False Hope

[Milwaukee]

And a major reason we aren't sniffing the tournament this year is because Okogie went pro early. Going from where we were to an NCAAT team in 3 years was a long shot to begin with and being able to reach a point where we could just absorb a loss like that and still make the tournament was never going to happen.

Yes Okogie left, every team deals with it. Lots of ifs and buts but he still isn't getting the job done no matter what ifs you choose to choose. Hopefully year 4 is special, it's just very sad for me that we've lost a decade of Tech hoops.

 

[Peacone36]

Game was pretty simple. Marcquise Reed made everything and the officiating was ridiculous. The call on Banks when it was said to be on the floor instead of an And1 was terrible. That is an and 1 99/100 in college basketball. That was also a huge point in the game because we turned it over and they immediately scored

 

[Rzunz]

Losing JO was bigger than some people give it credit for. We don’t have a guy who can create his own offense one on one.

This is what we are going to get all season long. Either we snag those transition points and assisted buckets or we suffer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

True - last night that was Reed for them!

 

[Gtbowhunter90]

Is it too late to give that advice to his father?

Oh shiiiit.

 

[Gtbowhunter90]

I'm still hoping for an NIT berth. I'd be okay with it. Its hard to watch this team but I could pick this team to death with all the little **** I see. My main problem is we must must must hit those layups and free throws. That's lack of coaching. And I'm waiting for Devoe to go off for 30

 

[RamblinRed]

This game was fairly predictable to call beforehand. A GT team that was probably feeling good about itself after its best win of the season would go on the road to play a team that was going to be in desperation mode and played one of its worst games of the season. Connell and I both said before the game we would need to match Clemson's intensity at the start and we did not. Not having either SR available did not help either. Brownell is now 15-4 against GT and GT falls to 16-45 at Clemson.

This is going to be a Jekyll and Hyde team all year imo. It is going to win games you do not expect and lose games you don't expect. That is what happens when you have a very young and inexperienced team.

i don't think the fans understand how young and inexperienced this team is. i'll post the stats here that i posted elsewhere.
Here are the % min played by JR and SR the last 3 years overall and in ACC play
2017 - 69.9%, 72.2%
2018 - 53.5%, 55,1%
2019 - 37.3%, 32.8%

When you are trying to build a 'get old, stay old' model and 2/3+ of your min are going to FR and SO you are likely to be neither good nor consistent.
Even they older guys we do have are not very experienced. Okogie had 1261 min of ACC experience in 2 seasons. The entire team this year had 1892 min of ACC experience.
So basically the entire team had the equivalent of one 4th year player's worth of experience. Okogie had 592 ACC min of experience as a FR, the most experienced ACC player we had this year is Gueye with 477 min of ACC experience. Alvarado had 444 min last year and Alston 409.

Alston only had 1100 min of college experience when he transferred here due to redshirt and injuries. Banks had less than 500 min total experience at TX including less than 200 min of Big 12 experience.

At the end of the day this is a very young program that needs time to grow up. It's going to be wildly inconsistent. Fans need to enjoy the good games and shrug off the bad ones. GT was 13-19 last year and lost its best player unexpectedly (and 3 best overall) . Next year it is going to be an older more experienced group and i would expect the W/L to turn around - if it doesn't then we have an issue.

My only goal for this year was a winning record (not even an NIT bid, that would be a bonus). If it has a winning record at the end of the season than I am happy with where we are going into year 4 of Pastner.

 

[Connell62]

I'm still hoping for an NIT berth. I'd be okay with it. Its hard to watch this team but I could pick this team to death with all the little **** I see. My main problem is we must must must hit those layups and free throws. That's lack of coaching. And I'm waiting for Devoe to go off for 30

Sorry my dude, but please explain to me how a kid that has played basketball, at a high level, for several years, missing a lay-up is a lack of coaching.

 

[RamblinRed]

A couple of thoughts on the game.

We need to rebound better and take care of the ball - that is really the 2 weaknesses for this team. Banks and Haywood can't have 1 rebound between them in over 60 min. Alvarado cannot be the leading rebounder with 5 and Devoe second with 4. The team goal is 11 TO per game, we haven't come close to that in a while.

We're not shooting three's too bad in ACC play - over 37% - both Haywood and Jose are shooting well from distance, if Devoe can start shooting like he is capable we will have a nice trio of shooters.

Haywood had a nice first half and disappeared in the 2nd. Need him to be more consistent. When he plays well GT is a tough out as he can affect both ends of the court positively.

Clemson had the highest 3FG% and 2nd highest 2FG% against GT of the year. It was pretty clear from the get go that GT wasn't playing with the effort it was going to take to win.

Anybody else feel like we go to a 2 guard, 2 big wing, 1 big setup next year. Jose and Devoe, Banks, Usher and one of Haywood or Moore as starters.

 

[LawTalkin Jacket]

I hate to make excuses for this team, but they were probably surprised and disappointed that AD was out (and alston) and Clemson was at home and looking at 0-4 in the league with a loss, even with all of that and Jose seemingly injured, they fought and hung in there.

This is year 4 and I think CJP is behind the chains as to where he should be with the program. This is especially painful when watching J. Capel have instant success at Pitt (0-18 in league last year). BUT, if we had a baller or two added to this roster, we could compete. Moses and Haywood, AD and Jose and even Cole are good pieces and would be great teammates if they had some ballers to rely on. Devoe will be a good player and banks is very good, but we need someone to carry the team and we are missing the featured player or two that we need.

 

[scotts]

I think it is Year 3 for CJP

 

[lv20gt]

Yes Okogie left, every team deals with it. Lots of ifs and buts but he still isn't getting the job done no matter what ifs you choose to choose. Hopefully year 4 is special, it's just very sad for me that we've lost a decade of Tech hoops.

I disagree he isn't getting the job done. If you expected us to have a program that would make the NCAAT in year 3 despite losing a guy like Okogie unexpectedly then your expectations are what was wrong. Yes we aren't the only program that is affected by that. Some programs are in a position where they can absorb that kind of loss in stride. We aren't, and there is no reason to expect we would be by year 3.

 

[Milwaukee]

That just doesn't make sense.

 

[Milwaukee]

Double post.

 

[lv20gt]

That just doesn't make sense.

Sure it does. We were in no position to expect to be able to weather the loss of our best player early and still expect to make the NCAAT. We're trying to replace what would have been a junior 18 ppg player with freshmen and a soph coming off a season ending injury because the previous staff used grad transfers to fill holes rather than player development so we had no upperclassmen options.

 

[alagold]

I disagree he isn't getting the job done. If you expected us to have a program that would make the NCAAT in year 3 despite losing a guy like Okogie unexpectedly then your expectations are what was wrong. Yes we aren't the only program that is affected by that. Some programs are in a position where they can absorb that kind of loss in stride. We aren't, and there is no reason to expect we would be by year 3.

IV20,
He is on track to some degree BUT this yrs recruiting (lack of ) has probably wounded him long term.They will a threat for tourney next yr with Banks and added exp but the next yr after that will be a struggle unless he can get another GOOD big man ( 6-9 +, 230+)--even with all the SRs then.
It may not play out like this but likely.

 

[lv20gt]

IV20,
He is on track to some degree BUT this yrs recruiting (lack of ) has probably wounded him long term.They will a threat for tourney next yr with Banks and added exp but the next yr after that will be a struggle unless he can get another GOOD big man ( 6-9 +, 230+)--even with all the SRs then.
It may not play out like this but likely.

People are making far too much out of one recruiting class. Year after next center will be the only position of need and even then it wouldn't be much of a stretch to have Wright play that spot defensively. Even so because we would have plenty of offensive options and wouldn't really need to rely on the 5 spot for offense it wouldn't be much of a stretch to use a freshman for defense and rebounding purposes.

 

[AE 87]

If you go back and watch the cuse game or even read the thread pn that game, you'll be impressed with the role AD played.

Some our best play was when AD and Banks were on the floor together.

Over the course of the year, BA has been an important spark for our offense 3pt and in the lane.

I think their absence alone explains what happened compared to hopes without appealing to psychology/experience of guys that played or to coaching.

 

[Peacone36]

If you go back and watch the cuse game or even read the thread pn that game, you'll be impressed with the role AD played.

Some our best play was when AD and Banks were on the floor together.

Over the course of the year, BA has been an important spark for our offense 3pt and in the lane.

I think their absence alone explains what happened compared to hopes without appealing to psychology/experience of guys that played or to coaching.

The first half of the Cuse game was the best I think I have ever seen AD play

 

[GT_EE78]

The first half of the Cuse game was the best I think I have ever seen AD play

i have to agree with that but am still wondering if either cjp or rev didn't just find some good spots in the orange zone for his jump hook to work well, so i'm not sure if it will translate to future games where man is more likely .....

 

[YlJacket]

We lost 18 PPG with Okogie leaving and 12 PPG with Tadric leaving. That was from a team that did not get to the post season.

Offensively Banks and Lammers are basically a wash (different approaches for sure but about the same 10-12 PPG.

This year Haywood is up 5 points and Alston is up 4 points. Devoe is contributing about 10.

i have to agree with that but am still wondering if either cjp or rev didn't just find some good spots in the orange zone for his jump hook to work well, so i'm not sure if it will translate to future games where man is more likely .....

It was the matchup with Syracuse trying to play Dolezaj as the 5 in the zone. His defense was shall we say a bit lacking - though AD did make a lot of good solid moves. But there wasn't a lot of push back by Dolezaj. Syracuse went primarily to Chukwu in the second half and AD's output went down to "normal" levels. Yes he played well and yes we looked for a good matchup we could exploit but it was a matchup that they fixed in the second half.

FWIW Chukwu played almost all the game against Duke after AD ate Dolezaj alive.