As long as Cooley is going to go out and buy pink pillows, I think he should get one for himself too.

Is he not accountable for the preparedness (or lack thereof) of the team?

And why does he have Peanut playing hard defense 18 feet away from the hoop?

And what is with the overpursuit by the guards and the ill-advised trapping?

Why is Edney playing if he can barely even walk?

If Cooley is so into strong defense, then why does he always give Evanovich so many minutes?

(I would suspect because he is living an dying by the three-pointer without Nero and a healthy

Edney.)

Hey, I love the coach and love the team, but let's keep it real and not just blame a bunch of

freshman for not playing beyond "pink pillow" status. How about just playing some strong

defense in the paint and forget about the trapping and the overpursuit until you master the

basics. Let's give the new players a chance to play at an appropriate pace and let them

build up to the fancy stuff later. Good fundamentals will win every time.

As always, just my humble opinion...

Let's not go crazy.  The team has been practicing for 3 weeks.  I suspect they are incorporating several new offenses and defenses and that takes time.  The one thing that should not take time is effort and toughness.  That should show up every day. 

At this point in time, a coach can probably live with mistakes related to being not too far down the learning curve, but he can probably never live with a lack of effort and toughness.

I agree with alot of what you say Go Fairfield. Lets not overextend our defense, which opened up driving opportunities and open perimeter shots for UB.

But experimenting with the players and seeing what you have with the new players is what these pre-season exhibitions are for. You learn what you can and can't do. The new players played a combimed 80 minutes and acquitted themselves fairly well. Cooley will see the press has to be refined and hopefully will use much more man-to man defense,starting around the arc, where the guards stay in front of their opponents. Aj should be in the paint utilizing his defensive abilities. Hawkins will make a big difference shoring up the frontline for the start of the regular season. Olander will have to push  to become more aggressive on both O and D.

Obviously, this game points out that FF needs to make alot of adjustments. But again, I think that's why these games are so valuable. I think Cooley has shown in prior seasons he is smart enough to make the necessary adjustments and put his players in a position to be successful. I certainly give him the benefit of the doubt at this point.

I suspect you'll see alot of improvement in the Stonehill game and still more improvement in the CCSU game.

I agree yesterday was not a good start. But with Hawkins return and if I see steady improvement, then I will be less concerned.  And then if Nero comes back.... 

Guess I'm a "half glass full" kind of guy; especially with the pre-season games.

You guys commenting on the extending defense are right on. This is nothing new. It didn't work last year either. It just leaves shooters wide open. The funny thing is our straight man defense was pretty good last night( minus Evanovich of course). I don't understand why something so unsucessfull continues to be used? How about our starting team last night. 2 point guards( Needham and Turner), one shooting guard( Jordan), and two centers( Peanut and Olander). Talk about dysfunctional.

I  have placed most of my thoughts on another thread, but the basic points that bothered me last night were both A.J. and Olander being in the game at the same time, and also the bringing out of the big men to trap 25 feet from the basket (something I have been complaining about for years) But as I said on the other thread, if the players are asked to trap they have to pick up their intensity and do a better job of it, therefore hopefully making more good things happen then bad!

It seems every college team runs a trap these days, let's just get better at it when we use it.

Given the injuries we have, AJ and Olander have to play together at times. Peanut will be fine as he gets a rhythm back, but Olander has to grow up quickly, we need him to be some kind of a threat in the paint, either to score or pass off.

Hawkins' return will solve many problems -- we got killed on weak side rebounding last night. Shimeek will have to attend to defense to stay on the floor, let's hope he adjusts quickly. Lyndon, for sure, and probably Nickerson can play much better than last night. Defensive intensity, boxing out, and Ryan making a few putbacks will make the Stags look much improved. Now we just need Edney for 25 mintues (I think he will be fine) and Nero.

When executed properly trapping "overextending the defense" can lead to turnovers and easy buckets.  The issue for the stags seems to be that, 1) they are rarely executing it properly, 2) they do not rotate quickly enough, 3) they do it too often.  I have seen this play be very effective for other programs, I agree, I haven't seen it work for the stags.  Maybe we don't have the personnel with the right instincts to do this.  

Running this kind of play is not unlike the press.  If you have smart players with good instincts who are fast, you're going to score a lot of points off the press.  When you don't have personnel on the floor that can execute, you're going to get beat off the press all day.

I hope cooley is using the preseason to determine what his personnel are capable of and that plays like this that don't work get shelved until the team learns how to execute.  I agree with Stagmaster who suggested that Cooley has done a good job of adjusting the game strategy over the course of the season, but I also think that Cooley's preferred offensive and defensive sets require quick, atheletic players and his preference would be to do a lot more pressing and trapping if he had the right personnel.  His recruiting has reflected this, he has placed a premium on getting big atheletic players rather than on recruiting shooters.

At this point Cooley has had 4 years to recruite the kind of players that can run the Cooley offense and defense.  Four years ago I suggested it would be unfair to judge Cooley until he had his own players.    This year he does.  I would hope this squad has what it takes to play the game in accordance with the head coaches vision.