Originally posted by IUP24
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Joe's old school and that's not going to change. He is never going to go away from a 7-man rotation -- which is designed for 3 players to score 85-90 percent of the points. We've just watched it so long I think we've become numb to it. He's had tremendous success with it. The kryptonite, however, is the minute an injury or foul trouble happens - and he has nobody else ready to go. The Cal game was the perfect example. He was tossing guys in who hadn't played in 7 weeks and then said they needed to be ready. Hilarious.
This whole season hinged on few key moments:
* Denzel going down in camp for the season. He is a 6'4", physical guard who we never saw for even a minute. He was going to be in the rotation without question.
* Dallis going down took away a likely first-team All-West guard. Massive loss on both ends (by far IUP's best defender and perhaps best rebounder).
* The SF position was a disaster from Day 1.
* Joe's other 'splash' transfer import this past off-season was Petteno. He had a rough start at shooting guard but was eventually moved to SF to help that mess. He plays hard down there and is physical, but he's not a SF.
* Waldo going from starter to deep bench converstation piece. If he stays, IUP has to really get him bulked up a bit. To legitimately play underneath in the West he needs to put on a solid 15 pounds before next year.
This team does deserve some credit. On paper, it is not a very good team. It currently has two stars and a cast of oddly-assembled role players. Bryce Radford on occasion gives it a third star, per se, but he's been completely boom or bust. Stewart needed to play much better. Yet, they took Cal to the wire and missed a final shot to beat Gannon.
Roster-wise, Cal and Gannon just have loads more quality players. How IUP is staying in those games against them is impressive. Consider Joe just had Sarp take the final shot against Gannon. Sarp is a true freshman who was added to the roster in August. Think about that.
As a fan, the most frustrating part of the season has been watching them be so close yet so far. They've done better than I thought they would. My comment about us not seeing their best team wasn't referring to those injured. I'm referring to the current active roster. I simply cannot be convinced this team wouldn't be better with Brooks and Waldo playing. Brooks should play 25 mpg (or, until he fouls out). He just brings an element they don't have. Other teams realize it. Ours just doesn't.
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