APP @ IONA Tue

[biggie]

Needed to hit more shots. But especially 3s. Sad way to start the season.

[AppOrange]

13% from 3, 47% from the stripe, ugly. Waiting too long to get the O cranked up, no flow, perhaps shorten the bench. Bad offensive basketball. The good news, it can’t get much worse.

[appdaze]

Seeing Pitino at Iona on ESPN 3 is just sad. Give it another couple years and he will be at a local community college.

We have good potential. Starting out the season looking like we did in this game is such a nice change from some of the last 10 years. I haven't turned my attention to sunbelt basketball yet, but the announcer said we should finish top 3 sunbelt in his opinion. We've got some mistakes to tighten up, especially to finish out a game, before we get too far ahead of ourselves.

[hapapp]

I suppose expectations were high given the talent back but not an impressive opening game. No flow, poor FT shooting, too much dribbling, awful three point shooting. Iona did play pretty stingy defense.

[AppStateNews]

53 points, what are we Virginia?

Had all off season to improve the offensive gameplan and zero changes seem to be have made

Huh? Iona is a tournament team. Easily the best team in the MAAC. They are a good defensive team and we were cold from three.

That is Kerns style. If you didn't see the young guys performing much better (mainly Brown), actually moving away from the ball, and actually running offensive sets, then I can't help you. You may not like the style, but it's his style and took us to the tournament.

Was offense good tonight? No. But to say we didn't improve the gameplan and zero changes is absurd to say after one game. Perhaps, just maybe, Iona's defensive game plan made us look worse than we are? It's one game.

[Stonewall]

53 points, what are we Virginia?

Had all off season to improve the offensive gameplan and zero changes seem to be have made

Huh? Iona is a tournament team. Easily the best team in the MAAC. They are a good defensive team and we were cold from three.

That is Kerns style. If you didn't see the young guys performing much better (mainly Brown), actually moving away from the ball, and actually running offensive sets, then I can't help you. You may not like the style, but it's his style and took us to the tournament.

Was offense good tonight? No. But to say we didn't improve the gameplan and zero changes is absurd to say after one game. Perhaps, just maybe, Iona's defensive game plan made us look worse than we are? It's one game.

Yes , and yes.We are going to win a lot of games.

[APPChad90]

Tough crowd. I’m actually pleased with the fight. We made a highly regarded Mid Major play our type of game on the road. Foul trouble and missed FT’s were a big factor down the stretch. As App fans we need to realize that mucking things up is the calling card of this program right now and their is no shame in winning ugly. It didn’t happen tonight vs a higher regarded program with a HOF coach. It was there for the taking but they outplayed us in last 10 minutes. I believe this is a game that makes us better down the road in the conference. As far as the announcers, I thought they were fair, knowledgeable, and did their homework on App. Yes, the one guy sounded like he had cotton in his mouth but they still called a good game especially compared to some of the stuff we normally get in road games on TV in the Sun Belt. Let’s get ready for Friday.

[AppinVA]

This is the first time since March of 2020 that teams have played in front of crowds. I'm sure it was easier for those who were playing in front of their own fans.

[beav910]

That’s a good showing against a solid mid-major. It was ugly but it was the first game of the season and that’s kind of our M.O. anyways.

[BambooRdApp]

Tough loss on the road. Low FT% and missed easy baskets around the basket. Had some foul trouble. Early in season... definitely need to let young guys play to get experience.5 in foul trouble early in 2nd half and 20 fouled out. Two key guys. Iona was a tournament team and we played them tough until 3 to 4 minutes left in game.
Most likely scenario for Sunbelt is probably only the winner gets in March Madness and/or if another team has a sensational year but loses in Sunbelt tournament...they may get in as well. Unless we believe we will lose less than 5 or 6 games all year, play the young guys with the vets to get experience. We are going to need them in conference play and Sunbelt tournament.

[bigdaddyg]

Looked like a team that just needs to get some rhythm and some games under their belt. Our lack of size inside hurt us. We struggled to get easy shots around the basket. Our style of slow down work for a good shot will be effective. If we had tried to speed it up we might have lost by 20. Iona had that van-eyck guy who was a tough cover. We don’t have the inside answer for the 6’8” 240 lb men we will see. This season is going to be interesting everywhere with teams bringing back 23 year old dudes for their 5th or even 6th college season.

[MAD Doctor]

Some nights you just can’t throw it in the ocean. We’ll be fine.

[agentpaul001]

Yah overall I thought our defense looked solid for first game back and offensively if those FTs went in / couple more 3s land then it's a different story. Thought the team did a great job forcing the pace of play in the direction they wanted. Hope they bring the same defensive effort to ETSU and get the W.

[HurricaneYosef]

App State MBB twitter account didn't tweet any updates after the U16 Timeout in the second half. Remainder of second half was relatively close, how can our brand grow if we don't keep our social media updated during live games.

(Win or lose we should be posting the finale score)

[moonshine]

too much dribbling

This is what I found so frustrating. I get taking the air out of the ball and slowing the pace but there were several possessions where the offense just dribbled the ball around behind the 3 point line before starting the offense deep into the shot clock. I recall one possession early on in the 2nd half where 1 player dribbled the ball 20+ times well outside the 3 point line before passing and starting the offensive set. The 10 total assists reflects the lack of ball movement.

It's just 1 game against a solid mid-major on the road but I guess my expectations were high after last season. Team needs to bounce back on Friday!

[AppStateNews]

too much dribbling

This is what I found so frustrating. I get taking the air out of the ball and slowing the pace but there were several possessions where the offense just dribbled the ball around behind the 3 point line before starting the offense deep into the shot clock. I recall one possession early on in the 2nd half where 1 player dribbled the ball 20+ times well outside the 3 point line before passing and starting the offensive set. The 10 total assists reflects the lack of ball movement.

It's just 1 game against a solid mid-major on the road but I guess my expectations were high after last season. Team needs to bounce back on Friday!

One thing I did notice is when Almonacy and Forrest were both on the bench, there were many more aggressive drives to the basket.

That style fit that personnel on the court at the time and seemed to throw Iona off a little bit. However, that was also when Iona started taking the lead because that is not the style App has to play to win.

Slowing the game down and good defense will win a lot of game -- barring we shoot better than 47% from the line and 14% from 3.

[CharlotteApp05]

A lot of mixed feelings on this one. Could have/ Should have been able to win. I felt like we got a little off script with the fouls and settled for bad shots instead of looking to drive. Xavion really could be a great player. Loved what I saw from Harcum. Frustrated with free throw shooting.

I think we win more than last year.

[hapapp]

We played a pretty good first half but when Pitino made adjustments at the half, we didn't seem to have a good answer. No team wins that shoots as poorly as we did from 3 and the FT line. It can be hard to judge a team based on one game because we don't know how the good the opposition really will turn out to be. From all appearances Iona will be a pretty solid team this year, time will tell whether this was a bad loss or just one lose to a pretty good team.

[JMappfan5]

Our 3 best shooters combined for 2-19 from 3 pt line...not gonna win many games with that %.

[Stonewall]

Iona is really good .Last night they were even a little better than us.