Sprinkle is sitting pretty good thanks to Fish

Discuss anything and everything relating to Bobcat Basketball here.

Moderators: rtb, kmax, SonomaCat

User avatar
BLACKnBLUEnGOLD
Member # Retired
Posts: 2956
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:00 pm
Location: Back in the US, but not home

Re: Sprinkle is sitting pretty good thanks to Fish

Post by BLACKnBLUEnGOLD » Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:31 am

CelticCat wrote:
Thu Apr 04, 2019 5:06 pm
Who do you see starting next year? I guess I'm not as optimistic.
I'm not optimistic enough to have made a post with this title, but the cupboard is certainly not as bare as it was when Fish came in. I'm concerned with the fact that both the team's forwards and one of its two centers are gone in a single offseason, the same one as Hall's graduation. (The fact that those F/Cs are just two guys says a lot about how basketball is played today, but protecting the rim is still important.) I am also concerned about how the players who remain will fit into what Sprinkle has said he wants to do on defense, but I'll get to that in a minute.

My written-in-pencil starting lineup for the regular season opener is Russell, Frey, Lassi, Ricketts, and Kirby. They are the five players who have proven they can play meaningful minutes on a Division I team.

A lot of people might look at my lineup and be worried about the offense. I am not worried about offense. I will admit that I don't know what an offense built around that group looks like. I assume it will look a lot different from this year's offense (either of them), but I'm not worried about it. For one thing, I don't worry. For another thing, it's usually not that hard for Division I players to score in a basketball game. There are lots of ways to put the ball in the hoop. Danny Sprinkle knows how to score points in the Big Sky Conference. I'm sure he'll have some ideas.

Where I'm a little more perplexed is defense. There are a LOT of things I like about the 1-3-1 defense (honestly, I love that defense. It's my favorite defense.) There are a lot of things I like about the 1-3-1 defense for most of the players on the Bobcats: it's a defense that really only uses one big (which is great 'cause that's how many we have), it's a defense that tends to produce a lot of fast-break points of of turnovers (which helps with the task of finding new ways to score with Hall gone), and it's a defense that has a spot where you can put Landen Ricketts and he's actually a decent fit.

Unfortunately, you need one guy to run it that the Bobcats really don't have: a player who can sprint back and forth across the baseline all day and still have the strength and stamina to fight for position underneath the basket. He doesn't necessarily have to be tall, but he does have to be pretty strong, pretty quick, and pretty fast, plus obviously elite stamina. It's a great place to put a defense-first player, because given how much energy that one guy expends playing defense, he won't have a lot left over for driving or running off a bunch of screens. Dennis Rodman would have loved that role. But long as he is an athlete and a tenacious nuisance like that, he can be 6'1". Even so, I don't see that guy in my lineup. I don't really see that guy anywhere on the roster.


"What's our job? Gettin the offense the ball! How we gonna do it? By any means necessary!"

-Trent King, Playmakers

GrizgradCatFan
BobcatNation Team Captain
Posts: 370
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:18 pm

Re: Sprinkle is sitting pretty good thanks to Fish

Post by GrizgradCatFan » Sun Apr 07, 2019 6:18 pm

BLACKnBLUEnGOLD wrote:
Sun Apr 07, 2019 10:31 am
CelticCat wrote:
Thu Apr 04, 2019 5:06 pm
Who do you see starting next year? I guess I'm not as optimistic.
I'm not optimistic enough to have made a post with this title, but the cupboard is certainly not as bare as it was when Fish came in. I'm concerned with the fact that both the team's forwards and one of its two centers are gone in a single offseason, the same one as Hall's graduation. (The fact that those F/Cs are just two guys says a lot about how basketball is played today, but protecting the rim is still important.) I am also concerned about how the players who remain will fit into what Sprinkle has said he wants to do on defense, but I'll get to that in a minute.

My written-in-pencil starting lineup for the regular season opener is Russell, Frey, Lassi, Ricketts, and Kirby. They are the five players who have proven they can play meaningful minutes on a Division I team.

A lot of people might look at my lineup and be worried about the offense. I am not worried about offense. I will admit that I don't know what an offense built around that group looks like. I assume it will look a lot different from this year's offense (either of them), but I'm not worried about it. For one thing, I don't worry. For another thing, it's usually not that hard for Division I players to score in a basketball game. There are lots of ways to put the ball in the hoop. Danny Sprinkle knows how to score points in the Big Sky Conference. I'm sure he'll have some ideas.

Where I'm a little more perplexed is defense. There are a LOT of things I like about the 1-3-1 defense (honestly, I love that defense. It's my favorite defense.) There are a lot of things I like about the 1-3-1 defense for most of the players on the Bobcats: it's a defense that really only uses one big (which is great 'cause that's how many we have), it's a defense that tends to produce a lot of fast-break points of of turnovers (which helps with the task of finding new ways to score with Hall gone), and it's a defense that has a spot where you can put Landen Ricketts and he's actually a decent fit.

Unfortunately, you need one guy to run it that the Bobcats really don't have: a player who can sprint back and forth across the baseline all day and still have the strength and stamina to fight for position underneath the basket. He doesn't necessarily have to be tall, but he does have to be pretty strong, pretty quick, and pretty fast, plus obviously elite stamina. It's a great place to put a defense-first player, because given how much energy that one guy expends playing defense, he won't have a lot left over for driving or running off a bunch of screens. Dennis Rodman would have loved that role. But long as he is an athlete and a tenacious nuisance like that, he can be 6'1". Even so, I don't see that guy in my lineup. I don't really see that guy anywhere on the roster.

Lassi and Russell will be coming off the bench. Russell isn't a scoring threat and I don't think that great of a ball handler. Lassi needs to go to Havre and would still be coming off the bench. Sorry he is a nice kid, but not D1. He would have needed to put on 15lbs of muscle to make up for the lack of size and speed and I don't see that happening. I am sure whoever Danny brings in will be possible starters for those two positions. Harry needs the ball in his hands so he can pick and roll and then to dish off when driving. Zeke will be a starter next year if he can continue to grow with confidence. He has all the intangibles of a good D1 forward. Hopefully he learned how to flop a little and not be so aggressive on defense. I sat next to his dad at a game and he said his son prided himself on defense in highschool and sure enough two fouls in 2 minutes. He has some learning, but will be a solid forward for the cats going forward. I am praying Bonton and his buddy move to bozeman this off season and like Danny said in the article they should all be playing ball every day together to get used to playing together. GO CATS!



rockyMTNcat
New Recruit
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 9:49 pm

Re: Sprinkle is sitting pretty good thanks to Fish

Post by rockyMTNcat » Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:34 pm

mslacat wrote:
Thu Apr 04, 2019 5:03 pm
One of the things that has to have made the MSU job attractive to people who seriously looked at the job is that coach Fish left this program A LOT BETTER than when he took the job. We have one of the top 5 or 6 players in the conference returning. We return 8 of our 12 players and we have a pretty nice recruiting class, most of whom have committed to honoring their LOI. I look at the 11 guys mentioned above and everyone of them is a legit D-1 player. We could not say any of these thing 5 years ago when Fish took over for Huse. That group of players was a hard working bunch, but had some questionable D-1 talent in their ranks. Fish also had to scramble to fill 4 open scholarship spots. thanks to Fish Danny has only two to fill a very manageable task. This is all thanks to Brian Fish. Danny has a real chance of having a winning record his first season, something neither Fish nor Huse had a snow balls chance in hell to do. Of course to do that Danny will need more than Fish's personnel Danny is going to have to really coach up this team. So hats off to Brian Fish, he could not get us over the hump, but he seriously up graded our talent.

BTW: As I have said earlier, and continue to hear from other sources today, those two scholarships Danny has, are already committed and will be filled by impact players the April 17th the first day signing period.
=D^ =D^ =D^ =D^



Post Reply