GT vs. Georgia St.

TheJuiceIsLoose404

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
103
It’s our first game so cautious optimism we will make the tourney like we were supposed to. But ggotdam if we can’t make a three we won’t be able to compete. It’s just the way the game works now.
 

The Doddfather

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
482
Maybe you can sign a scholarship and play the 5 for us this year.
At 6’1”, that’s not a great option for our team. I agree we need an inside presence. But I also am not ready to say we are “terrible” by any means. We are 0-1 man, let’s let this thing play out and enjoy the season.
 

The Doddfather

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
482
I mean if this is the best it gets... and we’re losing to gaSt what are we even here for?
If this is the best it gets then I don’t think anyone here would be happy. It’ll get better. Try not to have a kneejerk reaction. Game 1. 4 overtimes. A couple mental mistakes and we would be having a different convo about fixing ball handling issues instead of discussing a loss. Again, let’s let it play out
 

TheJuiceIsLoose404

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
103
If this is the best it gets then I don’t think anyone here would be happy. It’ll get better. Try not to have a kneejerk reaction. Game 1. 4 overtimes. A couple mental mistakes and we would be having a different convo about fixing ball handling issues instead of discussing a loss. Again, let’s let it play out
Yes you’re definitely right. Not used to watching GT basketball and tuned in tonight and got real frustrated. Reaction is most certainly my bad. For the record I still firmly believe we are a tourney team.
 

YlJacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,163
At 6’1”, that’s not a great option for our team. I agree we need an inside presence. But I also am not ready to say we are “terrible” by any means. We are 0-1 man, let’s let this thing play out and enjoy the season.
Our issue is at the 3 a whole lot more than the 5
We need another shooter
 

YlJacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,163
While we arguably lost it on the free throw line - they left almost as many points as we did there.
We also fixed the rebounding issue we had in the first half when we went small in the second half.
Our major issue in the second half and especially into overtime is we were not as fit as GSU was.

my speculation is we were really focused on Sabba or Howard at the five and didn't run a lot of four out in practice. it looked like we didn't know what we were doing and didn't get any movement
 

lv20gt

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,545
Couple thoughts.

First. We had 11 TOs in the first half and I believe 11 TOs the entire rest of the game. Last year TOs were a big issue and hopefully the after half time stats are indicative of an improvement in that area going forward.

Second. We shot 70% from FT but were just 58% in regulation. That is what ultimately cost us in my opinion. Obviously there were other things we did wrong but we win comfortably in regulation if we make our FTs. We got better in OT hitting 82% of them in the extra periods. A big part of our success is going to be based on whether we can hit our FTs and hopefully the OT FT% is closer to what we will be on the year than the regulation %. Have to wait and see.

Third. 3 point shooting was horrid. Last year we were 6th in conference play in 3%. For the most part we had the right people shooting. Jose, Mike, and Bubba combined for 26 attempts of our 33. Devoe especially taking 13 attempts is a good sign. Now, overall we have no way of knowing if this performance is just a bad night shooting or indicative of a larger problem. We have to wait and see about that. If this was just a bad night shooting then it sucks, but it happens. Lets hope that is the case.

Fourth. Defense was an issue. It would be easy to simply point to a lack of Banks, but a big reason Banks was able to have the success he did and stay out of foul trouble was because we were good at not allowing too much penetration. That wasn't the case today. If we did have Banks he would have saved us some shots but fouled out quickly. Now that shouldn't be a problem as we return the same pieces from last year that didn't have that issue. I don't think that should be an issue overall this year.

In general, this loss sucks, but it is just one game and in basketball especially you don't want to take too much good or bad away from one game. One terrible stretch of play in the first half completely shaped the story of this game. We fought back but expended so much energy doing so that we couldn't get over the hump and put the game away. That whole combined with, hopefully, an off night shooting set the stage for this loss. Hopefully the team sees this as a wake up call and fixes some of the issues that really shouldn't be issues.

The thing that sticks out to me the most though is the 5 spot. We simply don't gain enough in the trade off going small. Saba and Howard may not be ready to play yet but they have go through the trial by fire anyways because that's what the team needs. We've seen this in the past several years with Moses, Jose, and Mike all playing more than they were ready for early. I get why we went away from it this game in particular but we can't get away with having a 6 man rotation with one front court player in conference play.
 
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