Alderson Broaddus Basketball

[BlueBlood]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Unless I'm missing something, KWC plays everyone twice except Lake Erie and Trevecca. Lake Erie is fine...but why would they keep us and TNU from playing each other twice since we're close together (and really the only close school either of us has in the whole conference)? That doesn't make any sense to me. If we're considered travel partners I don't see why we wouldn't be always guaranteed a home/home against each other.

That doesn't make sense. I was thinking that they were trying to eliminate the two furthest (or close to it) trips for the schools on the exterior perimeter. So, LEC makes sense. I wonder if LEC is UC's travel partner (but obviously not for men's sports), causing some weirdness on the men's side.

[BlueBlood]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

The best I can tell, they have everyone paired with travel partners except OVU and LEC (for men's basketball). Those two seem to operate independently.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

What is going on at AB? Never seen a Zimmerman lead team look this bad. Is it lack of talent or is Zimmerman losing his touch?

[ABjo]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

What is going on at AB? Never seen a Zimmerman lead team look this bad. Is it lack of talent or is Zimmerman losing his touch?

Very young. And our best two young ones are off the floor. One injured, one academic.

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Truthfully I would count it as two academic that have hurt because Kevin Simmons didn't make the SAT grade from what I was told and never arrived. Not having him has hurt in multiple ways as he was going to run the point at 6'2". I will be at Shepherd on Friday so I guess will see if Bocook ever hits the floor at that time. No excuses either from me. That is on us as a program in many ways. This was never a problem in the past, but it has been the past two years. "Lost his touch" is not the issue. Recruiting kids that qualify apparently is in some aspects. I personally feel that they recruit players that can play at a high level, but in turn, we have reached on some kids that don't have the grades nor are qualified. The first half of last night was the best ball we have played this season....at least the first 16 minutes were. Wade getting hurt in the first game didn't help either. Hopefully after break, he is able to return.

I have been to two games in person; Bowie and IUP. We should have beaten IUP. But 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' doesn't get you wins. I will say we got a real bad call at IUP when we had the lead and the ball with 19 seconds left. zimmerman then got a T which didn't help, but he was right in how bad that call was. But we had other opportunities that would have salted the game away up there. Bowie was closer than the final score looked, but we lost and that is all that counts. The X's and O's are NOT losing us games and I can say that as a fact. Getting some other issues ironed out though could be valid to say. I think getting "championship' talent to Philippi every single year is now coming with risks. I am not saying I agree with that process either. But every analysis from the outside looking in is not always accurate. And in fairness, we did have to replace three 1000 point scorers from last year. And Richard Lemon did a heck of a lot more than score. And we did win 18 games last year without our best player playing the last 11 regular season games. Zimmerman gets a mulligan for what he has done with the program. And this season isn't over yet by any stretch. I witnessed this at the University of Maryland and Gary Williams. He went to seven straight Sweet 16s, two Final Fours back to back and won a natty. He did it with 3-star recruits which he was always knocked for. Then he got McDonald All-Americans after that run and he had the worst seasons he ever had as a coach (losing 1st round of NITs, discipline issues, not buying in issues, etc). He was a hard-nosed coach who was very intense and demanding. He was a great floor coach. But I always felt the All-American recruits did not like his hard-nose style. Maryland though has not looked like a well-coached team since Williams left even though the recruiting has gone up. I see some similarities at AB as SOME modern day players look like "they have to get their points" when they are out there. We have one freshman IMO that has that issue every time he comes in the game. I saw it last night on a couple of other possessions from other players. They quickly found a seat. I have seen a lot of small college coaches got thru these periods...Tom Sutherland (WV Tech), Brian Poore (WV State), Steve Cox (Concord), etc. I don't think a couple of down years means you have "lost it". That is short-sighted. The guy I saw on the sidelines coaching his a$$ off up at IUP hadn't lost it.

I would hardly call the first 16 minutes of basketball poor last night. They were prepared. We finally quit dribbling so damn much and passed the ball with effectiveness. We were patient for the good shot in that stretch. When we dribbled, we dribbled because the lane was open or we had a purpose to dribble. We did things right. We jumped out to a 40-19 lead. When you are at home, you should win at that point. My opinion is that we really lost the game in the final 4 minutes of the first half. We were outscored 13-4 in that stretch and had too many defensive breakdowns and turnovers. The last 40 seconds were bad and lost the momentum. I like Sanar as a person and as a team player. However, he tends to dribble too damn much. He needs to get the pass off quicker. He dribbled too much in that last offensive set of the first half, turned it over and they get an open 3 in transition to cut the lead from 15 to 12. We were fortunate that Glenville did not score again as we turned the ball over with 5 seconds left and gave them another look. I truly felt the game started to dwindle there. Had we kept the lead at 15 or even scored there to go up 17, I don't think we lose. The fine line of winning and losing, I guess. This team is also very guilty of giving up runs during stretches where we have too many defensive breakdowns and then go for three minutes without a bucket. It is usually a 12-0 run and you can't have that. That happened at Bowie when the game was tied with 7 or 8 minutes left. It didn't help that we only went to the line 10 times and Glenville went 27 times. Officiating didn't lose it for us, but the consistency in calls was bad. We shot 60% first half and it is obvious we weren't going to keep that up. But Zimmerman certainly had the team prepared.

On a bright note

Mitchell and Sanders are really good get from the JUCO ranks. Neither came in with any hype. Mitchell had smaller JUCO numbers than he had here. Mitchell had 14 points, 9 boards and 4 assists. He has a good basketball skill set for his size. We are running flex so bigs have to pass. Sanders is intense on defense and had 18 pts and 4 assists. He has a good shot and doesn't always settle for the 3. He has a good pull up jumper from 14-16. In all fairness, these guys were good gets and we have those two next season. They have actually progressed very well over the course of the season. And I thought Mitchell got hammered a couple of times when he received the ball in the post.

Chavez showed more aggressiveness last night. 16 points, 12 boards and 4 assists. If we could get 12 / 8 every night from him, it would help. He has another year. But he also goes from one good game to one game where he disappears. He is a junior now that needs to be more consistent. Dorrell was good too last night during stretches, but he is a lot like Chavez. Both are good team guys. Bocook is very talented. But even if he is there next week, it has been a 1 1/2 since he has played a game. Davis doesn't hurt taking that chance. We had a schollie. If he qualifys, then we bring him in and have him for two years. If he doesn't, it is no big deal as we can use it in the spring. There is no risk with him.

This was going to be a down year from the get-go, but it is a lot more down right now than I originally thought. But we have looked a whole lot better recently than we did early in the season. We just don't get a good 40 minutes at this point. That happened last night. Let's see how it plays out.

[kwcpantherfan]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Just based on the 2 games I saw AB play in here in Owensboro to open the season, the real weakness I saw was guard play. After seeing Haywood last year I expected he would be much better than he is (or at least better than he was in those 2) this season...and Shamdeen (sp?) would be an OK backup PG but just doesn't have what it takes to be the starting PG on a good team. And I mean that objectively, not trying to insult the kid by any means. On the plus side, I thought the young big man Mitchell looked very promising and will be very solid for AB over the next seasons. Sanders didn't show a ton in those early games but you could tell there's a lot of potential there, he just needs a season to develop his college level game.

[Looking For 9]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I watched last nigh and agree the guards not being able to get into offence really hurt in the second half. AB guards and small and not super fast. they have nice strong bodies and can shoot but quicker taller hurt them last night. Having said that I thought there were some really bad calls. Nothing AB players seemed okay with the refs. Standing still and get run over is blocking, standing with hands straight up is blocking, letting a player go to the basket without contact is blocking.
Can't win many games with calls like that.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I was only meaning "lost it" as a figure of speech so I apologize for the misconception as it seems JDon took it as me throwing shade to Coach Zimmerman. I would argue with anyone saying that AB isn't one of the top D2s during Gregs tenure. I was at the game Wednesday night and it's like nothing is clicking with the team. Watched them play their hearts out vs IUP and turn around the next day and and not be anywhere close to UPJ. The first 16 minutes against Glenville was their best all year and the last 24 was the complete opposite.

Mitchell is starting to look like a good get and it was great to see Chavez play with longer spurts of energy. Sanders seem like he is starting to figure things out. At times Cooper looked lost on defense and settled to 15 foot fade aways. Hopefully Bocook can get on the court against Shepherd. I've noticed no Ohndo Smith this year too, shame because if he had got himself in shape he could be a factor for AB. Simmons was not a SAT casualty. Have heard from multiple people that he tore his ACL this summer and has been rehabbing with Heath Duncan, same guy that got Tatum back on the floor last year.

Bringing championship caliber players to Philippi cannot be the easiest thing to do. Although I love the town, Philippi is run down and lacks the luster kids are looking for. It would be nice to see AB build their program like Wheeling Jesuit and West Liberty, bring in quality high school players and mold them like they did Tatum and Lemon. Transfers are usually ready to go physically but usually takes a little time getting used to a coaches way.

The future is definitely bright at AB. If Simmons was truly supposed to be the go to point guard this year then they will have him for four more years. Once Wade gets healthy and Bocook gets on the floor, there are two more capable guys to pair with Cooper, Mitchell, and Sanders

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Ok, I did take it as a shot at him. When I see a poster register and first post was that one, I thought it was a shot. I will state that I appreciate your clarification in your second post and your quality input.Only reason I took it that way is because, in my opinion, this board has become a complete mess without a true moderator. I am not talking about the AB thread, but a lot of the stuff being posted on the Midwest forum which is becoming immature, personal shots towards other schools, or other coaches, etc. I rarely get on here or read any thing other than the AB thread.

Ohndo is in school currently up there. He is in better shape than last season judging by when I saw him briefly in the fall. He had lost a lot of gut weight and put on some good upper body strength especially in the shoulders. Whether he has continued to maintain that...I do not know? I believe he will play next year. I don't know the whole story, but I believe he needs three years to graduate any ways. I do agree he could be a factor. I am not sure if he had issues with grades or not. But I know he is in school right now. I do not think he is going to play next semester from what I gather.

Ok, I could have been told wrong about Simmons. That is a shame if he got hurt because I do know that the coaches were very high on him and he has game. We are having some bad luck the past two years with injuries. Tatum, Wade and Simmons.......the Wade set back hurt because we needed him to gain game-experience in the non-conference games. He is supposed to be back on the floor next semester. I didn't think Simmons was up in school. I agree about Cooper shooting a fadeaway the other night when we had a big lead. That was not the ideal shot and he got yanked. He has a ton of talent, as I saw him play two MD JUCO games in person as I live near HCC. He does have two years with us after this season.

I agree about the IUP tourney. I wasn't there for the second game but for the life of me, I don't understand how they could go to the wire with IUP and then lose that badly to UPJ. Same happened at the crossover event. I couldn't figure those second games out in those tourneys. I know St Aug had one real good player, but still, that was a game I thought we would win. I don't mean this as any knock on Sanar as I know he is a quality kid, good attitude, first-in-the-gym-last-one-out and all that. He gave us some good games last year too....real good games (Bowie, Trevecca). But it just seems he is undersized and not nearly as athletic as AB point guards of the past. Greg always had and developed good point guards here. He inherited Rudy Wallace for his first season, he had BJ Blake for one season, he then recruited Derek Bell who was very good for three years. When Bell graduated, we had Terrell Eargle on campus and was groomed and became an All-American and a great 4-year player. We went two years with Carl Buck who was ok before Nate Barnes ran the point for his senior year. We then had Tatum who started all four years. Even if Bocook and Wade get out there, I don't know if it solves every issue this season.

I can state for a fact that we have recruited high school kids hard. Three years ago, we had Wes Mitchem who was a 1st-team AAA all-state player from Parkersburg South. He quit after a couple weeks of practice. Tyler Sprouse who was a 1st-teamer from Bridgeport, played for a semester and got some decent time, but left because he felt a call to ministry (which I don't fault him for). We have offered several WV players already. One now appears will go small D-I and the other committed to UC. Francis from Beckley was on campus last month and came up for the elite camp. I have always felt Greg has done very well with WV kids (Josh Allen, Stephen Dye, Kevin McBride, Zach Green, Adam Kline). I know he recruits them. I am a little surprised that some don't have as much interest in playing at AB with his track record of developing WV kids into quality D2 players. Heck, even the Novotney kid from tiny South Harrison HS was a key 6th man on the 2006 team that went to the regional final at Barton. To each his own. We did bring in quite a few high school kids the last two years.

I agree the first 16 minutes were good and then it fell down after that against Glenville. It seemed many of the guys forgot what got them the lead. Shepherd has played competitive basketball against some good teams, and it will be tough to get a victory unless this team comes out strong. I will be there and see what happens.

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I just wanna thank god, my family and friends for the support. I'm back on the court Friday!!!🏀🙏🏼🎒

— Malik Bocook (@MalikBocook) December 13, 2016

We needed some good news. Let's see what happens. It can't hurt as I personally thought he was our best player going into the season.

[Looking For 9]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

One good player would have made a difference in some of your games. Glad for your good news.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Good to see Malik will be on the court. I think with the addition of him and getting Wade back at some point, AB could make a late season push. I think Kentucky Wesleyan is the clear cut favorite but they don't look to be invincible. With the Trevecca win last night that might give them some confidence moving forward. Cedarville and D&E are both solid teams and you can never count out AB. Shaping up to be an interesting year of league play

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I was at Shepherd last night. We needed a win, but that was a good road win over a team with a winning record that had played some good teams and has some quality wins.

We started off slow the first eight minutes. I guess you could attribute that to finals ending Wednesday. Shepherd had been done since last week and was able to get a game in earlier this week. I thought both teams were well coached. I have a lot respect for Coach Namolik. He does a good job and ran some good stuff on both ends last night. He needs to have a couple of more scholarships to compete at the top level in the MEC. He always has them competitive around 5th to 7th place in that league.They had beaten an East Stroudsburg team that is undefeated at 5-0 in the PSAC, beat Glenville, trounced Wesleyan. They only lost by 3 up at West Lib. He has some players.

Malik Bocook is a real difference maker. I didn't realize how good of a defensive player he was. He shut down Naim Muhammed last night holding him to 1 point; coming in he avg 13 ppg. That was huge. We had tons of trouble with AJ Carr all night. He is a difficult matchup for us. Interesting enough, Zimmerman played Bocook on Carr the last ten minutes and it made a big difference. He overplayed Carr and denied the pass so that he didn't get the ball. I really thought Carr had more than 18 points and least it seemed that way. The only time Carr scored on Malik was when Malik hedged on the screen off the PG dribble. That shook Carr off on a switch. Other than that, it showed how athletic of a defender Malik is.

We shook the lineup: moved Sanders to PG, Malik and Foster on the wings, Harper and Mitchell at the forwards. Mitchell played very little as he had a hard time matching up. Cooper came off the bench and was sensational in all aspects. He was aggressive on defense. He took good shots and really hit a nice stride. Haywood played excellent off the bench. He did miss two easy layups. But he hit some nice shots and got a couple of good steals. He also had some nice assists. Sanar played well in the 1st half off the bench. Sanders hit some nice shots as time was winding down on the shot clock. Moving him to point allows him to screen away from the ball on the first pass. He also enable him to then come on screen action later in the motion. Shepherd played tough defense all game. We had to work in the half-court set and I thought did our best job of executing in the half-court sets.

Malik started the game on offense like he hadn't played in a year-and-a-half. He forced some bad stuff, didn't pass when he should, had some bad turnovers, etc. He got yanked after about five minutes. He got back in and hit a couple of easy shots. The second half, he looked more comfortable. He had a ton of steals as he is very quick. He had some bad turnovers but most of that was early. He compliments Cooper and Sanders well and helps to free them up. He draws the best defender off the other team which seemed to helped Cooper. Malik has huge upside for us for the next four years. He has the chance to be really special. This was his first game while the opposition players had a ton of game experience. As his outside shot improves, he will have a pretty tough skill set at this level as he has good ball-handling skills for a guy his size. He had a steal and breakaway slam to put us up 65-51.

We did a good job hitting FTs last night. I thought our reboudning was really sub-par and kept Shepherd in the game in the 2nd half. Shepherd was aggressive and rebounding was one area where we were bad last night. We also had some bad turnovers that are going to plague us if some better decision-making does not take place on the floor. The guys played incredibly hard and we were the better team. Namolik really made some nice adjustments at halftime to get Steff Davis open looks. We were up 6 at half and SU came out after the half and ran to back-to-back double-screens to get Davis open. He has great range. Disappointing is that a couple of times we back off of him in space and he shot it from 22 which you can't let him. We also didn't switch off when they flare-screened for him. We switch when it is a guard to guard screen. Carr and Davis are excellent players to their credit. SU ran some good stuff for Davis to have him post up or cut against our smaller guards. Shutting down Muhammed was the difference as he has been a solid player for them for years. This was the second time I saw SU live. I saw them earlier in a loss to Wheeling. It was a back-and-forth game until five minutes left. It was a 1-pt game as I recall at that time. Again, Wheeling had better depth that helped them down the stretch.

Getting Malik out there, gives us more depth. We were able to make good subs when Rams subbed that were good matchups on the floor defensively. Foster has to be more consistent. He has some talent but needs to hit some more shots. We won without any thing from Mitchell last night. It was just a match up thing with him last night. Sanders gets more impressive as the season progresses and allows Sanar to be a quality reserve which suits him better.

We have a lot of improvement to work towards. I saw a ton of upside, more than earlier in the season. I am interested to see if Mike Davis arrives on campus after break. Having Simmons out with an injury hurt us, but Sanders seems like a good get. We should be getting Ja'Darien back after break. We start working him in the rotation and February could be better than expected.

Next game is at home against #13 Wheeling Jesuit. A tough opponent, but it will have us better for conference play.

[Looking For 9]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Cream usually comes to the top. TNU,CU,AB,KW all getting better.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I'm excited to see how the game on Friday turns out. Love Wheeling Jesuits program and it will be good to see how AB looks against a high ranked opponent