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Excellent, it’s basketball season, so it must be “fire the basketball coach” season. Or minimally an assistant coach. (Cause nobody listened to us during football season when we clearly identified coaching changes that should be made. Wait, didn’t we have an 8-5 season? Yea, but think what good coaches could have done.)
I get it, he’s lost 5 games. And not just losing them, but look at who he lost to. Wofford for heaven’s sake!!! Totally unacceptable. Cincy was a nightmare!
Three years, and only made the Sweet 16 once.
One of the 2 or 3 coaches in ACC history to take his first three teams to the NCAAT.
Best ever first year for an ACC coach.
Beat Duke when they were ranked #1.
Most depth of talent this school has seen in a long time, maybe ever.“Yea, but his best season was with someone else’s recruits” – Think Sid would have made it to the Sweet 16? Did anyone on this site want to find out?
“Hey, Valvano won it all in his third season. What is taking so long?” Yes, yes he did. Anything less is not acceptable.
“Yea, but what about all those transfers? He gets players, but can’t keep them” Absolutely right, unacceptable. Wait, don’t we have transfers? Didn’t they come from other schools? So other schools must have people leaving too? Which of those that left State would you prefer to keep instead of Trevor Lacey or Ralston Turner?
“Yea, he gets talent but can’t develop them. If they can’t do it from day one, we’re toast.” But didn’t he figure out how to get that moron CJ to play with his “Calvin” strategy? Didn’t Richard Howell get in shape and play his best after Gott arrived? Didn’t Scott Wood excel? He even got Jordan Vandenberg to play well last year after doing nothing for three years.
“But look at the numbers!! They just don’t bode well for the future.” Yep, you are probably right. Can’t argue with numbers.
So, let’s get a new coach, this guy is not up to our standards. At the end of the season it will have been four years since that last catastrophe of a coaching search when no one wanted the job and we ended up with a TV guy. Things will be much more attractive now. Wait, why? Because secretly Archie Miller is dying to come back to State and he took the Flyers to the Elite 8 last season. And after three seasons as a head coach, and two seasons under Sean as an AC he’s ready for the ACC. And if he doesn’t take it, there’s got to be a long list of guys better than Gottfried who are dying to come to State.
Alright, it all makes good sense to me, I’m on board. Let’s do it!
Is he going to Yale too? Is Yale recruiting our receivers?
Gonna need somebody who can catch the long ball.it’s “nice” not “great”
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”
George Will
I think UVA really shows how an excellent coach can take a ‘good’ team, and make them a ‘great’ team. Other than Anderson, they really haven’t got a remarkable cast that you’d expect to jump to the NBA anytime soon. But there are a lot of good players.
I just can’t see how we can beat these guys without shooting 70%. Defensively, they will make us uncomfortable and reactive at best – and turn it over a ton, at worst. Offensively, they just keep scoring. They score on a high percentage of their possessions.
I don’t see how we can keep up with them.
This is going to be rough to watch.UNC is teflon, why do they care about his past?
They have done the impossible, totally corrupted the integrity of an academic institution and got away with it.Easy mistake to make – I’m sure carrying, concealing, and discharging guns of all kinds are legal anywhere and anytime in West Virginia.
Dez – I think the only reason he’s not getting more minutes is that Gott doesn’t have to play him. Gott’s style is not to play a deep bench, although he did last year and seems to have adapted to it. He has said repeatedly that his freshmen need playing time to learn the game. Dez and Ralston are the only two players aging out next year – and Ralston has to play for his scoring. If he doesn’t play the freshmen and sophomores they may transfer. And obviously, playing time with this young team is an investment in the future of the program.
So all of that kind of eliminates the need to play Dez. I think we will see him situationaly, when RT gets fouls for example, but I think his minutes will go to the twins.Great stuff!
I like Charger17’s thought process, that’s the way I look at it as well.
JohnGalt78 notes the critical “will we / won’t we” turning point. Completely agree.
We’ve dug ourselves a hole, and I think we have five home games to make a reasonable NCAAT case. UVA, DU, UNC, ND and ‘Cuse. I think we have to beat one of the first three, and ND and Cuse. And of course, then win all the “should win” games.
Kills me, but I can’t see us pulling this off this year.
“UVA is going to crush us, easily”
If you have watched them play, you would agree. Bennett is one heck of a coach.
Not sure I will even attend that one, it will be ugly to watch and we will get our butts kicked.Not sure why everyone seems so down on Kyle. He’s 4th in scoring (leads the bigs), 2nd in rebounding and 2nd in blocked shots, and 3rd in free throw percentage (behind Dez and RT). Heck, he’s 2-5 from 3PT! Trevor is the only one with a better 3PT %.
Granted, he’s still only a sophomore and plays like one sometimes – but none of the bigs are upperclassmen. I think the potential far outweighs the negatives, and with those stats – who should start in front of him?I predict, barring injury, Kyle leads the bigs in minutes the rest of the season. It just makes sense. Nard can’t catch or score, BeeJay is improving but didn’t play enough last year – so a lot of catch up to do. And Abu (who I love) is still a freshman – but I agree should get plenty of court time. He is athletic, can shoot, but needs to learn defense and rebounding. He is a defensive liability now.
I think you have to start Kyle and Nard, just like we did to start the season.
Rooting for FSU to win it all! Cannot understand why any fan in the ACC would not root for them. A win both gives the league prestige and reflects poorly on those cocky characters in the SEC.
Way to go Tech! Go get ’em Seminoles!!!“and as has become usual bad free throw shooting” – Free throw shooting wasn’t the problem. Only one guy missed more than one, and that was (of course) BeeJay. Drop his two attempts and the team shot 76%. We did miss at least one front end of a one/one, so that hurt.
I think we gave up in this one. After those four early turnovers at the beginning of the game, we just didn’t do much of anything well at all. There was just no urgency at all.
Can’t explain it, but that was not the team we saw earlier in the season that I thought had some real potential. Maybe they got the holiday blahs or something, but that was horrible.
Unless something dramatic (read: highly unlikely) happens, Gott’s NCAAT run is a thing of the past.
Fastback … hey, that sounds like … well, you’ll just have to shoot yourself. But nice work playing the romance card – she’ll love it, but the timing is a little off.
This is going to be a tough one lads and lasses. It is tough enough to get a good crowd during the holidays, but when you add in the 4:00 start, it’s going to be quiet. (but not in section 323!!!) Add in that they are one of those awkward teams that just play a frustrating game. Crowd support would really help. Very worrisome.
Seeing as this is our last preseason game, wouldn’t it be nice to see some glimmer of hope from the inside guys? Another cumulative 25/25 game? (and no, I don’t mean 25 turnovers and 25 missed shots)
Great stuff, thanks! Here we go! Basketball pretty much twice a week for the next couple of months. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we had one more win right now, but we’ll just have to make it up.
GO PACK!
Wow, we really have something going on. As D Yow said in the post game interview, this is just the beginning. We need to keep the staff in place, and keep signing the talent and we will be a team to be feared in the league in a couple of years.
Nice job Beach, really appreciate the effort you’ve put into the article and your responses to keep the conversation going. Love analyzing basketball.
Now as to whether we ever run the high post, not an expert but I think I’ve seen it. Just not successfully. I’m sure there are innumerable variations, but the basic pass to the wing and rub off the defender on the way into the paint we are trying sometimes.
What I think I am seeing (again, not an expert):
1) We often start the possession with the basic spacing / positioning.
2) Weakness #1: The only way this works is if Cat is on point and passes to TL. RT is a weak passer and decision maker. (“Wait a second, you want me to give this ball that I love to shoot to someone else???”) It may work with TK on point and Cat on the wing, but I don’t recall seeing that.
3) I think the pass and PG shot inside from the wing has to happen really quickly, before a big can recover. We don’t seem to be able to get the ball to Cat posting up his guy – plus, Cat has not really been able to beat his defenders often, other than in the open court.
4) Weakness #2: So then the ball goes to the big on the elbow. We’ve definitely seen that many times. That’s where the big’s BBIQ comes into play, and we aren’t strong there yet. Nard and BeeJay look to their first read, don’t see it, and bail back out to the point and it is over. Kyle looks for the shot first it appears, and because of his height I think it looks open pretty often. Almost impossible to defend a jump hook from a guy who is 6’9″. So the shot falls or not, but the offensive scheme is over. Then there is Abu, who I feel like is making a greater effort to find the right pass. He seems to hold it longer. But he seldom is able to make that surgical strike for the money pass.
5) Weakness #3: Then we bail. As someone said earlier, we give it a weak effort then make stuff up. Kind of like RGIII a couple of years ago, look for that first receiver, if not open, run for it.I think the point Beach made about it taking time to implement well, is correct. Not sure if due to poor teaching, inability to absorb new offenses, or it just takes longer than we’d like – but our guys are still growing. We can definitely see improvement.
I thought this year could be a special one because this team has more talent than almost any team we’ve ever had (meaning, 10 deep that can play), but I don’t think so now. I think Gott’s searching for the starting lineup has hurt us in implementing the offense, because the same guys aren’t playing together all the time and learning trust, and where the other guy likes to catch the ball. He’s trying to develop everyone, and it is slowing us down.
I think we are going to get beaten up pretty badly in January and there will be talk of this year being a disappointment, and not meeting expectations. If the guys can stick together, keep their heads up, and continue to improve, we might peak late in the season and make a decent bubble argument.
“KW is just a spaz…” – hilarious!!!!
I don’t know what has gotten into him, but somebody told him he could take a 3 every game and, even though he hit one a while back, I don’t think that is a good idea. If someone is going to miss a three, it should be Ralston, Trevor, or maybe Caleb.
But a 6’9″ guy that can hit a 12-15 foot jumper is pretty valuable. Especially a left hander. He just needs to figure out his spots on the floor, and when to take the shot. If he can just be a little more reliable shooting from that post position, that is a way to beat the zone. And when his man steps out to contest the shot, there’s some space behind him for a pass.PackofMac beat me to it … but I thought Dez was a nice contributor last night. I think he deserves court time every game. Just to make sure the guards have their legs at the end of the game. Was that our first successful alley-oop of the season? And I think Dez got the assist. We’ve certainly missed a few.
“Young Team” – I think that should not be dismissed. Who plays consistently well on our team? The experienced guys. The talented sophomores are all over the place.
Defense – I think we are better at defense because we are more athletic at all positions and tough to shoot over – not necessarily because our skills have improved. I think there’s a wide gap between us and a team that really plays defense well.
Wofford – I can’t tell you if they are going anywhere this year, but I can tell you they out played us. They played smart. They stole the ball from our “young” bigs. They had 4 turnovers for the game. They took good shots in the second half, and made half of their threes. They beat us on the offensive boards. Give them a lot of credit, they played well.
Offense – The bigs have got to play better for us to get anywhere. They need to give us about 20 points a game as a group. They have got to pass better. They have to catch the ball in the paint and score. They need to learn offensive rebounding.
These next few games scare me to death. We have the talent, but they are not playing like they know what they are supposed to be doing yet. Nine games in, I was hoping for better.
