Alderson Broaddus Battlers

[JDonAB92]

Game is set for 4PM tomorrow. I am hoping the same guy that has been broadcasting football and basketball games the past several years will be back. Link below:

https://mountaineast.tv/aldersonbroaddus/

Hopefully we can stay in the game. Coach Dye will have to start the lineup that played most of the second half in order not to have our doors blown off.....Shriver, Walker, Bradford, Smalls and Watson. I don't even know if we can stay within 30 point margin. We didn't look like a team the other night that can handle the press. I know that starting group won't be able to.

Wrestling team split at home today beating Glenville and losing to nationally-ranked West Lib.

[crixus]

Game is set for 4PM tomorrow. I am hoping the same guy that has been broadcasting football and basketball games the past several years will be back. Link below:

https://mountaineast.tv/aldersonbroaddus/

Hopefully we can stay in the game. Coach Dye will have to start the lineup that played most of the second half in order not to have our doors blown off.....Shriver, Walker, Bradford, Smalls and Watson. I don't even know if we can stay within 30 point margin. We didn't look like a team the other night that can handle the press. I know that starting group won't be able to.

Wrestling team split at home today beating Glenville and losing to nationally-ranked West Lib.

From a 30 point margin to a 50 point loss. Yikes!

https://gobattlers.com/sports/mens-b.../boxscore/5842

[JDonAB92]

I am very concerned about the direction of the program. In particular, I am concerned about recruiting and how we recruit and whether our head man can actually recruit. I stayed off the boards two days after the debacle, unlike last year when I chimed off after a terrible home loss to Seton Hill. These debacles are occurring more frequently this season and last season. It was even worse last season when we lost to Malone twice by margins of 35 points and 20 points.....freaking Malone. And to be honest, Wheeling didn't have their full slate when we beat them. I am not going to apologize for that. We will have games without players...every one will. But they were not at full strength.

You have to be able to recruit players at this level. I questioned his hire because when he lost his main assistant at Glenville State, his talent dropped off immensely which caused him to be fired. It is well known that Justin Caldwell recruited the players at Glenville that won the MEC tourney title and went to two NCAA tournaments. Dye did a good job coaching them, but Caldwell recruited Dontae Morales, Reggie Williams and Brett Morris up there. That is a big reason why Kent McBride hired Caldwell at Cal, PA when McBride left Concord to take the job up there. That is also why Caldwell was brought back as head coach at Glenville State. People knew who brought in the players. And look at the talent Caldwell puts on the floor.

When Caldwell was an assistant up there for three seasons, they went 16-11 and 22-10 with some of the transfers & recruits he brought in. Dye went 11-19, 12-16 and 8-21 after that. Dye also went 9-19 last season and that was with Malik Bocook and Bruce Spruell. I would argue that Bocook was the 2nd best player we have had on campus in the last 10 years next to Malcolm Tatum. The coaches in the G-MAC certainly agreed as he was named 1st-team all-conference by the league coaches despite that poor record. Bocook and Spruell were brought in by Zimmerman as well as KJ Walker.

I am frustrated because I am already sick of "it is hard to get players to Philippi and Glenville". I don't want to hear that. Dave Barksdale recruited guys to AB who led AB to 2nd and 3rd place finishes in the conference and who also took East Carolina and East Tennessee State to the wire. I would add that was when Fairmont State/Joe Retton were a national power and Sedale Threatt was at WV Tech, Archie Talley at Salem, etc. This was as I-79 was under construction. Barksdale always found players. Tim Brinkley left a gold mine at AB including three-time 1st-team All-American Willie Davis. Brinkley left in the late summer of '87....three weeks after he signed Willie Davis. That team he left was picked by league coaches to finish 1st in the WVIAC.....Blackwell, Smith, Hampton, Davis, Newberry, Woodard, etc. Steve Dodd found players....brought Chris Morrow (WV state player of the year from Huntington), Ricardo Madison, Mike Burns (from Arizona State)....that group went to Kansas City in the NAIA nationals. Dodd also recruited Maurice Gandy (1st-team all conference and Street & Smith All-American pick) as well as Sean Hampton (WVIAC p.o.y.). Brett Vincent found players (albeit some with very questionable character), but he also left us McBride, Dye, Allen and Wallace. Vincent had some good wins. Zimmerman brought in four players that were eventual D2 All-Americans (Stan Hall 2nd team, Terrell Eargle 3rd team, Malcolm Tatum & Adam Kline were honorable mention) not to mention several good 1st-team all conference players (Sam Liggins, Derek Bell, Anthony Harper, Kurklin Bohanon, Nate Barnes, Ricard Lemon, Bocook etc). Zimmerman also brought in quality role players that fit....like Samario Clancy, Jimmy Williams, Adam Regula, Zack Greene, etc. I don't want to hear that you can't bring good players to Philippi. I am already sick of hearing that. How did these other coaches do that?

The last time we played West Liberty was during the last season (2012-13) of the WVIAC. We lost 92-79 to them and they were rated #1 in the country at the time and had Cedric Harris. I was at that game and looked at the stat box today. We led in the second half at 12 minute mark...after that West Lib pulled away. But it was nothing like the fiasco the other day. That team had Kurklin Bohanon (Sr), Adam Kline (Jr), Malcolm Tatum (Fr), Casey Ainsle (Sr) and Roy Brown (Sr).....pretty good lineup and had an excellent 6th man in Ali Balal along with Stu Clark, Richard Lemon and Jonathan Ferguson off the bench. We competed. We lost in OT in the last 5 seconds to Fairmont State in the semis of the WVIAC tourney. That wasn't even close to Zimmerman's best team....but they could compete and win 20 games.

This team lacks talent. There is no stud type of player that we got used to over the years. Some of the guys we have that trot out on the floor really have no business in a D2 uniform. I won't mention names. That wouldn't be fair. But recruiting takes a ton of work, a ton of connections and a ton of putting yourself out there to various high school, JUCO, D1 assistants (to land transfers) and AAU coaches. If me acting like a prick on a message board can change some things in the off-season....then so be it. Let people up there hate me at this point.

[Columbuseer]

I am very concerned about the direction of the program.
...

i am not familiar with AB basketball so I cannot comment on your concerns.
I would suggest to judge your team after its games against the rest of the league.
you have several 40+% three point shooters who can keep you in games.
coach dye had a good game plan if his players would have listened.

The wlu "style" can inflIct embarrassing defeats on otherwise solid teams. They led nation in scoring margin at 24 points.
Last year they beat Ohio Dominican by about 50 after OD had lost by two to top 10 Indianapolis. Wl won by 50 at shaw.
two years ago they scored 158 on Glenville state who tried to run with them.

At the end of last year wlu was playing at a higher level than everyone else in the MEC imho.

Finally this wlu team is more athletic than any past wlu team imho - it has essentially 10 starters. It is a perfect storm when they are on their game. They now have athletic bigs, shutdown guards and at least 3 elite level scorers.

Point is, hang in there until they play more games.

[JDonAB92]

Let me be clear: I want this program and this coach to succeed. He is an alumni, did great things as a player and I flat want the guy to succeed.

I don't question his knowledge of the game. Yes, he has shown he can coach up a squad. But these blowouts to multiple teams are starting to concern me.

Tomorrow is a new night. But UC is 0-2 after losing two games by two points. They are going to be hungry as hell tomorrow. Then Saturday is no different. WV State has Abrams and Pittman which are as talented as any.

I will also gladly eat crow if things improve. I have no problem with that.

[Columbuseer]

That is a murderers row schedule for any team! Wow!

[boatcapt]

Losing to WLU by a large margin, while embarasing, is not out of the ordinary. WLU has a way of imposing it's will on teams and finding/exploiting a teams weakness over and over again. Losing big to them doesn't necessarily mean you are a bad team...Just means that either WLU was on OR they found an exploitable weakness with AB OR a little of both.

[Scrub]

To piggyback on Boat's point, here was something I found interesting watching the game.

In the pregame coverage, there was an interview with Stephen Dye. He said the game plan was to "score early or late" in regard to the shot clock. In other words, he wanted them to get an immediate layup out of the press break if they could. Otherwise, they were to bring it back out and work clock. He said the plan was not to take any shots in the "middle 10 seconds" of the shot clock.

Within a minute of the game starting, I noticed that AB's guys were chucking up bad shots in that "middle 10 seconds." In other words, they were playing directly into what WLU wanted them to do (and precisely what they had game planned to avoid doing). The game plan was out the window before the first media time out.

But WLU's speed and pressure has a tendency to make even the best game plan go out the window really quickly--especially for a team that hasn't seen it much like AB. It's the old "everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth" idea.

It's rare for teams--and Charleston and WV State are the ones who have perhaps best internalized the message over the years--to have the discipline to pull it out and hold when that runs counter to their normal playing style. The PSAC teams have had pretty good success taking the air out of the ball against WLU, but that's a game plan they use a lot more throughout their season. MEC teams want to move quickly, so having the discipline to slow down is a rarity in our league's play. But UC and WVSU have proven it can work.

[boatcapt]

WLU is perfectly happy to trade 2's for 3's if/when you break their press. WLU uses the "short game" (defensive pressure to speed you up) to play the "long game" (tire you out and get you into playing their game). Obviously they want to turn you over with their full court press but if that doesn't work, it tends to speed teams up as they take the easy shot...WLU moves the ball up quickly into the offensive zone, runs their offense and quite often cans a 3 pretty quickly. Then the process repeats. Short game is trading 2's for 3's...long game is getting you tired and out of your game which causes you to turn the ball over/take bad shots.

Takes a REALLY diciplined team to stay out of the WLU trap.

[Columbuseer]

great insights on wlu style.
To add, All wlu players must be great shooters, dribble, pass, rebound and... they must abhor losing with nonstop motors. Year in and year out wlu shoots over 40% from three as a team!

wlu emphasizes full court games to 100 over drills. Players learn to make good decisions in real time. Practices are like wars with bodies on the floor for loose balls. Takes a special player to withstand it.

Besides defense, wlu pressures you non stop on offense by spreading the floor, rapidly passing and moving without the ball. When the legs get heavy, the fg % decreases dramatically and opposing players are slow to rotate and rebound and make mental mistakes, which leads to blackouts where wlu scores 20 points in 3 minutes. Game over.

[JDonAB92]

Women with probably the best half of basketball I have seen out of the women's team in 20 years. Down 36-31 at UC. We missed a lot of open three attempts. Still.....this is a UC team that won at Glenville State on Sunday snapping their long, home-conference winning streak. UC is athletic and it will be hard to stay with them this half....but that was some good coaching by AB's coach.

[JDonAB92]

UC women win 79-63. Too many turnovers, but other than that.....great effort! UC is just quick at all positions. But it was nice to see a women's team at AB battle to the horn. I am really anxious to see how this women's team ends up by the end of the season. I just hope we can keep the COVID away with students now back on campus.

[JDonAB92]

Pretty much the key games this season will be the home-and-home slates with:

Frostburg State
Davis & Elkins
WV Wesleyan

Those are going to critical in order for us to make the MEC tournament. We need to win 5 out of the 6 games there.

Games that are winnable but maybe long shots to win, but I give us a chance at home:

Charleston
Notre Dame
Glenville State
Concord
Wheeling

Not sure we can win many of those. I give us a chance at home because some of these teams show that they are beatable. We blew a chance on Wednesday on the road. We had it down to 3 with three minutes, but some of the mistakes are mind-boggling. We also took 2 timeouts with us to the locker room at the end of the game. I don't think we can wait in the second half to call timeout when a team takes a 2-point margin to a 13-point margin to call a timeout. I did like the fight of the kids at the end. But it was still a loss when it was very winnable. I will give credit to Dye....when he uses the dribble-drive, it does work effectively for us. That was a good in-game adjustment that got us back in the game. He used that last year to beat Kentucky Wesleyan on the road. Bradford makes a mistake here and there, but he is the best defender and knows how to create in transition.

I don't see us coming close to Fairmont, West Lib nor WV State.......State is very beatable but they have way more players than we do.

I think it would be disappointing if we don't make the MEC tournament. That would mean we couldn't finish 10th out of 12 teams. We finished 9th out of 12th last year in the G-MAC and failed to make that tournament. That league was good for teams #1-4, but after that there was not much difference between teams 5-12, and I thought that was incredibly disappointing. I am just saddened that I have to have such low expectations. It is what it is. But if we finish 11th or 12th this season, some things have to really be evaluated.

I would love to beat Poore on Saturday. Not real confident. Go Battlers!

[JDonAB92]

Fairmont State game cancelled. It must be on Fairmont's end and not AB's as our game tonight appears to still be on.

We lost one we should have won on Saturday. Guys left way too many points at the FT line. That was the game. I think Coach Dye coached a heck of a game. Good adjustments especially on defense. I hate that we lost that one. Dye does need to do better on his substitution patterns. Shriver can't play that many minutes. He needs a break. And Bradford shouldn't sit as much as he did. But the players blew chances and had the lead throughout.

It would be incredibly disappointing if we lose to Frostburg.

[Columbuseer]

Fairmont State game cancelled. It must be on Fairmont's end and not AB's as our game tonight appears to still be on.

We lost one we should have won on Saturday. Guys left way too many points at the FT line. That was the game. I think Coach Dye coached a heck of a game. Good adjustments especially on defense. I hate that we lost that one. Dye does need to do better on his substitution patterns. Shriver can't play that many minutes. He needs a break. And Bradford shouldn't sit as much as he did. But the players blew chances and had the lead throughout.

It would be incredibly disappointing if we lose to Frostburg.

Watched last part of state game. You had them on the ropes and can definitely play with wv state. Imho u need to have a shutdown defender on edwards #4 for frostburg. Great scorer and apparently has the green light to jack up shots. Big team 1-on-1 tendencies. Only 4 team assists in 95 possessions against wlu.