Folks, I think you know me and my history here. If you read back through this thread, I hope you can see that I was only trying to respond to Cuse-related talking points that were either misinformed or provide context that was missing. Or respond to those who responded to me. It is an attempt to inform, not dismiss our performance.
For this game, I think I am uniquely qualified to provide a level of insight about the opponent that you won't otherwise get. The opponent is not fun to watch or talk about, hence why I didn't care to post anything pre-game as a preview.
GT flat out was the better team yesterday -
- Not only did we negate Brown, we generally made it very tough for their starting back court - the same two guys who UNC could not guard - to get anything going downhill. We made it very very hard on them.
- We further scouted them well and left Justin Taylor wide open, baiting him to shoot. That also enabled us to clog the lane against their guard penetration.
- Beyond those example, Stoudamire outcoached Autry in several ways on both ends, taking advantage of mismatches incessantly.
- We simply outhustled and wanted it more than Syracuse. That is tough to coach and for players to do when our team is what it is this year, and it demonstrated buy-in and gives hope for the future.
I've rarely posted opinion/insights this year because it hasn't been a fun year as a GT fan. You know this based on my posting history. I've not attempted to degrade the convo or tear down our wins. Happy to take this offline if you disagree.