Bluefield beats James monroe????

[Guest JJBrickface]

Look I wasn't at the game so I don't know what happened. However I was at the first Princeton game this year, and I remember after that loss you were trying to say we didn't do this and we didn't do that. One example was that you said we didn't drive to drive the ball against their zone, but I remember repeatedly Moore drving the baseline and also passing the ball to Ponder in the middle of the zone, all ways of disecting their zone. I don't claim to be a basketball genius like you do Rules, but at the same time I don't continually bash someone like you do Coach Gilliard.

[BluefieldPT 10]

Ok then rules, then I apologize, i thought you were directing that towards me. I just don't agree how you have bashed our team on here and even went over to ez board and said we needed to turn in our jerseys because we don't want it. You don't know the kids on this team like i do, and you don't know what they have put themselves through to get to this point. So stand behind your team and quit making us look bad around the state going to different boards and bashing bluefield so that peopple around the state see our own fans putting us down. I love Bluefield High School and care what those around the state think.

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

PT,

 

We can agree to disagree. I'm a vocal person and I like to call things as I see them. I don't sugarcoat something when there are problems. This Bluefield team hasn't played to their potential very often this year; I don't have to say anything for people to know that. And having followed Bluefield basketball for over a decade I find that very discouraging and frustrating to see Bluefield underachieve.

 

If you know the kids on the team then please sit them down and break out tapes of past Bluefield teams. Show them the '95 and '96 teams, and how, despite being talented, they came to play every second of every game, taking nothing for granted. More importantly, show team tapes of the '97 team, which despite having suffered major losses to graduation overachieved and fought their way to Championship Saturday.

 

And Brickface, yes I don't like Coach Gilliard as a coach. He's a good man from what I know, but he has brought a laziness to the Bluefield program that I hate to see. Playing a zone defense is disgraceful for a program with the athletes Bluefield produces each year. A coach should have his team playing to their strengths, not playing into the opponent's hands. Go back and watch the tapes from this past season of when Bluefield was playing their best basketball. During those times they were pressing and playing a high pressure, man-to-man defense. That's Bluefield basketball, that's what struck fear in the hearts of opponents for over a decade. No one fears Bluefield basketball anymore, no one and they won't again until the attitude returns.

[Bluefield_Rules 46]

BTW:

 

You know who I'd love to see become the head coach at Beaver? Willie Ellison.

[BluefieldPT 10]

There are teams that fear us. Believe that. Westside fans may act like they don't, but I've heard with my own ears asst coaches in wyoming and other counties saying they don't want to face us this year. Bash them all you want. We'll see how the tournament plays out. They just might surprise you.

[Guest JJBrickface]

I agree that pressure D is the face of Bluefield basketball, but you do have to switch it up. The pressure D works against the Pikeviews and Summers Counties but when you play teams that are athletic and fundamentally sound then you have to switch it up some. Like I said there are some talented players on this team but its nowhere like teams of the past. For example some of the kids that are on the bench, I'm sure they are hard workers and busted their butts to make the team but there is no way in hell they would have made some of the teams of the past. Unfortunately the team just isn't a great shooting team. I still think they have a great chance of winning it all. I don't think their is too much to worry about, I just think this team plays up to the talent level of their opponent, something very common in all facets of the game.

[WeirFootball 10]

I don't honestly care about Bluefield basketball or am trying to take sides in this arguement, but I've read comments on many different boards from people and Bluefield_Rules is right. I watched the game where they lost to Westside last year and that should have never happened. What was your coach thinking? His offensive game plan was to pass the ball around the perimeter and throw up 3's all game. Never once did he try to get the ball into the paint, of have one of the great athletes on Bluefield's team penetrate and dish to try and create an open look. Sometimes, the Bluefield players were getting so frustrated that they'd put up a shot a 4 feet behind the arch. It all comes down to discipline and the coaching staff instills that into their players. Bluefield should play an uptempo, fast paced style of basketball with pressure defense. They shoudln't sit back in a zone on defense and then just settle for bad shots on offense. The athletes are there and yes, they are underachieving.

[bluefieldRocks 14]

Coach gilliard wasnt on the court playing was he? and im sure he wasnt telling them to shoot a 3 every single time either. That falls back on the players at hand. If the see a play that might give them success they should take it insted of throwing up a trey every time they think there open, even if they might be. The high percent shot would be to dish it down low to matthews or ponder..

 

Last year against westside we really couldnt do anything down low considering they had robert repass. He was unbelieveable...thats for sure

[WeirFootball 10]

Well obviously Logan could considering they beat Westside the next day in the state title game. Aren't you the guy that was defending the kids on the team and now you're saying it was their fault they lost against Westside? If this guy was any kind of a coach he would have taken a TO, settled his team down, and got them to start running the fast-paced offense Bluefield is used to. All they needed to do was start playing some transition basketball and they would have gotten some easy baskets. They have great athletes so why let them sit out around the three point line and throw up bad shots? Also, BluefieldRocks, are you the guy on TSP that I've been arguing with for awhile now? It seems like it.

[RenegadeFan 10]

PT despite what you say there are teams that do not fear Bluefield, now i'm not saying Westside does or doesnt like the idea of playing Bluefield, but i've heard friends of mine who support different programs say "Bluefield who" when I mentioned them in being a contender in AA this yr, one of those friends is fans of Logan.

 

i mean its as i said compaired to yrs past, the past couple of seasons the name Bluefield doesnt intimidate teams as much as it use

 

i remember watching Wyo. East play Bluefield in 2002 and said before the game to a friend of mine, East doesnt stand a chance, why he said? i told him cause its Bluefield he just laughed and said this isnt the 90s anymore

 

and that's how a lot of ppl feel, Bluefield has good season, winning season, but teams dont fear them like they use to, teams now days say hey we can play with them

 

yrs ago teams like Shady Springs, Pikeview, James Monroe wouldnt be hanging with Bluefield in games, it would be over before it started, but now days that's just not the case

 

now if anyone looks at Bluefield and thinks they are just a push over team they are sadly mistaken, cause as Rules and others have said talent is still there, cause as i said before the Beavs have some of the most athletic kids ever, but it takes smart coaching too

 

now i'm not saying Gillard isnt a smart coach, but he has made some questionable decisions in he tenure at Bluefield

 

i think everyone still tries to figure out why all the many 3's last season?

 

WF mentions it in his comments and askes why they didnt dish it down low

 

well i think BluefieldRocks answered it best talking about Robert being on the team, WF did you happen to see what all he did down low against Berkley Springs or even in the regional or sectional games of region 8?

 

probably not, even in the regular season he held his own against Logan's Lou Green, that's why Logan had the game plan of containing him and Blankenship as much as possible in the game

 

now to get back on track i'm not gonna say Bluefield would have been that successful inside against Westside, but i'm sure they would have done a decent job and could have made the game closer

 

now WF comes back and says Logan has able to do something against him, something you gotta consider WF, is fatigue, Robert played longer and more mintues than Lou did, Lou stayed in a lot of foul trouble in all 3 games in Charleston, so Lou was fresh compaired to robert playing almost all the minutes of each qts. for 3 days straight, i dont care who ya that's gonna ware ya down!

 

another thing that can come into play is Logan had been depth in the end that Westside did.

 

as for saying if Bluefield would have run and gun and made the game more fast pace they would have won, dunno about that either, Westside holds there own in the run and gun type games too.

 

ultimately its part to blame on the players and part to blame on the coaching....cant really blame one person in particular...

[bluefieldRocks 14]

Aren't you the guy who on tsp keeps asking me why i have that state championship picture below my info? it seems so..

 

Im defending my friends this season... Last season when we played against westside, i dont think we should have shot the 3 as many times as we did.

[BluefieldPT 10]

You can say it all you want from the stands, but the coaches of the top teams in the state respect us and know we are one of the top teams in the state in AA. Don't know who you are talking to saying Bluefield who, but coaches from Logan and East respect us. I have heard it from their own mouths. I could say the same for Westside that you say about Bluefield. Westside isn't feared this year. I have heard three coaches from three top teams this year say they aren't all that impressed with Westside and that they would rather face them at states then Bluefield. So its all in opinion, and we are all going to stick up for our teams (except rules) and say ours are superior. Its all in the fun of it. So let the tournaments begin. Good luck westside, Logan, weir, and all others.

[RenegadeFan 10]

nah man, i'm just like Rules, i shoot from the hip and tell it like it is, and fact is Westside isnt as great as they could be, but they continue to find ways to win.

 

Westside is not the team they was last season nor teh 2 previous season IMO better talent on those teams, again that's my opinion, some WS would disagree with me, as a matter fact a lot of WS fans would disagree with me and stone me bout like some of the Bluefield folks are with Rules

 

but its true, i mean i never once said Westside should or would strike fear into someone's heart, as a matter of fact i would expect us to, we've not been around near as long as Bluefield nor have we been near dominant as Bluefield has been, and that's what i'm getting at, Bluefield is or was known for there dominance i remember as a small kid seeing basketball players i looked up to at Oceana be so worried about playing Bluefield that it wasnt funny, i just dont think Bluefield has that intimidation factor when they play certain teams now days.

 

i mean does coaches and fans respect Bluefield and what they accomplished, sure they do, i know i do, but to me looking at the team now compaired to back then, well i would much rather play this yrs team or last yrs team compaired to teams that came out of Bluefield 5-10 yrs ago!

 

as i said the talent is still there, but not quite sold on the coaching yet, you spoke of certain coaches speaking highly on Bluefield and i agree with you they do, i'm real good friends with Mark Hatcher and he does speak highly of Bluefield as a program and the players, said Dexter Moore is one of the more pure shooters/player/everything rolled in one.

 

but its as you said, just good luck to everyone and may the best team(s) win

[bhssports 10]

Im sorry but i have to agree with rules on what he is saying, this bluefield team nor the past couple of teams(including when i played) compare to the teams of before, im not sayin the talent is not there cause it is, but bluefield basketball press the ball, man to man, take it right to the team that we are playing....the past couple of seasons it has not been that way, we play to the talent of the team we face that night...beating james monoroe by 2 in sectionals??? give me a break, thats not bluefield basketball, to only score 4 points in the 3rd quarter is a joke for us. Many fans can blame it on the game being close cause of the refs, but that is stupid, the refs dont limit a team to 4 points in a quarter....every fan for every sports team blames a loss of a game on the refs...you know what, a good team knows that when entering a game that the refs are goin to make bad calls, but they are going to have to overcome the adversity by playing smarter.

 

to say robert repass was unbelievable is a joke, robert was a good player dont get me wrong.. but we should have been in man to start the game..and not let him get the ball in the post...and to blame all the 3-pointers on the players, a good coach would have called a timeout and fix the mistake. the players shouldnt have taken all the shots but a coach shouldnt have let them shoot that many, but both are to blame .... but how often do you see bluefield get the ball in the post and let the post players go to work...to be able to get the 3 point game to work you have to get the inside game workin and vice versa

 

I love Bluefield more than next person, but im goin to tell it how it is, this bluefield team is over-rated, they dont play every play hard, who have they beat that is worth anything, yea they beat logan but logan didnt have their team in entirety. They lost to princeton twice and mount view once...these are teams you have to get up for cause they having nothing to lose if bluefield beats team but they have a memorial season if they beat us. Im just not sold on this team right now, not after beating james monroe by two.

[bluefieldRocks 14]

a fellow student and I were dicussing a team that played a entire college basketball game man to man full court press

 

They called it "40 minutes of hell", i say with bluefields athletes on there teams they could do it

[BluefieldPT 10]

Just keep in mind we have 2 juniors and 2 sophomores playing alot of minutes, and 2 other juniors by basketball maturity but age makes them ineligible next year. Two true seniors on this squad (matthews and page) and 1 is playing through a tough injury that alot of kids would be done with So a pretty young team. Give them some credit.

[bluefieldRocks 14]

We'll be a contender next year also... hopefully

[Guest JJBrickface]

PT I have to agree with you, this team is still young. My only problem with the coach bashing is that I hear it all the time. I hear some people bash WVU COach John Beilein at times because the Mountaineers have trouble rebounding the ball but they look past the fact that they turn the ball over less than any other team and that Beilein is one of the better coaches in the country. Thats what I mean by when people don't know the game.

[oldskool 10]

I only have 1 question for those of you who seem to think that Gaither was the best coach ever. How do you lose a state championship with Justin King, Jamal Crenshaw, and John Patterson? Answer. By putting Crenshaw on the wing and running a high post screen and pop with King and Patterson. Great coaching huh. Crenshaw was 6'5 and patterson was 6'6. Why were they not posting up? Great coaching.

[Sources 10]

I don't recall anyone saying anywhere in this thread that Gaither was the best coach ever. He is a great coach and was someone who knew how to utilize the talent around him to it's full potential. Gaither won two state titles, not to mention back to back, and got Bluefield to other title games as well even if they did lose. Gilliard has yet to do that because he can't understand the type of players he has or how to use them.

[GMan 3,569]

[ QUOTE ]

I only have 1 question for those of you who seem to think that Gaither was the best coach ever. How do you lose a state championship with Justin King, Jamal Crenshaw, and John Patterson? Answer. By putting Crenshaw on the wing and running a high post screen and pop with King and Patterson. Great coaching huh. Crenshaw was 6'5 and patterson was 6'6. Why were they not posting up? Great coaching.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

Would not have mattered if Crenshaw and Patterson ever had posted up...Kobe, um, I mean King had the ball in his hands most of the time...definitely not coaching's fault on that team...

[WeirFootball 10]

If this is the year I am thinking of, the kid from Tug Valley shot the lights out. Bluefield had a halftime lead, but then that kid from Tug Valley came out and couldn't miss behind the three point line.

[Guest JJBrickface]

In my opinion you would have to blame the coach if a player is hogging the ball. No matter how talented the player is if he is disrupting the flow of the offense then he shouldn't be on the floor.

[Guest BEAVERTAIL]

[ QUOTE ]

BTW:

 

You know who I'd love to see become the head coach at Beaver? Willie Ellison.

 

[/ QUOTE ]

 

That's the truth. He makes the kids want it every night. A very intense and tempered coach, yet basketball savvy. He can lead the Beavers to Charleston with lesser talent than what they have this year. Plus, look what he and Tony Webster did with the JV teams last year, undefeated, and no one really came close to beating them.

[RenegadeFan 10]

but still if it was in 98 or 99 whenever Greg Davis for Tug Valley was around, as WF pointed out he was unconscious from behind the arc and was just a great player that was hard to contain.