woodbury

lightning1 said:
I think Woody would get more blocks and less fouls if he would be patient and allow the offensive player to make their move, when they get the ball in the post, rather than try and body the guy off the block. He's tall enough and has active hands to get some blocks by using timing rather than body. Someone should sit him down and show him old film on AC Earl. Earl almost never tried to body up a post player that already had the ball on the block. He'd just wait for the player to make his move and then block or alter the shot.
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Do we need him to get blocks to be a good defender? I don't think so. He disrupts ball movement and denies his man from getting to the rim. Fine by me. Blocks look great on the old highlight reel, but they often go out of bounds or back to the opponent. Almost rather he force a bad pass or bad shot.
 
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I think the staff is still trying to figure Woody out. Other than the ISU game (25 minutes) and Penn game (20 minutes), Woody seems to average about 15 minutes. Is it bad coaching that doesn't put him in the game or is it something else. If he is a real killer on defense, get his *** in the game.
 
Knight78 said:
I'm not saying he's the same level of player, but both of these statements (well, except substitute 6'11'') could be made about a pretty fair ball player by the name of Bill Laimbeer - 6'11'' spot up shooter and got so high on his "jump shot" that you could almost slide a sheet of paper under his toes.
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Marc Gasol is another big guy with almost no vertical but a real nice 15 foot jumper. He's also a very good passer, if Woody could develop a poor man's Gasol type of game he can be a very successful B10 player.
 
Oleseni is a great compliment to Woody. They are good/bad at the opposite things. I have been hoping all year, but haven't yet seen, them both on the court at the same time.
 
Anybody on here know how big his parents are? He has filled out some. Not sure if he is one of those guys who can't put much weight on, or if his dad has a bigger frame and he is just catching up with his length.
 
Knight78 said:
Acie Earl played AWFUL defense. All he could do was block shots. Blocking a shot is NOT defense, it's a last resort. I can't tell you how many times I yelled at the TV watching Acie try to block shots on competent players and fail... and in the process be completely out of position to help others. I much prefer Woody's defense - keeping a player off the block, denying him the ball as long as possible and then bodying up so the opponent can't do what he wants. 90% of good defense is making the offensive player work hard to receive the ball and then making him do what he doesn't want to do with the ball.
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Getting called for fouls every time you try to play "good defense" isn't much better. At least he would be able to stay on the court. And I'm not advocating an "either/or" situation here. Somewhere in the middle would be nice. Use your body and defend the post prior to your opponent getting the ball is OK, but once your opponent gets the ball in the post, how is fouling him an acceptable form of defense?
And I have to say that Acie Earl was NOT a horrible defender. He averaged 8.8 rebounds as a SR and was nominated for NABC Defensive Player of the Year. Here is his UofI bio: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hawkeyesports.com%2Fsports%2Fm-baskbl%2Fmtt%2Facie_earl_302824.html&ei=gHjQUtW1E4TisASXioDoCw&usg=AFQjCNFKNT2iAtmYWxk46tJj8IMZ2PQlrw&sig2=i3RI3VSxjvq8mmvIKp5NFA&bvm=bv.59026428,d.cWc
 
I'm giving Knight78 the win of this thread. I'm sure most people get it, and it is only the vocal minority on the Internet.
It is still pretty frustrating to read about how people belittle Woody for his lack of explosiveness.
Perhaps he should belittle the rest of us for our lack of height.
 
lightning1 said:
Getting called for fouls every time you try to play "good defense" isn't much better. At least he would be able to stay on the court. And I'm not advocating an "either/or" situation here. Somewhere in the middle would be nice. Use your body and defend the post prior to your opponent getting the ball is OK, but once your opponent gets the ball in the post, how is fouling him an acceptable form of defense?
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But are you paying any attention to what Woody is doing on defense or you just listening to the whistles? The man moves his feet about as well as I've ever seen someone that tall and some of those calls he gets are unbelievable, he cannot stand tall with his arms straight up in the air without getting called a foul.
 
ssckelley said:
But are you paying any attention to what Woody is doing on defense or you just listening to the whistles? The man moves his feet about as well as I've ever seen someone that tall and some of those calls he gets are unbelievable, he cannot stand tall with his arms straight up in the air without getting called a foul.
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Woody plays good defense through much of the possession. And he does seem to get the tail end of the calls. That suggests to me that he needs to make some adjustments in his game or maybe get ejected from the game? Try and get the refs attention maybe.
 
lightning1 said:
Woody plays good defense through much of the possession. And he does seem to get the tail end of the calls. That suggests to me that he needs to make some adjustments in his game or maybe get ejected from the game? Try and get the refs attention maybe.
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Seems to always work out when one of our guys gets the officials attention(HEAVY sarcasm).....
 
1hawkeye1 said:
Last night he showed flashes of playing better at the high post. I liked woody at the FT line and Basabe in the low block.

Don't know that he can consistently hit that 12-15' shot though.
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He's shooting over 70% from the free throw line so it's not out of the question that he can hit this shot 50% of the time IMO. I can definitely live with that percentage.
 
Knight78 said:
Acie Earl played AWFUL defense. All he could do was block shots. Blocking a shot is NOT defense, it's a last resort. I can't tell you how many times I yelled at the TV watching Acie try to block shots on competent players and fail... and in the process be completely out of position to help others. I much prefer Woody's defense - keeping a player off the block, denying him the ball as long as possible and then bodying up so the opponent can't do what he wants. 90% of good defense is making the offensive player work hard to receive the ball and then making him do what he doesn't want to do with the ball.
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Per Widipedia - Earl graduated as the 1992 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, and upon graduation held the Iowa career record with 358 blocked shots, and was second in total points scored with 1779...

Earl did NOT play awful defense. Both he and Woodbury are good defensive players. Acie not only blocked shots but did it with touch...kept them in bounds. Woodbury is better with his feet, positioning, etc. It isn't necessary to tear Earl down to build Woodbury up. They are completely different players.
 
Seth53 said:
He got a nice round of applause from us @ CHA last night when he dove for a loose ball near our basket in the middle of the 2nd half.

That play summed up what he gave last night....may not have been pretty or smooth, but it was tenacious.
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I like his toughness and his tenacious D. They have some real competitors on that team.
 
ssckelley said:
I agree, I was complaining about this in the game thread. You cannot even simply stand straight up with your hands in the air without getting a foul called on you. Evidently the NCAA does not want anybody playing defense, if someone drives to the hoop then you gotta get out of their way.
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The thing is I dont see any more hand checking fouls than before being called which is what I thought the new emphasis was about.

Granted teams aren't doing it as much but its somehow gotten to the point now that everything around the hoop is a foul on the defense.

I don't think the referees understand what they are supposed to be doing because they are not managed properly.
 
ibahawkeye said:
Absolutely agree with this and it's not just Woody. There are times I see Mel, White with a post and we tend to be happy swinging it around the top.
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It doesn't seem to be part of the offensive game plan which is strange because we used to post up people a bit more and you pretty much earn an automatic foul just for posting up now so I would be doing it all the time.
 
HomerChampless said:
So, is it player unselfishness (yeah, I talking to you, Devin) when making offensive play calls or is it Fran?
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I don't think its selfishness because none of the guards will do it and most of the time instead of feeding the post they just pass the ball somewhere else on the perimiter.

Its not being taught and or emphasized.
 
lightning1 said:
I think Woody would get more blocks and less fouls if he would be patient and allow the offensive player to make their move, when they get the ball in the post, rather than try and body the guy off the block. He's tall enough and has active hands to get some blocks by using timing rather than body. Someone should sit him down and show him old film on AC Earl. Earl almost never tried to body up a post player that already had the ball on the block. He'd just wait for the player to make his move and then block or alter the shot.
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Ill bet Earl had a good foot or more of wingspan on Woody and at least 10 inches more vertical.

Different players, if Woody did that hed just pick up fouls even quicker.
 
22hawkeyes said:
Anybody on here know how big his parents are? He has filled out some. Not sure if he is one of those guys who can't put much weight on, or if his dad has a bigger frame and he is just catching up with his length.
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You can tell hes never going to put on allot of weight/strength by how narrow his shoulders are and unfortunately, unlike most tall skinny guys, he doesn't have long arms either.
 
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