Very, very disappointing effort by the Herd against Villanova.  Every time the Herd got close, 'Nova would make a run and get the lead back to around 7 points. 

1.  The Herd desperately needs Canty to be declared eligible!!!  There is not another point guard on the roster.  Kane is out of his comfort zone trying to run the team. 

2.  This team appears to have the opposite problem of the football team.  The football team, on defense, has players who are playing out of position who are too small.  The basketball team has players playing out of position who are too big. 

3.  The lineup of Kane, Scarver, Tinnon, Spikes and Goff are not athletic enough on defense and they are not skilled enough on offense. 

4.  The lineup needs to be Martin, Scarver, Kane, Spikes, Tinnon.  Kane is still a little out of position at SF, but it will give him a lot more freedom on the offensive end of the floor. 

5.  The defense is not any better than it was last year.  Villanova consistently was able to breakdown their defender and get to basket.  There just seems to be a lack of intensity on defense. 

6.  A team that prides itself on rebounding, was outrebounded 37-23!!!  The biggest problem appeared to be that nobody was boxing out. 

7.  Again.  Can somebody tell me what our offensive philosophy is?  It just appears they run a weave at the top of the key.  Nobody cuts to the basket.  Nobody posts up.  It is just a lot of passing and then throwing up a bad shot with the shot clock running down. 

8.  The makeup of the roster reminds me of a North Carolina team from a few years ago, where there is too many bigs and not enough guards.  I think that Carolina team ended up going 16-14 that year.  Of course, that could change if Canty is declared eligible, or if Amayo becomes eligible and is able to play the point.  

9.  I'm wondering if Herrion is a good coach?  He doesn't appear to coach, or even care about coaching the offense.  He claims to have emphasized defense this off season and the team doesn't appear any better, maybe even worse, on defense this year.  

10.  I may be just in a bad mood after the performances of the football and basketball teams this weekend.  So take what I have said with a grain of salt.

I had to wrap up my thread before I was finished.

11. Scarver and Pittman are for real!!! Both will and should log major minutes this season.

12. On offense, I would run a two man high-low game between Kane and Scarver. I would post up Kane and let him either overpower smaller players guarding him, or try to take larger players off the dribble. When the defense, collapses to stop him. He would then pop it out to Scarver for a three. Plus, Kane is a pretty good passer. So if Scarver is guarded, I feel confident that Kane could find the open man.

13. The good news is that the season is still young and this team has time to improve. Plus, there are at least two, maybe three guards that will be available at some point in the season. Boykins should be available in a few weeks. Canty could be cleared to play at any moment. If Amayo makes the grades, he will be available for the second half of the season.

We made more field goals than they did. The fact that Nova had a 37 to 15 edge in free throw attempts was the game.

Kane can be a good point guard, possibly the best point guard on the team even with Canty here, however, making him the best point guard takes his ability to create and score away, which hurts the team in my opinion.

Agree competely. Kane was hamstrung by having to run the offense when his strength is slashing and getting to the basket. With Scarver as a true deep threat, we NEED a true PG to be able to distribute the ball and free up Kane to draw defenders to the hoop. We are going to struggle this season.

RockinHerdFan wrote: Very, very disappointing effort by the Herd against Villanova.  Every time the Herd got close, 'Nova would make a run and get the lead back to around 7 points. 

1.  The Herd desperately needs Canty to be declared eligible!!!  There is not another point guard on the roster.  Kane is out of his comfort zone trying to run the team. 

2.  This team appears to have the opposite problem of the football team.  The football team, on defense, has players who are playing out of position who are too small.  The basketball team has players playing out of position who are too big. 

3.  The lineup of Kane, Scarver, Tinnon, Spikes and Goff are not athletic enough on defense and they are not skilled enough on offense. 

4.  The lineup needs to be Martin, Scarver, Kane, Spikes, Tinnon.  Kane is still a little out of position at SF, but it will give him a lot more freedom on the offensive end of the floor. 

5.  The defense is not any better than it was last year.  Villanova consistently was able to breakdown their defender and get to basket.  There just seems to be a lack of intensity on defense. 

6.  A team that prides itself on rebounding, was outrebounded 37-23!!!  The biggest problem appeared to be that nobody was boxing out. 

7.  Again.  Can somebody tell me what our offensive philosophy is?  It just appears they run a weave at the top of the key.  Nobody cuts to the basket.  Nobody posts up.  It is just a lot of passing and then throwing up a bad shot with the shot clock running down. 

8.  The makeup of the roster reminds me of a North Carolina team from a few years ago, where there is too many bigs and not enough guards.  I think that Carolina team ended up going 16-14 that year.  Of course, that could change if Canty is declared eligible, or if Amayo becomes eligible and is able to play the point.  

9.  I'm wondering if Herrion is a good coach?  He doesn't appear to coach, or even care about coaching the offense.  He claims to have emphasized defense this off season and the team doesn't appear any better, maybe even worse, on defense this year.  

10.  I may be just in a bad mood after the performances of the football and basketball teams this weekend.  So take what I have said with a grain of salt.

I agree with you, we have no real offensive gameplan it seems like most games, and that's Herrion's entire tenure here. This was a likely bad Villanova team, they won 13 games last year, were picked 12th in the Big East this year. If we want to take that next step up and join Memphis we have to win these games. 

There's a lot of hype with our basketball program, we're definitely better than we have been, but we really need to take it to the next level. Over the last couple of years, we've cried foul when left out of the NCAA Tournament, but our slightly better than .500 conference record and OOC losses have been the reason we've been kept out. Time to turn it around.

I think we'll be fine.