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I live out of town and listen to the majority of the games on the Marshall app. For those of you watching the games, why does Taylor foul so much? Is it bad luck, poor defensive technique, aggressiveness? Seems like he is in fouls trouble very often.
He needs to learn to set his feet. A lot of those fouls he gets would go the other way if he'd stop moving just prior to the contact. That's all the refs are looking for to determine offensive or defensive foul. He knew he was moving and to then mouth off to the refs was just turning a bad play into worse.
IMO it's pretty simple: he's 6'5" and after others drive by our guys it's him and Kelly to guard the rim, and he's A: not quick enough against guards and/or B: not big enough against bigs. It's just a result of coach D's system and being undersized as a team. Kelly is MU's biggest O cog and is on orders from coach to not foul, so there's not a lot of others that can be physical/guard the hoop. It's really an impossible position to be in and I also think that he's kind of being picked on by the refs since he has a rep for fouling and he's now getting some T's when he shows his "displeasure" w/ some of these calls and together they kind of snowball.
Another key problem is, frankly, our guards as a group lack good foot speed/quickness on defense. Hamilton light speed quicker and drove by 2, 3 of our defenders to get easy layups and short shots at the hoop. LA Tech's team speed was painfully noticeable. Danny D's philosophy of relying on WV hoops prospects FIRST is going to have to be assessed because you're not going to have a lot of team quickness with 5, 6 or more in state recruits topped off by 4 slow European players!! Chuck Landon's column today correctly pointed out how LA Tech , particularly Hamilton drove right by our defenders right to the basket. Unfortunately, as noted either Kelly or Taylor are the last line of defense. Can't just tell them to back off every time and not to make some effort to defend, even when they are with a serious quickness disadvantage against players like Hamilton
Here we go, we've lost a few in a row again and now the WV boys are the problem. But, the reality is one of the issues is an Ohio player who needs less time while a WV boy needs more time for the exact reasons you mentioned, because he would up our team speed. In my opinion Burks should see more minutes than Loop, because he is a better, quicker defender, and unlike Loop he can create his own shot.