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Thoughts:
– Looking back at the stats, we gave up more offensive rebounds than I thought we did. Still, I like the way we look in that area. Washington, Freeman and Abu are all good rebounders, and Lacey does a really good job crashing from the guard spot. That was a major weakness last year, and I think it’ll be much improved this season.
– I love watching Trevor Lacey play. He needs to clean up his shot selection some, but he’s a plus defender and is so strong and decisive on his drives. Really excited to have him on the team.
– We start 4 plus defenders and bring one of the best shot-blockers in the country off the bench. There’s no excuse for us to be below-average at that end this season. Fouls will be a bit of a problem, but I’m not worried about that. Washington does so much good stuff. It’s not just the shot-blocking, he’s really, really good at corralling guys on the P&R and getting back to his man. His length and quickness let him cover a ton of ground.
– Turner is still a defensive disaster who loses track of his man way too frequently, but it hurts less when you surround him with good defenders, and we need his shooting.
– FTs are a problem, but I also think Cat is going to be better than 5-9 most games, so I’m not overly worried about that yet.
– What does worry me is how we bogged down against the zone. It’s not just that they didn’t quite know how to attack it. That’s going to happen the first time you play a zone in a season. There was some standing around and confusion about where to be, and that’ll get better. What worried me was that the passing wasn’t very crisp. Too often there were passes that didn’t hit guys in the hands. That’s the kind of thing that doesn’t lead to a turnover, but it takes away what might be a shot opportunity or slows down the next pass. That’s fundamentals stuff that needs to be cleaned up.
– Shot selection from the guards/wings needs to be tighter, especially against a zone. If you’re shooting a contested 18-footer with 20 seconds left on the shot clock, you’re doing something wrong.
– Abu needs to a) be told in no uncertain terms that he is not a three-point shooter, and b) carry a basketball around above his head all day. He missed out on two point blank looks because he brought the ball down.
– Anya had two really nice drop steps to get to the front of the rim. If he can stay on the floor, he’s going to be a real force.
Thoughts:
– I knew very little about Trevor Lacey coming into this season, so he was the guy I had no idea what to expect from. I came away from this super-excited about watching him all year. He looks strong, explosive and skilled, the kind of versatile guy we desperately need at that position.
– The biggest factor in the success of this season was always going to be Cat, and he looked about as good as you could hope for. He’s not a great shooter yet, but he showed marks of improvement, and the floor vision looked a cut above what we saw from him last year. Defensively, the Jackson St guards looked terrified whenever he put the pressure on. He has all the tools to be one of the best defensive guards not just in the ACC, but in the nation.
– The defense was encouraging, though there were some breakdowns, and the level of competition is obviously low. This is the year where I think we really start to see Gottfried’s ceiling as a coach. I know he can coach offense. He did it at Bama and he’s done it here. I don’t know if he can coach defense, because the defensive talent hasn’t been here the last few years. This year, all the pieces are there to be good-to-great defensively. If we’re below average again, that’s a big problem.
– We’re going to be in trouble every time Lee has to run the point this year. He just doesn’t make good decisions with the ball.
– Expected more development from our bigs than I saw tonight. I think Washington looks more confident, but nobody really moved the needle for me. We have depth, youth and talent there though, and I’m not really worried about it. I do think Anya wins the starting job before too long. He’s a game-changer on defense.
– Going to be another frustrating year watching Ralston Turner. Guy has a great stroke, but just doesn’t make good basketball decisions, and he’s a mess on defense.
I love TJ Warren more than any State player since Hodge, and I think he’s going to figure things out and become a terrific player, but there are legitimate concerns about whether or not his game will translate into the NBA, and it’s hardly insane to point those out, nor do a few strong summer league performances prove them wrong.
– TJ is, at best, an average NBA athlete. That’s no sleight against him, the NBA is full of terrific athletes. He’s not particularly explosive, he’s not going to blow by people, he doesn’t have elite quickness or strength, and his wingspan (a huge factor in defense) is below average for a SF.
– The three point shot is IMMENSELY important in the NBA game. It’s hard to overstate just how strongly the league has swung to emphasizing jump shooting in the last 5 years. Three point shots aren’t just a very efficient shot, but an effective three point shooter spaces the floor and spreads the defense in a way that even an elite mid-range threat can’t. TJ is not a very good three point shooter right now. Doesn’t mean he can’t become one, but he’s not there yet, and his release has some serious flaws in it.
– He’s been a poor on-ball defender so far in his career. I think much of that has to do with the personnel around him at State and the immense load he carried on offense, but part of it is poor fundamentals too. He doesn’t have elite lateral quickness, and, as I said above, the wingspan is an issue that lowers his defensive ceiling.
Now, I think he’s going to figure out those issues. I don’t think the athleticism matters so much because he’s such a smart, unique player, and I don’t think he’s a poor athlete, just an average one. I also think a good coaching staff can fix his jump shot within a couple years, and he’s such a talented natural scorer that I can’t imagine he won’t figure it out. I think he’s probably always going to be a mediocre-to-poor on-ball defender, but can be a plus team defender due to his court sense and quick hands. Still, it’s hardly a slam dunk, and there are definitely things he’s going to have to work on.
Congrats to TJ. He’s made every game this season worth watching, and the last couple weeks have been something really special. Couldn’t be happier for him. Now if we could just convince him to come back and defend it…
Of course the ESPN headline reads “Warren edges Parker for ACC Player of Year”, because nearly doubling the 2nd place guy’s votes is apparently a narrow margin.
Also, 4 people voted for Jabari Parker for DPoY, which is absurd.
I posted this in the game thread, but I’ll put it here as well. Counted this up just for fun:
Number of 30+ point games by Doug McDermott: 10
Number of 30+ point games from the other 14 players on the Wooden Award ballot combined: 6
Number of 30+ point games by TJ Warren: 9Counted this up just for fun:
Number of 30+ point games by Doug McDermott: 10
Number of 30+ point games from the other 14 players on the Wooden Award ballot: 6
Number of 30+ point games by TJ Warren: 9Mark Titus at Grantland has him as PoY and “there’s not a close second”. He’s got a nice write-up on Warren’s “old-man game” (which is a great description of what he does).
“This league would be even more of a sham than it already is if a high volume scorer like Eric Green can win ACC POY while on a wretched team, but a highly efficient scorer like Warren doesn’t from an average team.”
Correction: Green was a super efficient scorer in addition to being high-volume. Like, even more efficient than TJ has been this season (on account of being a much better FT and 3PT shooter). He also had even less help around him than TJ has had. Not to take anything away from TJ (as I said, he’s PoY in my book), but Green was crazy good last season.
You know, I wouldn’t have said that TJ was ACC PoY until these last couple weeks. What he’s done the last 4 games has been incredible. I’m a big proponent of judging guys based on what they’ve done, not on who their teammates are. Team performance matters, but only if its a close contest. This is the same reason I argued for Erik Green last year, he was just so clearly better than everybody else in the league, it didn’t matter if his team sucked.
If you were looking at the entire season, you could argue Parker or Patterson (from Pitt), but just looking at ACC, it isn’t close. Parker’s scoring and efficiency really dropped off in the first half of conference play. Patterson’s play fell off a cliff. K.J. McDaniels has been great, but he’s not the same caliber scorer that TJ is, and his team isn’t any better. Ennis is great, but his success is largely attributable to his team, and that narrative has faded with their losses. Paige has come on late, but statistically he’s just not in the same league, and he struggled a lot at the beginning of conference play.
There’s no other fantastic candidate, they all have significant flaws. TJ has taken on by far the biggest load, and he’s been more efficient than anyone else in doing so. It’s also not like State has been a disappointment in terms of preseason expectations, or been a disaster like VaTech was last year. Unless you’re going to obstinately argue the stupid position that the PoY has to be a top 3 team or some such nonsense, I don’t think there is a real strong case for anyone else.
You know, I read this thread this afternoon and thought “best since DT? No way.” After tonight I might believe it.
A Facebook friend of mine who used to write for the Technician when he was in school posted this, and somebody responded with the following:
“More importantly, this douche wasn’t even AT THE GAME. He was too intoxicated in line before doors opened, so, security cut off his wristband and denied him entry. Because we all need THAT kind of person telling us about the game, and what kind of fans we should be.”
It’s gossip from a friend of a friend, so take that for what it’s worth. Given that article though, I don’t doubt it.
Hey all,
I find myself unable to post in the forums. It just gives me a message saying “Error: Your reply cannot be created at this time.” Is it just me? Anyone else having this problem?
Just got back from the game.
1) If you haven’t been to a women’s game this season, do so. They’re really, really good and a lot of fun to watch. We all know Reynolds is one of the best atmospheres in the country when it’s packed, so come out and support the team. I’m a long time fan of the women’s team, and this is easily the most exciting team since the last season Yow was coaching.
2) If Wes Moore doesn’t win Coach of the Year, it’s a travesty. This is essentially the exact same team that was on the floor last year, but Moore has gotten so much more out of this roster. Even the development from the beginning of the season to now is tremendous. For 3 seasons now, Lakeisha Daniel has made me cringe ever time she touched the basketball. Now she’s providing serviceable backup minutes and looking confident when she catches the ball. Markeisha Gatling has gone from being a foul-prone 4th option to being one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the country. They look like a completely different team. They’re composed and smart and run some excellent offensive sets. It’s not just the player development either, it’s in-game tactics. This game, State had tried both man and zone, and nothing was slowing down the Terps that much. Alyssa Thomas, two-time ACC PoY, was proving to be almost unguardable. At about halfway through the second half, Moore switched the team to that rarely-seen gimmick, the box-and-one, with the smallest player on the court (Len’Nique Brown) face-guarding Thomas…and it worked. Not only did it work, it completely baffled Maryland. They had no answer to it, and it allowed the Pack to come back and take the lead. It was an unbelievably ballsy move, and I could hardly believe it as I was watching it happen. Just awesome. You can’t do a better coaching job than Moore is doing this year.
Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about this game. It was just an absurd amount of fun to watch. Neither team played poorly. Neither team got lucky with a streak of shots. It was two great teams playing great basketball and trading punches. Maryland did a tremendous job of taking away the post scoring that is this team’s bread and butter, and the guards stepped up to the challenge by aggressively driving and kicking (something they absolutely couldn’t do at the beginning of the season). Brown was a star on both ends, and Myisha Goodwin-Coleman was a cold-blooded killer in the second half, knocking down crucial 3s and icing the game from the line. It was such an impressive team performance.
Alright, deep breaths everybody. It sucks to lose this game just like it sucked to lose the Missouri game. It’s always hard to lose at home, especially when you start off the game so well. Still, deep breaths.
1) Pittsburgh is really, really good. KenPom has them rated the 11th best team in the country. I think that probably overstates it a bit, but they’re still really good. They haven’t played a punishing schedule, but they’ve blown out almost every team they’ve played, which is exactly what good teams are supposed to do. This is not a loss that is going to look bad at the end of the year.
2) Lets stop drawing huge sweeping conclusions from this game, because it did not go at all the way you would have expected it to coming into the game. How, you ask?
i) State’s biggest strength on offense is not turning the ball over. Pittsburgh’s weakest area on defense is that they don’t force tons of turnovers. And yet, we tied our season high for turnovers (and in a fairly slow-paced game at that). This is not a trend, it’s an abnormality. So lets remember that when we’re whining about the team being “sloppy”. It’s actually rather remarkable that a team this young is in the top 30 in the country for lowest TO%.
ii) Pitt is one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country (10th). We are a well below-average defensive rebounding team (235th). Pitt only got 9 offensive rebounds out of 30 opportunities. That’s 30%, which is below the national average, and excellent given these teams’ respective strengths and weaknesses.
iii) We all know that State struggles badly at the FT line. We were 14-15 this game.I’m not saying we can’t learn things from this game, or that we shouldn’t talk about it. I’m just saying that it’s one game, and was a weird one at that, and we should be careful about drawing sweeping generalizations from it.
3) The turnovers were the biggest problem today, particularly because so many of them were live ball TOs that led to easy points the other way. Looking at the play-by-play, I count 11 points that we gave up directly after live ball turnovers (just talking TOs that let directly to points within 5 seconds of the TO). Our defensive numbers overall look a lot worse because our offense essentially gave away so many easy points. If this becomes a trend, it’s a big problem, but I’d lean towards it being kind of a fluke.
4) The defense had some problems, but there were a lot of encouraging signs in the half court defense. Turner is still a disaster, and the bigs still struggle with their back line rotations at times, but there was a lot of good here too. The bigs mostly stayed out of foul trouble, the defensive rebounding was much better, and the bigs are generally doing an excellent job showing and recovering on the P&R. We did have a short 3-4 possession stretch where we played zone that was absolutely (and predictably) disastrous.
5) Our biggest problem overall, and one that reared its head again in this game, is lack of shooting. More precisely, it’s both lack of shooting and poor shot selection. Turner, Warren and Lee are not bad shooters with their feet set. The problem is that they often take wild 3s off the dribble (Turner is, by far, the worst at this), and they’ll do it early in the shot clock. None of these guys is an elite shooter though, so defenses can really collapse into the paint, which leads to a lot of tough drives and hard floaters in the lane. It’s a real problem, and I’m not sure exactly how to fix it. I’d like to see a lineup with Lewis and Barber in it some, to give us better ball movement and decision-making. I’d also like to see Washington get a little more burn, since he’s the one big on the roster who is an offensive weapon.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a star player get less respect from officials than Buckets does. For all the attacking he does and all the contact he draws, it is inexplicable how little he goes to the line
Just got back from the game
It’s tough after a game like this for me to remember that this is a very young team that is still learning, because I can see all the potential there, and I feel like the better team lost tonight. Still, if you’d told me before the season that we would lead a top 25 team all game and then barely give it away in the end with this team at this point in the season, I would have absolutely taken it. This squad is much further along than I expected them to be.
The normally solid Freeman had a really hard time on the glass tonight. He still played some solid positional defense, but when he isn’t rebounding, he doesn’t bring a lot else to the table at this point.
I know Missouri started shifting their defense to shut down TJ in the second half, but we have to get him more touches down the stretch, and not just gunning 3s.
Kyle Washington continues to grow and get more confident, and he has the makings of a special player. He still takes a lot of ill-advised long jumpers, particularly when they come early in the shot clock. I like having him as an option to attack the middle of a zone though, he’s excellent there.
I’m not going to blame the loss on officiating, since lord knows there were things we could have done much better (defensive rebounding, free throws, shot selection, free throws). That said, I have no idea what a block or a charge is anymore. If that fourth foul on Cat is a block, then I’m honestly not sure how you’re supposed to play defense. The officials were really terrible all around, they were needlessly confused several times, and calls around the basket were awfully inconsistent.
Watching Ralston Turner play is infuriating. We desperately need him because of his shooting, but his shot selection is deplorable. He just doesn’t know what a good shot is, and that’s a serious problem. He’s also probably the worst defender on the team (and when I say “probably”, I mean “definitely”). He stays upright in his stance, and so he gets absolutely leveled by screens, both on and off the ball.
A couple notes from the stats department:
For a team that is so young, our ability to protect the ball is amazing. We’re 29th in the country in TO%. That’s outstanding.
Just a little bit of that NC State luck: opposing teams have shot 79.7% from the free throw line against the pack this year. How unlucky is that, you ask? It’s the highest percentage for any team in the country. That’s right, no other team in the country has seen their opponents shoot better from the free throw line than the Pack. (the national average is 69%)
We get 65.4% of our points off of two-point FGs. That’s the highest percentage in the country. Thanks Buckets.
And speaking of…
Buckets: 30% Usage rate, 121.5 Offensive Rating
2 time All-American Doug McDermott: 31.9 Usg, 121.6 ORtgI’d say Vandy was properly utilized before this year. He never earned his PT before this season. Even when he got into games, he was a minus in almost every facet. He fouled too much because he was out of shape and slow. He had no confidence in the post. I always thought he had potential going back to his freshman season, but he seemed to get worse and worse every year. This year, he put in the work, got in shape and is looking confident out there. He’s a completely different player than he’s been the last couple years.
I’m so impressed by the growth of this team from the beginning of this season. Vandy gets better every game. Freeman gets better every game. Washington gets better every game. Barber gets better every game. Anya is actually playing now, and contributing! It’s so much fun to watch this team grow and evolve. There are still problems, but man, there’s so much potential there.
Cat is a difference maker at both ends already. His defense has been tremendous, and we’re seeing him grow from the reaching he was doing early to sliding his feet more and playing position defense. Also underrated: he’s AWESOME at closing out on shooters.
I’ve said from the beginning, Anya is going to be the most significant defensive player we’ve had in years. He needs to get slimmer and quicker so that he can corral the P&R better, but his timing and those long arms make him an absolute menace.
Freeman and Washington are both really high IQ players. They make dumb freshman mistakes at times, but you can see that they understand positioning and spacing and where to look with the ball. I’m super excited about their futures.
I’m most worried about the Lee/Turner tandem on the wing (something I didn’t think I’d be saying before the season). They’re both super streaky, and they both make some really poor decisions (at both ends). Turner in particular has some really terrible shot selection. If we’re going to be a great offensive team, that has to tighten up.
What more is there to say about Buckets? He’s easily our best player since Hodge. I think my favorite thing right now is watching him when he gets out on a semi-break against 1 or 2 defenders. Watching him do that little euro-step and get effortlessly to the rim is just beautiful. He makes really tricky finishes look easy.
This was a huge game for the freshmen bigs. With Vandy in foul trouble, they got thrown in the fire, and came through with flying colors. This was easily the best game Kyle Washington has played. He was aggressive, confident, and I loved how enthusiastic and encouraging he was between plays. Just brought a ton of energy. Anya is still way too heavy (Tennessee didn’t involve him in P&R nearly as much as they should have), but you can see the talent there that’s gonna make him a monster in the future. His timing on contesting shots is tremendous. Freeman continues to be solid, and good on him for working on that FT stroke.
What more can you say about T.J. Warren? He’s a stud, and he makes it seem effortless. We’re going to win a couple games this year that we have no business being in, simply because he’s the best player on the floor.
There are still issues. The defensive rebounding was better, but we still gave up offensive rebounds on 40% of their shots, which is way too high. The wings also need to stay more disciplined. Buckets has gotten a little better at picking his spots, but there’s still too much lunging out of position for steals. Dez had one such play in the second half which was one of the worst gambles I’ve ever seen. He was nowhere near getting the ball, and was so out of position that his man basically waltzed in for a layup. That has to tighten up.
All in all though, very encouraging.
