Don't blame Haith....

[bigzit]

The man squeezed out 20+ wins with a Top 100 schedule; and secured 2nd place finish in a Top 8 league with CUSA-light players.

Also... UCONN doesn't lose many on that floor. UCONN will go dancing. They deserve to. VERY talented team.

GO WIN 5.

AND GO RECRUIT!

 

[t-townpod]

Originally posted by bigzit:
The man squeezed out 20+ wins with a Top 100 schedule; and secured 2nd place finish in a Top 8 league with CUSA-light players.

Also... UCONN doesn't lose many on that floor. UCONN will go dancing. They deserve to. VERY talented team.

GO WIN 5.

AND GO RECRUIT!

Haith had a great season but made some very poor decisions at SMU and today.

 

[hotterthanyourhusbandTU]

I know it doesn't help the conference, but I would like SMU to win by 67 points.

Boatright's scowl confuses me. Otherwise, he's a great player.

 

[bigzit]

Haith can't make those wide open 12 foot jump shots. We missed at least 5 today.

Play of the game was Woodard's unforced turnover. That was the ball game.

 

[lawpoke87]

Haith, players, etc... We have NCAA tourney talent. ORU and SE Okla St games are to blame.

 

[Gold*]

Originally posted by t-townpod:

Originally posted by bigzit:
The man squeezed out 20+ wins with a Top 100 schedule; and secured 2nd place finish in a Top 8 league with CUSA-light players.

Also... UCONN doesn't lose many on that floor. UCONN will go dancing. They deserve to. VERY talented team.

GO WIN 5.

AND GO RECRUIT!

Haith had a great season but made some very poor decisions at SMU and today.

That's just crazy. We played our best game of year at SMU. Today was on top 10. Issue was being conservative.

 

[drboobay]

Epic fail. Right there in TU lore with the NCAA loss to Wisconsin.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[texcane1982]

I'd like to know if Haith told Shaq to drive to the rim and force a bad shot down by 1.

Haith certainly should not have had Shaq bring the ball up the court in that final possession when the two best shooters have struggled to get open looks on the perimeter the ENTIRE game. Either Ray or Juice should have crossed the timeline wirth the ball, not Shaq.


TX
This post was edited on 3/14 6:33 PM by texcane1982

 

[Tulsafanzz]

29.6 % shooting, with plenty of open shots cost us. You knew UCONN would make shots late. We have not been good, late in games. We still need to find someone to be our late game scorer.

 

[t-townpod]

Sorry Gold, I though having Shaq drive over and over in the SMU game was really poor coaching. Today, when Shaq picked up his 3rd foul he sat him for 7 minutes and forces us to slow it down never to get into another rhythm

 

[T Up]

Wrong. We need to have an offense beside Shaq to the hole against the entire other team.

 

[canefansincerhome]

Thats a ridulous statement. Haith did'nt ask the players to piss down their legs. Haith did'nt ask Woodard to quit looking for his shot. Haith did not ask Wright to not show up on offense today. If you want to play the blame game, blame TU for not having a legitimate inside scoring presence.

 

[T Up]

It's true we have no inside game but go back and look at our final four possessions. Juice positions himself in the deep corner and just stands there. The play is to reduce the number Shaq has to beat to get to the hole. We are trying to spread it out not run a play for an open shot. Juice got it once and fell driving the lane. Other than that he was a spectator.

 

[t-townpod]

Agree with T UP, the play was a clear out for Harrison. Same as end of game at SMU. Just think that is not a very good coaching move

 

[lawpoke87]

What's the thinking there? We need a three and Haith makes our first team all-conference and best shooting guard a spectator?

 

[Weatherdemon]

The last 4 minutes of this game were horribly managed.

 

[mvccane]

These are a bunch of juniors for crying out loud. They need to be leaders - play smart, play by example, play with confidence.
Players need to look themselves in the mirror. This is not on the coach.

TU did a good job in a deceptively tough, grinding conference. UCONN is not last years Natl Champion but they players who played on the squad that drilled Kentucky in the finals. Boatwright is one of the best handful of guards in the country. SMU, Temple, Cinn, Memphis all have outstanding programs.

Players need to have the attitude to take no prisoners in the NIT. Go deep. Recruit a shooter (or two). Pre-season Top 25 material. And each Junior on this squad needs to realize it's all over after next season.

 

[TU Man]

We have most people back but so do a lot of teams. Cinci and UCONN won't be this bad for long.

We have to have an inside presence but don't have one signed yet.

I'm not a haith fan. The kids improved from December to January but in my opinion did not improve from January on. You can blame the players but we shot less than 35% way too often. Has to be an offensive system in part.

Kids played hard. I'll give them that. They need a great offseason because we don't have anyone coming in that will help right away. It's the seniors team next year and no one else's.

 

[I.I.]

Only thing I saw coaching wise was Wright playing in place of Swannegan most of the second half? And the zone left a lot of wide open threes. They just missed them till late. Did not think defense was great but rebounding was fantastic.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[WATU2]

+1

Originally posted by bigzit:
The man squeezed out 20+ wins with a Top 100 schedule; and secured 2nd place finish in a Top 8 league with CUSA-light players.

Also... UCONN doesn't lose many on that floor. UCONN will go dancing. They deserve to. VERY talented team.

GO WIN 5.

AND GO RECRUIT!

 

[TUBballJunkie]

Originally posted by I.I.:
Only thing I saw coaching wise was Wright playing in place of Swannegan most of the second half? And the zone left a lot of wide open threes. They just missed them till late. Did not think defense was great but rebounding was fantastic.
Posted from Rivals Mobile

This.

And yet again, HAITH ISNT OUT THERE MISSING LAYUPS.

 

[chito_and_leon]

Haiti traditionally has been a better coach than recruiter. Which doesn't bode well for us beyond next year.

When you're up 38-28 with 4:20 left and give up 19 in 4 minutes, everybody deserves blame. The bad news is we can't replace the players without a good recruiter coach...
Posted from Rivals Mobile

 

[red dirt]

Haith is not the problem. In fact, this team played better than when manning was coaching. Realize that this Junior class is NOT very talented. Shaq is great off the dribble but cannot shoot better than a 6th grader. The inside game is non-existent but is that not what was happening last year? He has to recruit over the mistakes of Manning

 

[okie51]

Yeah how anyone on here can be upset with Haith overall i just don't understand... our Defense is amazing! our offense needs work which will happen as Haith gets more of his type of players in here... but HOLY COW this was close to the best defense i have ever seen out of a TU team.

slowing it down obviously was (in my opinion) a bad coaching move and made TU look tired and allowed UC to recover but you put some clutch shooters on this team with this style of defense... wow could be fun to watch.

My opinion some of the bench needs to go and next November we will get to see what type of recruiter Haith is going to be... judging from his past, i expect a GREAT! recruiting class.

 

[loca2874]

I am happy with what haith did with the team. We should have won the game yesterday and that is a given. We deserve to be in the tourney but we will end up in the NIT. I am ready to see TU win the NIT and then recruit well and kill it next year.

 

[TulsaCane95]

I am disappointed we didn't win down the stretch but I don't blame the coaching staff. The players were well prepared for the games, we simply didn't execute the game plans fully.

Hats off to Coach Haith and his staff. We stumbled out of the gate in non-conference games but turned it around playing in a much better conference. We beat teams with multiple 4 star players and our profile as a basketball school was raised tremendously.

 

[canefansincerhome]

TU must get a good big man from the juco ranks this year to complement next years senior class and DO NOT get beat by Oral Roberts scrub team to start the season ! Plus quit scheduling D-2 teams, its totally worthless on the resume.

 

[dmarsh1985]

So proud of this thread, the guys that played were recruited for CUSA and probably would have gone undefeated in that league, or near to it...we need American conference talent, period. Love all the guys, no doubt, but Birt is needed to take some pressure off Juice, no way Marquel should start unless his shot improves drastically, and judging by his career stats it seems that he is a savvy 29% outside shooter, would love to get Jolly, obviously a long shot, but another shooter would aid the wonderful drives by Shaq...Haiths a smart guy I think he knows all that has been said

 

[TU Sepp]

At one of the call-in shows durig a commercial, I asked Coach Haith about getting 2 bigs for next year; both a juco that can start immediately and a freshman that is ready to play. He said that would be a great help.

I also got the feeling that he is looking for a 6'6" to 6'7" wing that can both play and hit the 3.

 

[T Up]

Still don't understand the euphoria over Birt. Guy doesn't even starts. Has good games followed by some where he is invisible. Remimds me of Stevie Rep. Can't shoot at this level and too slow. Hope he is everything some of you guys think he will be. We need a shooter who can get his own shot. We need a Jason Parker type who has unlimited range and no conscience when putting it up 10 times a game. And we need someone to take most of the minutes at center and move Dre to the bench.

 

[I.I.]

Originally posted by T Up:
Still don't understand the euphoria over Birt. Guy doesn't even starts. Has good games followed by some where he is invisible. Remimds me of Stevie Rep. Can't shoot at this level and too slow. Hope he is everything some of you guys think he will be. We need a shooter who can get his own shot. We need a Jason Parker type who has unlimited range and no conscience when putting it up 10 times a game. And we need someone to take most of the minutes at center and move Dre to the bench.

Birt looks like a zone buster.He gets it away quick enough against a zone. Where Curtis and Harrison have struggled from the three, Hopefully Birt can improve on that. Taplin can nail the three too. Nice looking shots from both but you can't tell big game potential on film.

 

[lawpoke87]

Fans always hype incoming players. Some live up to those expectations while others fail. Birt had a very hot streak mid-season. He's been in a tailspin of late. No one really knows how he will shoot against bigger and faster athletes. We need him to be that mid-season player and not the one we've seen these past few weeks. Hopefully someone can give us some Birth updates from the Juco tourney.

 

[I.I.]

Originally posted by lawpoke87:
Fans always hype incoming players. Some live up to those expectations while others fail. Birt had a very hot streak mid-season. He's been in a tailspin of late. No one really knows how he will shoot against bigger and faster athletes. We need him to be that mid-season player and not the one we've seen these past few weeks. Hopefully someone can give us some Birth updates from the Juco tourney.

Taplin reminder:



His senior year, he averaged 22.6 points, 4.9 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 3.1 steals for a Spartans team that resided in The News large school poll all season. Taplin was just percentage points under 50 percent from the field (155 for 311), which included hitting 36 of 102 three-pointers (35 percent).

His 245 steals at Will North is a school record, as his is career point total. He also set the school single-game scoring mark with 45 against Frontier in a game last season in which he played 27 minutes.

 

[okie51]

just watched his youtube videos sure looks good.

 

[astonmartin708]

My feelings on the recruiting situation:

Birt should be a starter next season. He brings size and shooting that we desperately need from the three man. Curtis doesn't shoot well from longer than 2 ft and is our most turnover prone player.

Taplin looks like he could be ok, but I think it's going to take time. He has carries a lot of weight for his size and might have trouble defending like we'll need him to. His stats in upstate New York were good but they were against mediocre competition. In prep school he hasn't really made a name for himself like some of the guys who he plays with / against who are going to UCONN & Arizona.

We still need a big (6-9+) who can contribute immediately. There's a couple JUCO guys still available that I know we're in the running for along with the likes of SMU, Cincy, and Houston.

I'm curious to see what happens to Littlejohn. He can shoot. He's extremely athletic so he should be able to defend. I just don't get his parents wanting to burn his redshirt. He'd be a nice piece to have come 2016 when everyone else is gone. I hope he ends up staying but the signs don't look too good.


The other guys need to put in work this summer.

Smitty needs to get his scoring back above 10 pts a game. Best way to do that is to become more confident with the 3 ball and his FT's.
Shaq HAS to add the 3 this summer for the team to take the next step. He would be unguardable with an even semi reliable outside shot.
Juice needs to focus on being able to take over late games. Haith had drawn up some ISO stuff for him early season, but it never really saw light of day.
Dre has to work on his footwork down low as well as his dribbling at the top of the key. Also rebounds. He's too big to not get more boards.
Ray can work on being more heady a-la a Boatright / Moore / Juice. Draw contact. Make the defender foul him.
I'd like to see T.K. Work on hitting a mid range jumper with some regularity.
Marquel'probably needs the most work, but I just don't see him changing his game. He gets himself into bad situations too often and shoots a flat 3.
Swannegan can just keep doing what he's doing. I think he's hit a ceiling but I like where he's at.

 

[TulsaEye]

Something I don't think many know is that the women's basketball team shoots the 3 much better than the mens team and shoots FT's better also. But they are worse inside where they get dominated by bigger teams.

This post was edited on 3/16 2:33 AM by TulsaEye

 

[Junior95]

SMU fan here. IMO, Tulsa got jobbed the selection committee. I was hoping you guys would make it in.

 

[youngblood223]

Originally posted by I.I.:

Originally posted by lawpoke87:
Fans always hype incoming players. Some live up to those expectations while others fail. Birt had a very hot streak mid-season. He's been in a tailspin of late. No one really knows how he will shoot against bigger and faster athletes. We need him to be that mid-season player and not the one we've seen these past few weeks. Hopefully someone can give us some Birth updates from the Juco tourney.

Taplin reminder:



His senior year, he averaged 22.6 points, 4.9 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 3.1 steals for a Spartans team that resided in The News large school poll all season. Taplin was just percentage points under 50 percent from the field (155 for 311), which included hitting 36 of 102 three-pointers (35 percent).

His 245 steals at Will North is a school record, as his is career point total. He also set the school single-game scoring mark with 45 against Frontier in a game last season in which he played 27 minutes.

JUCO basketball is weird. I'm not even going to get started on all the stuff that goes on with it, but it's not a great game. Birt was first team all-freshman in the Horizon league. That's a very quality league. He's already shown he can make shots at the D-1 level. I've seen a lot of tape on him and he can shoot. He's streaky however. The percentages are similar to what Juice shoots from three.

Everyone needs a Jason Parker type. I would like to sign more kids that can score it like Juice can. The reality is, we need a guy that can make a wide open three. Curtis went 1-fer the month of February from three. It was backbreaking.

 

[TU_BLA]

Originally posted by astonmartin708:
My feelings on the recruiting situation:

Birt should be a starter next season. He brings size and shooting that we desperately need from the three man. Curtis doesn't shoot well from longer than 2 ft and is our most turnover prone player.

Taplin looks like he could be ok, but I think it's going to take time. He has carries a lot of weight for his size and might have trouble defending like we'll need him to. His stats in upstate New York were good but they were against mediocre competition. In prep school he hasn't really made a name for himself like some of the guys who he plays with / against who are going to UCONN & Arizona.

We still need a big (6-9+) who can contribute immediately. There's a couple JUCO guys still available that I know we're in the running for along with the likes of SMU, Cincy, and Houston.

I'm curious to see what happens to Littlejohn. He can shoot. He's extremely athletic so he should be able to defend. I just don't get his parents wanting to burn his redshirt. He'd be a nice piece to have come 2016 when everyone else is gone. I hope he ends up staying but the signs don't look too good.


The other guys need to put in work this summer.

Smitty needs to get his scoring back above 10 pts a game. Best way to do that is to become more confident with the 3 ball and his FT's.
Shaq HAS to add the 3 this summer for the team to take the next step. He would be unguardable with an even semi reliable outside shot.
Juice needs to focus on being able to take over late games. Haith had drawn up some ISO stuff for him early season, but it never really saw light of day.
Dre has to work on his footwork down low as well as his dribbling at the top of the key. Also rebounds. He's too big to not get more boards.
Ray can work on being more heady a-la a Boatright / Moore / Juice. Draw contact. Make the defender foul him.
I'd like to see T.K. Work on hitting a mid range jumper with some regularity.
Marquel'probably needs the most work, but I just don't see him changing his game. He gets himself into bad situations too often and shoots a flat 3.
Swannegan can just keep doing what he's doing. I think he's hit a ceiling but I like where he's at.

Couple of things...Shaq will shoot more 3s and his shot is fine...its a confidence thing and you can see it growing. He was a lot more willing to shoot it later in the season, especially after the Memphis game. 2) Don't speculate about who might be gone or not...we all know its going to happen, but there is no need to speculate. We will know soon enough. 3) Dre can be incredible and hopefully it won't take all season for him to regain the control he exhibited at the end of the season. 4) We can be a reasonably deep team next year with Swannegan and Edogi having Haith's confidence. I really like Edogi's game.

What this team needs more than anything else is for Shaq to develop the 8-10ft pull-up or floater in the lane. That one shot hit at 40% would make him unstoppable and literally open up 3 land for Ray, Woodard, and any other shooter than comes in. Being able to pass off that drive and float alley-oops in to the bigs makes it even more dangerous. Shaq gets into the lane so easily and his elevation and athleticism should make this do-able this off season.

Finally,thanks Mustang fan. Larry Brown really hammered away at the selection committee yesterday. The AAC as a whole has to win a lot more OOC games against quality teams next season to get that respect. Temple's win vs. Kansas was the best win and the next best were likely Cincinnati's vs. San Diego St, and SMU's against Wyoming. There's a huge drop off after the first one. TU had its chances against OU, OSU, and Wichita St. ONE of those in the W column and we may be talking a different tournament right now.

 

[TU_BLA]

Originally posted by TulsaEye:
Something I don't think many know is that the women's basketball team shoots the 3 much better than the mens team and shoots FT's better also. But they are worse inside where they get dominated by bigger teams.

This post was edited on 3/16 2:33 AM by TulsaEye

Eye, by nature women's players are better fundamental shooters because they have to be. They can't muscle up a shot from outside necessarily, so their technique has to be better. Also, they are shooting from a lower point, even on jump shots so their shot has more arc to it and shots with more arc typically have more forgiving bounces off the rim if its not a swish. Watch Shaq and Juice shoot...Shaq's outside shot has so much arc to it. Curtis and Smith shoot a flat shot...not good for shots that aren't nothing but net.

Kara Pongonis was one of my favorite TU women's players to watch. Her shooting for was impeccable. She missed a FT once and I told her boyfriend at the time that I was shocked for like 10 minutes after it happened. She was something like a 90% FT shooter. She was 5'5" so she needed to step in and elevate and make sure she released the shot at the top of her jump.

Our guys this year have such poor technique (except Dre) shooting FTs its amazing no one has picked up on it. Smith release the ball out of the side of his hands, and sometimes he is actually moving his upper body away from the basket during his shooting motion. It's painful to watch on TV. It doesn't matter how many FTs they shoot after practice if they're shooting with poor technique. There are a lot of bad habits shooters have that are difficult to change during the course of regular game action. FT shooting can be changed and fixed because the shooter has 10 seconds from the time they get the ball from the referee to seat it in his hand properly, align his feet properly, etc.