Jackets Travel to Louisville, 2/10/2024, MBB

[awbuzz]

Good summary for those that didn't watch. Kudos to Chad.

Kelly’s 36 points not enough as Georgia Tech collapses late in loss at Louisville

A career high night for Kelly was wasted as the Yellow Jackets lost their third straight since the big win over North Carolina.

www.ajc.com

“We gave effort, we just didn’t always play smart I thought. Sometimes it’s like that,” Stoudamire said. “But let me tell you something, man, I don’t care about points. We got out-toughed.”

 

[Steverc]

I just listened to the post game press conference. I can't follow anything the coach is saying.

 

[spdrama]

Wow!!! The haters came out in force after this one. So many basketball experts here who tell us they know & understand student athletes, collegiate coaching and the game of basketball. Amazing what you can learn from a seat in the stands or from your couch in front of the TV.

First, props to Peacone. Didn’t he call Louisville by 12 after the Carolina game?

Second, nobody in their right mind would think the comment made by CDS, in answering a press question about his priority, really meant they were ignoring scouting reports and tape on Louisville. Using that comment as a dig against CDS can only come from the mean spirited folk who not only seem to relish in every loss with this coach at the helm, but look so foolish in doing so, thinking the rest of us are even interested in their drivel, much less persuaded by it.

Third, losing to Louisville, Notre Dame & UMass Lowell, and defeating Duke, Clemson, NC, Miss St & UMass would come as no surprise to any Tech fan who, whether you liked the hire or not, bothered to even listen to CDS at the very start of the season when he told us this team’s margin of error was razor thin & the exact same against every opponent, from the best to the worst. He told us in November, in not so many words, that this team was capable of beating North Carolina and equally capable of losing to Louisville. Did anyone believe him then? He knows his team.

Fourth, as for last night I got the feeling watching them that they were trying to play hard to please their coach, but they lacked confidence in their own abilities, either individually or collectively, to win ball games. With so many losses piling up, this is not unexpected. And compounding the team being short on skill, losing Ebenezer to injury played a factor. We view him as a non-factor offensively, and he often looks like a liability, but his high post play and height for rim protection gives Ndongo more offense opportunities and foul protection on defense, especially in the opening minutes. Losing Ndongo to injury at the 4 minute mark against NC might have resulted in a rallying effort. Losing him to early foul trouble from touch fouls against Louisville is a bit demoralizing.

Although there are a couple of former players in this forum who might be formidable competition for CDS in basketball when it comes to knowledge, strategy & preparation, I am sticking with CDS. And not merely because he has a long term contract and will be here for awhile. I’m liking this hire more and more every game. When we beat Duke, I see the future. When we lose to Louisville, I see the past. Last night was not a backwards step. Just one more game forward.

 

[684Bee]

Wow!!! The haters came out in force after this one. So many basketball experts here who tell us they know & understand student athletes, collegiate coaching and the game of basketball. Amazing what you can learn from a seat in the stands or from your couch in front of the TV.

First, props to Peacone. Didn’t he call Louisville by 12 after the Carolina game?

Second, nobody in their right mind would think the comment made by CDS, in answering a press question about his priority, really meant they were ignoring scouting reports and tape on Louisville. Using that comment as a dig against CDS can only come from the mean spirited folk who not only seem to relish in every loss with this coach at the helm, but look so foolish in doing so, thinking the rest of us are even interested in their drivel, much less persuaded by it.

Third, losing to Louisville, Notre Dame & UMass Lowell, and defeating Duke, Clemson, NC, Miss St & UMass would come as no surprise to any Tech fan who, whether you liked the hire or not, bothered to even listen to CDS at the very start of the season when he told us this team’s margin of error was razor thin & the exact same against every opponent, from the best to the worst. He told us in November, in not so many words, that this team was capable of beating North Carolina and equally capable of losing to Louisville. Did anyone believe him then? He knows his team.

Fourth, as for last night I got the feeling watching them that they were trying to play hard to please their coach, but they lacked confidence in their own abilities, either individually or collectively, to win ball games. With so many losses piling up, this is not unexpected. And compounding the team being short on skill, losing Ebenezer to injury played a factor. We view him as a non-factor offensively, and he often looks like a liability, but his high post play and height for rim protection gives Ndongo more offense opportunities and foul protection on defense, especially in the opening minutes. Losing Ndongo to injury at the 4 minute mark against NC might have resulted in a rallying effort. Losing him to early foul trouble from touch fouls against Louisville is a bit demoralizing.

Although there are a couple of former players in this forum who might be formidable competition for CDS in basketball when it comes to knowledge, strategy & preparation, I am sticking with CDS. And not merely because he has a long term contract and will be here for awhile. I’m liking this hire more and more every game. When we beat Duke, I see the future. When we lose to Louisville, I see the past. Last night was not a backwards step. Just one more game forward.

Just because people have differing opinions, doesn’t make them “haters”. We got beat by 29 points at home and now lost to a terrible UL team. There’s reason for concern.

 

[57jacket]

Wow!!! The haters came out in force after this one. So many basketball experts here who tell us they know & understand student athletes, collegiate coaching and the game of basketball. Amazing what you can learn from a seat in the stands or from your couch in front of the TV.

First, props to Peacone. Didn’t he call Louisville by 12 after the Carolina game?

Second, nobody in their right mind would think the comment made by CDS, in answering a press question about his priority, really meant they were ignoring scouting reports and tape on Louisville. Using that comment as a dig against CDS can only come from the mean spirited folk who not only seem to relish in every loss with this coach at the helm, but look so foolish in doing so, thinking the rest of us are even interested in their drivel, much less persuaded by it.

Third, losing to Louisville, Notre Dame & UMass Lowell, and defeating Duke, Clemson, NC, Miss St & UMass would come as no surprise to any Tech fan who, whether you liked the hire or not, bothered to even listen to CDS at the very start of the season when he told us this team’s margin of error was razor thin & the exact same against every opponent, from the best to the worst. He told us in November, in not so many words, that this team was capable of beating North Carolina and equally capable of losing to Louisville. Did anyone believe him then? He knows his team.

Fourth, as for last night I got the feeling watching them that they were trying to play hard to please their coach, but they lacked confidence in their own abilities, either individually or collectively, to win ball games. With so many losses piling up, this is not unexpected. And compounding the team being short on skill, losing Ebenezer to injury played a factor. We view him as a non-factor offensively, and he often looks like a liability, but his high post play and height for rim protection gives Ndongo more offense opportunities and foul protection on defense, especially in the opening minutes. Losing Ndongo to injury at the 4 minute mark against NC might have resulted in a rallying effort. Losing him to early foul trouble from touch fouls against Louisville is a bit demoralizing.

Although there are a couple of former players in this forum who might be formidable competition for CDS in basketball when it comes to knowledge, strategy & preparation, I am sticking with CDS. And not merely because he has a long term contract and will be here for awhile. I’m liking this hire more and more every game. When we beat Duke, I see the future. When we lose to Louisville, I see the past. Last night was not a backwards step. Just one more game forward.

Outstanding post spd... Post of the day.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Stoudamire is not the problem. We are lucky he even gave us an interview to be honest. Dude is a highly valued assistant from the NBA who would be hired tomorrow if we were stupid enough to fire him and get a retread.

The problem is clearly lack of talented players. GT has been off the radar for so long that talented players don’t even look at us hence the vicious cycle we’ve been in. Stoudamire is connected and his reputation alone will at least have talented players looking us. Time will tell whether he can get them to sign. If he can’t I’m sure he’ll simply go back to the NBA on his own and we can hire the next version of Gregory or Pastner who will talk a great game while never advancing the program.

 

[GT11]

Our coach has clearly quit on this team so it should really be no surprise the team follows.

Have you seen a practice? Do know how hard we works them and hold them accountable for what they do wrong? He has very high standards that made him successful as aplayer and works hard everyday pushing these kids get to that standard. Unfortunately, some of them have never been pushed to play hard and struggle with that. They always been told how good they were and to just score and don’t worry about the rest. Saying he’s quit on them is totally wrong and to be blunt, stupid

 

[GoJacketsInRaleigh]

Stoudamire is not the problem. We are lucky he even gave us an interview to be honest. Dude is a highly valued assistant from the NBA who would be hired tomorrow if we were stupid enough to fire him and get a retread.

The problem is clearly lack of talented players. GT has been off the radar for so long that talented players don’t even look at us hence the vicious cycle we’ve been in. Stoudamire is connected and his reputation alone will at least have talented players looking us. Time will tell whether he can get them to sign. If he can’t I’m sure he’ll simply go back to the NBA on his own and we can hire the next version of Gregory or Pastner who will talk a great game while never advancing the program.

I'll give Stoudamire 3 seasons to prove that even though in the era of NIL and transfer portal you really don't need that long. But no judgments from me this season.

 

[orientalnc]

You are going have some games where shots don't fall. That happens to every team. What bothers me, and it clearly bothers CDS, is that we have guys that don't appear to be taking the game seriously. We were up by 9 with ~10 minutes to play and lost by 12. That is just crazy and something happened in those 10 minutes that CDS is going to have to address. The idea that we have to go 5-2 to match the record of Pastner's last team looks to me like a steep hill. I would not be surprised if we lost all seven. ND on the road is next and that is our best chance. That's how daunting the remainder of the schedule looks.

If I were CDS, I would look at the guys who seem to care about winning and play them. He is not going to make meaningful changes in tactics at this point in the season. You can tell he is frustrated with the play of his team. We can beat UNC and Duke, but seem inept against UL and Virginia Tech. It has to be something beside the skill level of our guys.

 

[orientalnc]

I'll give Stoudamire 3 seasons

That's very nice of you.

 

[Techwood Relict]

Just because people have differing opinions, doesn’t make them “haters”. We got beat by 29 points at home and now lost to a terrible UL team. There’s reason for concern.

True. I'm still excited overall with the change to this team and coaches, but seeing the same result as a fan while they go thru growing pains is frustrating. This team is young. The transfers that aren't, CDS took some flyers on their athleticism to showcase how he wants a team to play. Now he has to recruit to improve. Concerned, yes. Overly so, not really.

 

[Peacone36]

This team reminds me a great deal of the Seth Greenberg USF teams back in the day. Two star in Altron Jackson and BB Waldon but just couldn’t get the W’s. IIRC, Waldon (the big) was very steady but was hampered by injuries and Jackson (the wing) was a very erratic volume scorer. Both played four years and I’m not sure they ever won 20.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

I've only been on a handful of losing teams so my experience is not substantial, but the vast majority of players on those teams did not mind losing. Several of those teams eventually turned into winners, a couple of times we ended up Champions. In retrospect the key was getting rid of the losers. They weren't always the worst players. My first time the coach dismissed the 2 most talented kids on my baseball team (league MVP and another top player), we were shocked & parents were besides themselves before the season thinking the move was insane. We thought we were screwed but without those 2 superstars we played team ball and broke .500 the next season. The year after we took home the trophy despite having only the 1 obligatory rep (me) on the All-Star team that did not get off the bench in the All-Star game. The rest of my teammates were not as talented as everyone elses's best, but when it came down to it we were winners and we did what winners do, just found ways to win. Stoudamire better figure this out quickly otherwise his tenure at GT will be short lived. Batt will not tolerate much more of this BS.

I have been on some teams that lost a lot and I have been on teams that have won championships. For the teams that lost a lot, there were usually two scenarios. The first one was our team was severely lacking in talent, but always fought hard. It sucked losing all the time, but the team hated losing so much that we always played tough and above our ability. It just was never enough to beat the vastly superior teams. While it was frustrating we could point to the talent gap and knew that we had done everything we could to win. The second one was where we lost a bunch of games because some of the players on the team (usually the best players) did not care about losing. They took plays off, and many times, games off. We played down to our competition. It was our team that dictated when we won or lost. It was maddening to lose to lesser teams that outplayed or outhustled us. For someone that hates losing more than I like winning, it drove me crazy playing on those teams. It was much, much worse than the low talent team that never won. I believe CDS is dealing with the second scenario. There are not enough players on this team who hate losing more than they like winning.

 

[lv20gt]

Have you seen a practice? Do know how hard we works them and hold them accountable for what they do wrong? He has very high standards that made him successful as aplayer and works hard everyday pushing these kids get to that standard. Unfortunately, some of them have never been pushed to play hard and struggle with that. They always been told how good they were and to just score and don’t worry about the rest. Saying he’s quit on them is totally wrong and to be blunt, stupid

Wait, so you point to me not being at practice against the idea of him quitting on the team, which btw is never used against anyone who claims players quit, and then turn around and pretend to know what the players have been told their entire lives?

What is stupid, and frankly sickening is the lengths posters here will go to degrade the players all just so they can defend the coach. It's moved beyond talking about basketball skills. Now we apparently have a bunch of players who lack toughness, have no standards, have never played hard, and don't care about losing.

 

[MtnWasp]

I think Leatherneck has his finger squarely on the issue. While the dynamics are largely multi-factorial, I think this season comes down to culture shock after a coaching transition. While the talent pieces have not, but rarely, come together in a complimentary way, the foundation of what Stoudamire wants to build his team around did not resonate effectively with the players. Everyone is trying, but there has not been a synergy.

Instead of the team toughening-up, their confidence is blown. Even players that had been playing well are no longer playing well.

We know what we got with this squad and it is a failure. Does Stoudamire deserve criticism? He is ultimately accountable. However, he has a foundation in mind in which to build something moving forward. In that regard this team may have been a sacrificial lamb. But if it happens again with another set of players, then it could be that this coach is simply too far advanced for college players to understand him.

We've probably all have had brilliant college professor who couldn't make even the simplest of concepts comprehensible to his students.

Haters will get their licks in this year. We'll see if the coach can silence them. He'll get his chance as long he doesn't want out.

 

[gte447f]

I just listened to the post game press conference. I can't follow anything the coach is saying.

Did you ever listen to Josh Pastner press conferences? He never answered a single question that was asked of him. He just answered every question with whatever obsessive compulsive thought was in his head at the time. Then he repeated it 6 more times for good measure. I liked Pastner, but his press conferences drove me nuts. Absolutely nothing about basketball. I much prefer Stoudamire’s press conferences. He’s not a great orator, that’s for sure, but he’s a basketball coach, not a politician, and he’s a helluva competitor.

 

[GT_B]

I would feel better about CDS if there was some actual adjustments during a game. There are too many games where it looks like teams are playing us a particular way that is really bothering us and there is no adjustment at halftime or any point during the game. Which right now is severe ball pressure, especially on Nate, which I love Nate, but his shortcomings are athletic ability and quickness, he is usually being guarded by a much quicker, more athletic guard and he has to work so hard to try to get any seperation.

It appears CDS just keeps plugging away with the same game plan and throws his hands up when it isn’t working. Then his post game comments just back that up.

I get that he wants to run the team with his NBA style, but we don’t have those kind of players this season so it would be nice to see him adjust a little to what fits our team. The point is to still try and win games even if your building a program, this isn’t the NBA, no benefit to tanking, doesn’t give us a #1 pick next year…

 

[CEB]

You are going have some games where shots don't fall. That happens to every team. What bothers me, and it clearly bothers CDS, is that we have guys that don't appear to be taking the game seriously. We were up by 9 with ~10 minutes to play and lost by 12. That is just crazy and something happened in those 10 minutes that CDS is going to have to address. The idea that we have to go 5-2 to match the record of Pastner's last team looks to me like a steep hill. I would not be surprised if we lost all seven. ND on the road is next and that is our best chance. That's how daunting the remainder of the schedule looks.

If I were CDS, I would look at the guys who seem to care about winning and play them. He is not going to make meaningful changes in tactics at this point in the season. You can tell he is frustrated with the play of his team. We can beat UNC and Duke, but seem inept against UL and Virginia Tech. It has to be something beside the skill level of our guys.

WRT the bolded, it was actually a little worse than that. We were up by 9 with a little over 8 to play. Lville went on a 28-5 run over about a 7 minute span at that point.
The “something” that happened was a whole lot of things.
We gave 28 points in a little over 7 minutes. It was awful defense, but it was also really awful rebounding. Lville wasn’t lighting it up… probably 10 of those 28 came on second chance points and maybe another 8-10 came at the FT line.

As to the rebounding, Ndongo and Claude fouled out in that stretch, but the run (and offensive boards) started before they fouled out. We didn’t go to the glass at all and we have got to get better at blocking out. When our shots aren’t falling, the last thing we can afford is to give opponents multiple chances.

Another thing that I think happened is that sometimes it’s easier to hit the “big” shot in the clutch than it is to consistently make the right play and get the easy shot… especially with an inexperienced team. We stagnated offensively, missed FT opportunities and generally got one look at the basket late in the game.
To your point about “something” happening, these all are symptoms… not the root “something.” I don’t know if guys eased up, or tensed up, or just flat out panicked but we really played poorly for the last 8 minutes.

 

[GoJacketsInRaleigh]

If I were CDS, I would look at the guys who seem to care about winning and play them.

That is very nice of you.

 

[Root4GT]

Baseball season starts in 6 days. Tough season in basketball.

Don't expect much there!