Alabama, Florida, and Mizzou have all torched A&M with numerous open layups, dunks, 2nd chance points etc.

I'd like to see Federiko get another chance. What A&M is doing is not working right now.

Agreed that the lack of a strong inside presence is a major problem with limited options. Would be great to get more out of Federicko considering the expectations for him coming into the season. But, Vinson is the guy I'd especially like to see step up his game in a big way.

bobinator said:

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At least this was a known problem coming in. I think what we've learned these last three games is that while we can overcome big bigs, we have a really hard time overcoming big guards. We didn't bother Fland (6-3) on Saturday or TO Barrett (6-4) tonight at all. They could get wherever they wanted on the court to initiate the offense.

Lane and Hill are good defenders but they're not good enough against guys this size.

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Barrett didn't do anything crazy from what I saw. They used effective screens and our guards were very lazy staying in front of him. Lane getting in foul trouble on a couple bogus calls hurt us a lot. He was on fire defensively until the refs neutered him on touch falls they refused to call on Missouri on the other end.

Bobinator's got it.

It's not really the "bigs" that kill us, it's the consistent athletic mid-size guard types that are killing us. Hill and Lane are good on-ball point defenders, but neither matches up with mid-size athletic guys. Agee, bless his heart, can actually defend a big reasonably well with his strength, maturity and skill. The only guy we have that can "sort of" match up with the longer athletic types, other than Agee, theoretically, is Vinson.

As it is, if a team has more than one big guard on the court, we're immediately in double-team, rotational scramble pretty much the entire possession. The effect on our already weak defensive rebounding is often catastrophic.

BubblesMcGee said:

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Agreed that the lack of a strong inside presence is a major problem with limited options. Would be great to get more out of Federicko considering the expectations for him coming into the season. But, Vinson is the guy I'd especially like to see step up his game in a big way.

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I like Vinson, but don't think he has the upside of Federicko. Federicko could be a guy that prevented teams from getting easy layups and dunks. In the past he did that. I'm not sure what's going on this season for him, other than maybe he hates running as much as Bucky likes.

Our def eff is pretty decent. At Home it's been terrible. On the road/neutral it's been borderline elite.

Do agree we give up a ton at the rim and oreb. Clean that up down the stretch a hair

The team has exceeded reasonable expectations. While the coaches and team might be able to make sit ke incremental improvements, some of each loss is because the other team is more athletic and coached well.

Our coaching of adjustments in game has natural limits due to different differences in team ability. But the team has shown a ton of work-hard and a relative modicum of variance. I think it's not over either.

But willing them to be an NC TEAM this year might be a heavy lift. But we are welcome to try…

I'm not sure I understand the level of expectation for Fed. He had a highlight reel moment in the tournament for Tech last year, but he's never been more than a just okay role player in his career. It would have been great to get more from him as a rim protector, as you said, but he was never going to be a big physical interior presence. It is pretty clear at this point Bucky doesn't believe Fed can play the style he wants to play.

Man y'all need to listen one of Bucky's postgame talks or when hes at the coaches hour. Our first half D vs florida was great but once we got down he said they have to try and win and the result of that change is the allowing of dunks and layups. We were down and hes trying to win instead of losing by 10 which does nothing. The guy is great and we are battling clawing doing what we can with a team of leftovers. Its our margin for winning and losing is so small that every turnover and missed ft is magnified. We are still gonna get it done but support what this is one helluva a team and an unbelievable job by a great coach.
Bucky has more fire and really cares he is not scared of any team nor make excuses.

It's year one. The coaching is fine. If he gets the recruitment then we will be really good enough to be a to 10 team. We will then be challenged to keep Bucky.

Dimond1968 said:

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Recruiting better get better.

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The recruiting job Bucky did putting this team together was pretty phenomenal. I'm not worried about his recruiting.

How about just don't miss layups so often?

Agree Lane getting in foul trouble was a huge factor last night.

Also agree tall guards and big men who are comfortable on the dribble kill our press. Florida and Mizzou just passed it right over the heads of our shorter players.