What? That 4-on-5 you speak of was a huge complaint among fans with Octeus. I don't see it with PJ as he has been a threat. The only thing Octeus had on PJ was his defense and PJ has had some pretty solid games on that end as well.
Lack of atheleticism
- Thread starter Boilermaker
- Start date
You are referring to NBA level athleticism. I am referring to college level athleticism. He is a good athlete for college.
Ah, but Lawson had elite athleticism, compared to Swanigan. Swanigan's skills are off the chart by comparison. The question was, athleticism or skill?
All of the Purdue players are good athletes.
Shooting is not the only skill. Yes, Octeus was athletic but he was also skilled. I consider rebounding, defensive ability, court vision, basketball IQ and effort level to be skills as well. Octeaus had all of these.
Agree to disagree...as that was never a complaint with Octeus (nor should have been).
A threat in what regard? He can knock down an open three more often than not, but that is it.
Octeus had scoring, rebounding and defense on Thompson...in fact, the only thing that Thompson has on Octeus is that he does not turn the ball over as much, and per what I said, it is because he does very little with the ball that would lead to him turning it over.
Well, you remember Octeus as an offensive weapon and I guess I don't. His average was a point highe than PJ so I don't really see an advantage there. When you add in the assist to turnover ratio, I have PJ with an advantage.
PJ had been getting to the rim lately and has hit several runners in the lane, so he isn't just a threat to shoot anymore. When you figure in that this team has more scorers than the Octeus team, that single point difference could be argued as less than what PJ does on offense.
I think you may just be undervaluing PJ on defense as well. I can think of a few games where PJ was a huge part of why we won, I struggle to remember Octeus having that affect. Outside of the dunk at IU, I remember a lot of driving into defenders ala RJ from Octeus and the lack of an outside shot, so much so people were saying he shouldn't be on the floor at the same time as Ray as that left us 3-5. Funny how different perspectives lead to opposite opinions on here. But I personally am pleased with what PJ brings to the team and wouldn't trade him for Octeus at this point.
That is not true. Swanigan is a good athlete for his position. PJ is not a good athlete for his position. Swanigan has both skill and athleticism, which is why he is a first team All-American and not an appropriate player to use for this comparison.
My overall belief is that we lack athleticism at the guard position and that will limit our success of winning the B1G or a deep tourney run. That's why we do well against teams with less athletic guards (Wisconsin) and struggle against teams with good guards (Minnesota, Louisville, UALR, etc.). Hard to believe that anyone who has watched all of our games this year would have a different opinion. In my opinion, many will incorrectly blame Painter's in game coaching. Kind of like last year when we couldn't beat the press - we just didn't have the players to do it. I believe Painter was employing the correct strategy to beat the press - but people flipped out on his coaching when someone would press us and come back to win.
We will not have the kind of success many are hoping for until we improve the level of athleticism at the guard position. The good news is we seem to be moving in the right direction with Carsen and Nojel.
I somewhat disagree about Biggie's athleticism but it's not a yes or no absolute. It's all good.
The rest of your post is spot on imo. I think we need to increase the athleticism across the board but again that's picking. I think Painter is aware of it and is trying to do it.
If people really compare what we put on the court to other successful teams in terms of athleticism they would see it's not even close. Dakota, Cline, PJ, Haas.......even Vince.........we are not quick, not great leapers, not very long, on and on. We HAVE to execute to win, to overcome the gap between our athletes and theirs.
Before someone says it, yes, Painter recruited these guys and he is responsible for our personnel. I would add that if you look at the players we missed out on, athleticism wouldn't be a problem. Again, still on Painter.
here's my naive question,
if it's primarily about athletic guard play now,
what do we do for our next round of big men?
just haarms type? no big bruiser?
with the ebb and flow of different styles of play, rule changes, etc,
how do we avoid being a year or two behind in desired roster makeup?
(we used to lack the size, rebounding, etc, and now that we seem to have it, we are too slow, unathletic for current style of play)
if it's primarily about athletic guard play now,
what do we do for our next round of big men?
just haarms type? no big bruiser?
with the ebb and flow of different styles of play, rule changes, etc,
how do we avoid being a year or two behind in desired roster makeup?
(we used to lack the size, rebounding, etc, and now that we seem to have it, we are too slow, unathletic for current style of play)
I know people like to knock our teams athleticism, but it's not that we trot out a bunch of plodding football lineman, nor do I think the only way to break a press is with ultra quick guards. I've seen all sorts of well coached teams break a press with proper floor spacing and movement. Let's face it, we not only couldn't break a press last year, we looked embarrassingly unprepared to do it.
I've not seen every team play this year, but 2 that I have seen that I would say don't scream athleticism and are doing awful well are Butler & ND. I wouldn't bet against either of those 2 making a nice tourney run, and apologize to both now for jinxing them.
I'm on record as saying we have a talented team, and your recruiting statement leaves me most perplexed. We've missed out more athletic players and instead replaced them with unathletic players unable to play our defensive system or be taught to beat a press. If that's what your saying, that screams incompetency doesn't it?
I don't know what that screams.........I didn't say it. You created the narrative, not me.
Butler's a good team. I think they are more athletic than us but it's subjective, not gonna argue about it. Feel the same about ND, but we beat them. Not really sure what point you're trying to make here.
I didn't say anything about a press. ?
Since you asked, our team is doing just fine against the press this year.
I think our mostly unathletic team has done pretty well defensively. We have had some poor games to be sure, the last one was probably the worst. Considering what we lost defensively, this team is coming along. Still a ways to go.
Everyone here says we struggle against quick, athletic guards. I happen to agree. We have to get better through execution and effort......... because we can't match up athletically.
I'll tell you what it screams, it screams I posted under your post instead of the one I wanted to by Cevol03! Guess I'm the incompetent one!
Not to mention we went years with people complaining we don't have size. Now we've had size and they want fast, athletic players. Gah.
I believe you were addressing my post. What is perplexing about my statement on recruiting? You actually summed it up pretty well - "we've missed out on more athletic players and instead replaced them with unathletic players". Seems pretty simple to me. I never said Painter was an ace recruiter. All I said was that many Purdue fans blame his in-game coaching for problems that are really created by having a slew of unathletic guards. This manifests itself in many ways, such as guards not being able to create their own shots and struggling to contain dribble drive. Those things are not coaching problems, those are recruiting problems. And ultimately Painter is responsible for that but the way Purdue fans misdiagnose this drives me crazy. The good news is that we are correcting that problems with Carsen, Nojel, and hopefully Wheeler.
I got it, you separate the different aspects of the job and are more concerned with people
misdiagnosing coach's game day coaching with the recruiting aspect. I agree that unathletic guards have trouble creating their own shot, still think coach could try a few tweaks in regards to stopping dribble drive, but that's just my opinion. And it wasn't just Joks 28pts that frustrated me, it was his getting 6 more assists than he normally averages by simply feeding his big men after they rolled to the basket after setting a pick for him for a layup/dunk/ or foul. Surely we could adjust to that as the game rolls along. Finally, I don't think you need 1 guard Curly Nealing his way down court to beat the press. When teams threw the press at us last year, we looked god awful. I think that's coaching. Anyway, here's to a great effort and big win tonight.
I will offer a dissenting opinion. We did not lose because we are not as athletic as them at several positions. We lost because we did not play like the smarter more experienced team that we should have been. Around the ten minute mark of the second half we fell so deeply in love with the jump shot that the ball almost never entered the post. This boiled to a head around the 3:00 minute mark when Biggie had a caniption on the court. Unfortunately the damage was done and we let it slip away.
Yes they are more athletic. We are bigger and more physical inside. They used their advantage while we abandoned ours.
Yes they are more athletic. We are bigger and more physical inside. They used their advantage while we abandoned ours.
I, for one, am not blaming the loss to lack of athleticism. Just we lack it as a whole and we have to execute and outwork teams to overcome it against many teams.
I have no problem with your reason for the loss. I have said we definitely lost patience and took the threes without probing the defense. Ironically, Iowa's poor zone defense may have helped them in that they were giving us mostly open threes and we took the first shot instead of working for a better one. If we make our normal percentage we probably win the game. Didn't happen.
Our second half three point percentage is lower than the first by a decent margin IIRC. That may be part of the reason we are trying to get some guys more rest, fresher legs in the second half.
Would you rather have Big Dog or Travis Carroll? You can make these analogies as ridiculous as you want if your desire is to just engage in an on-going pissing match rather than have intelligent discussions. Clearly no one would want Ronnie Johnson for a variety of reasons, but not because he was not athletic enough. TC - I think you are becoming the Skip Bayless of this board!
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No, it's still a coaching problem because players that might be marginal or average athletes can still have their weaknesses limited and their strengths shine if put in positions to do so by their coaches (on the defensive end, as much as anything else).
If you want to say it's only a recruiting problem, that's still on the coaches because recruiting is one major aspect of coaching, along with in-game coaching, etc.
Given that I was citing Ronnie Johnson as the athletic comparison and you were arguing that he was athletic, I think it's clear that you don't understand the conversation.
Ronnie Johnson is a poor example to use because he was such a head case that it doesn't matter if he was athletic or skilled, which was the original discussion. If Ronnie had a good head on his shoulders, he would have been a really good player for us and a good example of why you need good athletes at the guard position. But he had a major other issues, and to try to use him to prove your point makes no sense. It is actually just distracting from the original conversation, which makes me think you just love engaging in pissing matches.
You're the one turning it into a pissing match. If you think Ronnie Johnson was a bad example because he was a head case, just say that. Keep in mind that you're the one that tried to label me without stating your case. That makes you the problem in trying to have the "intelligent discussion" that you claim you desire.
Could it be a Purdue played poorly in this game problem?
And before you tell me it is still coaching remember that ALL teams are up and down in terms of execution even with elite coaches. Is Iowa better than Illinois? Probably. Last I saw though they were getting embarrassed by NW. You are ignoring the fact that kids are inconsistent to support your anti coach narrative.
You surely aren't claiming that TC was more skilled than GRob. Again, the discussion was about skill vs. athleticism.
No, I was showing that some analogies are not appropriate to use for this discussion. You surely knew that, so why play dumb?
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