12/15 - MBB vs. Northwestern

Techwood Relict

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1,505
I'm some ways, I expected a sophomore slump from Baye and Nait, but both are really struggling and our complimentary pieces aren't complimenting very well. I don't think we are as bad as we've looked early, but we probably still aren't going to be good when we do improve this year.
 

AUFC

Helluva Engineer
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2,983
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Atlanta
We have struggled all year in fast break points. If I’m not mistaken, this isn’t the first game this year we’ve laid a goose egg in that category.
We don't get fast breaks. We have one of the lowest opponent turnover rates in D1.

It is very disappointing considering Stoudamire's Celtics teams hung their hat on their defense.
 

gte447f

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,129
This is the $64K question. Background to me is it is a lot harder to find someone who can get to kids and have the gravitas to recruit like CDS is, than it is to find someone who can run the X&Os. So while I would agree with anyone that our offensive scheme sucks right now, I would rather have this issue than trying to run the best scheme imaginable with 2 star players.

Having said that, it is obvious that the NBA focused high ball screen focused offense we ran last year is not working this year. Whether it is because Ndongo and George have regressed this year or teams are now scheming for the look is at this point in time irrelevant. It is reality that has to be dealt with.

Schematically today NW simply doubled the guard after the screen and brought the back side defender in the lane to pick up the big on the roll. Soon as that happened the ball stuck with the guard and he pounded the ball (gave it a headache to quote Pastner) and never rotated it to the back side corner who was open. One of the primary stats in advanced analytics is the % of time a team scores goes up exponentially depending on the whether the ball is reversed from side to side by the offense. The idea is you stress the defense by forcing rotations. I can count on one hand the number of times GT reversed the ball today. Makes it easy on the defense and leads to a ton of turnovers as the defense can load up on a single side of the court.

The other dynamic we are suffering from is Terry is the only player who both has the mentality and ability to take their player off the dribble. George doesn't do it this year and McCollum has been hurt (not sure if he can do it or not at this point). You can't run this offense unless you have guys like Tatum and Brown who can penetrate/make a play when they want. Like George was able to do at times last year. The other side is guys like Obrian who arguably can hit catch and shoot 3's become ineffective.

Way too much background/venting. Question is going forward. My perspective is we have legit - not necessarily great - but legit offensive talent that unfortunately does not have a "screw you I am going to the basket" mentality. So you have to give them some help. I don't think this is that hard to do schematically to answer the series of questions you posed - but I do think CDS has to recognize the issue and back away from the system I fully expect he uses to tell recruits he will use to prepare them for the NBA. I am going to pick at your words for a second, but I don't think he has to start running specific plays for individual players. IMHO he has to introduce a couple of second sets that have motion concepts that will get the ball to move back and forth in the half court and get the defense to rotate a couple of times. That alone will improve the look and efficiency of the offense. Doesn't have to be a whole Bobby Knight or Mike Young motion offense - just commit to some down screen action/off ball screen action that facilitates the ball moving around the court. In short, let's have a set that has more than one or two guys moving at the same time :)

I have no doubt there is deep knowledge of these concepts both with CDS and the rest of the coaches on the staff. These concepts are well known at the AAU, college and pro levels. CDS knows them and can execute in about a million different ways. So there are a couple of key questions they need to ask/answer. Do they agree that the core scheme they want to use isn't working with the players they have now? I think that answer is obvious but his call. The second and I expect more germane question I expect is does CDS believe that keeping the current offensive system is key to his recruiting efforts going forward. Does he need to keep an NBA focused system to maintain the aura of being able to groom college players for the NBA? I don't think he needs to maintain the current system but he may well have a different opinion and if so I understand - as much as it is ungodly painful to watch the sausage being made while these guys are not NBA level yet.
I agree with a lot of your points, including, I certainly do not think that CDS has to run this horrible version of 5 out, drive and kick offense to recruit nba level players. Just look at auburn. They get much better players than GT does, and they run a much more active and creative style of offense. In fact, Miles Kelly is really showcasing the difference in offensive styles, and it is not even close. It is advantage auburn.
 

Golden Tornadoes

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
832
CDS basically called out Baye; has to be better.
I actually disagree with CDS on this statement and blame him for Baye’s struggles. Yes, Baye has missed way too many open layups, but how many plays are being ran that gets Baye an open shot? How many times do our guards dribble for 28 seconds then throw up a 3? You can call a kid out all you want, but when you don’t run any action for him other than pick and rolls and just expect him to score without putting him in a position to do so, that’s on the coach.
 

Jack

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
274
This is the $64K question. Background to me is it is a lot harder to find someone who can get to kids and have the gravitas to recruit like CDS is, than it is to find someone who can run the X&Os. So while I would agree with anyone that our offensive scheme sucks right now, I would rather have this issue than trying to run the best scheme imaginable with 2 star players.

Having said that, it is obvious that the NBA focused high ball screen focused offense we ran last year is not working this year. Whether it is because Ndongo and George have regressed this year or teams are now scheming for the look is at this point in time irrelevant. It is reality that has to be dealt with.

Schematically today NW simply doubled the guard after the screen and brought the back side defender in the lane to pick up the big on the roll. Soon as that happened the ball stuck with the guard and he pounded the ball (gave it a headache to quote Pastner) and never rotated it to the back side corner who was open. One of the primary stats in advanced analytics is the % of time a team scores goes up exponentially depending on the whether the ball is reversed from side to side by the offense. The idea is you stress the defense by forcing rotations. I can count on one hand the number of times GT reversed the ball today. Makes it easy on the defense and leads to a ton of turnovers as the defense can load up on a single side of the court.

The other dynamic we are suffering from is Terry is the only player who both has the mentality and ability to take their player off the dribble. George doesn't do it this year and McCollum has been hurt (not sure if he can do it or not at this point). You can't run this offense unless you have guys like Tatum and Brown who can penetrate/make a play when they want. Like George was able to do at times last year. The other side is guys like Obrian who arguably can hit catch and shoot 3's become ineffective.

Way too much background/venting. Question is going forward. My perspective is we have legit - not necessarily great - but legit offensive talent that unfortunately does not have a "screw you I am going to the basket" mentality. So you have to give them some help. I don't think this is that hard to do schematically to answer the series of questions you posed - but I do think CDS has to recognize the issue and back away from the system I fully expect he uses to tell recruits he will use to prepare them for the NBA. I am going to pick at your words for a second, but I don't think he has to start running specific plays for individual players. IMHO he has to introduce a couple of second sets that have motion concepts that will get the ball to move back and forth in the half court and get the defense to rotate a couple of times. That alone will improve the look and efficiency of the offense. Doesn't have to be a whole Bobby Knight or Mike Young motion offense - just commit to some down screen action/off ball screen action that facilitates the ball moving around the court. In short, let's have a set that has more than one or two guys moving at the same time :)

I have no doubt there is deep knowledge of these concepts both with CDS and the rest of the coaches on the staff. These concepts are well known at the AAU, college and pro levels. CDS knows them and can execute in about a million different ways. So there are a couple of key questions they need to ask/answer. Do they agree that the core scheme they want to use isn't working with the players they have now? I think that answer is obvious but his call. The second and I expect more germane question I expect is does CDS believe that keeping the current offensive system is key to his recruiting efforts going forward. Does he need to keep an NBA focused system to maintain the aura of being able to groom college players for the NBA? I don't think he needs to maintain the current system but he may well have a different opinion and if so I understand - as much as it is ungodly painful to watch the sausage being made while these guys are not NBA level yet.
There is one player besides Perry that can create space and most always goes to the basket but sometimes he doesn’t finish, and that is Mustaf.
 

Northeast Stinger

Helluva Engineer
Messages
11,126
Recorded the game to watch later due to social obligations. After the first 2 minutes I just started jumping ahead to see if Tech ever ran a coherent offense.

I’ve been a big CDS fan but something is very wrong with this team. They play slow and like they are half asleep.
 

JacketOff

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,008
Don’t worry guys. Only another month or so before we really start to click and finish strong, getting everyone excited for next year!

J Batt about to have to earn that new extension money and find a new basketball coach before GT basketball gets relegated to the A10. I thought Pastner’s teams were boring to watch. Stoudamire’s teams haven’t even been worth watching. Quite the opposite of what I was expecting last November. Hope they get it turned around, but man this is bleak so far
 

GTJason

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,583
The thing is we lost convincingly to a team who doesn't even have a single player I'd take over one of our guys. It's crazy. Our guards bring the ball up the court quickly, penetrate, and even when the lane is open pull back. There is no offense being run right now.
 

SecretAgentBuzz

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
815
Location
ends of the earth
Ooof. Another letdown. To be honest, I expected this, because Northwestern is a well-coached team that can exploit a team's weakness and plays controlled and with precision--the type of team that can beat better "athletes" again and again. But, for GT, this feels like one step forward, two steps back.

For disclosure, I didn't get to watch the game because I couldn't find the replay anywhere (not on ESPN?), but I am not sure I want to after watching the highlights. Based on those highlights, CDS' press conference, and the box score, here is what I can see...

What I liked:
-MUTOMBO. So glad to see him not only getting playing time, but making the most of it. CDS mentioned that he "had some other things going on" and seemed to indicate he was in and out of practice (for family reasons?), so that explains his absence so far.
-Terry to the basket.

What I didn't like:
-Pretty much everything else.
-Its already been said many times, but we have very little chance to win any games when Baye plays like this. 3 TOs, 0/2 on FTs, and a big ole -20 in his 18 minutes in the game.
-McCollum was back....but not back. 1/5 from the field, -22 when he was on the court, and most of the highlights of Northwestern hitting threes included him not fighting through screens or closing out shooters. If you can't defend, you shouldn't be playing.
-Ugly TOs and 19 fast break points given up to a team that does not look for fast breaks. Only 1 steal, 6 TOs forced and 0 fast break points for GT. I don't know which of those stat lines is worse but both of them are beyond horrible. Just pitiful effort it seems.

Its put up or shut up time, CDS. Your reputation is on the line and you need to start delivering wins. This team has already dug a big enough hole that any postseason play would be a miracle at this point. The team looks unprepared and lackadaisical. This is not the NBA. Recruiting is looking good and talent is coming in but talent is clearly not enough.

I am an alumni and a fan, so you aren't going to lose me, but this is hard to watch. I'll keep cheering, "Go Jackets," through the good and the bad.
 

Richland County

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
404
In basketball more than any other sport defense to a great degree creates offense. Fast break opportunities, pasce of offense etc. Tech plays piss poor defense which in turn kills the offense. Your can't have one without the other.
 

spdrama

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
607
CDS is a rare & unique athlete. Basketball has been his life. It had to be as his one & only ticket to success. I would hope that his family is more important, but other that, nothing else matters to him, then or now. At every level of his career he had his critics and at each level he proved his critics wrong. If he is making mistakes in coaching at this level they probably relate to thinking he can recruit Division 1 players and/or teach Division 1 players to play with his passion, intensity & heart. He’s a tough act to follow and few will ever reach the heights he climbed to. That’s what he wants for his players. He can teach, coach & explain this to them, but he can’t understand any of that for them. They have to be smart enough & driven enough to understand it for themselves. They have the smarts but are not showing the drive.

This team continues to make the same mistakes over & over. From game to game & even within a game from possession to possession. They are proving to be poor students of the basketball mindset he is trying to instill in them. CDS is not a quitter, but he might come to realize college level basketball is not to his liking. If yesterday’s game was hard to watch for us it must have been exponentially more difficult for him to watch & have to coach. He expects his players to learn from their mistakes. I expect he will do the same and reassess what he’s got in this team and hopefully get the best out of players who just don’t match what he brought to the game.

For me CDS is too accomplished in this sport to be disrespected. And the players are just young people, not unlike my kids once were and my grandchildren are now. Not going to use them for target practice in expressing my disappointment in their play. So I wll continue to support & root for CDS & GT, the next two games in person, along with the undefeated Lady Jackets as my bonus for an Atlanta trip. I am 0 for 1 so far after the Cincy game. With 4 games to see, hope to improve my record. 4-1 after Saturday might be stretching expectations a bit, but stretching is something fans do far better than analyzing.
 
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