West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[boatcapt]

He has stated in interviews that he turned down d1 offers to sign with west liberty. In the post game interview he said he wants to lead wlu to a national title. Announcers said we are getting an even better person than a basketball player.

Hope he shows at WLU...Just a little gun shy after a couple of highly touted players decommitted.

[Columbuseer]

Let's hope he lives up to his commitment! We've been burned a couple of times by players having big senior seasons in HS decommitting believing they were bound for D1 stardom at a P5 program. Hopefully HIS advisors have more commonsense!!

He has stated in interviews that he turned down d1 offers to sign with west liberty. In the post game interview he said he wants to lead wlu to a national title. Announcers said we are getting an even better person than a basketball player.

[boatcapt]

FYI
looking ahead to next year- we are getting an incredible point guard in Dante Spadafora from PA. That guy has the highest, non stop motor I have seen in quite a while. 100% effort until buzzer regardless of the score.

Defeated #2 in 3A aliquippa 77-39. His team is #1 in smaller 2A.
Dante got player of the game and is interviewed after the game.

https://olshathletics.org/sports/201...s-network.aspx

Let's hope he lives up to his commitment! We've been burned a couple of times by players having big senior seasons in HS decommitting believing they were bound for D1 stardom at a P5 program. Hopefully HIS advisors have more commonsense!!

[Columbuseer]

FYI
looking ahead to next year- we are getting an incredible point guard in Dante Spadafora from PA. That guy has the highest, non stop motor I have seen in quite a while. 100% effort until buzzer regardless of the score.

Defeated #2 in 3A aliquippa 77-39. His team is #1 in smaller 2A.
Dante got player of the game and is interviewed after the game.

https://olshathletics.org/sports/201...s-network.aspx

[Columbuseer]

I would say to othee teams, be careful what you learn from a WLU loss and duplicatcate at your own risk. WLU will have little hiccups during the year but thats usually because we vear from what bring us here. Over the years, it seems like WLU has only one real achilese heal...that being the other team having a dominant big man. We may lose a game here and a game there when we get away from the WLU style, but losing to a dominant big seems to be a constant.

Yep, big man plus great shooting guard for kick out when we double the big... like shippensburg and sleva in the past.

however, things are changing. Just give Owen and Elijah some time... Owen is in gym at 8 am every morning with Dalton working on his own to get better. His three point shooting will cause bigs trouble.

[boatcapt]

I would say to othee teams, be careful what you learn from a WLU loss and duplicatcate at your own risk. WLU will have little hiccups during the year but thats usually because we vear from what bring us here. Over the years, it seems like WLU has only one real achilese heal...that being the other team having a dominant big man. We may lose a game here and a game there when we get away from the WLU style, but losing to a dominant big seems to be a constant.

[Columbuseer]

When WLU plays it's game, it is beautiful. But what we forget is that everything is interconnected. Mess with one part and it has a ripple effect that effects the other parts in unintended ways. Playing dribble drive seems like a small thing, but when one of our players does that, it gives the other four defenders a moment to rest. Same with not making that extra pass or not pressuring quite as hard as you should in the press. Gives the other team a moment to rest. Seems like small, insignifigant things but when you add them up over the course of a half or game it gives the other team a little more air in their lungs and jump in their jump shot. Add in trading 2 for 2 vice 3 for 2 and it can bight you...like it did at Concord.

[boatcapt]

Great points boat. I thought we were making the extra pass against frostburg. It was beautiful basketball. If we can maintain that level of play, we could go deep in the tourney.

When WLU plays it's game, it is beautiful. But what we forget is that everything is interconnected. Mess with one part and it has a ripple effect that effects the other parts in unintended ways. Playing dribble drive seems like a small thing, but when one of our players does that, it gives the other four defenders a moment to rest. Same with not making that extra pass or not pressuring quite as hard as you should in the press. Gives the other team a moment to rest. Seems like small, insignifigant things but when you add them up over the course of a half or game it gives the other team a little more air in their lungs and jump in their jump shot. Add in trading 2 for 2 vice 3 for 2 and it can bight you...like it did at Concord.

[Columbuseer]

Great points boat. I thought we were making the extra pass against frostburg. It was beautiful basketball. If we can maintain that level of play, we could go deep in the tourney.

[boatcapt]

My real issue is how we are processing the game shot selection wise. Years past players who maybe weren't hitting from 3 but faced with a somewhat contested, but still makeable 3 would pass to a more open player or close the distance to the basket and pullup and take a shorter (and more makable) intermediate jumper. This year it seems like it is an all or nothing thing...either take somewhat contested 3 or take it all the way inside on the dribble. That last pass or intermediate range jumper seems to have left the Toppers inventory of things to do.

I hope we get things figured out because what I saw against Concord and in at least one of the other games will not get us very far in the NCAA tourney which is now between 12 and 14 games away.

[Scrub]

The slump I'm most worried about right now is Will Yoakum. One could have argued that by the end of last year that he was the BEST player on the team (which is saying quite a lot on a team that has Bolon and Robinson).

But so far this year, Yoakum has looked really off (both behind the arc and going to the rim).

Howlett must agree that he's off, too. If you notice, when the game was on the line last night and WLU was pulling within 2, Yoakum was on the bench and Butler was on the floor. WLU is much more dangerous when teams have to pick their poison between shutting down Bolon, Robinson, AND Yoakum. Without Yoakum clicking, WLU is significantly less dangerous than they could be.

[Columbuseer]

WLU's style is much more than the quality of the players running it. It is a prescription for beating better and more gifted athletic teams. But it comes at a cost...that cost being commitment and practice. You can't just flip a switch and turn this style on. It takes practice, practice, practice for a team to be effective at it. As a team, when you spend half your time running a dribble drive offense and the other half running the WLU style, the effectiveness of the WLU style is going to become dramatically less effective. IMHO, you can run an effective dribble drive offense on an as needed basis...Same can not be said about the WLU style. Try to do both and we will fail.

is your statement about half dribble drive in practice hypothetical or just conjecture? I have attended practices and I have seen nothing but the wlu style. Now one might have a difference of opinion on a player's judgment on a specific play, but that is not uncommon.
regarding 3 pt percentage, we have had two games in the 20s and 2 in the 40s and one in the thirties as a team. definitely streaky. Some great shooters are going through horrendous slumps so we have wide variation in individual shooting %. Four are over 46%, with Patrick leading the way at 54%. He was over 50% much of last year before tailing off to 44%. Other elite 3 point shooters from last year are struggling. It may be that teams are focusing on stopping the three, but they have to give patrick room because of his first step to the rim. they will get the shooting fixed.

[boatcapt]

Despite losing last night's game, I think it is prudent for all of us to remember how blessed we are to have better athletes who can dribble drive AND shoot the three. Our best athletes are also some of our best 3 point shooters. We no longer have to rely on the three.

In past years, we had few players who were shutdown defenders against talented guards. We had few players who could stop a talented big man inside. On offense, they had to rely on the three point shot because they had limited dribble drive capability. If we were not getting points off turnovers or making our threes, we nearly always lost (Concord beat us in Athens when we were #1 in the country). Also, when our legs were tired on the 2nd or 3rd day of a tourney, our three point accuracy declined, we did not get many rebounds and we were in jeopardy of losing the game.

Already this year, we have won games because of athletic ability on offense and defense when we were not shooting well, due to generating turnovers and offensive rebounding.

IMHO, for us to make a run at the national title, we had to recruit better athletes who:
- play shutdown defense against talented scorers
- Score when we are not making threes.
- Generate turnovers
- Defend bigs
- Control the glass to get second shots

With this year's team, we have far more weapons and options than we have ever had and we are 10 deep. When we have players who can score in so many different ways, it is a learning process to choose the best way to score for the team (especially when our players are tempted by the fact that they are far more talented than the opponent guarding them). I think that is why players sometimes revert to familiar (but bad) habits of trying to create their shot rather than let the ball movement enable them to get an easy shot with an and-one.

The WLU style is so much different than playing years of AAU ball, so it is a big adjustment to trust the WLU process in a tough game. I think this loss can prove to be very beneficial, long term.

WLU's style is much more than the quality of the players running it. It is a prescription for beating better and more gifted athletic teams. But it comes at a cost...that cost being commitment and practice. You can't just flip a switch and turn this style on. It takes practice, practice, practice for a team to be effective at it. As a team, when you spend half your time running a dribble drive offense and the other half running the WLU style, the effectiveness of the WLU style is going to become dramatically less effective. IMHO, you can run an effective dribble drive offense on an as needed basis...Same can not be said about the WLU style. Try to do both and we will fail.

[boatcapt]

All though 3 pt shooting % is an important measure, there are other things that tell the 3 point story of a team. Things like quanty of shots and when those shots are taken are equally important. Comparing WLU's first half 3 pt shooting from last seasons first five games to this seasons first five:

Last Year This Year
Shooting % .393 .289
Avg # of tries 16.8 13.8
Avg # of shots made 6.6 4

Long and short, we are shooting the 3 in the first half MUCH worse this year than last, we are taking fewer 3 point shots and obviously are making considerably fewer. Bottom, bottom line is that we are scoring 8 fewer first half points off of 3's than they were at the same time last season.

And it's not like we are killing it from 3 in the second half either.

[Columbuseer]

Despite losing last night's game, I think it is prudent for all of us to remember how blessed we are to have better athletes who can dribble drive AND shoot the three. Our best athletes are also some of our best 3 point shooters. We no longer have to rely on the three.

In past years, we had few players who were shutdown defenders against talented guards. We had few players who could stop a talented big man inside. On offense, they had to rely on the three point shot because they had limited dribble drive capability. If we were not getting points off turnovers or making our threes, we nearly always lost (Concord beat us in Athens when we were #1 in the country). Also, when our legs were tired on the 2nd or 3rd day of a tourney, our three point accuracy declined, we did not get many rebounds and we were in jeopardy of losing the game.

Already this year, we have won games because of athletic ability on offense and defense when we were not shooting well, due to generating turnovers and offensive rebounding.

IMHO, for us to make a run at the national title, we had to recruit better athletes who:
- play shutdown defense against talented scorers
- Score when we are not making threes.
- Generate turnovers
- Defend bigs
- Control the glass to get second shots

With this year's team, we have far more weapons and options than we have ever had and we are 10 deep. When we have players who can score in so many different ways, it is a learning process to choose the best way to score for the team (especially when our players are tempted by the fact that they are far more talented than the opponent guarding them). I think that is why players sometimes revert to familiar (but bad) habits of trying to create their shot rather than let the ball movement enable them to get an easy shot with an and-one.

The WLU style is so much different than playing years of AAU ball, so it is a big adjustment to trust the WLU process in a tough game. I think this loss can prove to be very beneficial, long term.