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“I can’t believe you people. The pack by five. If they handle to road issues they match up well.”
^Being negative is our best option! Reverse negative karma jinx! #RememberMaryland
It’s time the karma comes full circle and starts actually affecting the Holes in athletics as well – not just in the court of public opinion 🙂
*unx – 90
ncsu – 65I won’t lay out my detailed game synopsis again, but that was my prediction from another thread and I’m sticking with it. Holes with sixty free throw attempts. Warren, Freeman, Washington, Anya (who may not play but will have 5 fouls anyway), Lee, and Barber all foul out. V-berg and Washington each with four first half fouls – every one else at least three.
Good job coming in under 30.
As packalum said, let the raping begin.
“Tokoto is going to have his hands full Saturday.”
^False. Even if it looks like Buckets will be all Buckets-y, he’ll quickly be on the bench in foul trouble (against the offensive juggernaut that is Tokoto). Warren will probably play under 30 minutes and have around 12 points. Then we get to hear about how the Holes + Tokoto ‘shut him down’.
In my dream world – aka non-reality – Warren would be allowed to play basketball and get a fair shot at being aggressive on offense and defense (you know, like he usually is). Even knowing ahead what’s gonna happen it’ll still suck viewing multiple unx*espn camera glances at Warren sitting forlornly on the bench during game action.
^Haha they get points for being objective about calls, but turn around and lose said points by calling State a ‘one man team’ (though in fairness, it was Warren that torched them).
There’s some talent on this team. Young – and all that comes with being young – but talent nonetheless.
Still, you don’t often hear opposing fans / associates admit to getting calls – of course all we hear about are Duke and unx and they’re supposed to get the calls. Maybe other fan bases can actually be rational and see reason … I guess losing touch with reality happens when you get stuff handed to you all the time.
LOL
We’re going to ‘hear’ next week that Levine ran an escort service and didn’t ‘fit in’ at the Hole. She was ‘interim’ for a reason!!!
I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say “he’s calling the games the new way – emphasis on the rules!!”, but the sample size now is such that this appears to be a trend more than anything else. Sad face.
That said, he does get the benefit of the doubt on one factor – other members of the respective crews were excluded from the data. Still, this is more than a bit jarring.
The Central game in particular was a complete abomination (45 free throws – really?) … We lost to zone defenses against Pitt and Wake – still weren’t done any favors by the stripes. I didn’t have too much of a problem with the FSU game – of course, we won. Down the stretch though, FSU got to the line an awful lot.
A great source of bemusement for all Pack fans – we attack the interior on almost every possession through dribble penetration or post play, yet average far fewer free throws than a typical team with this play style (ahem, unx). How is it that we can be so aggressive on offense and go to the line less? Are other teams *that* much better at interior defense? Laughable.
^Actually, as VaWolf noted in the OP, we need FSU to continue to do well. They’re our only solid top 50 win … For now, we need them to stay there. We beat Pitt and/or Syracuse, then FSU can do what they want to 🙂
I’m not going to waste my time researching the PAC 12 at this point. Can anybody shed any light here?
^Has to be purely numbers based … Not one resume sticks out aside from Arizona’s. As you said, no need to worry about it at this point. I’d be shocked if they sniffed six bids. Nobody outside of ‘Zona did anything of real relevance in the non-con (Arizona St. lost on neutral court to Miami; Washington lost on neutral court to BC – lollll) .. I’d give a clear edge to the ACC in that department. Problem for the ACC at this point is being ‘top heavy’ (good imagery, but still).
I feel confident about the ACC getting six though, seven may be possible (we – NC State need for it to be) – but we’ll see. FSU and Unx appear to be the front-runners for numbers 5 and 6, respectively … NC State, Wake and Clemson are still alive for number seven. State is definitely alive for sliding into the ‘comfortable’ fifth slot thanks to the win last night and our upcoming schedule (Unx twice, Wake at home, and other opportunities like Syracuse + Pitt). Wake’s still alive for number six having beaten State and Unx … I do not expect this to last, though. We’d better trounce them in Raleigh, and I foresee plenty of losses for them on the horizon. We’ll see what Clemson does, but they have to be stalwarts down the stretch and I can’t see that against their schedule. Our game at their place may not even matter much by Feb. 18th for either team, but we’ll see. The schedule was not in our favor on this one (going there).
Bottom line, we’re still alive! For now! 🙂
Edit: I am fully aware that bid allocation has nothing to do with ‘conference vs. conference’ – it’s each team for itself. Grouping those teams by conference just makes illustrating a point simpler.
^We all know what to expect Saturday 🙁
Anya – if he plays – fouls out in the first half after coming in for Vandy’s three quick first half fouls. Vandy gets his third as the refs notice that Anya is about to check in for him – so a quick, efficient whistle gets the job done.
Vandy comes back in and picks up his 4th before the half. Washington, who has taken over Richard Howell’s sacred tendencies, starts the game with two fouls before tip-off. Freeman comes in immediately following the tip-off. Freeman does his best not to breathe on McAdoo, Meeks, or Johnson – but still picks up three first half fouls.
Barber picks up three first half fouls for having the audacity to attempt to guard Paige. Lewis picks up two fouls ‘just because’. Dez Lee has four first half fouls where Kenny Britt and McDonald bowl him over with lowered shoulders – but we all know that’s a blocking foul if you don’t wear light blue. Turner knows better, and just lets his man drive or shoot at will.
The Holes shoot thirty-five first half free throws and lo-and-behold hit thirty of them. #NCStateSh*t. The second half goes much better as for fouls, because Gottfried and Lutz wisely tell all defenders to line up on the opponent’s baseline and ‘not move at all’ on defense. Still, there are ten more second half fouls called on the Pack – all of them shooting fouls. Vandenberg doesn’t foul out, but Freeman quickly does. We have to go small and let the Holes score at will in the post. Roy loves it. It’s ‘great basketball’. The crowd loves it. The refs love it.
The Holes wind up with 60 free throw attempts, hitting 45. McAdoo has 25 attempts. Quality viewing experience. Still, State battles hard and only loses by twenty-five, 90-65. Holes after the game talk about ‘buckling down’ and ‘making a move’ in the conference standings. ‘This is the type of basketball we’re able to play’. You don’t say. 🙁
Very impressive win! Did it without Anya (who I hope is ok and we need to be ok), without Vandenberg for a majority of the game, and without Warren down the stretch.
‘Scrappy’ is the best way to put it … they found a way. I really liked giving Lee the ball as the shot clock wound down. He’s our best ‘bull in a china shop’ driver and he keeps an eye for interior passes.
Still a long way to go for any hope for a bid, but we got a small, unexpected boost tonight on top of the big win – Chris Collins’ Northwestern Wildcats went to Wisconsin and won. That should mean a fairly sizable jump for them in numbers, and that definitely helps us.
Great job team! Please be ok, Anya.
Wanted to highlight a note from Cowdog from the game thread:
“… aggressive zones, not laid back zones…pressure zones.
One only needs to look Petino, for instance. State’s got one guy built for M to M in Barber.”
^While – in general – I’m very much a proponent of good man-to-man defense over a zone, I’d really like to see that aggressive zone again. The key for the effect the zone had against GT was how active and aggressive it was – that translated to other areas as well. It also helped to spy Miller – though he did obliterate us with offensive boards and a couple of mid-range zone buster jumpers. Overall though, I think you just tip your hat to Miller – aside from him, the zone swung the game along with Lewis’ production and management. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say GT’s fate was sealed once we switched to that zone – it really highlighted their lack of offensive skill players.
We have good personnel with which to run zones and traps … incidentally, with respect to NC State it helps speed the game flow up for us – which is desperately needed for this team to succeed. There was a game earlier in the season (I can’t recall which) in which we ran a 1-2-2 pressure/trap zone with Warren at the point of it that was very effective. I’m in favor of seeing some more zone. The caveat, of course, is rebounding … again though – hat tip to Miller.
One more note: we ran ‘man’ for the majority of the OT and Lewis wasn’t too much of a liability from what I saw. I unfortunately don’t have it on dvr, so please let me know if I’m off base here.
Zone worked in our favor for a change … definitely a swing in overall play after the switch to it and a nice call by the staff. We got destroyed on the boards while in it, but there was no denying the zone’s effect on Georgia Tech. Also, much better overall offensive flow in this game … Cat struggled offensively, but overall both he and Lewis did a nice job. Good to see Lewis lead a victory.
The youth really shows on this team. We have better personnel than Wake Forest and Georgia Tech but could have (probably should have) lost both games – and unfortunately did lose one of them. But, the kids are winning some games and fighting hard together.
Two straight games where they’re down by 11 points in the second half yet come back and find a way to win. Granted, Maryland and GT are not great teams – but the team deserves kudos.
I wish we could keep the core of this team together for two more seasons … Hopefully we will, but it’d be nice to bring the majority of this squad back plus Warren next season. No need to talk about it now though, we’ll see what happens in the offseason 🙂
^Shave it off, Russia.
I am ‘blessed’ with a receding hair line and a bald spot … fortunately I have a good ‘head’ for the shaved look. 100% I would shave it though even if I could star in ‘Coneheads 2’.
Gillette Fusion Proglide. DO IT!
*This could have been posted in the ‘UNC defense’ thread as well
Of interest:
“NOTE: Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg L.P., which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and sits on its Foundation Board and the UNC Global Research Institute Board.”^See that, unx? That’s called being ‘up-front’ and ‘honest’ so as to eliminate potential ‘bias’. LOL
