt know what to do.
 
Another point regarding the offense and lingering questions about some recruiting:

This roster was built to score on high percentage looks out of the transition game. When you don't get stops, don't rebound and don't have guards pushing the ball (remember how Mayor used to do that after a made FT?)... you get what we have here.
 
What's the most frustrating thing about this basketball team? The fight is g...

For me, it's that CU fans were once worried that Tad Boyle might leave Boulder as a future coach at KU. Now some fans wonder if CU will support Tad if the next two seasons in Boulder are as disappointing as this one.
 
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