GT vs Nebraska

Kmag

Kmag

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382
CuseJacket said:
Major respect for CJP to not fall into the old school mindset of sitting a player in foul trouble just so that they can play the last 4 minutes. Typically those decisions end up sacrificing good minutes during the middle of the game, whereas playing them early enables you to maximize the available minutes. Jose played 27 despite 3 early fouls. Also helps that Jose can be trusted.

Carrying that same theme forward, I loved the short bench. And I'm not saying that to troll those who demand a deep bench. I truly believe there is a rhythm that is lost when you force a rotation of 9 or more. I don't think it's a coincidence that our guys worked up a lather to execute well down the stretch. And there are so many stoppages in play in today's game (TV timeouts, reviews, etc), let alone if Covid takes us off the court sometime this season, that it's never been easier to play a smaller rotation. Bubba again played freely despite an underwhelming game. That will pay off in future contests.

With that being said, I think it was an odd and possibly poor choice to sit Devoe, particularly given his performance against Sturdivant's. I understand keeping the guys in who grab you the lead, but we didn't really start to separate until about 8 minutes left. Devoe had been sitting 4+ minutes at that point. Easier to nitpick after a win than a loss. I'm sure there was something to that lineup that Pastner liked that I'm not valuing the same.

Agree with @lv20gt that Moses had a great game. I love when your best players don't force it unless absolutely necessary. His contributions were still noticeable and his stat line was fantastic.
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I agree with everything here. I am curious if Pastner is sending a message to Devoe. However, it seems weird seeing that Devoe had a pretty good first half. 🤷
 

Deleted member 2897

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CuseJacket said:
Major respect for CJP to not fall into the old school mindset of sitting a player in foul trouble just so that they can play the last 4 minutes. Typically those decisions end up sacrificing good minutes during the middle of the game, whereas playing them early enables you to maximize the available minutes. Jose played 27 despite 3 early fouls. Also helps that Jose can be trusted.

Carrying that same theme forward, I loved the short bench. And I'm not saying that to troll those who demand a deep bench. I truly believe there is a rhythm that is lost when you force a rotation of 9 or more. I don't think it's a coincidence that our guys worked up a lather to execute well down the stretch. And there are so many stoppages in play in today's game (TV timeouts, reviews, etc), let alone if Covid takes us off the court sometime this season, that it's never been easier to play a smaller rotation. Bubba again played freely despite an underwhelming game. That will pay off in future contests.

With that being said, I think it was an odd and possibly poor choice to sit Devoe, particularly given his performance against Sturdivant's. I understand keeping the guys in who grab you the lead, but we didn't really start to separate until about 8 minutes left. Devoe had been sitting 4+ minutes at that point. Easier to nitpick after a win than a loss. I'm sure there was something to that lineup that Pastner liked that I'm not valuing the same.

Agree with @lv20gt that Moses had a great game. I love when your best players don't force it unless absolutely necessary. His contributions were still noticeable and his stat line was fantastic.
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Indeed, CJP stands nearly all alone in playing guys in foul trouble. And he continue to shows it’s the right move.
 

lv20gt

Helluva Engineer
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5,586
orientalnc said:
I know the lineup was working, but any idea why Devoe sat in the 2nd half?
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You answered your own question with the it was working line.

For this year's team to reach it's potential we need our role players to step up and deliver. The last two games they have, Bubba and Kyle against UK and Moore against Neb. We want those guys, and Usher, to have confidence when playing and not view us as a team that has to play Moses, Jose, and Mike as often as humanly possible. This was a good chance to show faith in them, especially since it was working.
 
orientalnc

orientalnc

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lv20gt said:
You answered your own question with the it was working line.

For this year's team to reach it's potential we need our role players to step up and deliver. The last two games they have, Bubba and Kyle against UK and Moore against Neb. We want those guys, and Usher, to have confidence when playing and not view us as a team that has to play Moses, Jose, and Mike as often as humanly possible. This was a good chance to show faith in them, especially since it was working.
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Good point. Also, Mike was having a cluster of turnovers in the 1st half. We had nine for the game and he had four in the half. He can be frustrating. So talented, but seems to be somewhere else at times. When posters say our defense looks lazy, I think his lapses are the main point. Then he will make two or three fantastic plays like the great steal and feed in the UK game.
 

Deleted member 2897

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Not a particularly great game, but after the first two, we have beaten now two P5 legitimately decent teams. 2-0.

The odds are that Mercer and Georgia state will not turn out to be great teams, but I will keep hoping that they come close to running the table in their own conferences and can get inside the top 100.
 
Techster

Techster

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As others said in the live chat, great job by Khalid Moore. Just might have been his best overall game for us. 11 points, 8 rebs, 2 steals, ZERO turnovers. One of those guys that does the little things for us, but this time he also had a nice game on the stat sheet as well. This performance has been expected if you watch him play...his shots just haven't been falling. He's not a volume shooter as he understands his role. Even against Nebraska he only took 7 shots (usually 4-5 shots a game) but he converted on 5 of them. Hopefully this is the game that takes the lid off for him.

What can you say about Alvarado? When the guy is in a zone, the entire team just plays differently. We are just a dangerously different team when Jose takes over. He's only 6ft, but he plays MUCH bigger than his height.

Devoe has been a little uneven so far, but I don't expect that to continue. He's too good of a player, and he's not shrinking when he has the ball in his hands. He just needs to clean up the head scrathing turnovers (TWO traveling calls!).

Speaking of turnovers, we had another great job of keeping them low. However, I'll point out, our PGs had 8 of the 9 TOs. Our guards (if you include Usher) had 9 total assists. Nothing to be super concerned about, but our guards definitely need to take care of the ball a lot better.

BTW, Parham had an "off" night and made only 1-9 shots. He's been really good for us this season, so an "off" game isn't the end of the world.

How's this: Wright had an off night (compared to how he started the season), Devoe was turnover prone and basically sat half of the 2nd half, and Parham had an off night and we still beat Nebraska on the road with home cooking by double digits. That is a REALLY good sign for this team because we still have not played when all of our pieces are "on".

After giving up 80+ points to lower level teams to start the season, we've held the P5 teams we've played to 62 and 64 points.

Last two games have been a joy to watch, but I expect our next game against FSU to give us a real test and preview of what this team can do.
 
Fatmike91

Fatmike91

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Devoe's ball handling looks a little off to me. I wonder if he's missed some practice or doesn't have the conditioning yet in the early season. We will be a much better team once he's contributing to his full potential.

Sturdivant has been a revelation. He's a solid defender and he's aware and in control on offense. He will be a big part of our run this season.

Moses was double and triple teamed all night. He took care of the ball and distributed it. I don't agree he had a bad game. He was the target of their entire game plan, and he handled it very well.

We can't play the whole season with only Moses as a big. We need our bigs to develop. Unfortunately, I feel like we needed them on the bench to win the last two games, but we're not going to win later in the season without developing them now. CJP needs to figure this out.

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Deleted member 2897

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Speaking of turnovers, 9. That’s a very good number. Even so, I think we had 3 turnovers in the first 5 minutes. So to go about 30-35 minutes on only 6ish turnovers is amazing. It really once again was a big difference in the game. Similar to football, if you calculate our points per possession across possession differential, it shows you these last 2 games how big that number is in terms of influencing the outcome of games.
 

glandon1960

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Fatmike91 said:
Devoe's ball handling looks a little off to me. I wonder if he's missed some practice or doesn't have the conditioning yet in the early season. We will be a much better team once he's contributing to his full potential.

Sturdivant has been a revelation. He's a solid defender and he's aware and in control on offense. He will be a big part of our run this season.

Moses was double and triple teamed all night. He took care of the ball and distributed it. I don't agree he had a bad game. He was the target of their entire game plan, and he handled it very well.

We can't play the whole season with only Moses as a big. We need our bigs to develop. Unfortunately, I feel like we needed them on the bench to win the last two games, but we're not going to win later in the season without developing them now. CJP needs to figure this out.

/
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Spot on. Saba and/or Howard are going to have to play some and at least hold their own. If not against FSU, I really expect to see them get minutes vs. FAMU, Delaware State, and maybe UAB.

In the end, you need to get about as many shots as the opponent, and shoot a good percentage... last two games we've given up shots by being out rebounded, but made up for it (more than made up for it) by lack of turnovers. Several ACC teams will pound us on the boards - first two we play - FSU and UNC in particular ... and even if we keep turnovers to around 10-12, I don't see us turning them over 18-20 times ..... definitely need to be able to rebound better . The offensive scheme does not lend itself to getting a lot of offensive rebound (too many players on perimeter to crash boards consistently). We're also going to have games where Moses gets in foul trouble .... Usher/Moore at the '5' for more than a minute or two won't consistently work (I did think Usher did great job distributing the ball from the high post last night).
 

Jacketman99

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963
I would imagine our bigs are being developed but the coaches felt they were not ready to give us the best chance to win the last 2 games. Pastner's job is to focus on the game at hand and play the players that will give us the best chance to win. I am sure Reveno is working with the guys to get them ready when the time comes. Kudos for a great team effort to win this game Devoe and Moore played great in the first half and carried the team. Alvarado and Wright came alive in the second half. We did a great job keeping turnovers down and forcing turnovers. Good job hitting or fts as well. As for the lineup down the stretch, there is no since in changing if it is working. Those guys had great chemistry on the court. No need to mess with that unless you felt someone needed a breather or the lineup stopped working.
 
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