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Before we get going, you need to know that the lead picture above^ was called a jump ball and not a foul. This kind of smothering defense and officiat
[See the full post at: West Virginia 83 NC State 69 – Defense is the Difference]Too many turnovers in the first half, too many missed FT’s in the 2nd half. Despite that, still had chances.
Combine all that with West Virginia’s style of play and that makes for a frustrating night.
The officiating was no joy but neither were our efforts to handle the press. Most high school teams have a play or two that they can run when the other team picks up full court. Ours was nothing more on letting our guards try to get open against three defenders and having our inbounds guy throw them passes in poor position. And can we have someone talk to Cat about not picking up his dribble one step over the halfcourt line?
It wasn’t Cat’s best game but it seemed nobody was there to help him out.
You can whine and complain about the officiating all you want but we headed to the line a ton and made nothing of it. This continues to be an issue with this program. I have no idea why.
Paige would have fouled out of a pickup game. That said, State should have made WVU pay at the line. Make just 7 of those missed 14 and it’s a different game. Cat did better against the pressure in the 2nd half, but they looked woefully unprepared in the first half. State’s bigs need to be big, and be offensive threats.
Paige would have fouled out of a pickup game.
…hmmmm
Paige and a few others in white would had gotten ‘hurt bad’ in, or after, a pickup game…
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KW as the middleman against the press was the difference in the second half…
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OK… I’m thinking the best thing is to forget last night’s game — we won’t see that kind of “mugging” again this season…
including the FT%… as I said at the end of the game… you can’t shoot after you have your arms and back beat on steadily for over two hours… somethings to do with numbness and tingling..So … here’s what we need to ‘focus’ on… two things…
1. When, not if, are our bigs gonna be BIG as a unit… forget the one BIG showing up most every game (esp. when it’s a different one every game).After twelve games… Nobody, esp. Coach, should be asking “WHO” questions…
2. We need to keep working on getting Lacey and Anthony and one more guy to pass and ‘feed’ each other…
Two much dribbling, not enough moving with out the ball…When guys are standing around… they either don’t know where to go ( and it’s too late in the season, for that… )
OR
they’re RESTING ’cause they KNOW they ain’t touching the ball…Coach’s motto this week… ought to be…
PASS and CATCH or SIT…Fix these two and we’ll be playing to our potential…
#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!Anthony Barber (by coach’s decision) is our point guard…that means at this point in his career he has got to know how to at least handle a pressing team. He failed miserably at it and looked like a D3 player playing against a D1 school. So now we know: Anthony Barber can not play in the half court offense, does not distribute the ball the way a point guard should and can not play against a pressing man defense. You fools on here keep being optimistic about him, I’m officially over it. Hey, nice free throws while I’m on him.
That was an unenjoyable brand of “basketball” to watch. Is there any difference between Tennessee’s full-court press and West Virginia other than one is Tennessee and the other is West Virginia? Tennessee’s resulted in a Ralston Turner three-point downpour with others also getting open shots underneath. West Virginia’s caused all kinds of trouble. Maybe just being more physical? Any more physical and they would have needed helmets and pads.
UVA and Louisville may be just as physical. Duke will get after us, too now that the tape is there. We would do well to figure out how to handle it.
Our big men, if Gott continues to play two at a time, need to pay attention to what is happening to their teammates. Did any of them NOTICE Cat getting choke-slammed all game? If not, what were looking at, because it wasn’t the guy with the ball. If so, why stand idly and not “tag yourself in”.
Be bodyguards instead of mannequins!
WVU’s press was a much more aggressive/trapping style compared to Tennessee’s, and yes, much more physical.
That being said, the main difference IMHO was our reaction to it. Instead of aggressively taking advantage, we played scared and seemingly desperate just to inbound the ball and get across mid court.I believe in credit or blame where it’s due, and this is not meant as a referendum of any sort, but last night we looked woefully underprepared/under coached.
We’re not a top 25 team. It’s not embarrassing to lose on a neutral floor to a top 25 team. I thought we’d be a little closer than this, but I’m hardly surprised that we lost.
The whining about the officiating is really offputting. You can find isolated pictures that look bad for either side. That picture of Trevor was absolutely an offensive foul when watched in real time. The game was called consistently and we shot 35 free throws. The problem wasn’t with the officials, the problem was that we missed a ton of free throws, had no plan against the press and weren’t strong with the ball. The later has been a problem all year, it just hasn’t hurt us until this game.
I’m putting this one firmly on Gottfried. There’s a difference between having young players not execute a plan, and having no plan. This was the latter. Most of the time there was no release valve for the point guard, and when there was a pass to the big man, there was no secondary action in place for him to have a place to go with it. They sliced up the passive Tennessee press a couple games ago, and thought they could do the same thing against an aggressive WVU press. And it wasn’t just the press, it was the way they trapped in the corners and on pick and rolls. We didn’t have motion in our sets to give escape valves and rotate the ball. Even when we beat the press, it never looked pretty, it mostly looked like we lucked into it.
Another coaching issue. I don’t know if Abu was told that he shouldn’t be dribbling the ball against a press, but he should have been, and if he ignored it the first time, there’s no reason he should’ve done it again. If you’re going to play a freshman extensive minutes against a heavy pressing team, he has to know what his responsibilities are, and Abu didn’t. Also, there’s absolutely no way he should be taking that 3. Those are coaching issues.
Cat tried to go behind the back a couple times against the press and lost the ball almost immediately. He had a couple times when he should have attack dribbled and backed away instead of crossing half court. He missed too many free throws. Thus ends my list of complaints for Cat Barber in this game. I thought on the whole he played great basketball. As I said, I think the problems with the press were largely a coaching problem, not a problem with Cat. He was more aggressive in the half court than he’s been all year, he got a bunch of free throws, made a few really nice passes out of penetration, and played spectacular defense. It cannot be overstated how good his defense was on Staten. Staten had 24 points, but most of those came either in transition, when Lee was on the floor, or when there was a switch (and none of the switches were Cat’s fault, I checked). Here’s what happened when Cat was matched up in the half court against one of the nation’s best point guards:
Cat drew 2 charging fouls on Staten and had a terrific steal in transition. He also forced a turnover on a bad pass and drew an offensive foul by fighting through a screen.
Staten went 4-9 from the field.
-2 makes were long, contested two-pointers.
-1 was a midrange jumper where Cat got wiped out by a great screen.
-The last one was a three-dribble floater in the lane where, honestly, Beejay should’ve blocked it.It was as good as you can play defense against a great player. Staten never got a clean look at the rim unless he already had a head of steam in transition. He never blew by Cat and drew help for a kickout (in fact, a couple times he did kick out to shooters, it was because Ralston helped too far when he didn’t need to, Cat was still in front of Staten). He was GREAT. There are a lot of reasons why we lost this game. Cat Barber is not one of them.
Cat constantly was picking up his dribble in the corners. He was weak with the ball and forgot how to dribble for a game. And he couldn’t make a free throw when we really needed him to. I don’t like to get on players but that is what transpired last night. Obviously not all on him but we needed a steady presence and he didn’t provide it.
UVA and Louisville may be just as physical. Duke will get after us, too now that the tape is there. We would do well to figure out how to handle it.
I see no way we win a have against this group.
We look completely unprepared for this game. Surely the press was not a surprise.
I hate that style of basketball but it seems to be the norm for the good teams. We had every opportunity to run this game but TOs and FTs crushed us. I do not think we are a good team.
The whining about the officiating is really offputting.
In fairness to StateFans, I think the pics and descriptors used might be to show the physical nature of the game and how it went overall.
The loss was most definitely all on the Pack’s shoulders.
The whining about the officiating is really offputting.
In fairness to StateFans, I think the pics and descriptors used might be to show the physical nature of the game and how it went overall.
The loss was most definitely all on the Pack’s shoulders.
I certainly do not remember much blaming of the officials for losing.
I do remember complaints of the physical nature of the game.
Huge difference IMOBefore we get going, you need to know that the lead picture above^ was called a jump ball and not a foul. This kind of smothering defense and officiating helped create 23 turnovers for the Pack
No foul here! A fore arm in the back. Arms extended at 45 degree angles. Momentum with the body pushing Barber off balance and forcing him to rush a play/pass. This kind of ‘defense’ wears on you during a game.
Similarly, I think the following picture was from a possession where Trevor Lacey was actually called for a charge. No kidding.
Those are all complaints about the officiating, and they’re whiny, “look at all the calls they missed” complaints. And as I said above, at least one of those pictures is wildly misleading. It reads like sour grapes, and it’s not a good look. No, nobody blamed the loss entirely on the officials, but there was a lot of griping about it, particularly since it was, in my opinion, a very competently called game.
Cat constantly was picking up his dribble in the corners. He was weak with the ball and forgot how to dribble for a game. And he couldn’t make a free throw when we really needed him to. I don’t like to get on players but that is what transpired last night. Obviously not all on him but we needed a steady presence and he didn’t provide it.
I rewatched the game today before making that post, because I’d felt when watching live that Cat was playing very well on the whole, and wanted to watch against with a focus on him.
He beat the press with his dribble a lot more than I bet you remember him doing. There were several occasions when he spun away from double teams or just straight-up beat them down the court with his speed. Did he get caught in the corners some? Yes he did (though again, probably less than you think). Like I said, there were times when he needed to attack, retreat, then attack towards the middle. He’s not as good at that as Lacey is. But it’s extremely difficult to bring the ball up against an aggressive, trapping defense when you have no release valve to pass to, and the simple fact is that the coaches didn’t game plan this press very well. Also, he did not turn the ball over on any of those times he picked up the ball in the corner. In fact, of his 5 turnovers, only 2 are ones I would consider bad turnovers. Of the other 3, 1 was a schematic problem where Washington wasn’t where he should have been (middle of the court), on the press break. 1 was the fault of the inbounder, and the last was the dubious jump ball call.
Yes, he missed free throws. But if he makes 2 more of them, we’re talking about what a good game he had at the line, hitting 9-11, and we still lose by 12. Do I wish our PG was a better FT shooter? Absolutely, but I’m not going to harp on him shooting his season average from the line when he did so many other good things in this game. He was beat up from start to finish, but he stayed in attack mode and played, again, spectacular defense.
I hate that style of basketball but it seems to be the norm for the good teams.
It is a physical style that leads to turnovers and easy transition scores. Not all the good teams play it but a good number of them do (and you need depth). Michigan State has played this way for years. Now Arizona. We are going to have to learn how to deal with it. Your philosophy can’t just be to out score teams when you throw it away once every three possessions – or you can’t make a free throw.
And as I said above, at least one of those pictures is wildly misleading.
The one on Lacey really is misleading as he shoved the WVU player first, which is why he was called for the foul.
I guess where I come down is, yea, it was very physical. We also shot 35 free throws to WVU’s 21. So, we did get a good many calls, we just made nothing of it.
The officiating was fine. It was a physical game, but WV had the fouls to show for it. Personally I hate that this is what the college game has gotten down to — where “good” teams foul on every move by every player and dare the officials to call them all. We’re not going to have many games this year when we shoot this many free throws, particularly given that we seemingly do not have much of a post game other than dunks and put backs.
The real issue was our horrific approach at the press break, particularly in the first half. I have seen YMCA teams with better spacing, an understanding of which players should receive the ball where and knowing not to let the timeline and the sideline create a four man trap. Our approach to breaking the press was terrible, and we seemingly never attacked the basket and made WV pay. When we had the big man as the outlet guy, sometimes WV had 3-4 men behind the timeline.
Heck, if you’re going to put a big man in the back court, make it BJ Anya solely for screening purposes. Rub the WV players off of him so hard that they think twice about running around blindly with a 2:1 man press.
I knew this game was over from the second they took their first 1 point lead. We obviously had an extremely flawed game plan.
The free throw shooting didn’t help. You can’t have a 90%+ free throw shooter miss two on a technical. We knew FT shooting was going to cost us some games, and this was one.
More than anything though, put this one in the books as a coaching loss. Louisville is going to be incredibly ugly.
I will have to throw my hat into the pile of those who don’t prefer to watch this “brand” of basketball. We did not lose because of the officiating, for sure. But it is not fun to watch our guys get mauled all night. That’s not the type of basketball I grew up watching and still prefer to watch.
With that said, I was most frustrated with GOTT in this game. I did not understand why he basically did not substitute in the final 4+ minutes until the very end, when it didn’t matter. And I don’t know why KW was even out there. I’m not a basketball snob, and so I admit I may have missed it, but I couldn’t see what he added on either end of the floor most all game. I know they were pressing, but I still would have rather had Anya out there for D inside. Every time WV drove, it’s like they had a free lane when Abu and KW were in.
And I do not understand how D1 players do not know that they should not go to the corner (and especially pick up their dribble) against a trapping team. But even if they do, shouldn’t we have somebody moving to get open? Seems like basketball 101 that I learned when I was very young. I know that we seemed to have agreed on this site not to overreact to each game as if the issues we saw in this one game will cement our team as “this is who they are” for the whole season, but some things do continue to frustrate game after game, and season after season. Like, why can my wife walk into the room and having only watched a few minutes go, “Why is everyone just standing around on offense?” Fellas, that shouldn’t happen.
We didn’t play well. They got over on us early. I lost count of how many times they trapped us, especially Barber. We turned the ball over too many times. Our defense was lacking. We missed too many free throws. Yes, we need to move on. But I hope some things were learned in this game.
I hope some adjustments are made to deal with such aggressive opponents. Because this is not going to be the last time we play a team that constantly pushes, grabs, pokes and slams into us with only a few of those actions called as fouls. We do need to find some way to handle it.
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