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Tony and Gary sum it all up…
“This is State basketball”
Pack up 2 with 4 to play…
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!.. I guess we’ll find out IF Bobby can “coach” a win…
Pack up 2 with 2 and 1/2 to go…
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!.. and that’s the ballgame…
loose balls or the lack of grabbing them killed us tonight…
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Anthony cannot do it all by himself…
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Good night gents!
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Sloppy with the ball all night. Not enough assertiveness from Abu. Cat in foul trouble is going to haunt us this year.
Good effort. Not surprised we lost. Outplayed and outcoached. Bright spots at times but outweighed by the ugliness overall. Coaches get the applause for going zone momentarily in the second half and mixing in the press in the second half. Coaches get criticism for going away from the zone after ASU banked in 2 3-pointers, and for pulling Cat after he picked up his 4th at the approximately 4 minute mark when we had a 3 point lead and all the momentum, and no capable backup. This, after he propelled us from down 10 to up 3. GO WITH WHO BRUNG YOU. Don’t lag putts. Don’t punt on 4th and 1 when you’re in the drivers seat.
No surprises on the poor last shot with no timeouts. No surprise we got absolutely demolished on the backboard by a smaller team. I mean hammered. No surprise our shot selection is ever lacking. No surprise our collective coaching and team IQ’s were on full display. When we’re trying to run the high post, settling for early shot clock jump shots, and playing small when we’re a big team, we look mediocre to bad.
The good, when we can actually get stops on defense and rebound the ball, and Cat pushes it up the court, we look quite good on the break. When CAT gets into the lane and attacks the basket, we look quite good. The press looked effective. Our length in the zone and movement was better than I expected. The defense is still atrocious but the help, at times, was better than the last 3 games.
All in all not a bad loss since ASU is likely a team that will be competing for a bubble spot come March. But better to win these types for that reason.
Thoughts:
– Cat played great tonight. I could quibble with shot selection on a few of his long 2s, but on the whole he was terrific. Much more aggressive attacking the rim than he’s been in previous games, both in the half court and in transition. We absolutely need him to keep that up to have a chance.
– Defense showed signs of improvement, and a few of the possessions had beautiful backline rotations and great helping the helper. Some of the same problems that we’ve seen before just keep popping up again though.
* Our P&R defends alternates between competent and lazy, and when it gets lazy it really hurts us. We often switch on very casual screens where no switch is needed. This happened on a crucial play in the last 2 minutes, they set a very casual screen for Holder (not one he was attacking or driving hard off of), and instead of fighting over it, Cat just pointed and Freeman/Abu (can’t remember which) switched onto him. Holder then blew past the big man, drew help, and dished for an easy layup. It’s not that switching is always bad, and Freeman is usually quite good in switching situations, but you have to make teams work harder to get those switches.
* Rebounding was nothing short of disastrous. It’s a mix of poor positioning (often related to poor help rotations) and lack of effort. With the athleticism and length that our bigs and wings have, there’s no way we should be getting abused like this on the glass.
* Abu has made significant strides on the offensive end (and I wish we’d gotten him the ball a little more tonight), but he hasn’t made the same jump defensively. He’s overeager to block shots, and gets himself way out of position far too often, either committing fouls or allowing easy offensive rebounds. It’s particularly egregious when he shares the floor with Anya, and tries to swoop in to get a block on a shot Beejay clearly had covered.
– I hated the decision to pull Cat after the 4th foul. There are 4 minutes left in the game and you desperately need him. If he fouls out, so be it, but I want to give him the chance to play the whole time.I am surprised to hear we made a run, not surprised to hear we blew it in the end anyway. This team is in real danger of entering ACC play at around .500, and the season may be essentially over before Henderson comes back.
The Bill and Mary loss I didn’t like, but I can at least understand. Not what I saw tonight. So, I go back to the standard refrain of “poop is poop” and I haven’t seen a shit bit (no pun intended) of progress through four games. We’re bad. Not raw. B-A-D.
We appear to be in for a long year. Perhaps Gott gets them in shape by March, but at this rate it will be too late. We are definitely going to struggle in conference play.
The holes are even bigger than I thought. And to be doom and gloom I do not see us any better next year.
This is a .500 team…….if we hit a hot streak. When the ball goes in to the post you just cringe. None of our threesome can finish and when Cat is shooting 35% from the floor we have got to get some baskets inside off of something other than penetration. I have no idea if Henderson is really good enough to make a big difference, but as bad as this team is I doubt it. I was encouraged by the pressure defense, but when you have seven players and one of them is a member of the Golden Corral HOF one is a physically immature freshman, and another is coming off of leg surgery, full court pressure is pretty tough to sustain.
Having said all of that, if we could just get a freaking rebound off of the other team’s missed FT we win last night. I think somehow this team will be able to do just enough to loses a lot of close games this year and a lot more that aren’t close at all.
The holes are even bigger than I thought. And to be doom and gloom I do not see us any better next year.
Unless Gott can sign a couple of really good post players, I agree. We are just getting killed inside. I can only hope Frenchy plays his way into shape pretty quickly.
I see ASU as a middle of the road NIT type team. We’ll see how it all pans out but they didn’t impress me. Which doesn’t say a whole lot about the good guys, either.
Agreed. That is their CEILING, I would say. Think Bill and Mary was better, and they offered more of a logistical challenge (veteran junk-system team, we had to adjust on the fly to a catastrophic first half injury).
Thusly, this game was far, far more depressing.
only bright spot on this team is Cat. I feel bad for him cause the rest of the team is hot garbage. The second best player on the team, Rowan, wasnt even expected to be in college 4 months ago.
“Unless Gott can sign a couple of really good post players, I agree. We are just getting killed inside. I can only hope Frenchy plays his way into shape pretty quickly.”
How on gods green earth do you expect Gott to recruit a quality big man when he has never developed a big man hes ever had on his roster?
How on gods green earth do you expect Gott to recruit a quality big man when he has never developed a big man hes ever had on his roster?
Richard Howell.
Oh thats right. Howells development had a lot of sway with Bam. Especially when he hung up with Howell and Demarcus Cousins and K-A Towns were on the other line.
not trying to be a d, but face facts. We gott what we gott with gott. And developing big men isnt part of that package.
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