Iup basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

For many reasons, tonight is the biggest game of Joe's season.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

What’s strange is that when Crutchfield was at West Liberty few, if any, dealt with that style of play better than Joe did. Obviously his teams were much better then, but there also seemed to be a plan to deal with those teams, which seems to be sorely lacking since Gannon adopted that approach.

I thought about that yesterday.

The differences I came up with:

Joe had several physical PGs. Chance, for example, was 5'11" but extremely physical.

His other guards in that era were also in the 6'5" range (Brandon Norfleet, etc.). It's much easier to trap 6'0" (or shorter) guards.

His post players in that era were far superior (Webb, Daddy, etc.). They were extremely more aggressive and much more physical.


Was Joe, too, a little more innovative in his younger years? Perhaps.


But, here's the other thing: Cal BEAT Gannon a week ago with (6) guys. That's it. Six players got on the floor. Danny does the 100 percent polar opposite attack than Joe does. Joe should study what Cal does against Gannon.

Millersville (a team Joe beat fairly easily) lost to Gannon, 74-70.

Gannon is good but shouldn't be embarrassing IUP (as noted in those results).

Joe has to change how he plays them. It clearly doesn't work with his current rosters and strategies.

He's had a post player issue for awhile now, which also isn't helping.

Put it this way ... they keep playing them like they did yesterday and they'd lose 50 out of 50.

[Chuck Norris]

Commentary: They (still) can't break a trapping press. Their press break is custom-made to work against them. They intentionally inbound slowly and then pass to coffin corner.

The end.

Watch WL play Nova.

The ball is inbounded in a second. Joe let's the trapping team set up.

This is clear as day. How they don't try something different is mind-boggling.

Being it's on film, it's a wonder every team doesn't trap them.

What’s strange is that when Crutchfield was at West Liberty few, if any, dealt with that style of play better than Joe did. Obviously his teams were much better then, but there also seemed to be a plan to deal with those teams, which seems to be sorely lacking since Gannon adopted that approach.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IUP will have a good record at the end of the year, but will have no chance of pushing the top teams. They still don’t have an impactful inside presence and haven’t had one since Tomiwa Sulaiman was on campus. Ethan Porterfield was a scoring presence, but not the type of physical player I’m talking about. IUP also lacks quality depth. They don’t have the ingredients to make any type of meaningful run and it shows against good teams. I’ll let others offer commentary on the coaching.

Commentary: They (still) can't break a trapping press. Their press break is custom-made to work against them. They intentionally inbound slowly and then pass to coffin corner.

The end.

Watch WL play Nova.

The ball is inbounded in a second. Joe let's the trapping team set up.

This is clear as day. How they don't try something different is mind-boggling.

Being it's on film, it's a wonder every team doesn't trap them.

[gman16506]

IUP will have a good record at the end of the year, but will have no chance of pushing the top teams. They still don’t have an impactful inside presence and haven’t had one since Tomiwa Sulaiman was on campus. Ethan Porterfield was a scoring presence, but not the type of physical player I’m talking about. IUP also lacks quality depth. They don’t have the ingredients to make any type of meaningful run and it shows against good teams. I’ll let others offer commentary on the coaching.

Good points! Gannon outrebounded IUP by 12 and it didn't seem that close. IUP didn't seem to have an answer for Idiaru who may be a bigger factor in Gannon's season than I ever thought. And a question to the IUP fan base.......does Merraro try to do too much himself against the press? Seems to me he attempts to go one-on-one too much against the trap-press and gets hung up by the double.

[EyeoftheHawk]

IUP will have a good record at the end of the year, but will have no chance of pushing the top teams. They still don’t have an impactful inside presence and haven’t had one since Tomiwa Sulaiman was on campus. Ethan Porterfield was a scoring presence, but not the type of physical player I’m talking about. IUP also lacks quality depth. They don’t have the ingredients to make any type of meaningful run and it shows against good teams. I’ll let others offer commentary on the coaching.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

There's no point in analyzing that debacle.

But, last year fans at least expected it.

Today was probably the most disappointing performance by an IUP team in at least 30 years.

A coach cannot talk about learning from it when the exact same thing happened 10 months ago. Nothing was learned from it.

Gannon was without a starter today, too.

IUP can't play them slow. That's now (8) straight losses against up-tempo teams. Just about all of them have come by double digits margins. The last two have been 30-ish burgers.

Today would have been worse had Gannon not called off the dogs the last 3-4 minutes.

IUP was beat and bullied under the basket today in a manner I've never seen. Check out the box score. Making matters worse, Bautista Rodriguez went down with what appeared to be a knee injury. It was wrapped after the game and he was hobbling pretty good while walking.

If something doesn't change, stylistically and strategically, we're just going to see this same movie - yet again - when they play in late February.

This is a dark day for the program. I sure hope the team bounces back.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Good Lord


Unless Joe changes he'll get blown out every game against them until he retires.

This is just awful.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

It took a half but the broadcast is fixed.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Love a broadcast with no announcers, no score and awful camera work.

Really great to watch

[IUPbigINDIANS]

This may get ugly

[IUPbigINDIANS]

No score graphic or announcer. Good luck if you didn’t tune in at the very start. Or if you’re bad at math.

Joe looks lost as usual against this system.

[Chuck Norris]

No score graphic or announcer. Good luck if you didn’t tune in at the very start. Or if you’re bad at math.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IUP can be top level skilled but to win this game you have to have a level of toughness to go with that skill. That's how you take out a bully.

My educated guess is Joe's inbound will be the same - custom-designed to 'get' trapped all day.

His own 1-2-2 press will be ineffective.

Now, they do have a player (redshirted) who has played two years in the trap system. Here's to praying he showed Joe how to better handle it.

His slow approach in the last 7 games (0-7) hasn't worked.

It won't today, either.

The crew is huge. The trapping team loves to grab, hold and hook. If they call all that stuff, IUP has a shot.

[IUPalum]

I'd set the line around Gannon -7.5 in the Men's game.

IUP just struggles in some areas you can't struggle against that system.

Hope I'm wrong but I think that's a pretty accurate betting line.

IUP can be top level skilled but to win this game you have to have a level of toughness to go with that skill. That's how you take out a bully.