GTpdm
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Definitely a brown liquor. And it’s not so much “wasting good liquor on a **** game”, as it is a matter of “savoring a good liquor to take the sting away”...
Game Thread - Syracuse, 12/7
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GTpdm
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I was at the game, and didn’t have that luxury...sure wish I could’ve taken a belt of something, though.
What ??? after all the help I tried to give you on the O/U you treat me like that? I am hurt.
Actually I want to get rid of as many of the other restrictions as we can to make it easier to replace the coach.
no I mean on his end. “Well we didn’t make the dance because....”
“oh ok, thankfully we don’t have to spend any more money on basketball.”
the guy never misses a trick on excuses. “If we are healthy and 100% efficient.......”
well.... who the F*** is that, Josh?
Fatmike91
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We played low energy and we were poorly coached today.
Every kid on Syracuse knew exactly who our top scorer was - Devoe got swarmed when he touched it.
We had no clue who their top scorer was, and we gave him wide open looks from the opening tip.
But, the biggest X's and O's issue I have is what exactly where we doing to attack the zone on offense? It looked like we were playing 4 out (4 guys standing around) and had Moses by himself in the paint. How is this our best strategy?
Disappointing day.
/
Every kid on Syracuse knew exactly who our top scorer was - Devoe got swarmed when he touched it.
We had no clue who their top scorer was, and we gave him wide open looks from the opening tip.
But, the biggest X's and O's issue I have is what exactly where we doing to attack the zone on offense? It looked like we were playing 4 out (4 guys standing around) and had Moses by himself in the paint. How is this our best strategy?
Disappointing day.
/
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Fair commentary. We've beaten this Syracuse defensive system multiple times with multiple players on the opposing side.
You know what's coming and you've beaten it before, yet you can't game plan & show up better than this?
Preach. But be careful. Seems like you're 'Single White Female'ng me.
Gradually assuming my identity in hopes of replacing me.
YlJacket
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FWIW the strategy of putting a PF or C at the high post was the same as we (and others) did last time we played. From an X and O perspective it is the way to attack that zone. From an energy, ball movement, awareness, patience, anything else you want to say perspective we sucked. You have to do something to get the zone to collapse and then kick out but we didn't even come close to executing anything.
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Patience guys. Why or for how long I don’t know. I’m tired of being tired. I’m tired of being sad for Josh.
gte447f
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One of whom has never even started a game. This excuse drives me crazy!
lv20gt
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The decision to start the game in zone was just a bad one by Pastner. It allowed them to get some good shots, find confidence and build the lead. It's not even that we just played the zone poorly. We've played it better but some of those shots are shots we want other teams to take. Just not Syracuse. There was no reason to allow that possibility. They scored 19 in the first 5 minutes. That was around the time we left our zone (I think it was just a bit before then). It took them about 10 minutes to score their next 19. If they have 38 at the half it isn't good, but you can live being down 10 and still have a shot.
But the bigger issue today was effort. Like many have said there was no fire, and it seemed like nobody but Moses wanted to play today. A couple points about that. When it comes to effort, imo, the coaching isn't the during the game thing. It's on the players to have enough of a sense of pride to not give up. The coaching aspect comes between the games. Our issues this year haven't really been effort based. We've been sloppy had guys not really understand what the teams need of them and had just dumb mistakes, missed good looks (both from three and at the rim), and have had terrible freethrows but effort hasn't been an issue. Where the coach comes in is making sure that the players understand in no uncertain terms that this level of effort won't be tolerated. I'm tempted to write off the effort issues as a one off thing because they haven't been a problem, and their are several contributing factors that will usually not be there. Finals week, team leader not being on the court, having to bang against the zone over and over, and just being in a blowout feeling like there's no chance for a win. These don't excuse the lack of effort by any means, but I can understand how they could lead to effort problems once.
Beyond that though....
Offensively, I thought the game plan was okay. Hit the weakspot of the zone, and it allowed us to not have to deal with Moses handling the ball too far away. Most of the time looked like when Banks was in there we were running a 2-1-2 concepts and then flashed Banks to the post once Moses had it. Conceptually it is a pretty sound way to attack the zone, and if we made even 70% of our freethrows, we'd have had 70. Not a good performance offensively, but that wasn't really the issue today (beyond just poor shooting, especially from the FT line). Missing Jose hurt in a different way today. Against pretty much any zone you need good ball movement and we have some shooter to take advantage of it. Unfortunately Moses isn't really the passer out of the high post and while what he did worked some, we also needed the option to put Jose in there and he makes quicker decisions. We certainly could have done better, but I don't see any way we were going to score 85 against the zone with what we have.
Moses continued his trend of good play. 17-9 on decent shooting. Part of that was him being the focus in the soft part of their zone, but I thought he did a good job of balancing looking for opportunities and trying to find kick out opportunities. Wasn't perfect but he shouldn't need to be.
Bubba actually had an okay game. 11 points, okay shooting (not great but getting 10 a game from him on 44%/33% is a decent contribution. Seemed to make very little impact on defense though, and unfortunately I think he'll always be somewhat of a liability in that regard. Against many teams we can cover that with the zone, but not against teams shooting like Cuse did early today.
Banks was more or less useless today. IMO something is wrong with him, and I think it goes back to whatever caused him to lose his starting spot a couple of games ago. It seems like he's going through the motions. Part of that can likely be contributed to poor entry passing not rewarding him when he gets good position, but defensively he's just hunting blocks with no regard for whether or not the shot is already being contested. That has also been true on his close outs almost as if he's looking to block jump shots. This is more of a multi game observation but he just doesn't look like he's dialed in. Whatever it is, hopefully it gets sorted out soon. Also, as a side note, if Jose were healthy today I think we'd have seen a lot of time with Banks sitting and Moses at the 5. Cuse wasn't really interested in even trying to go inside, and we could have changed up looks more with both Moses and Jose gong to the high post, and Moses flashing to the low post like Banks did.
Devoe had a terrible day. A big problem he had last year that has been less of a problem this year (although still there at times) is he seems to content to let the other team deny him opportunities. The best way I can describe it is Moses taking a wide open three is still not a good shot. The opposite is true of Devoe. He needs to be forcing the issue a bit more, especially with Jose out. It happened some against Arkansas, and while he's still gotten a decent amount of looks, he needs to be touching the ball every possession. To some degree Pastner needs to be running more plays to get him some looks, but basketball isn't like football where it's just a series of plays. Most of the time on offense is not during plays. It's why concepts are a bigger deal to offenses than set plays. Regardless of what offensive system we run, Devoe has to understand that he needs to be looking for opportunities for small advantages. He should, and I imagine he does, have the green light to take some less than good looks.
Moore on offense was okay. Not good enough for what we have, but he contributed the way we need him to once we get Jose back and add Usher. 8 points on low shots, 6 assists and just two turnovers. His defense though was lacking. He didn't play with his usual energy and made some bad decisions when guarding not understanding what Cuse wanted to do. An early example was on a Hughes 3 pointer where he was in position to pick up Hughes who was about 4 feet behind the arc. Moore parked himself at the 3 point line and acted like Hughes was just an average player. Hughes caught it, and shot a slightly contested three. That's a shot you don't mind most of the time because it was a very long shot early in the shot clock. But Moore didn't understand who he was guarding. Now, I'm not sure how much of that was coaching because he should have had all that pointed out to him ahead of time, but it is hard to break your habits and instincts and go out further than you normally would. He had several plays like that today.
Otherwise Price just isn't ready for ACC play. I think he'll develop into a solid player but he was taken advantage of on defense and offensively he just can't create his own shot and with Jose we aren't doing a good job of creatings hots for anyone. Cole is, for lack of a better word, a disappointment to me. He just hasn't seemed to develop or find his role at this level. He came in with Moses, and many thought he was more polished and Moses more athletic. And that was pretty much true. For different reason neither were really ready to play. But where Moses has developed physically, worked on his game, and found a better understanding of what he can and can't do at this level (even with the occasional three pointer) Cole just really seems to not have found his place or gotten much better. He's no longer making freshman mistakes but that's about it. Rev has gotten a ton of praise, rightfully so, for his developmental work here but Cole has not been a bright spot for him in that regard.
Overall just a very disappointing day. Not the exact same situation but UVA lost by 30 @ Perdue. I don't think that performance is indicative of how UVA will usually play. Now I'm not saying GT is as good as UVA, we're certainly not, but games can get away from teams. But long term this game hurts and basically undoes the advantage we gained by beating NCSU at home. Not so much by the score difference, although that has its own issues, but because of us letting the Arkansas game go and at least 1 more, probably 2, likely losses in OOC. We needed a strong conference showing to help balance that out and that will be much harder with a loss at home, especially against a team like Cuse.
But the bigger issue today was effort. Like many have said there was no fire, and it seemed like nobody but Moses wanted to play today. A couple points about that. When it comes to effort, imo, the coaching isn't the during the game thing. It's on the players to have enough of a sense of pride to not give up. The coaching aspect comes between the games. Our issues this year haven't really been effort based. We've been sloppy had guys not really understand what the teams need of them and had just dumb mistakes, missed good looks (both from three and at the rim), and have had terrible freethrows but effort hasn't been an issue. Where the coach comes in is making sure that the players understand in no uncertain terms that this level of effort won't be tolerated. I'm tempted to write off the effort issues as a one off thing because they haven't been a problem, and their are several contributing factors that will usually not be there. Finals week, team leader not being on the court, having to bang against the zone over and over, and just being in a blowout feeling like there's no chance for a win. These don't excuse the lack of effort by any means, but I can understand how they could lead to effort problems once.
Beyond that though....
Offensively, I thought the game plan was okay. Hit the weakspot of the zone, and it allowed us to not have to deal with Moses handling the ball too far away. Most of the time looked like when Banks was in there we were running a 2-1-2 concepts and then flashed Banks to the post once Moses had it. Conceptually it is a pretty sound way to attack the zone, and if we made even 70% of our freethrows, we'd have had 70. Not a good performance offensively, but that wasn't really the issue today (beyond just poor shooting, especially from the FT line). Missing Jose hurt in a different way today. Against pretty much any zone you need good ball movement and we have some shooter to take advantage of it. Unfortunately Moses isn't really the passer out of the high post and while what he did worked some, we also needed the option to put Jose in there and he makes quicker decisions. We certainly could have done better, but I don't see any way we were going to score 85 against the zone with what we have.
Moses continued his trend of good play. 17-9 on decent shooting. Part of that was him being the focus in the soft part of their zone, but I thought he did a good job of balancing looking for opportunities and trying to find kick out opportunities. Wasn't perfect but he shouldn't need to be.
Bubba actually had an okay game. 11 points, okay shooting (not great but getting 10 a game from him on 44%/33% is a decent contribution. Seemed to make very little impact on defense though, and unfortunately I think he'll always be somewhat of a liability in that regard. Against many teams we can cover that with the zone, but not against teams shooting like Cuse did early today.
Banks was more or less useless today. IMO something is wrong with him, and I think it goes back to whatever caused him to lose his starting spot a couple of games ago. It seems like he's going through the motions. Part of that can likely be contributed to poor entry passing not rewarding him when he gets good position, but defensively he's just hunting blocks with no regard for whether or not the shot is already being contested. That has also been true on his close outs almost as if he's looking to block jump shots. This is more of a multi game observation but he just doesn't look like he's dialed in. Whatever it is, hopefully it gets sorted out soon. Also, as a side note, if Jose were healthy today I think we'd have seen a lot of time with Banks sitting and Moses at the 5. Cuse wasn't really interested in even trying to go inside, and we could have changed up looks more with both Moses and Jose gong to the high post, and Moses flashing to the low post like Banks did.
Devoe had a terrible day. A big problem he had last year that has been less of a problem this year (although still there at times) is he seems to content to let the other team deny him opportunities. The best way I can describe it is Moses taking a wide open three is still not a good shot. The opposite is true of Devoe. He needs to be forcing the issue a bit more, especially with Jose out. It happened some against Arkansas, and while he's still gotten a decent amount of looks, he needs to be touching the ball every possession. To some degree Pastner needs to be running more plays to get him some looks, but basketball isn't like football where it's just a series of plays. Most of the time on offense is not during plays. It's why concepts are a bigger deal to offenses than set plays. Regardless of what offensive system we run, Devoe has to understand that he needs to be looking for opportunities for small advantages. He should, and I imagine he does, have the green light to take some less than good looks.
Moore on offense was okay. Not good enough for what we have, but he contributed the way we need him to once we get Jose back and add Usher. 8 points on low shots, 6 assists and just two turnovers. His defense though was lacking. He didn't play with his usual energy and made some bad decisions when guarding not understanding what Cuse wanted to do. An early example was on a Hughes 3 pointer where he was in position to pick up Hughes who was about 4 feet behind the arc. Moore parked himself at the 3 point line and acted like Hughes was just an average player. Hughes caught it, and shot a slightly contested three. That's a shot you don't mind most of the time because it was a very long shot early in the shot clock. But Moore didn't understand who he was guarding. Now, I'm not sure how much of that was coaching because he should have had all that pointed out to him ahead of time, but it is hard to break your habits and instincts and go out further than you normally would. He had several plays like that today.
Otherwise Price just isn't ready for ACC play. I think he'll develop into a solid player but he was taken advantage of on defense and offensively he just can't create his own shot and with Jose we aren't doing a good job of creatings hots for anyone. Cole is, for lack of a better word, a disappointment to me. He just hasn't seemed to develop or find his role at this level. He came in with Moses, and many thought he was more polished and Moses more athletic. And that was pretty much true. For different reason neither were really ready to play. But where Moses has developed physically, worked on his game, and found a better understanding of what he can and can't do at this level (even with the occasional three pointer) Cole just really seems to not have found his place or gotten much better. He's no longer making freshman mistakes but that's about it. Rev has gotten a ton of praise, rightfully so, for his developmental work here but Cole has not been a bright spot for him in that regard.
Overall just a very disappointing day. Not the exact same situation but UVA lost by 30 @ Perdue. I don't think that performance is indicative of how UVA will usually play. Now I'm not saying GT is as good as UVA, we're certainly not, but games can get away from teams. But long term this game hurts and basically undoes the advantage we gained by beating NCSU at home. Not so much by the score difference, although that has its own issues, but because of us letting the Arkansas game go and at least 1 more, probably 2, likely losses in OOC. We needed a strong conference showing to help balance that out and that will be much harder with a loss at home, especially against a team like Cuse.
GTpdm
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Hmm...looking at the posting history in this thread today, you are the one being very Jennifer Jason Leigh...
lv20gt
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The zone did collapse several times, but Moses just isn't a good enough passer to take advantage of that. Basically when the zone collapsed he was slow to recognize it and his kick outs were more about resetting than taking advantage. I know in year's past we've had some success with Jose going to the high post and it seemed to lead to better ball movement (usually not directly to an open look but quicker passes leading to better shots. Last year we shot 60% against Cuse and 50% from three on the road and I think a large part of that was with Jose being in the high post.
Also interesting thing that came up is that in year 1 we beat Cuse the first time we played them and then lost by 30 the next time (last game of the regular season I believe) in a very similar fashion. That day it was Andrew White who went off 8-9 from 3 and as a whole Cuse was 63% from behind the arc. Maybe the reverse will happen this year and we'll get revenge on them later.
gte447f
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Exactly. This is basketball 101 knowledge of how to attach a 2-3 zone like Cuse's. We did the right thing by passing to the high post to attack the zone, but that was only step one, and after that everything fell apart. #5 was a terrible choice for the interior of the zone. Who thinks #5 can handle the ball in traffic with 2 to 4 guys collapsing on him? That's a disaster waiting to happen. Turnover city. He had wide open shot after wide open shot from the free throw line that he turned down in favor of dropping the ball below his knees and trying to take a defender off the dribble. Stupid. A few times he made a good pass from high post to Banks in low post, but stone hands always dropped the pass. When the zone collapsed and he made a pass back out to open perimeter shooters like Devoe and Parham, their shot setup was too slow to get a shot off before the close out came. The point is, we attacked the zone the right way, we just had the most piss poor execution you could possibly imagine.
YlJacket
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Yep - Jose would have been better and you are right the issue is you have to make reasonably quick decisions and be able to see the floor - traits Moses has on occasions. but he has the ability to make the 15 foot jumper which is the key to making it open for Banks on the block. They tried DeVoe there but he isn't as physical as Jose and he didn't have anyone to throw it to on the wing. He needed to be the one to get the pass.
Today every time anyone got the ball they had to stop, dribble, check the wind, order a cup of coffee before moving the ball. Couldn't move much as it would take too much energy. That kills any offense and it killed ours today. We never stressed their D at any time.
ESPNjacket
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That effort was sad. Starting saving for the buyout.
lv20gt
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Is there a reason you just refuse to refer to Moses by his actual name? Considering he was our far and away best player today spending the entire post trashing him and refusing to refer to him by name has one wondering.