His health both mental and physical is Most important right now!! Arrogance won't kill a locker room.... In fact confidence, cocky, arrogant, better than me attitude works on the court and in the locker room! Guys feed off of that... Offensive basketball is about confident mentality. I know I can find my shot, or beat you every time I get the rock. Defense is work ethic, being in sync with your teammates, and thinking the game at all times. Not being apart of the team is what you see from Riley at the moment. He's disconnected and not at all in tune with his teammates. MH laughing with a teammate, while RK looks like his dog just passed away is just rough to see. He's a great talent, but that gets you so far in College athletics. Everyone is talented!! Taking a break and stepping away might benefit him in the long run? Something isn't working, and mid season is hard to fix chemistry issues for a staff. How anyone could blame TG and say he needs to coach him to be the best RK can be?? Brother, (or Sister) that's up to him!! Go Gators
The word you should be using is "conjecture" and not "fiction". Otherwise, you are claiming to be the keeper of the truth. And as we all know, this is a group who choose to espouse their opinions...including you. And you also know what they say about opinions.
Kugel seems to have lost his handle. Whenever he gets the ball on the wing, it looks like he's pausing before trying to drive and it's allowing his defender to get in better position. If he gets cut off on his first move, he's not continuing through contact and stops looking to attack. He should be a terror in transition but he's not pressing his defender and continuing to the rim.
What I see (and not necessarily a fact) is he gets the ball, he realizes he is auditioning for a first round draft selection, he sizes up what is in front of him, continues to try to figure out what will make the talent evaluators go "wow!", does "something" regardless of what actually is in front of him, and if what he decides to do did not turn out as he planned, he makes a mistake and gets into an emotional funk, because too many folks expect great things from him. And it affects him moving forward. I like the line about lock-down cornerbacks: everyone is going to get burned, you just have to drop it and move on. He clearly has not learned to move on.
The kid is fighting through issues we know nothing about. Either he’ll figure it or his minutes will keep dropping. And as his minutes and production drop, it’s likely his seemingly already fragile confidence will drop. I too feel sorry for him but he’s the only one who can get inside his own head.
he's just better as the lone alpha. Too much talent on this team and he hasn't found his place yet, either overthinking and trying to do too much or being passive and not doing enough. If I were him I'd focus on becoming a defensive stopper, really buying in at that end of the floor. Hopefully that will lead to easier transition baskets for him and gain him some confidence
except the ISO game doesn't exist like it used to in the NBA. The NBA is constant ball movement, pick and rolls, fast passes and cutting. Very few in the NBA are standing around anymore. 2004-2006 Euros beating the US with that style of play forced the NBA to adapt and adjust. Part of the reason why the Warriors dismantled teams is their constant movement and cutting. Just watch how Curry never stops moving. Point being, if he plays ISO ball thinking he's getting into the NBA with that style (James Harden aside), he has another thing coming
Thanks! I had to look up Hakeem Pct. So, it's the combination of Steal Pct and Block Pct? Learned something new.
I haven't watched the NBA for years because it became unwatchable, at least during the regular season. Eight guys standing around watching two guys go one-on-one. Hideous basketball. If they're actually playing team ball again, I might try watching it again.
Yes it's the complete opposite now. The offenses and shooting are so good now that it seems like there's less defense, but it's more like the "He's on Fire" mode of the old NBA Jams. Every player can dribble, pass, shoot at a high level, even the 5s. Some guys still dominate the paint, but it's more position-less basketball now - 5s have to defend the 3 sometimes so need to be a lot more agile (even guys like Jokic). No more walking the ball up the court either, or waiting until the 4th quarter to turn it on. The pace is much faster in general and the ball movement is light years ahead of where it used to be. Thank God for the rest of the world beating the Americans, it made the NBA far better in the long run. Players are just so good now and every team has at least one superstar
Yes, I had to look it up initially as well. I assume it's in reference to Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the all-time great defenders.
Player-X---steals--blocks--To's; Combined Steals_Blocks -------------------------------------------------------------- Kugel--: 26 stl, 5 blks, 45 TOs-------- {31} Clayton: 23 stl, 13 blks, 49 TOs------- {36} Samuel: 25 stl, 15 blks, 40 TOs-------- {40} Condon: 7 stl, 26 blks, 33 TOs-------- {33} Richard: 17 stl, 12 blk, 28 TOs--------- {29} Handlogten: 10 stl, 15 blks, 16 TOs---- {25} Pullin---: 14 stl, 1 blk, 18 TOs---------- {15} Haugh--: 6 stl, 10 blk, 10 TOs---------- {16} Aberdeen: 4 stl, 1 blk, 7 TOs------------ {5} Top UF Defenders: 1. Samuel {40} 2. Clayton {36} 3. Condon {33} 4. Kugel {31} 5. Richard {29} 6. Handlogten {25} 7. Haugh {16} 8. Pullin {15} 9. Aberdeen {5} Kugel, Condon and company providing defensive pressure off the bench! Condon leads the team in blocks (26) while Kugel leads in steals (25). Many of these players still have to limit those turnovers; especially, in crunch-time when the game is on the line. Clayton, Kugel and Samuel lead the team in turnovers as well! On the other hand, players like Pullin & Handlogten are keeping their turnovers to a minimum!
That’s also pretty much what has happened to college basketball. Mike White is to blame for all of it.
Good start! But then you realize there's more to it than that & after looking, find out someone (Dean Oliver) created metrics to cover the "more to it", then discover people have this info online. Then you think well, we need to look at offense & defense together and voilà this happens.
tells me that you want to be in the upper right quadrant also tells me that Handlogten should be considered MVP and Will Richard needs to step it up. if you are on the lower half, needs to be further right or if on left side, be in the upper half. Chart is easy to read.
It's easy and misleading. It's easy to read, but by not starting at zero, it distorts the differences to make them bigger than it seems.
Kugel looked like a different guy out there tonight. Emotionally. He seemed to move on from misses. Only had that one dumb foul, and a couple ill advised shots. Zero turnovers. No moping. Great D. You hear me, Riley's dad?
