Sams & Murdaugh

[DECKS]

What's going on with these two ladies, especially Sams who was a pre-season all-MEAC selection?

[JayBee]

I don't know Decks, but my concerns are the same as yours! I was thinking that we wouldn't miss a beat with losing Taylor-James & Bland to graduation. But oh boy, have I been disappointed?

[Blankman]

Jan 2, 2010 19:48:46 GMT -5 JayBee said:

I don't know Decks, but my concerns are the same as yours! I was thinking that we wouldn't miss a beat with losing Taylor-James & Bland to graduation. But oh boy, have I been disappointed?

Smh.. I agree

[thefriscotxaggie]

My opinion:

Sams will be better as season goes on I think as conditioning gets better. If you notice she has been called for walking alot this year. I think her mind is a littlle ahead of the body based on the back injury and not in tip top shape.

Mudaugh: I have watched 4 or 5 games on video and she just seems out of sorts. In a few of the games she never looked for her shot in others she tried to kick her game in gear by taking more shots; but her stroke seemed off and she had very little balance on the floor. I think she needs one good game to get some confidence.

[oleschoolaggie]

i agree with you frisco regarding sams. during the preseason, it appeared that she had loss some weight and was primed for a breakout season. but then the back injury slowed her down. it now appears she's trying to work her way back into shape. she should be averaging double figures in points and at least 6, 7 or so rebounds per game. if she gradually becomes more and more productive, we'll know she's working her way back from injury.

but murdaugh is a different story. she has been a disappointment in my opinion. i just haven't seen "flashes" from her that says she'll be a major impact player. i can't think of any one aspect of her game that's stood out so far this season. i think she's solid, but nowhere remotely close to the caliber of ab or btj.

but i honestly think we have enough overall "fire power" to somewhat compensate for the absence of ab and btj. we definitely have more depth than last year and all the freshmen are capable of being major contributors. and aahhbigboy was right about jaquayla berry. this young lady is capable of "filling it up"! i think she's a little streaky and inconsistent, but when she's on, she gets into a zone where everything she shoots goes in. she's "capable" of being another btj if she works hard. she could stand to lose a few pounds and improve her fitness, but she's definitely a bonafide player!

yes, losing ab and bjt will be difficult to compensate for. but we have enough talent "overall" to come close, if not totally compensate. i just think two things need to happen. #1 - we have to play with the mindset that all of our meac opponents are gonna give us their "best shot" to beat us. we have to bring our "a" game EVERY NIGHT! if we don't, we're gonna struggle. bibbs is pretty good at preparing the ladies psychologically, so i think we'll be fine there. #2 - and i've mentioned this one before. our fitness level needs to improve. overall, we need to be more lean and fit. we can't play at our maximum potential otherwise, and we're currently not doing that. i need to see the rest of the meac, but i still think we have the best talent in the meac. we just have to play with more intensity and become better fit...

[thefriscotxaggie]

Just my opinion and its hard to tell on viedo; but we seemed a little bit slimmer than the LSU game and our energy was certainally at a different level. ( I am sure the first couple of practices after the LSU game were quite interesting and I bet Bibbs gave the team no passes just because LSU is # 5 in the country.

I agree about Berry a off season of good conditioning and she will be all meac next year along with Calvin ( baby girl). Both should make all freshman team if they continue to progress.

[SixtiesAggie]

It is difficult to find and/or recruit the talent of a Bland and Taylor-James. It will take awhile and some luck to replace them, so this present team has to find its own identity and find ways to compensate for the skilled people they lost.

[pj]

Murdaugh is solid to me. She will have a big game soon. I would not worry about it. She looks for her shot and attacks the basket. I like how She mixes it up. She will come in handy when the outside shots are not falling.

Sams is not as fast, but She knows how to win. She will have a good night also. She will not freak out under pressure.

Coach PCB used that Tweet/ Calvin combination @ NCCU and it looks good.

AB and BTJ are two Sisters going into the HOF. For a while I thought that we had reached the 'high water mark' of the program, but the mixture and the nature of the recruits will keep us on the map.

This team is This team. We may be spoiled. But from top to bottom they can all ball. You dont see a lot of dribbling errors and that kind of stuff. I saw them click at NSU.

[oleschoolaggie]

when i look at the multiple lineups that bibbs puts in the game, i always ask myself, who do we presently have on the floor that's not capable of scoring double figures on any given night? and 9 times out of 10, the answer is the same. no one! we're young, but we're deep. and normally we can score effectively from all 5 positions on the floor.

at the beginning of the season, my biggest concern was where would the scoring come from to compensate for the loss of ab and btj. now that i've seen the lady aggies play 5 games so far this season, i'm no longer concerned with our scoring anymore. sure, we can't exactly "replace" ab and btj, but we can compensate for their absence by committee, sorta speak.

this year's "freshman class" may be the best "freshman class" bibbs has brought in since coming to a&t. calvin, berry, and gorham are all capable of starting immediately. that bodes extremely well for the immediate future! and all three can score double figures.

i think mona has clearly stepped up her scoring this year to help compensate for ab's and btj's scoring. tweet has been absolutely "sensational" so far this season! to me, seniors tweet and mona are our go to players. then just take your pick (amongst the rest of the roster) for that 3rd major scorer on any given night. so in my eyes, scoring will not be a problem for us this year.

but what might be our biggest problem this year is that big azz "bull's eye" on our backs! so hopefully i can dispel some of that "sky is falling" mentality out there, because its not falling at all. however, our opponents look at our recent past (even the major d1's) and they see that we beat a major d1 and a mid-major power last year, we've only loss a grand total of "2" conference games over the last two years, we've won two consecutive "1 loss" regular season championships and last year's tournament championship, we got a 14 seed at the ncaa's, and we played florida state very tough at the big dance. that's what our opponents see and they all step their games up against us as a result! and rightfully so! bozeman's morgan team will go through the same thing on the men's side.

in other words, if you watch our meac opponents play against other teams (especially other hbcu's), you'd see an entirely and completely different looking team than when they play us! that's because most teams don't bring their "a" game every night against average teams. they only bring it when they feel they have to and all of 'em will feel they have to against us! so there's more to that close score against nccu than what meets the eye. central played against us as if a championship was on the line, while our ladies played as if it was just merely another game. hopefully our ladies have learned that they can't just simply show up for games and go through the motions. every team has the a&t game marked on their calendars! and if our ladies don't come out and match our opponents' intensity every night, we're gonna struggle at times in the meac. perhaps even take a couple of unexpected losses.

but if bibbs can manage to convince these ladies that their "c" game is not enough to repeat as champions, she'll deserve another coach of the year award. one of the hardest things in the world for a successful coach to do is to convince a team that's been "dominant" over the last two years that they have to play their hardest to reach similar results. its only human nature for a team that's been dominant for two plus years to feel that they don't have to work as hard to stay there. its called a sense of "entitlement". as the ole saying goes, winning a championship is the easy part. repeating is the hard part...

[Bornthrilla]

Looks like Sams is getting back to her old form.

Murdaugh has been mired in a season-long shooting slump, but I am confident she will find her stroke before the year is over too.

[JayBee]

I think Murdaugh will come out of her slump, and jell in time to help make this team the champions they really are! Can you imagine how fierce next year's team will be?

[Maxell]

Unfortunately, I think Murdaugh needs a year. What she's doing now is what she did as a freshman starter at Bowling Green. She'll need this year to figure herself out. She's only a sophomore. Remember BTJ as a sophomore?

[thefriscotxaggie]

Thats a very good point Maxwell. I think since Calvin and Berry are playing very well so we expected Murdaugh to sort take over as well, but in her def. she has sat out a year and i am sure practice is not the same as competitive ball. She sort got going aginst Iowa State and hit three jumpers in a row. But somebody said it earlier she not able to really create her own shot yet.

[AggieGroove]

I see Jalessa Sams had another solid game with a double-double, 17 pts, 12 rebound

Her game is rounding into shape nicely...just in time for conference play.

I don't know what happened early but I like what I see this time of the year...

Now on the hand, Crystal may be getting used to being back...suspect she may win one game for us somewhere down the line!

[DECKS]

It took a minute but it looks like Murdaugh has found her game.