Game Film Breakdown of Each of the 21 Turnovers Against GT

Credit and props to SFN reader TXPack for this breakdown of yesterday’s game at Georgia Tech.  — Alpha

Turnovers remain a big concern for the Wolfpack, especially headed into the critical final stretch of the season. Here is a breakdown of the 21 turnovers from yesterday in Atlanta:

First 5 minutes of the 1st (6 TOs)
1* – Smith passed to the back of Fells after a defensive rebound

2 – McCauley lost the ball at top of the key

3* – Costner inbound and incepted by GT (GT 3 pts)

4 – Fells lost his dribble at top of the key

5 – Gonzalez bad pass to the middle (GT 2pts of free throw)

6* – Smith bad inbound to Fells’ foot (GT 2pts)

Last 3 minutes of 1st (3 TOs)
7 – Gonzalez bad pass intercepted (GT 3pt3)

8 – Costner bad pass to Gonzalez out of bound(GT 2pts)

9 – Degand bad pass to Fells, intercepted by GT (GT 2pts)

1st 5 minutes of 2nd (5 TOs)
10* – Costner inbound went out bound (GT 2pts)

11 *– Smith lost Costner perfect pass under basket

12* – Smith lost defensive rebound to GT

13* – Degand bad pass out of baseline

14* – Degand bad pass (GT 2pts)

15* – McCauley lost ball when went to basket

16 – Degand lost the ball when drove to basket (GT 3pts)

17 – Williams bad pass

18* – Williams lost the ball to double team and called for intentional foul

19* – McCauley lost the ball

20 – Smith lost Degand’s pass

21* – McCauley lost the ball after received an inbound (off own foot)

1, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21 (total 12) were careless inbound and passes. Our point guards (Degand and Gonzalez) were contributed to 7 TOs. Smith, however, were related to 5 TOs, which is the area he needs to work on. McCauley had 4 TOs by himself and missed few free throws.

For us to have a chance against UNC, our point gurads need to step up and continue making plays. We have to move pass the half court within 5-6 seconds when pressed, so we can have time to setup half court offense. Our bigs need to cut down the TOs and make good passes out of double teams.

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93 Responses to Game Film Breakdown of Each of the 21 Turnovers Against GT

  1. b_2005 02/15/2009 at 7:58 AM #

    right on…we have got to work on our turnover issues…you are going to have turnovers in basketball and i can live with the aggressive ones…but it is just mind boggling how many we have off of lazy passes and inbounds passes…it is amazing at how some of the basic fundamentals have disappeared from todays game; i.e., boxing out and bounce passing…a bounce pass is so much harder to deflect…

    on a side note…i thought javi looked 10 times better than degand yesterday…i hope degand proves me wrong against unc, but he just looks inefficient running the half court…unless he is on a break or he takes it all the way to the basket without having to dish it…javi looked a little like atsur taking his time with the screen & rolls and finding the open man…i hope his confidence continues to improve and cuts out some of the dumb TO’s…maybe the two of them can serve us well the rest of the season (knock on wood)…

  2. Sw0rdf1sh 02/15/2009 at 8:13 AM #

    TXPack, great work. Between Smith and McCaulley alone they shared 9 TO’s? That is incredible.

    I’m big on Javi’s improved play as of late, and I look forward to him building on that. Degand is getting to the basket too.

    The stretch of inbound inefficiency really ticked me off when watching it yesterday….we looked like we were completely falling apart.

    Great game and win, the TO issue continues to be an adventure.

  3. StateFans 02/15/2009 at 8:28 AM #

    I find that quite often the number turnovers attributed to a player in the boxscore does not necessarily sync with what happened during the game.

  4. Alpha Wolf 02/15/2009 at 8:33 AM #

    ^ True. Sometimes a TO is given to a player when the player made a great pass and the guy who is supposed to have caught it fumble-fingers it and the ball gets lost.

    Fortunately, where the rubber meets the road – the film room – this is obvious and hopefully the players learn something.

  5. wufpup76 02/15/2009 at 9:40 AM #

    Nice work txpack …

    Like b_2005 said – I can live with the aggressive turnovers. STAY AGGRESSIVE. It can’t be underestimated what value our point guards penetrating provides … it really softens up a defense when you’re able to penetrate the ball. This was a huge factor in our win over Wake Forest

    20+ turnovers are obviously too many … Ideally we’d have no more than 12 or under per game – and it looks like we would have been yesterday without the careless ones.

    That said, I don’t want to sacrifice the team’s newfound aggressive mentality (80+ points in 4 straight and 5 of 6 games; 75+ points in the last 6 games!?!) for the sake of not turning the ball over.

  6. TheCOWDOG 02/15/2009 at 9:41 AM #

    ^^^
    Agree with all on TO issue. It has been the single biggest killer for this squad and unfortunately it is something that is nearly uncoachable to overcome.

    Sword, you shouldn’t be surprised with the # of TOs from the bigs. They collectively lead the team with them. I’ve been griping about it all year. Especially when our guards where taking so much heat in here.

    As SFN pointed out, fumbled good passes are often attributed to the passer. In fact our guard’s TO output could be construed as less than what the box shows.

    So much to overcome that Lowe has to continually coach uphill.

    Good road win.

  7. Alpha Wolf 02/15/2009 at 9:59 AM #

    At times the way that our team has handled the press this year reminds me a great deal of the struggles of the first few years of prior staff. It used to be an adventure each possession against a full court press and yesterday was deja vu all over again.

    The thing is that yesterday they utterly shredded that press in the final third of the game, and got a lot of easy baskets that stomped any remaining life out of the Bugs.

    Okay, so we’ve done that against the last place team in the ACC. Now let’s see it happen against less marginal competition. I’m not griping, or trying to find the floater in the punch bowl — I would simply love it if the Pack made it clear to the other guys that if they try that in the future that they can pick the ball back up in a couple of seconds for the inbounds-after-basket.

  8. ChemE79a 02/15/2009 at 10:06 AM #

    I didn’t get to see the game yesterday but I was wondering why there was such a huge differential in shot attempts in the box score. GT was listed with something like 21 more shot attempts than NCSU. I know we had a few more turnovers and they had a few more offensive rebounds, but not nearly enough to account for the difference. Is part of the answer the much higher number of free throws we took?

  9. burnbarn 02/15/2009 at 10:49 AM #

    ^ yes.. the FTs were the primary reason.

    As others have said, its the big’s TOs that I have issues with.

    Degand’s knee had a flare up yesterday and that is one reason he struggled.

    We do not have to have all ACC production from our guards to be successful… we just need middling and we are finally beginning to get middling production from those spots.

  10. Rochester 02/15/2009 at 10:57 AM #

    GT was listed with something like 21 more shot attempts than NCSU. I know we had a few more turnovers and they had a few more offensive rebounds, but not nearly enough to account for the difference. Is part of the answer the much higher number of free throws we took?

    There was a stretch there where we almost literally didn’t miss. I want to say we scored on 10 consecutive possessions. For much of the game we either didn’t get a shot off (because of the TO’s) or didn’t need a second shot. Those two reasons probably account for the difference in number of shots.

  11. Daily Update 02/15/2009 at 12:35 PM #

    A lot of our turnovers are just a lack of concentration not catching passes or making passes at guys ankles. We just need to make a decent effort against UNC and get ready for the last 5 games. Finishing 7-9(even 6-10) would be exceeding expectations.

  12. dtwncsu 02/15/2009 at 2:14 PM #

    Our players need to stay focused in all situations during a game. Our team strugled throughout the game to get across the timeline. It was a sloppy game as many players seemed to be on different pages. We can cut the number of turnovers in half by just staying active instead of standing around.

  13. packalum44 02/15/2009 at 2:19 PM #

    Alaska is cold, traffic sucks in DC, NYC is big, and the Wolfpack turn the ball over.

  14. Texpack 02/15/2009 at 2:28 PM #

    There are a couple of fundamentals that contribute heavily to our intercepted passes. Actually it’s one fundamental that needs to be practiced by both the passer and the receiver. Our guys receiving passes don’t use their bodies effectively to shield defenders. If you just stick your butt out into the guy guarding you, it makes them take that extra step to get around you to try to deny the pass. It also creates an advantage once you catch, because the defender is on your hip.

    We also throw way too many passes to the receivers chest instead of to their outside hand when they are being closely guarded. Again, this makes the defender have to go through the receiver to get to the pass.

    Our receivers don’t step aggressively to the ball with their arms extended either. These are subtle things, but they drive me crazy because I busted tail as a career back up point guard doing these things to prevent turnovers.

  15. benniebolton 02/15/2009 at 2:29 PM #

    we put our bigs in situations they shouldn’t have to be in sometimes, like inbounding against the press to them, they should not be there. Our ballhandlers have got to do a better job of getting open and not ask the bigs to handle the ball against pressure.

  16. Texpack 02/15/2009 at 2:30 PM #

    There are a couple of fundamentals that contribute heavily to our intercepted passes. Actually it’s one fundamental that needs to be practiced by both the passer and the receiver. Our guys receiving passes don’t use their bodies effectively to shield defenders. If you just stick your butt out into the guy guarding you, it makes them take that extra step to get around you to try to deny the pass. It also creates an advantage once you catch, because the defender is on your hip.

    We also throw way too many passes to the receivers chest instead of to their outside hand when they are being closely guarded. Again, this makes the defender have to go through the receiver to get to the pass.

    Our receivers don’t step aggressively to the ball with their arms extended either. These are subtle things, but they drive me crazy because I busted tail as a career back up point guard doing these things to prevent turnovers.

  17. wufpup76 02/15/2009 at 3:15 PM #

    Sorry for the offtopic threadjack – but …

    How about Virginia?!

    They really outplayed Clemson for the majority of the game; handled the press really well and actually scored some points today …

    Hope we took notice … There are no pushovers

  18. wufpup76 02/15/2009 at 3:19 PM #

    Just flipped it over to ESPN and the Marist women are wearing all pink uni’s with the “Yow” logo on front of the warmups … Marist is playing Hartford, and Hartford has the same warmups and their lettering and #’s are pink in tribute

    Hope there is a good turnout at the Hoops for Hope game today against Virginia

  19. TheCOWDOG 02/15/2009 at 3:34 PM #

    ^^
    Absolutely Texpack, this team is awful coming to the pass and using their upper legs and hips, but as I said before these are things that are no longer coachable with 21 and 22 yr olds. If they didn’t come with it, so very hard to make it 2nd nature now.

    Too many bad habits. You know and I know that the staff has had to go over this.

    These are the types of things that makes Lowe’s job so much harder. Can you imagine how Sid felt coming out of that timeout yesterday only to have TSmith hit Fells in the ankles with the inbound pass?

    Our club has to overcome so much to win.
    They make it so damn difficult on themselves.
    Stop and think about what it takes for the club to pull out a W. It’s like drivin’ to the store and having to go back home ’cause ya forgot the wallet. Did it today.

  20. wufpup76 02/15/2009 at 3:41 PM #

    Wow – espn was showing the State women’s game against Virginia and just switched away to show the UConn game … I guess Raleigh, NC would rather watch UConn than the hometown team on Hoops for Hope day … makes sense

  21. Greywolf 02/15/2009 at 3:54 PM #

    Regarding the bigs handling inbounds passes: good press defence forces players you don’t want handling the ball to have to handle it.

    Teams with the talent level and fundamentals we have exhibited have a lot to work on. This is sports and repetition is the only way to have consistency. I played golf today after having been out with a virus for 3 weeks. As the day wore on, I began to tire and my concentration waned, my old habits returned and I made mistakes I didn’t make early on. Those aspects of my game that I have been working on for sometime stayed with me but what I have been putting in recently, went away. I say it’s like that with our basketball team. There’s not enough practice time allowed to work on everything, every day.

    Teams prepare for other teams, for sure, but working inside the context that you play the game to find what you need to practice or work on, puts turnovers, offensive rebounds, etc., in a context of learning and has statistics such as TO’s provide useful information instead of a place to find fault, blame, guilt, and criticism. There was a very nice piece in today’s N&O about Kay Yow that spoke of a learning environment.

  22. benniebolton 02/15/2009 at 4:26 PM #

    Greywolf, I was just saying bigs shouldn’t be put in that postion if your ballhandlers are doing what they’re supposed to do, maybe the boys on the bench need to draw up a better attack on the press. I know that the bigs receiving the ball is a function of a good press, but we’ve got to do a better job of not letting the defense dictate what we do so much of the time

  23. wufpup76 02/15/2009 at 5:23 PM #

    Pack women upset #15 Virginia … sweet!

    Awesome that they could win on Hoops for Hope day in front of a sell-out crowd … very, very happy for them after all they’ve been through this season

    Way to go! 🙂

  24. BJD95 02/15/2009 at 5:43 PM #

    I’m still not sure how many of our TOs are avoidable given that our most effective lineups involve playing 4 forwards and 1 mediocre point guard. But if we can be extremely efficient on offense (as we did yesterday), we can overcome that shortcoming.

    There’s just no way NC State can put a “traditional” lineup on the floor and succeed. We just have to be good at taking advantage of the mismatches we create on offense and live/minimize with some of the drawbacks.

  25. Alpha Wolf 02/15/2009 at 6:14 PM #

    Pack women upset #15 Virginia … sweet!

    Awesome that they could win on Hoops for Hope day in front of a sell-out crowd … very, very happy for them after all they’ve been through this season

    Indeed. Those girls and coaches have been through the ringer and it’s great to see them coming together and getting a big win. It’s been a pretty good Pack weekend.

    In other news, I noticed a link from a Pitt site that indicates that the Panthers are thinking of hiring Noel Mazzone. They linked to an article here in a post, and don’t seem too thrilled by what State’s fans as well as Ole Miss’s fans had to say. Too bad they missed digging into the Auburn posts from before he came here.

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