Eastern Washington @ Oregon

[Boom]

This team misses Malcom Armstead.

And to the people who said that Loyd is the same player...

Loyd can't make other players convert open shots. Loyd can't make the bigs box out and disallow offensive rebounds (Loyd has one less rebound than Ashaolu in one less minute). Loyd can't stop others form having zero assists and 5+ turnovers. Loyd can't make FTs for them (though, granted, he also missed them in the Vanderbilt game).

Compared to Armstead's numbers from last year: Loyd, per game, averages the same amount of rebounds, more assists, approximately the same turnovers, three fewer points, the same amount of steals, and six fewer minutes. Small sample size, I know, but it illustrates that the production has been approximately the same thus far. Loyd will never be the same scoring threat as Armstead which I know is your main complaint but, in reality, he shouldn't have to be on this team. This current Oregon team has enough offensive weapons that Loyd should be able to simply facilitate and have them execute; so far they have not.

Where this team misses Armstead (the good version) is that currently it doesn't have two PGs to run the show. I'll admit that long-term Loyd is not the solution and likely serves best as a change of pace PG, albeit one that will still play plenty of important minutes per game. Loyd certainly is far from criticism-free thus far and I think that having Armstead (again, the good version) would certainly help this team but I don't think that would be my main complain after watching these two games.

I apologize for the long post but the harping on this issue (going back to last year) is rather annoying. Armstead is gone. Loyd is here. Joseph is available soon enough. This team, with all of the new pieces, was going to go through growing pains regardless of who played PG and hopefully they will all start to play as a unit soon.

You guys need to get over the box score averages.... Armstead was rarely healthy last year... and most of his turnovers was due to the fact that he was the primary ball handler and he was one of 2 guys that could create shots for his teamates.

The biggest thing we miss now though... is a PG who can knock down an open shot and match up defensively against other teams guards.

If Joseph can give us that(I've never seen him play)... then I think we could make some noise in conference this year.

But as of right now... Armstead would have been playing 20+ minutes and helping this team.

[Boom]

if you really want to break it down one could still argue that sim's game last night was still better than any of armstead's last year, but the overall point wasn't about needlessly looking up every single game armstead played last year to compare statistics, it was that armstead had a really rough go of it and this team doesn't miss him. if anything, based on your jabari rant, you should be saying that we really miss jay-r strowbridge, because we're not getting the 2-guard production yet, whereas we ARE getting contributions from our current points. but that too would be a silly thing to say.

i still don't know how saying we're able to match a kid's contributions and he isn't missed is 'completely ignorant', but you saying multiple current players 'suck' is somehow an acceptable practice.

Really!? you're going to compare Sim's production against Eastern Washington.... to what Armstead did against Pac10 competition?

And you do know that this team has significantly more talent on it.... that sorta makes things easier on the PG.

and btw... Armstead gave us more than a "couple of steels" on defense. As you should know... there is much more to defense than what shows up on a boxscore.

[oregontrack]

Really!? you're going to compare Sim's production against Eastern Washington.... to what Armstead did against Pac10 competition?

And you do know that this team has significantly more talent on it.... that sorta makes things easier on the PG.

and btw... Armstead gave us more than a "couple of steels" on defense. As you should know... there is much more to defense than what shows up on a boxscore.

let's go back to what you said. what would armstead, a kid who never bought into altman's philosophy, do for this team that we're not already getting from the pg spot?

[Boom]

Really!? you're going to compare Sim's production against Eastern Washington.... to what Armstead did against Pac10 competition?

And you do know that this team has significantly more talent on it.... that sorta makes things easier on the PG.

and btw... Armstead gave us more than a "couple of steels" on defense. As you should know... there is much more to defense than what shows up on a boxscore.

let's go back to what you said. what would armstead, a kid who never bought into altman's philosophy, do for this team that we're not already getting from the pg spot?

The biggest thing we miss now though... is a PG who can knock down an open shot and match up defensively against other teams guards.

This

[oregontrack]

The biggest thing we miss now though... is a PG who can knock down an open shot and match up defensively against other teams guards.

and why in god's name is do you think armstead would suddenly provide this for the first time in his career? armstead was a damn streaky shooter who shot a pretty terrible % from medium and long range.

i think he was fine defensively, served us well, but he wasn't exactly a lockdown defender and doesn't exactly do anything out there sim can't.

[UOducksTK1]

if you really want to break it down one could still argue that sim's game last night was still better than any of armstead's last year, but the overall point wasn't about needlessly looking up every single game armstead played last year to compare statistics, it was that armstead had a really rough go of it and this team doesn't miss him. if anything, based on your jabari rant, you should be saying that we really miss jay-r strowbridge, because we're not getting the 2-guard production yet, whereas we ARE getting contributions from our current points. but that too would be a silly thing to say.

i still don't know how saying we're able to match a kid's contributions and he isn't missed is 'completely ignorant', but you saying multiple current players 'suck' is somehow an acceptable practice.

The play of Jabari Brown frankly does 'suck'. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Armstead, had a crappy junior season. But that does not negate a handful of strong performances he had. He was still a needed and key contributor to our team. I just feel like you overly love Sim and he's had three poor seasons. And to try to mount up a one game performance to any game that Armstead had is silly and ignorant IMO.

It's not a big deal though, but just wanted to get my feelings off my chest.

[oregontrack]

The play of Jabari Brown frankly does 'suck'. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Armstead, had a crappy junior season. But that does not negate a handful of strong performances he had. He was still a needed and key contributor to our team. I just feel like you overly love Sim and he's had three poor seasons. And to try to mount up a one game performance to any game that Armstead had is silly and ignorant IMO.

It's not a big deal though, but just wanted to get my feelings off my chest.

i have been outspoken about sim in the past, but that's because he, for some reason, turned into a forum whipping boy and I've never understood why. i don't love the kid, i'm not sure i've ever even so much said he was anything above an average rotation player. he was an average prospect who turned out to be an average player, and people on this forum and elsewhere have FREAKED OUT in the past because he never turned into a superstar and i think that's hilarious.

again, the point was disputing boom's argument that we're somehow missing something by not having armstead around. that has yet to manifest.

[Boom]

The biggest thing we miss now though... is a PG who can knock down an open shot and match up defensively against other teams guards.

and why in god's name is do you think armstead would suddenly provide this for the first time in his career? armstead was a damn streaky shooter who shot a pretty terrible % from medium and long range.

i think he was fine defensively, served us well, but he wasn't exactly a lockdown defender and doesn't exactly do anything out there sim can't.

You're being slightly ridiculous... Has Loyd even attempted a medium to long range shot?

Armstead... though not perfect... still led the guards in field goal percentage for the previous two years.

I agree Armstead wasn't a lock down defender.... but I do think he made things much more difficult on opposing guards. Sims has a hard enough time staying in front of his man.

[Boom]

The play of Jabari Brown frankly does 'suck'. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Armstead, had a crappy junior season. But that does not negate a handful of strong performances he had. He was still a needed and key contributor to our team. I just feel like you overly love Sim and he's had three poor seasons. And to try to mount up a one game performance to any game that Armstead had is silly and ignorant IMO.

It's not a big deal though, but just wanted to get my feelings off my chest.

i have been outspoken about sim in the past, but that's because he, for some reason, turned into a forum whipping boy and I've never understood why. i don't love the kid, i'm not sure i've ever even so much said he was anything above an average rotation player. he was an average prospect who turned out to be an average player, and people on this forum and elsewhere have FREAKED OUT in the past because he never turned into a superstar and i think that's hilarious.

again, the point was disputing boom's argument that we're somehow missing something by not having armstead around. that has yet to manifest.

That would require you to apply some logic in your arguments... it's easy to make a blatant bias statement.

[Duck07]

TK, I am so tired of everyone on this board ripping Sim on a regular basis. Now I don't know the guy but I do know that he was never a highly touted recruit yet the way he has always been critiqued on this board is as if he was Salim Stoudamire. Personally, considering who he has had to work with around him, I think he's been a heck of player for us and not deserving of all the criticism from fans. A lot of times in his first 3 years he would be the only person WILLING to do something with the ball (I know the sim/armstead debate is going on and I don't want to get into that since I think MA's attitude offsets any positives he had and thats that) while everyone else stood there and did nothing on the court. Some nights he has an awesome game and other nights he doesn't, but I've never expected him to be Rid every night.

Now this years squad is easily the most talented thats been here in Sims tenure BUT from everything I've read, the people who are most disappointed so far this year seem to expect this team to have zero growing pains with so many new faces. I think this expectation and the critique of Sim to be unreasonable at this point.

Seriously folks, we've got a good team and we'll get there soon enough, but expect this team to struggle and expect this team to overcome some hurdles to play good ball; even once DaVoe starts playing too.

[oregontrack]

You're being slightly ridiculous... Has Loyd even attempted a medium to long range shot?

yes. but i'm more looking at how sim compares as the starting pg, since armstead started the majority of games last year. loyd is in the same role this year he was most of last year.

Armstead... though not perfect... still led the guards in field goal percentage for the previous two years.

the point you made was that armstead could hit an open jumper, whereas sim could not. in reality, armstead struggled mightily hitting open jumpers. not only does fg % not indicate how prolific a shooter a player is, the difference in the two player's fg % last year is tiny, and not relevant to what you said. sim is shooting better this year than armstead did last year, and the topic at hand was what armstead could provide to THIS team that sim WAS NOT providing.

I agree Armstead wasn't a lock down defender.... but I do think he made things much more difficult on opposing guards. Sims has a hard enough time staying in front of his man.

armstead was no stranger to getting blown by on the perimeter. i think the difference in the two is minute, but short on you and i sitting down and breaking down tape i'm not sure we'll get anywhere going down this avenue.

That would require you to apply some logic in your arguments... it's easy to make a blatant bias statement.

i haven't said anything that's not true. you said we missed armstead. i asked you why. you said he provided quality jump shooting, i showed you that not only was that false, sim is currently shooting better than armstead did. we both agree neither are lockdown defenders. not sure where i'm showing a bias, but i'll stop using silly things like facts when i try to apply logic in the future. stupid biased statistics!

[UOducksTK1]

TK, I am so tired of everyone on this board ripping Sim on a regular basis. Now I don't know the guy but I do know that he was never a highly touted recruit yet the way he has always been critiqued on this board is as if he was Salim Stoudamire. Personally, considering who he has had to work with around him, I think he's been a heck of player for us and not deserving of all the criticism from fans. A lot of times in his first 3 years he would be the only person WILLING to do something with the ball (I know the sim/armstead debate is going on and I don't want to get into that since I think MA's attitude offsets any positives he had and thats that) while everyone else stood there and did nothing on the court. Some nights he has an awesome game and other nights he doesn't, but I've never expected him to be Rid every night.

Now this years squad is easily the most talented thats been here in Sims tenure BUT from everything I've read, the people who are most disappointed so far this year seem to expect this team to have zero growing pains with so many new faces. I think this expectation and the critique of Sim to be unreasonable at this point.

Seriously folks, we've got a good team and we'll get there soon enough, but expect this team to struggle and expect this team to overcome some hurdles to play good ball; even once DaVoe starts playing too.

Haha and I'm tired of people ripping Armstead. He is actually a very talented PG, and has the skillset to make it into the NBA. Unfortunately he doesn't have the head to play in the NBA.

Well I respect your opinion duck07, but I disagree. Is it too much to ask of Sim to average 10+ppg? Afterall he was supposed to have an amazing shot and be known as a scorer. But his best year, he's average 8.2ppg. He shot under 37% for two seasons.

Look I played baseball with Garrett Sim for 2 years (middle school/sunset). He's insanely fast, insane athlete. He's a really nice guy too. But frankly, he hasn't lived up to expectations. I'm not bashing him or anything, but he is very average at best.

[distantobserver]

You guys need to get over the box score averages.... Armstead was rarely healthy last year... and most of his turnovers was due to the fact that he was the primary ball handler and he was one of 2 guys that could create shots for his teamates.

The biggest thing we miss now though... is a PG who can knock down an open shot and match up defensively against other teams guards.

If Joseph can give us that(I've never seen him play)... then I think we could make some noise in conference this year.

But as of right now... Armstead would have been playing 20+ minutes and helping this team.

No, most of his turnovers were because he was unfocused and never really bought into the system. Armstead could have been a huge asset, both last year and especially this year, but he was so damn inconsistent that it is difficult to differentiate his average play from that of Loyd; Armstead had a higher ceiling but so rarely actually took his game there.

I only used the box scores to demonstrate that the production out of the PG this year approximates that of last year and ignoring the glaring deficiencies which Armstead could not change (other positions making open shots, rebounding, TOs, etc) to complain about Loyd is simply absurd.

[UOducksTK1]

Armstead on the other season, shot better in his sophomore year and junior year then ANY year Sim has been here. So to put down Armstead like Oregontrack did and put Sim up on a pedestal for a one game performance is very degrading and offensive towards a past player. And I don't think that's fair for Malcolm.

I'm not bashing Sim, but moreso defending Armstead.

[oregontrack]

Well I respect your opinion duck07, but I disagree. Is it too much to ask of Sim to average 10+ppg? Afterall he was supposed to have an amazing shot and be known as a scorer. But his best year, he's average 8.2ppg. He shot under 37% for two seasons.

and here lies a problem i think a lot of people have. no, he was not supposed to have an amazing shot. he's a freaky athlete who carried a decent sunset team in hs, but he did not make his living from beyond the arc. he wasn't a bad shooter -- but he was probably about as good then as he is now. he averaged about 2 treys a game in hs. what he could do then, and what we see every now and then from him now, is an ability to break down the defense and get inside.

he had his faults in hs and that's why he was not a 4-star recruit. he was never a brett kingma. he was an athlete who people thought might be able to become a pure shooter. hasn't really worked out.