2/2/22 Jackets Face Hokies on the Road

[daddee724]

Well, this one got away from us in the first half, and despite our team's efforts, we couldn't get back into it. A few observations on the actual game:

-They quickly negated our normal advantages (zone, aggressive defense) by 1) shooting lights out from 3, and 2) Lots of early ticky-tack fouls. When the refs let us play aggressive defense, we do well. When Usher has 3 fouls in the first 8 minutes, you know we are in trouble. This put us in the hole...
-But we can't dig out of the hole if we can't make open shots. Running the offense through our big man is not the main problem. Too much dribbling is not main problem. Not taking care of the ball is not the problem. The problem is shot selection (too many long or contested jumpers) and hitting open shots. We missed so many opportunities to pull it closer today by missing open or easy shots (same as the Miami game). 40% from the field is not going to cut it.
-Also, we lost our edge on defense. We didn't close out shooters, didn't give full effort and didn't keep active hands. End result--VT shot 53%. Again, that's not going to cut it.
-For all those saying that PG and C are our biggest problems...they definitely were not in this game. Sturdy and Smith combined for this line: 18 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals, and 1 turnover. I liked their aggressiveness. Howard, when we had him in, was +1 with 4 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks. He only played 23 minutes though.

I won't lie. This one stung, because the talent is comparable. They had the advantage playing at home, but we let them get way too far ahead with uncharacteristic bad defense.

On to the next one. Go Jackets!

Honestly those things you said are not the problem, are actually a big piece of the problem. We have guys that can score and have proven to do that without volume touches. We do not run any sets to get guys opportunities to score in their strengths. What I do see is guys taking a lot of my turn shots. There are times when a good shooter should make the next pass to the better shooter we use to call it "one more". Yet we have guys that are unwilling to do that and JP should may be press the issue for them to start doing that (i.e FSU game and Clayton St games). VT played that way as well as the other teams. They are willing to make the extra pass and catch us out of rotation once we get to flying around on defense. We have our best 3 point shooter spot up on the perimeter and he does not get kick outs when those guys drive into the paint yet they still force up shots. When they do kick it out its to a player that has not proven he can make an outside shot. At that point they should become that "I'm a good shooter but I am going to make one more to a better shooter" mentality.

 

[YlJacket]

I was wrong before the game thinking they would focus on the perimeter. We made more 3 point shots than they did. They sliced and diced us with really nice offense between Mutts and Aluma inside. Both between them to score inside (Aluma with 24) and some really nice inside out kicks to shooters in the corner. I generally don't care if CJP goes small but last night I thought he should have played bigger. I will give him that we did get TOs from VT with some pressure, but they shot 60% in the first half for an unrecoverable 46 points and cruised to over 50% for the game. When we did play man, they were blowing by us with regularity. CJP even tried J Moore for 7 min in the second half to see if he could stay in front of someone.

On offense I will give CJP credit that he went away from the Princeton when Howard was in the game and ran it mostly with Usher at the elbow. and tried to run motion with the other 4 around the perimeter. Problem was K Moore's guy never went with him and generally stayed in or near the paint. So while Devoe did play some hero ball, multiple times he got the ball with not a lot of time left and tried to drive only to find multiple defenders waiting. Note that VT defenders did a good job of not jumping when defending Devoe - scouting report is simply stand your ground and let him do all his feints around you. That said though, Devoe did launch some shots from beyond the parking lot - has to be frustration.

There is a reason Young is considered one of the best offensive scheme coaches in the ACC - and we saw it last night. They got a lot of easy shots for their guys where they wanted them. Some just some simple ball screens on the zone. We don't get those types of looks and have to grind out everything on that end. It wasn't pretty and I have to admit it was disappointing to watch. We have some major issues to address - both players and scheme.

 

[Fatmike91]

If it’s Howard you’re referencing, I disagree. When he was out, his absence was used as a scapegoat for some losses. It’s just a bad roster outside of two players.

Howard is fine when he’s on the court.

Playing small/micro isn’t working when he’s off the court. It leads to bad outcomes.

My real complaint is about the 1.

/

 

[lv20gt]

The 1,3 and 5 are the biggest issues on the team, largely because our two best players are at the 2 and 4 spots. That's not really an all that insightful take.

Losing sucks, but the biggest frustration to me at this point is that we're not even using this year as a development year. We tried to hide our PGs by running the offense through a big in the high post instead. However, instead of just committing to that and playing Saba, who has a skill set to compliment that role, we ran primarily with Howard who doesn't. So Howard isn't really developing on the offensive end (in a way that fits his skills) and our PGs aren't developing because they are more acting like off ball guards than creators. Then it looks like the staff looked at the BC game and thought we won that game because we went tiny when in reality we won despite going tiny, and that was because of a shooting night from one player that we just can't rely on at this point (not a shot at Maxwell, I think he'll be a good player, but he isn't going to be hitting 7 of 11 reliably).

What we needed for this year to be successful was for one of either Sturdy/Smith to develop into a starting caliber PG and for Howard/Saba to develop into a solid big man rotation. We also needed Moore or Coleman/Kelly/Maxwell to develop some offensive threat out of the three spot. We have done the latter to a decent degree in a bit of a committee approach which has some upsides and downsides. However we didn't develop either our bigs or our PGs that way we needed to and I feel the staff slow played them instead of just throwing them to the fire and letting them adjust.

 

[SecretAgentBuzz]

I get everybody's complaints about the PG position. My only point was...those two actually played really well in THIS game. Again- 18 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 4 steals, and only 1 turnover. Like many of you have said, their improvement is key. Both of them are in their first year of running point for us (Sturdy did for a bit last year, but averaged under 10 minutes a game, I believe), and both are getting better as the year progresses.

Howard is adequate. When he goes out, though...clearly, CJP doesn't trust his backup Cs to play well enough.

Our team is 9-12....so yeah, we got a lot of issues. I'm still holding out hope that the easier schedule coming will help propel us to another late-season comeback. We shall see.

 

[YlJacket]

It is clear CJP has been coaching trying to win now. Will be interesting to see if he switches to coaching for next year. That has a whole set of issues for the guys on the team now but hard to argue the logic at this point.

I expect we will find that Saba and Mecca are not really ready at this point but it will finalize any discussion about what is needed from the portal. Obviously we need a 4. Do we go ahead and recruit over with a 5. And are any of the young uns ready to become a playmaker to replace Devoe? Tall order for the portal.