SB Nation User Blog: miketag

2009-2010 Men's Basketball Prospectus

miketag — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:43:23 -0000

The '09-'10 Aggies will struggle to live up to the standard set at A&M over the past four years. Over these last four years we have consistently had a dominant inside game with plenty of depth off the bench. We were an inside-outside team that was most successful when going down low, and kicking out to Josh Carter for open 3-pointers. A quick glance at our roster will tell you that this years team is going to be different. We do not have the height that we have had in the past. We return one proven low post scorer in Bryan Davis. We have a potential star in David Loubeau who will start at power forward this season while Davis will move to the five. If Loubeau does not progress, we are really going to struggle on the inside. As it is, with out limited depth if Davis gets into foul trouble we could be in real trouble. We are going to be a guard dominated team with Donald Sloan, Dash Harris, and B.J. Holmes determining the success of our season.

The irony of our predicament, is that this is the kind of team Mark Turgeon has wanted to run his motion offense since he arrived three years ago. Turgeon openly complained about how we had too many post players two years ago in a year when the league was dominated by guard play. The past two seasons were spent attempting to run the motion offense early in the year, then begrudgingly moving back to a hi-lo game in order to take advantage of our size and win conference games. This year we should be a running team that presses people on defense and scores a lot in transition. We really should be Turgeon's type of team. Whether he can win with a guard dominated lineup remains to be seen.

I expect us to start a three guard lineup in most games with Donald Sloan, Derrick Roland, and Dash Harris to get the starting nods. Davis will start at the five and Loubeau will be the four. B.J. Holmes will be the first player off the bench and will likely see more minutes than Roland because he is our best outside shooter and can play either guard spot.

Bryan Davis averaged 10.6 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last year. We are going to need him to increase those rebounding numbers this year. Davis has a wide array of low post moves and is a good defender on the inside. He needs to learn to move his feet more so he can stay out of foul trouble. He led the team last year by fouling out of four games. We are going to need him to be on the floor 30 minutes per game in conference play. He is probably the most important player on our team.

David Loubeau enters his sophomore season after showing flashes of brilliance as a freshman. He ended the year averaging 4.6 and 3.2. He is going to have to double those numbers this season if we are going to go dancing this year. Loubeau has a great baseline jumper and should be one of the better inside scorers in the conference. He just has to get it done on the court.

Donald Sloan in the uncontested leader of this team. He averaged 11.8 and 3.6 and led the team with 108 assists last season. Sloan's slashing style has given opponents fits for the past three years. Sloan is the best dribble penetrator on the team, although Dash Harris should give him a run for his money this year. Sloan is really a two guard, but has been playing the PG spot on the floor for the past couple of years. With the emergence of Harris, Sloan should be able to concentrate more on scoring this season. Sloan and Roland terrorized opposing teams in HS while running the press. Hopefully we will see much of the same on the court for A&M this year. I expect Sloan to up his point total closer to 15 per game this year. He and Holmes are the two who will have the ball in their hand with the game on the line.

Derrick Roland is the best defender in the Big 12. He should excel even more this season as Turgeon utilizes the press more. Roland is good for a three pointer or two during a game. He is a great athlete and slashes to the basket well, he is just not a consistent finisher. Roland averaged 6.3 and 2.5 last season. The switch to a guard dominated transition offense and defense should really benefit Roland.

Dash Harris is a bigtime dribble penetrator who will be counted on to direct our offense this year. Harris is very effective and being a true point guard and getting everyone else involved. His biggest struggles last year occurred when he was asked to actually shoot the ball. He spent the off season working on his jump shot. We do not need Harris to be a bigtime scorer for us. He needs to hit the open jump shot, and direct the offense. I expect Harris to average 5-6 assists per game and to improve his scoring average to 5-7 points per game. The most important this is that he get his teammates involved in transition and hit his free throws. Harris' play this season will probably determine more than any player on the team, whether we are a competitive team in the conference, or an also ran who scrapes by to a winning season and a NIT bid.

B.J. Holmes is one of the best 3-pt shooters in the conference and should make teams pay when they double Davis and Loubeau down low. Holmes can play the point, the two, and is a very good defender. Now that Josh Carter has graduated, Holmes assumes the role of our outside threat. He just needs to play solidly like he did last year. He averaged 8.8 and 2.1 last year. I expect his scoring average to creep up to around 10 since he will see more shots in the offense this year.

Of the incoming freshmen, I expect Kris Middleton and Naji Hibbert to see the most playing time. Middleton is a 6'7" small forward from South Carolina. He is a slasher and a shooter. He should help Holmes, Sloan, and Nathan Walkup keep teams from playing zone against us. Hibbert is a slashing shooting guard from Dematha High School, one of the top high school programs in the country. I expect to see both of these freshmen have the typical first year struggles on the court. Hopefully, with their height they will be able to contribute some rebounding from the guard/small forward spot.

I expect to see Nathan Walkup hit at least one game winning shot this year. He just has a knack for it. Wal;kup will provide us with a little height off the bench and will provide depth at the small forward spot,. I think Walkup is ideally a two and would create bigger mismatch problems as a guard, but that is an area where Turgeon and I just disagree.

The bottom line on this season is that Dash Harris and David Loubeau are going to have to step up or we are going to be in some real trouble. It is disappointing that Turgeon did not have a contingency in case Kourtney Robertson did not gain admission. The silver lining in this whole deal is that a guard based, transition type offense and pressing defense may fit the personnel on this team better anyways. After a glance at the schedule, barring any major injuries I expect us to go 19-11 or 20-9. Turgeon proved last season that he could beat the odds and win the games he had to win in order to get us into the tourney. I am cautiously optimistic that with the team playing his style of basketball, with as many guards as we have that we will go dancing for the 5th year in a row.

ISU Game Thoughts

miketag — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:34:31 -0000

Just watched the DVD of the ISU game. Saw a couple of good things and a few areas that still concern me. The ISU team I saw on the video did not resemble the team that beat NU in Lincoln IMO. Maybe the NU offense is just that slow. ISU defense looked much quicker in that game. In our game they reminded me a lot of the UAB defense. JJ could have passed for 400 yards in this game if we wanted him to. The ISU secondary was hard hitting, but played off our receivers a bunch. There were holes in their zone coverage all day long. The ISU coach was correct in his pregame statements that they simply do not have the athletes right now. On defense, they were outmanned. Our defense struggled all game long IMO. That is still a major achilles heal of our team. If we want to stay in the game against OU and even tu, we need to really pick it up on that side of the ball.

Too many missed tackles. At times we look like an average defense out there, other times we resemble last years unit a lot with the first guy never making the tackle. It may just be that we need another year in the S&C program until out athletes are where they need to be.

For the second game in a row, Cyrus Gray ran very strong. He is dancing less and running vertically more. There were three or four instances in the game where he was pushing the pile forward at the end of the play; he was refusing to go down. He has really improved as a running back this year.

Second game in a row the OL opened huge holes for the running game. We are going to need our OL to play like that in every game the rest of the year if we want to win them.

Jeff Fuller, Kenric McNeal, Uzoma Nwachukwu, and Brandal Jackson are starting to remind me of the OU WRs in Rhett Bomar's first year. They are going to struggle with being consistent this year, but the next two or three years should be a lot of fun.It was nice to see Fuller back and almost to full strength.

Kyle Mangan played the run well in this game. He is starting to become more of a complete LB.

Our LBs as a whole need to get a lot better as a unit. Garrick Williams is improving, but too many times RBs break through the LOS and it is a free run into the secondary and a 10-15 yd gain.

Defense as a whole just needs to play better. We cannot play defense like we did on Saturday and expect to win any more games this season.

Special teams were very poor in this game. Too many long kickoff returns.

Jamie McCoy seems to have grown into his role as an H-back. Hopefully that will make him more enticing to the NFL scouts.

JJ had a nice game, but had two balls that should have been intercepted. He needs to continue to play within himself and not force the ball down the field. Tannehill is a hell of a playmaker, but that does not excuse throwing into triple coverage.

Huge News From OSU

miketag — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:53:40 -0000

Dez Bryant is ineligible until further notice according to a recent Tulsa World article. Evidently he had some kind of improper contact with an NFL player.

[Update]: Apparently, the NFL player Bryant was in contact with is Deion Sanders. The NCAA asked Bryant if he had visited Sanders; fearing the visit was an NCAA violation, Bryant said no. Sanders, knowing the visit is not an NCAA violation, said yes, he had visited his house. Lying to the NCAA is an ethical violation, so voila, you have Dez Bryant suspended indefinitely.

My guess would be the contact had something to do with the NFL player trying to convince Bryant to use his agent. Bryant lied to the NCAA when questioned about this contact. There is no set timetable for how long he will be out, or if he will regain eligibility this season. My bet is that he does.

This has huge implications on the game this Saturday. Bryant is the top WR in the country. he demands a double team on every play. His absence should allow the Aggie safeties to play closer to the LOS in an attempt to control the Pokes powerful running game. There is also the emotional toll this loss could have on the Cowboy players; knowing you are going on the road to start conference play without your best player has to be a bit disconcerting. For a team that started the season expecting to be a top 10 team, this has to be a huge blow. Maybe Mike Gundy will be able to make this an "us against the world" type deal and make it into a positive; hard to see how this can be a positive, though.

This means that the two best WRs on each team will be missing as Jeff Fuller is still out for the Ags. The article mentions that Kendall Hunter is still questionable, but after two weeks off to heal I expect him to start against the Ags. I expect to see a greater emphasis on the run game and less shots down field from OSU on Saturday. Their offense is still very dangerous and it will still be a huge task to win the game on Saturday. If we are not prepared, OSU could run the ball for 300 yards on us and win going away. As always, we need to limit turnovers and tackle well on defense.

UAB Game Review

miketag — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:36:35 -0000

Just watched the UAB game DVD. I saw a lot of good things. UAB may have been the worst team we played so far. They definitely had the worst pass defense. As bad as they were, it is still fun to see our defense improve game by game. Also fun to see guys like Bradley Stephens score TDs. Here are a few thoughts on the game:

First and foremost, we have found ourselves a left tackle. Stephen Barrera is the best LT we have put on the field so far. He was very impressive in pass pro. He did have a freshmen moment on the first series when on a 3rd down screen play he rushed out and blocked Brandal Jackson. Barrera had a better game at LT than Danny Baker had at RT. Barrera will take his lumps as a freshman. He still still ahead of where 99.9 percent of freshmen are in pass pro and he looks like a natural tackle.

Sean Porter is a very nice special teams player. More time than not on punts and kickoffs he is going to make the tackle or be right around the tackle.

Terrence Frederick had one of those highlight reel type hits that Sherman has been lamenting that have been missing for the past few years.

Defense struggled early with tackling, but got better as the game went along.

Glad to see the coaches calling some running plays for JJ. We are going to need him to use his feet and arm if we are going to make a bowl game.

Still amazed we had over 200 yds rushing with Chrisine Michael on the sideline.

Ryan Tannehill is one of the finest athletes to put on an Aggie uniform.

I am convinced that Von Miller would have fit right in on any of the great Wrecking Crew defenses.

When I was at A&M in the mid to late 90s, we would blow out the teams we were supposed to blow out. We are slowly but surely approaching that level again.

UAB Postgame Thoughts

miketag — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:39:43 -0000

Just a few thoughts on the game:

First off, I am extremely excited to blow out a team that I was certain would give us trouble. A 56-19 win over anyone is a great win for the program. To shut down a dangerous QB like Webb shows our defense is stepping up.

I believe we only had 3 penalties for the game. That is a huge improvement over the first two games.

We had our first two turnovers of the season, but the defense stepped up and limited UAB to FGs both times.

Matt Featherston had the best game of his career. By my count he had 1.5 sacks.

Von Miller had 1.5 sacks as well.

Ryan Swope made a grand debut with a TD catch in his first game. We have had 3 different true freshmen WRs catch TD passes for the Ags this year.

Even with Christine Michael in street clothes, we still ran the ball well. JJ picked up the slack in the running game.

With UAB focusing on stopping Gray, the coaches made a good adjustment in letting Jerrod Johnson carry the load on the ground.

Ryan Tannewill had two TDs receiving along with 101 yds on 3 catches.

Great to get the backups some action in a game.

Sounded like the coaches wanted to get a look at some guys before conference play started. Michael Hodges saw a lot of action.

Sounds like Sean Porter continues to make plays.

Heard Jonathan Lewis' name called a lot after he had a poor game last week. So it goes for freshmen.

Dustin Harris had another nice punt return.

We are 3-0 and halfway to a bowl game.

A Few Thoughts After Watching The Utah State DVD

miketag — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:02:31 -0000

Watched the Utah St. DVD and mostly saw good things. We definitely need to be better at tackling. Overall though, was better on DVD than it was in person.

Michael Shumard really played a good game. The clipping penalty that was called on him was complete BS. He did the exact same block later in the game and nothing was called. Had a tremendous block on EZ's TD run when he hit a defender about 15 yds downfield and the defender behind that guy went down like a domino. He blocked two men 15 yards past the LOS!

The OL was pretty good in pass pro. Only saw two times where JJ got a lot of pressure.

LBs need to work on their pass coverage. A lot of those first downs in the 4th quarter came on shot passes over the middle.

Cyrus Gray had a tremendous game running and receiving.

JJ was excellent when throwing screens and getting the ball in the flat to our RBs and TE.

Sean Porter played an excellent game. Jonathan Stewart needs to step it up or Porter may find himself in the starting lineup.

Probably the best I have seen our OL play since Sherman has been here.

Big Win For Volleyball

miketag — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:58:45 -0000

Big Win For Volleyball

Nice win for Corbelli and the team.

A&M Switches To The Sips Marketing Company

miketag — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:56:03 -0000

A&M Switches To The Sips Marketing Company

Wonder if this means we will have our baseball caps in every gas station across the state, and merchandise prominently displayed at Walmart?

Did Mack Brown Cut The Crust Off His Sandwiches?

miketag — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:18:29 -0000

Did Mack Brown Cut The Crust Off His Sandwiches?

In a pathetic attempt to explain why Colt McCoy had a poor game (for him) against Tech, the sip spin machine opines that Cart had the flu which was cured by PB&J.

Utah State Preview

miketag — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:54:08 -0000

Utah State will be the second of three teams we face to open the season that runs a spread option attack. They have a mobile QB in Diondre Borel who can beat you with his arm and feet. The have a talented sophomore RB in Robert Turbin who is a homerun threat. Their offensive coordinator came over from UNM. They should be another test for the Ags to see where we are at.

Utah State runs the spread option attack that New Mexico ran last year. I do not think they are quite as talented as New Mexico was last season and do not think this will be anywhere near as challenging as that game. They have two athletes on offense who need to be contained.

Turbin is a 5'10 202 pound RB who had 148 yards rushing against a talented Utah team in the season opener. His numbers were inflated by a 96 yard TD run. He is obviously a homerun threat and someone the Ags will have to keep contained. Against Utah the Aggies (Utah St variety) started a backfield including three RBs. Turbin was the only one who did any real damage.

Borel carried 14 times for 48 yards against Utah in the opener. He is a dangerous runner. He was only 10-26 through the air. He has never been an overly accurate QB. If we can get consistent pressure on him then we should be able to control their passing game. The problem will be if we let him get out of the pocket and extend plays and drives. We need to shut him down early to destroy any hope he has of making this a game.

Utah State's top WR is probably sophomore Stanley Morrison who had 3 reception for 57 yards against Utah. He is only 5'9 151 and should have trouble getting off the line against our bigger corners. He is from Dension, and I am sure is looking forward to playing at Kyle Field.

Utah State returns three OL with starting experience. Their LT is a redshirt freshman. Normally I would expect a big game for Von Miller against this kid, but I expect Miller to be double teamed a lot in this game. Utah State HC Gary Andersen already commented about how he thought Miller was a great player. We are going to need Spencer Nealy and Matt Moss to step up a lot on the other side.

I was not able to find out a lot about Utah State defensively. Their DC last coached for Nebraska under Callahan. He was the safeties coach. Guess I should expect wide open WRs and the A&M Agggies to score 50 points. Utah State runs a base 4-3 defense. They are a little undersized up front with their two DTs at 270+. Both DTs are first time starters this season and are JC transfers. We should be able to run the ball up the middle. Utah passed for 200+ and ran for 200+ against this group. Their DEs are in the 230 to 240 range. Looks like the coaches spent the spring trying to get more speed at DE so they obviously were not happy with what they have at the position. Would not be surprised to see a steady diet of the toss sweep to Christine Michael to the right side.

Utah State's top defensive player appears to be senior OLB Pault Igboeli. He is an alumnus of South Grand Prairie HS. Igboeli is undersized at 6'0 201, but is very active and is a preseason All Conference pick. MLB Bobby Wagner led Utah State with 12 tackles and a TFL against Utah.

I imagine they will line up 6'2 179 CB Rajric Coleman against Jeff Fuller. Coleman is a juco transfer who was All State in California in HS. Their other CB Kejon Murphy is 5'9 155 so we should have a size advantage there no matter who he lines up against. Their safeties are both shorter than 6 foot, so Jamie McCoy will be a mismatch. Defensively they do not match up well at all.

Utah State has had a bye week just like we did. I expect to see some trick plays. I expect to see some new looks on defense from them. I do not expect to see the kind of effort they put up against Utah, because that was a rivalry game. We need to get up on Utah State early and remove any doubt they have about making this a game. I know Sherman has said that this is a more talented team than New Mexico, but I do not see it. I expect us to win with a score something like 40-17. Our goals should be 450 yards on offense (300 pass 150 rush split) and allowing 300 or less on defense (150 and 150).

Of particular interest for this game will be the LT position for the Ags. Right now it looks like Danny Baker is going to start. We should see Michael Shumard and Rhontae Scales getting some playing time there. I am hoping the Ags eliminate some of their penalties from the previous game. Am also hoping to see a stronger running game, especially to the left side.