Monday, January 4, 2010

Energy




If Wendell McKines is tired, something is wrong.
McKines looked drained after playing 39 minutes. Hamidu Rahman played 36 minutes, Jahmar Young played 38 minutes and Hernst Laroche played 36 minutes.
"After playing 94 feet against Utah State and you know how intense that game was. To come out and bring the same intensity this time, your body says, 'Na, relax.' Fatigue set in a little bit but it's still not an excuse."
I heard people in the crowd yelling at Menzies to go his bench. Other than Gordo, who is ready to contribute meaningful minutes? Just a question. West has potential but is he ready to bang with Babbitt? N'Doye and Sy don't know the rules and Watson was battling through an apparent injury.
Energy seemed to be a constant theme in talking with McKines and Menzies postgame.
Getting a split is nice, but to allow a team to shoot 57 percent in a half comes down to effort on the defensive side of the court.


Once the Aggies stopped making shots (They were 7-of-20 from long range), the effort on the other end dropped.
"We have an offensive mindset,” Menzies said. “Unfortunatley, it gives you your energy and it shouldn’t be that way. Your energy should be there on defense regardless. I don't care if you are making shots or not. Like the final six minutes against Utah State, we weren't scoring but the game was on the line so they were getting stops but they have to play the first six minutes like the game is on the line."

Nevada never trailed and was pretty much in control through the entire second half.
"We just went away from the game plan and went away from the great defensive effort we put on on Saturday. Just the tenacity and energy that you have to have on defense that we always have on the offensive end. We have to take that same mentality on the defensive end. We kind of went away from that. Best thing about it is it's only the second conference game and we will be a totally different and better team come tournament time. We will be ready. We are just learning as the season goes along."



I'll have more tomorrow....I mean later today. Video courtesy of Pulse editor Lucas Peerman.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

The problem is, the aggies play a lot of games in pairs. From the article, it looks like the Aggies play tough the first game and not the second. That makes for a long season. Not to mention playing in the WAC tournament where there are games on consecutive days.

Menzies better figure out how to get the bench ready or we'll go through the conference schedule winning 50% of the games played.

Anonymous said...

He's tired because he's not in shape. At least not for basketball standards. He needs to work on his conditioning, and get back to his playing weight.

jimmy said...

Bench scoring. I heard the disparity was 9 bench points for Nevada and zero for NMSU. Yeah, Gordo, Merker and West failed to score. But all of Wolfpack's bench scoring came from one guy. Gotta hand the game ball to the senior Ray Kraemer. Nine pts was the most effective 16 mins that anybody had in that game. Babitt's going to get his 26 and 11. Should have respected Kraemer a lot more because last year he stopped a big Aggie run in the first half with a trey. And at 6'-4" he's a hard-nosed guy ... kind of Reno's version of Merker. Menzies did say that help collapsing to the lane is what left Nevada guys open at the perimeter. Aggies launched very few uncontested shots from what I saw.

Jason Groves said...

Anon at Noon. I think the fact that he played 39 minutes had more to do with it

Anonymous said...

Ok first, you dont have to wait until tournament time to come for you to be ready. You should already be ready because conference started, thats no excuse for losing the game. I think one of the biggest reasons why we lost aside from defense is the team attitude. Nevada just lost a game La Tech and have to travel here to play us two days later. We just beat Utah St and didnt have anything to do but relax and get ready for Nevada. Nevada came out wanting to win this game and avoid going 0-2 while we came with God knows what kind of attitude. Our starters averaged 36 minutes of playing time while theirs averaged 35.6, doesnt leave room to say fatigue or lack of energy. They just wanted it more.

I said in the last post that we needed to get our bench involved and unless things change this will be a problem for us. I have never been big on Castillo and I dont consider him a reliable player coming off the bench, unless you call going 14/57 (.246) from the 3 point line reliable. He can shoot the 3 every once in a while but not consistently (2 missed last night and an airball on Saturday) and in the four minutes or so that he replaced Gibson in the first half Nevada took its biggest lead. Nevada didnt use its bench much either but Kraemer did score 9 points to our benches 0. I think Menzies is at fault here because the bench are his recruits. You bring in kids from Africa who are projects fine, but they have not improved and I think some have stayed the same or gotten worse. Non conference games provide you with a chance to groom your team for conference time but I dont think Menzies did that with our bench because we didnt have a whole lot of games in which we could safely put them in. I heard West grumbling about playing time last night and I dont see reason why him, Ndoye, Merker and Watson shouldnt get more minutes. Yeah they might not be ready to take on the Babbitts of the league but when else are they going to develop and learn? Offseason?

GS

Anonymous said...

where was Tyrone Watson?

other than that, if the Gordo three and the JY three that both rimmed out during two different Aggie runs, its a different ball game.

justin said...

I think not having Watson was huge. He has become our energy guy off the bench, and is, with Gordo, the only WAC-ready player we have on the bench right now.

Nevada did outscore us bench-wise last night, but Kraemer doubled his season average to do so... Nevada's bench is not strong. Neither is ours without TW.

I do agree that McKines is probably not ready to play 39 minutes in the second game of a back to back. Game shape and practice shape are two different things.

10 yr. vet said...

JG - don't worry about Anon at noon. He's the same moron that made a comment about Wendell's weight the other day. I would be willing to bet that Wendell is playing at basically the same weight he has played at since he was a jr. in high school...maybe a few pounds heavier due to increased bulk.

As you said, he played 39 minutes of bust ass defense against one of the best players in the conference.

Anonymous said...

Jimmy,

West never had the chance to score. He stayed at the game 40 seconds at a time, at most. He barely had a chance to run up and down the court and Menzies pulled him out which makes absolutely no sense. Same was with NDoye. How are NDoye, Watson and even West supposed to get better if they don't get a chance to really play?

Anonymous said...

Many issues led to this loss. In middle school basketball you are taught to find the "shooter" when on defense. All the Aggies knew Kramer could shoot the "3" but that guy was left wide open all of his 3's. Jy and Gibson threw up there normal 3 or 4 "prayer" shots per game that they have no buisness taking. Basketball IQ on this team as a whole is not very good. Even if Marvin is still learning on the job, the team is its own worst enemy. Thats why the more I see Utah St.play the more respect I have for their program. They will take less talented players that buy into their system, rather than players that want to put up big numbers. Not all current Aggie players are selfish, but too many key players are.

Anonymous said...

Babbitt was dishing it out as much as taking the punishment. Wendell was the only guy who could even hope to contain him in man. Going to zone left Babbitt free to go anywhere he wanted because his range is unlimited. Wendell should be tired after sticking LB. Too bad there's not bench depth to be able to contain him more the way the guards shut down Quayle on Saturday.

jimmy said...

True. I thought that when BJ got his offensive board and stick-back attempt he might have been hacked. Refs in the WAC so far are letting the kids play.

Anonymous said...

What about a box and ONE??????

Or a Triangle and TWO??????



I ran these defenses's in the 5th grade because the kids I had were not as talanted as the rest of the league and,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,GUESS WHAT,,,..we were City Champs!!!!!


Defense wins Championships,,,,,,,,,,,

Of course you need to know how to COACH!!!!!!


dm