Last night, I agree with some posters that Pike is working out the kinks but a couple of disturbing things from Pike that I have not seen in previous years. First. His mandatory sub rotations at designated problems has been a big problem. Mathis was on fire early and off to a hot 6 point start and at the first time out 15:32 to go , he put in Young and buried Montes for 6-7 minutes. The kids lost his rhythm. Pike has to stay with a hot guy until he misses his first shot or asks out. I understand he is trying to get the rust out of Young, older player, etc. but he has affected Mathis and Caleb a lot. In the Bryant game he got pissed at Caleb and sat him for 13 minutes until the last possession . Tonight he did not help either guy.
I also disagree with those that say that Montes is terrible in the half court. First, they run very few offensive sets thru the first 3 games ( which I will discuss this second issue with Coach shortly), Mathis can be run off curls where he can drive to the hoop and score and get fouled. This hasn’t been tried . His foul shooting and three point shooting has improved in a small sample size,
but he worked real hard in the off season on both. He needs to be used more not less and properly. The same goes for Caleb. Young has forced things and is not looking to pass and set up his teammates . His defense has been good not great. Pike has to figure out Montes, Caleb and Jacob and their roles and properly use their strengths.
We cannot just rely on Geo. Ron was not posted once last night and we saw nothing really go through him on the offensive end . I know Pike will figure out the rotations but he has to put his players in a better position to succeed in order for the team to continue to climb. Neither Bryant nor Drexel were his finest coaching hours in the 4 years maybe his 2 worst in 100 games . I love Pike as a coach, as our coach , but not only do some players have to step up but he does also.
The other issue has reared its head in the Bryant and Drexel games. Both teams are lower level teams, true, but both coaches ran fabulous offensive sets that made us work our asses off on defense as well as eventually getting an open 3. Pike did not run many sets all night. Granted , teams have been playing zone a lot and we carved up Niagara all game and part of the Bryant game but not so much against Drexel as the passing was not as good as the first 2 games. But both Bryant and especially Drexel played man defense and we just ran Geo in isolation or late screen.If Pike just ran the sets Drexel ran, we would have made things easier for us. There also is a less concerted effort to get the ball down low on the block to Myles,or Shaq, or Mamadou. We have the talent, size, and bulk and length to run better offense.
