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^ I have to agree that all the underclassmen have the potential for some conference honors down the road, but I also have to say that I don’t see Lewis really competing at that level right now. Perhaps Gott will start him tonight and going forward that will get his motor jump started, but…
@Tau87 – I agree with you on past player development. The only one glaring exception I see is CJL; he showed it at times, but I believe he got in is own way. I think he chose to work on the things he was already good at – which is not work at all – it’s working hard to improve your weaknesses that make the difference. I also did not see his body change at all in the 3 years he was here; anyone thinking of the NBA only has to watch one game to know they better hit the weights hard if they ever expect to play. You don’t have to bulk up and be a beast, but lack of strength will get you eaten alive.
Player development doesn’t take place January thru March; it takes place primarily in the off season and Nov thru Dec. A couple of our young guys have hit a wall and the only cure is trying to play through it. There is a reason Freshman and Sophomores historically didn’t see much playing time, but it’s a new world now. The level of competition in conference games have hit the young guys square in the mouth; hopefully they can shake it off and get their heads back in the game.
If we’re going to be successful it is imperative that Gott and his staff convince these kids to stay in the program for at least 3 years. That’s a tough job in today’s reality that everyone expects to get quality playing time and light it up from day one. There are only a handful of freshman that can come in and play at a high level right out of the gate and we are not getting those guys at this point. While we’re getting physically talented players, they all need to develop their game before they can have an impact. In particular it’s imperative that we keep Barber for at least 3 years, relying on freshman and sophomore point guards to run your team every year is an absolute recipe for disaster.
Let’s hope these guys suck it up, shake the cobwebs out of their heads and start playing basketball again. Oh and can we please recruit someone that can make a shot from behind the arc!
I won’t blame the refs for the loss, but it sure does hamstring a team with limited scoring options. I agree that it’s making the game unwatchable, but I might add it’s making defense uncoachable. I seriously don’t know what a good defensive play is anymore except maybe a clean open floor steal. 90% of the time when an offensive player initiates contact there will be a foul called against the defender (unless it’s a NC State offensive player where 60% of the time there is no call). Either Lewis or Cat better find an outside shot or this is going to be long season; just pack in the zone and dare us to beat you. BTW – I actually thought the team played pretty good defense for most the game.
You have to respect him addressing the issue; a lot of coaches just hide away until spring camp. The defense worried me more than anything this year, especially during the second half of the season. The offense is hard to judge until a real D1 QB is in the position. Time will tell, but I think in year 3 we’ll know how things are progressing.
The N&O only addresses basketball and football; how many other “student” athletes from other sports were taking these classes? That 39% figure of athletes taking those classes may shoot up significantly if you look beyond just the two sports. If say 65% taking these courses were athletes, that’s an extremely large percentage compared to the student body and is major indicator that the whole department was giving preferential treatment to athletes. As if we don’t already know that’s the case…
I thought a bunch of the concepts for the other schools looked pretty sharp, but I was not thrilled with any of the State designs. There’s some good ideas in this thread, but what was in that link looked amateur.
It’s amazing how much difference a week or so makes. Two weekends ago we were all in heaven – basketball team playing well in Charleston (even looked respectable against Gtown), football team getting #4 against the holes, the holes losing across the board.
Well at least UNC is still losing… (Not that I really care other than I now don’t have to listen to them gloat about how great they are)
I had to DVR the game today as my kids had sporting events. I went back and watched after reading through most of the posts here even though I knew the result. All I’ll say is that coaching did not lose this game. We lost for a multitude of reasons, but coaching was way down on the list tonight.
I have not been much of a Javi supporter, but you can’t pin this one on him. Ben, Brandon & Fells had 11 TO’s between them – those are your team leaders. While he did have too many TO’s, Javi was the only one on the team to have more assists then TO’s. He played as well today as any of PG’s have all season (except maybe FT’s).
We easily should have won this one on the FT line, but this team is just not mentally tough. Don’t know if its the players or the coach, but you can’t have your team leaders giving the ball up that much. As good as Fells, Costner and McCauly can be, they make way too many bonehead plays and disappear too often.
