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Yellow Jackets Head to Littlejohn

MIAMI, FL – DECEMBER 01: James Banks III #1 of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets celebrates with Michael Devoe #0 against the St. John’s Red Storm during the HoopHall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena on December 1, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

At 10-6 (2-1), some might consider Georgia Tech to be the surprise of the ACC. They are a couple of free throws and layups away from being 11-5 (3-0). Coming off of an impressive win at the Carrier Dome, Josh Pastner’s feisty bunch head to Clemson on Wednesday. Littlejohn Coliseum has not been friendly to Georgia Tech over the years, the last win coming in 2005.

The Tigers are led by longtime coach Brad Brownell, who has a shiny new contract extension. He is 159-119 overall and 67-76 in league play during his tenure.

Clemson 10-6 (0-3) came into the season with high expectations after a sweet 16 appearance in 2017-18. They eventually fell in the dance to Kansas but were impressive in the loss. Gabe Devoe and D’onte Grantham are long gone, but Marcquise Reed, Shelton Mitchell and Eli Thomas remain. Reed, an all-ACC guard is a stud both offensively and defensively, playing the passing lanes aggressively leading to easy buckets. Thomas, who suffered a foot injury in the preseason, came into the season a little out of shape but has still been effective. He is averaging a career high in points at 13.2, but his rebounding and block numbers are both down from last year.

Shelton Mitchell has been the most disappointing of the trio. The historically steady guard is posting lower than expected numbers across the board following a very productive junior campaign. In conference play so far he’s averaged just 7.0 points and 2.0 assists in over 28 minutes per game. His 29% from deep and 24% overall are by far career lows.

While the Tigers’ Kenpom number is still a respectable 47, their best wins are Lipscomb at home and Georgia on a neutral floor. Those are not exactly needle movers, though Lipscomb is a tournament team. The biggest difference from last year to this year can be boiled down to turnovers and shooting. Clemson’s turnover rate is nearly 21%, up from 17.5% last year, ranking 269th in the nation. Last season, the Tigers shot 36.6% from deep; this year only 30.6%.

If you look at individual match-ups, you would give Clemson the edge all day. Reed, Thomas and Mitchell are household names to any ACC fan who pays attention, but the on-court performance hasn’t quite been there this year. Combine that with the fact that Brad Brownell never knows what he will get out of sophomore forward Aamir Simms and it is difficult to trust the Tigers regardless of venue. In their three conference losses this year they have averaged a dreadful 54.7 ppg.

I’m going with the good guys here. Georgia Tech is long past due to get a win at Littlejohn. Jose Alvarado and Mike Devoe have been very good lately outside of Devoe’s shooting woes. Coach Pastner shortened the rotation against Syracuse and the results were impressive. Trusting a Tech team on the road is always shaky, especially after they just landed a big road win, but I like our coaching and I like our guards. Keep the rotation short, don’t let Reed take over the game and we get out of town with a W.

 
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alagold

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It looked like bunch of young guys vs seniors--which it was.We are young,small and weak(not physically strong except for Banks).We played like we were somewhat over-awed with CLEPSUM?"--pleeze.But we generally don't have a stopper to match up with other team's scorer--like last nite.
DEfinitely a dud after Cuse.
I keep thinking what the team would be without Banks which was likely for a long time. SCARY.
 
SecretAgentBuzz

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Credit to Pastner for searching for a combo of 5 that worked after the surprise of two guys not available.

Credit to the team for playing hard.

Credit to Clemson and especially Reed for playing really well and shooting lights out.

This was the expected result. It’s tough to sustain success in the ACC, and it seems particularly so for GT.
 
gte447f

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Clemson played well, especially Reed was awesome, but what really killed us was spotting them a 14-0 run and 7-0 run to start the first and second halves respectively. We basically spotted them a 21 point lead which made winning the game nearly impossible. Missing AD really hurt us after the game he had at Syracuse.

I think Pastner must have changed the game plan at the last minute to use Banks in the high post, perhaps instead of AD, and Banks was not effective that far from the basket. He over passed (forced or telegraphed his passes to cutters) several times which resulted in to turnovers, but I think he over passed because he felt out of position to try and score, so that wasn't really an option from the high post. Even when he turned and faced the basket from around the free throw line, his defender usually backed off of him daring him to shoot the 15 footer. Lammers would have made them pay for giving him space at the free throw line, and I think AD is more comfortable driving the ball from further out than Banks is.

In the second half Banks tried to run some high screen and roll action with our guards at the wings, and that didn't work well either. For one, the Clemson help defenders were playing very aggressively on the high side of the screen, so our guards were being forced way outside and back toward half court to get around the screen. The screened defender was usually letting the screener go and recovering back to the guard and several times this resulted in our guards getting double teamed and nearly getting trapped at the half court line. I don't think we ever got a pass to the screener rolling to the basket, but what is Banks going to do with the ball out there anyway? Perhaps we should run some of this action with Khalid Moore (or Cole). I think he has the qualities to be more effective with the ball at that range if our guards could get it to him off the screen and roll.
 
gte447f

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Poor Moses Wright actually scored 4 buckets, but all of them were in close to the basket. Dude went 0-2 from 3 and 1-4 on free throws. It scares the life out of me when he dribbles the ball. If he could figure out his strengths and weakness and the coaches could figure a way to use him close to the basket on offense, he could be a valuable contributor.
 
gte447f

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And Banks getting 1 rebound all night, c'mon. That's another reason he doesn't need to be playing so far from the basket on offense like we were doing last night.

Poor rebounding is contributing to a trend that is killing us. In our 4 ACC games, our opponents have taken 59 more shots than we have.
 
Peacone36

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One thing I did like last night was Khalid. We were down 14-2 or whatever and he just got the ball and put his head down and went to the hoop. He was determined to get us points one way or the other.

He did the same in the second half and had a nice drive to the hoop.

Then of course he knocked knees with Skara on another dirty Clemson play (tic),

I like that.
 
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LargeFO

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gte447f said:
Poor Moses Wright actually scored 4 buckets, but all of them were in close to the basket. Dude went 0-2 from 3 and 1-4 on free throws. It scares the life out of me when he dribbles the ball. If he could figure out his strengths and weakness and the coaches could figure a way to use him close to the basket on offense, he could be a valuable contributor.
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I think he's a microcosm of the way the game has went. Everyone wants to be a stretch and chunking 3's and hard to find the guys that will do the dirty work down low. Hell, the Rockets shot 70 3's last night. 70. Duke shot like 50 the other night. To me as a basketball purist that is just not really the game I grew up loving and playing anymore.
 
GT_EE78

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LargeFO said:
I think he's a microcosm of the way the game has went. Everyone wants to be a stretch and chunking 3's and hard to find the guys that will do the dirty work down low. Hell, the Rockets shot 70 3's last night. 70. Duke shot like 50 the other night. To me as a basketball purist that is just not really the game I grew up loving and playing anymore.
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you're right, they oughta just move that dang three point line about 6 feet further out than the nba's line , that would teach em ....
 

sidewalkGTfan

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LargeFO said:
I think he's a microcosm of the way the game has went. Everyone wants to be a stretch and chunking 3's and hard to find the guys that will do the dirty work down low. Hell, the Rockets shot 70 3's last night. 70. Duke shot like 50 the other night. To me as a basketball purist that is just not really the game I grew up loving and playing anymore.
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I sometimes wonder if basketball would be better without the 3 point line. It's the only sport that I can think of that gives you more points when you make a longer shot. Baseball, football, soccer, hockey, golf and tennis don't reward a more difficult play with additional "points." Anyways, I'm sure most would disagree with me.
 

YlJacket

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I would not get rid of the 3 point line but I would look at moving it out to around the NBA line. Maybe just a bit shorter. But I am one that likes post play and inside game. The line has opened up the game as it was designed to but now is dominating the game a bit more than I would like.
 
Peacone36

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YlJacket said:
I would not get rid of the 3 point line but I would look at moving it out to around the NBA line. Maybe just a bit shorter. But I am one that likes post play and inside game. The line has opened up the game as it was designed to but now is dominating the game a bit more than I would like.
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FIBA rules?
 
CuseJacket

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gte447f said:
Poor Moses Wright actually scored 4 buckets, but all of them were in close to the basket. Dude went 0-2 from 3 and 1-4 on free throws. It scares the life out of me when he dribbles the ball. If he could figure out his strengths and weakness and the coaches could figure a way to use him close to the basket on offense, he could be a valuable contributor.
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While I also want the coaches to figure out a way to use him close to the basket, why don't they simply start by not letting him shoot jumpers? This is one thing that screams "coaching" that I just don't understand. He can continue to work on the distance part of his game in practice. For now, there is nothing in many minutes of game tape that suggests he should be playing at 18-21 feet.
 

lv20gt

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CuseJacket said:
While I also want the coaches to figure out a way to use him close to the basket, why don't they simply start by not letting him shoot jumpers? This is one thing that screams "coaching" that I just don't understand. He can continue to work on the distance part of his game in practice. For now, there is nothing in many minutes of game tape that suggests he should be playing at 18-21 feet.
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Most of his 3s, and he doesn't have many long 2 attempts, have been at the end of shot clocks. You can't just not shoot in those situations. I mean you can, and we have had people that refused to, but it's not the right move.
 
gte447f

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lv20gt said:
Most of his 3s, and he doesn't have many long 2 attempts, have been at the end of shot clocks. You can't just not shoot in those situations. I mean you can, and we have had people that refused to, but it's not the right move.
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He was forced to take one of his 3's as the shot clock expired in the last game against Clemson. I think he has gotten the message, for the most part, not to shoot 3's. I mainly pointed out his 0-2 from 3 and 1-4 from the line against Clemson just as further evidence that that is the right decision with him (not shooting from outside). So, from a coaching perspective, if he is not going to shoot from out there (for good reason), then what is he doing out there? The defense backs off of him because they don't respect his shot and frankly, they would like for him to either shoot it from there, or even better for the defense, try to dribble drive because he is unguarded, because that is going to result in a turnover most times. Lately, he is not taking the bait and is not taking the long shots, so I think that is coaching (having been told not to shoot from out there), but the coaches need to take the next step and not put him out there to begin with.
 

YlJacket

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We have gone to a double post offense when Moses is out there - mostly though admittedly not always. But the point is the coaches are already structuring the offense to put him 18 feet and in. He is taking threes only when the shot clock is done and there is no other choice.
 
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