11/28 - MBB vs. Miss St.

[slugboy]

Question: I could be wrong about this, but is Nait one of those guys who reclassified? He could, and should technically be a senior in HS right now?

He was reclassified. Stoudamire talked about that in the beginning of his presser

 

[TampaBuzz]

Question: I could be wrong about this, but is Nait one of those guys who reclassified? He could, and should technically be a senior in HS right now?

As a follow up...Nait was not ranked as a recruit. CDS touched on it...he grew up in Toronto and is apparently well know amongst the folks that CDS played with on the Toronto Raptors. Nait moved to the US in an attempt to get some recognition amongst the recruiting services, but we signed him before his senior year started.

 

[Peacone36]

I have read many comments about our abundance of good shooters. We shot 30% from beyond the 3-point line and 38% from inside. I didn't see the game, but it appears that defense may have saved us.

It helped that Miss State shot only triples for the first 10 minutes of the second half and they arent a good shooting team, ranking around 250th in the nation.

 

[57jacket]

Freshman Nait George helps Georgia Tech upend No. 21 Mississippi State

Georgia Tech freshman Nait George had a coming-out party Tuesday at McCamish Pavilion. And the Yellow Jackets got right back on track with an upset of No. 21 Mississippi State 67-59 in front of a crowd of 3,913.

www.ajc.com

 

[slugboy]

Is Abram injured?

Listen to the last two minutes of Stoudamire’s presser. He talked about when he got benched playing for Portland. He likes Amare as a player and thinks he is going to be an important contributor here.

 

[CEB]

YES! Great win, and hopefully the first big win of many Coach Stoudamire. We led from wire-to-wire! When was the last time that happened? A quick summary:

The good:
-DEFENSE! Somebody got through to this team that effort and communication are the keys to good defense, and they responded well. I'm not sure how much the new starting lineup had to do with it, but the defense in the first half was really good. Keep that up and we will have a winning record.
-Hitting shots in the first half. There was good ball movement and shot selection and we actually hit the shots we should hit...in the first half, at least.
-Naithan George! Hello, young man, welcome to college basketball! George played extremely well for his first real action. He was calm, strong with the ball, and made good decisions. He made a huge difference in this game.
-Ndongo only scored 2 points but he made a big difference. He is a solid passer, rebounder, and defender. Dowuona also played well in his minutes.
-"Second half Miles" in the first half. Miles Kelly got into the action quickly and played a great game. He was solid on defense and rebounded really well. If he can play both ways like he did in this game, we will go very far.

The bad:
-The second half offense was ugly at times, and it seemed like we might have slowed down too soon, taking our foot of the gas and losing some of the rhythm we had in the first. We shot 22% in the second half!
-Claude seemed frustrated and outmatched in this one. MSU's big guy moved him around a good bit.
-Somehow we only had 8 assists. I thought our passing looked good, but more TOs than assists is a recipe for disaster.

More than anything, I think this game was important to show the team that defense wins. Even when you are off on offense, defense keeps you ahead or at least close. I also thought Miss. St. did not shoot well or have their best game. This win will continue to look good, though, as I think they are a better team than they showed. Kudos to Coach Stoudamire for getting the team ready and pulling the plug on the players who had not been performing. I think our hopes have been renewed for this team. Go Jackets!

(Also, everybody take note of the right way to title the game thread! It was for sure the biggest factor in the win!)

I had a lot of similar thoughts…Early on, defense was suspect. Forget shot blocking… just block out! We gave too many offensive second chances early. Fortunately we cleaned it up.

Good job with press initially… breaking it and sill getting good offense. Backcourt pressure didn’t seem to bother us all night but in the second half we fell victim to quick shots (bad shots) after breaking the press. We Took 3s out of rhythm and let them have a couple good looks in transition. Both sides got sloppy or lead may have evaporated. We settled back down, Extra passes to find Debo and Kelly with their feet set got a couple big shots to keep MSSt at arms length

Miss St started getting really frustrated late in first half (and stayed that way most of the game). Poor shots, no movement. Granted, that’s credit to our D and it also coincided with when we started rebounding defensively. That’s when we were able to extend the lead.

Did a better job moving the ball in first half. Passes were quick and crisp, made D move. Second half was more standing and one guy dribbling. Guys caught it and put it on the floor instead of reversing it quickly. Resulted in traps, tipped balls and forced shots and showed in our shooting pct.

Good defense, especially transition D, kept us in the game. Forced lots of TOs in transition and limited them to one shot in transition. That was key.

Haven’t watched Missy play but maybe they are a better shooting team than they showed? They didn’t move and shoot very well offensively and I hope that’s credit to our D.

SEC officials? Lots of pushing bumping reaching that’s typically called in ACC. I was proud that we didn’t back down and in the second half we were actually more aggressive. Good hustle plays all night; nearly all 50/50 balls were ours.

Late pressure really bothered us… and we have GOT to understand the situation late. Offensive rebound sturdy pulls out and we drive the lane immediately for a tough shot (missed and rebounded by MSST). Next transition we try alley oop fast break after a steal when we don’t have numbers… also a miss and turnover to MSST. Both were great opportunities to bleed clock and we forced shots instead. I saw some people say we took our foot off the gas late, but we really stopped running offense. We just need to stay in the offense and recognize the situation and take the first good shot.

We hit FT down the stretch… good sign. Wasn’t a lot of pucker factor, but we hit them regardless.

Lots of positives and while I agree that we won’t tout this as a win against a ranked team for long, it’s a solid showing over a capable P5 opponent. I’ll take it!

 

[Tom]

I haven’t read through the replies yet, and I want to qualify this statement by stating I am taking nothing away from that win. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a team (other than GT) be on the wrong end of seemingly EVERY 50/50 ball, foul, etc. as Mississippi State was last night. I couldn’t imagine how demoralizing it was for their players (and frustrating for their fans). I’ll take it 100% of the time, but it really was incredible how unlucky they were on so many plays.

We played very well — our ball movement looked amazing. I was unable to watch the Cinci game, but George looked so much better than Abrams and I love the move by CDS.

My Miss St friend said the same thing about the 50/50 balls. He was very frustrated. Knew there was no chance of a come back without a bounce going their way. Plus, a few of their stupid turnovers that had nothing to do with GT’s defense

 

[alagold]

Wow, I didn't get to see game but it looked to be a WONDERFUL ugly ugly WIN.Shot like crap, bad ASST/TOs, and no big REB advantage and still almost won by 10.
so 1. DEFENSE 2.Msst must have played patsies AT HOMe and then got surprised!

 

[AUFC]

The official IG shared my favorite play from last night (maybe my favorite play of the season). Beautiful ball movement.

 

[jbix80]

The official IG shared my favorite play from last night (maybe my favorite play of the season). Beautiful ball movement.

That was absolutely beautiful offense on that possession. The extra pass to Deebo and the make was icing on the top.

 

[JacketOff]

I haven’t read through the replies yet, and I want to qualify this statement by stating I am taking nothing away from that win. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a team (other than GT) be on the wrong end of seemingly EVERY 50/50 ball, foul, etc. as Mississippi State was last night. I couldn’t imagine how demoralizing it was for their players (and frustrating for their fans). I’ll take it 100% of the time, but it really was incredible how unlucky they were on so many plays.

We played very well — our ball movement looked amazing. I was unable to watch the Cinci game, but George looked so much better than Abrams and I love the move by CDS.

Notice how because Tech won there are no comments about how bad the officiating was lol. That’s probably my least favorite part about the basketball board. Every loss leads to a barrage of criticism for the officiating, when for the most part it’s almost always fair, or at least fair enough.

 

[JacketOff]

As a follow up...Nait was not ranked as a recruit. CDS touched on it...he grew up in Toronto and is apparently well know amongst the folks that CDS played with on the Toronto Raptors. Nait moved to the US in an attempt to get some recognition amongst the recruiting services, but we signed him before his senior year started.

Must be a pretty smart kid as well then. I couldn’t imagine being 1000 miles from home during what should’ve been my HS senior year at one of the toughest schools in America. He’s on a path to a bright future

 

[slugboy]

We have Duke on Saturday December 2nd and UGA the following Tuesday. We will be
Underdogs in both. (UGA will be a slight favorite unless we show up in a big way against Duke). It’s good to get a win, especially a big win

 

[lv20gt]

Saying we should fire the bball coach after 1 ugly loss isn’t legitimate criticism.

Except that isn't what was said.

Anyways, work prevented me from watching it yesterday but hoping I can catch it today.

Defense looked much better from the stats. Forced them to shoot 31/23 and forced 13 turnovers. Initially I thought they were more of an inside oriented team and so forcing them to take 30 threes was out of character, but it wasn't much so look at their season stats. Not sure where I got that idea about them. Anyways, hard to tell without watching the game what we did in particular to have success keeping them from hitting their shots. Too many allowed Orebs but otherwise looks very good.

Offensively, we did enough to win, but 34.4/29.6 shooting with 8 assists to 12 turnovers still doesn't look too good. Looks like it may have been a tale of two halves kind of thing. Kelly shot well from 3 (4/9), but was horrendous from 2 (1/7), but did get to the FT line 10 times and hit 8. Seems that is a real point of emphasis for him, which might be because of CDS or may be from feedback he got while testing the waters. Either way it's nice, but he desperately needs to improve on his efficiency.

Must be a pretty smart kid as well then. I couldn’t imagine being 1000 miles from home during what should’ve been my HS senior year at one of the toughest schools in America. He’s on a path to a bright future

Nait was originally a 23 prospect who reclassified to 24 initially to get noticed and then went back to 23 when he got the offer from us, so last year was his normal HS senior year. He spent 1 year in canada and then 3 at Dream city.

 

[kg01]

The official IG shared my favorite play from last night (maybe my favorite play of the season). Beautiful ball movement.

The best part was the guy who made the initial pass was the one that got the shot. Unselfishness rewarded.

Plus MissSt out here chasin' the ball on defense like ...

Also, with their shooting(sic), them Bulldogs really lived up to the name 'Miss' State ....

 

[Root4GT]

That was absolutely beautiful offense on that possession. The extra pass to Deebo and the make was icing on the top.

The key to that play was the penetration of George. Once the defense started to collapse on him the ball moved like CDS wants. Getting penetration that requires the defense to collapse has been a challenge with Abrams and Sturdivant at the point. George was very effective yesterday at penetrating. Teams will have film on him going forward so it will be interesting to see how he responds to future opponents approach against him.

Duke will be a very tough game, 1st they are Duke with a boatload of 5 star guys. They also are always very good in man defense staying in front of their man making penetrating very difficult therefore they can contest long jump shots fairly easily.

I expect Duke will be a system shock game for some of our new players.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Notice how because Tech won there are no comments about how bad the officiating was lol. That’s probably my least favorite part about the basketball board. Every loss leads to a barrage of criticism for the officiating, when for the most part it’s almost always fair, or at least fair enough.

Meh, the officiating was fairly even (based on number of fouls called and how closely the two teams were to the same number of fouls at any given time) and they were not calling ticky-tack fouls or letting them maul each other. that’s probably why there aren’t many comments about the officiating. they really weren’t intrusive into the game.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Meh, the officiating was fairly even (based on number of fouls called and how closely the two teams were to the same number of fouls at any given time) and they were not calling ticky-tack fouls or letting them maul each other. that’s probably why there aren’t many comments about the officiating. they really weren’t intrusive into the game.

Agree. Miss State wanted to physically maul Tech and refs made it clear that wasn’t going to happen but Tech also got called for obvious fouls.

 

[JacketOff]

Meh, the officiating was fairly even (based on number of fouls called and how closely the two teams were to the same number of fouls at any given time) and they were not calling ticky-tack fouls or letting them maul each other. that’s probably why there aren’t many comments about the officiating. they really weren’t intrusive into the game.

The officiating is almost always fairly even. Wait until we lose a game and you’ll see a boatload of comments talking about how poor it was, though.

 

[kg01]

Meh, the officiating was fairly even (based on number of fouls called and how closely the two teams were to the same number of fouls at any given time) and they were not calling ticky-tack fouls or letting them maul each other. that’s probably why there aren’t many comments about the officiating. they really weren’t intrusive into the game.

I thought we got a very favorable whistle. As I've said before, MissSt not being able to play bullyball was a big factor. If I were a MsSt fan, I'd be pissed. Does that make you feel better, @JacketOff ?