Leatherneck Nation

Has anyone looked at Covingtons stats . He is the reason we lose ,Not the reason we win. He has had 2 maybe 3 good games. He can be shut down by a good defenders easy.
JC Fuller and Dalan Ancrum can get there own shot, ,shoot better and defend better. Note ..that after they pulled Covington against NDSU For throwing up 9 bricks. Ancrum and JC took over and it was even from then on.. Hellooo!! The starters get us behind 10 points in the first 3 minutes of every loss.
I think every one can see we should play some zone. If he plays man against Denver the Princeton offense will eat us up again just like in Denver. Sorry this is coaching not all a talent issue. JC is way better than Cov. And we are gonna lose Ancrum if they don't realize he is a big time future baller . sorry this is obvious

I agree that Covington is not the same as last year. As a freshman he was unknown so he caught teams by surprise. This year he is the main focus, so he is getting every teams best defender. Dalan will be a stud one day, but right now the game is moving at wireless speed and his decision making is on dial-up! I have seen zone defense attempted in practice, and when the "15th" person off the bench is hitting three pointers easily are you going to take that chance in a game? All I can say is it is so much easier to coach and criticize from the couch!

So you are essentially saying covington shouldn't start in an awful western team?

That's outrageous.

This team does not have a lot of division 1 talent and absolutely no size. There is a misconception that 1 star player and you can compete.

That only holds true if the 1 star is nba level.

The team needs a big guy. If the league championship team 2 years ago didn't have Terrell parks they probably are 7-9 instead of 13-3.

Size matters.

I'm saying he shoots a good % 1 game out of 6. Its not a slump.. its just he isn't that good.. He shoots twice as many shots as the the rest of the team.. Do the math.. Recipe to lose.. The Denver game last night proved it again. 4 for 12 is actually a good night for Cov ..lol.
He is a good player but not a star.
And yes zone is hard to switch to especially if you never coached it. Coach K switched to zone this year. Why.?. Because the refs make it hard to guard the perimeter by calling touch fouls. Refs changed the way they call it last year. Can't bump can't hand check.. Sucks.
Anyway, we all hate losing we can agree. I like hearing views though

Garret this year is not the Garret of last. Can't argue about that. But the same thing can be said for Jabari. Both shooting percentages are way off from last year. Decent assists but Jabari has only 7 3pt makes in conference play. That is a good night for NDSU PG Lawrance Alexander. My main criticism of Garret is the same one that applies to the whole team. Our guys just do not get the foul line near enough. Garret should be higher on that stat list than he is. We are dead last in conference game FTs made and attempted at 147-212. Compare that to the stat leader (Omaha) at 256-368. League leader SDSU is not far behind them at 242-344.

Garret will get better the next two years if and only if everyone around him gets better and the players in the paint become stronger than what we are now. JC Fuller has been a very pleasant surprise and seems to be gaining confidence with each game.

Regarding zone, it would be nice to have in the arsenal. Pull it out every now and then to surprise and disrupt the offensive flow and maybe get a cheap turnover out of it. Also gives some players on the court a bit of a rest at times before kicking in the intense man defense again. With a weak bench, you might not need to sub out quite as often. So what's not to like about it? Sure you give up the 3s maybe a bit more but that seems to be a flaw with the Pack Line "sagging" man defense as I understand it and have watched it unfold under the Mo and Billy eras.

Nice observations..Yes agree totally. As far as getting bigs. I think this team has enough talent to beat half the teams in the summit league. I don't think its gonna be on the shoulders of Cov. The player that can improve the most is the freshman..but its gonna be with playing time and sometimes be a turnover. But heck at this point ...JC can score 30 he is a badass..