You're right on 'Cuse's seed. I must have mentally blocked everything about that year's team after Ennis hit his half court winner over Pitt. I remembered losing to an 11-seed and forgot the team had the luxury of playing a 14-seed first. It's still beside the main point - they were not playing like a top 25 team. The ranking was based on the coattails of the first half of the season. UVA, despite its losses, is playing better now than that Syracuse team and it's not close. UVA has a coherent offense. If we're just talking quality of W/L as the gauge, UVA has beaten Miami and Clemson during their current stretch.
I agree Cuse wasn't playing like a top 25 team then. UVA may be better than them but the same argument holds. UVA is not playing like a top 25 team in conference play. They might end there, because they have a pretty good coach, but not if they continue to play the way they are. I certainly don't think you can point to that game as displaying a significantly higher upside than years past.
Imo, GT's 13-14 squad was seriously flawed. I think Golden was a SG playing PG... I'd rather have Smith. I'll take White over Holsey any day, and I don't think White is starting material. Hunt this year is better than Hunt that year. Miller, no argument, would be the best big we have this year. Carter, an enigma like many we have now. That year's Carter was as talented as our current rolodex of Mitchell/Jacobs, imo.
Every squad under Gregory has been seriously flawed including this one.
Golden was a SG, but he had enough point guard skills to take the pressure off our other guards. Smith lacks that. Smith is a better shooter, and averaging 16 per game, but it's on 38% and ~1.18 points per shot in ACC play. IMO Golden was clearly the more well rounded player, and Smith's inefficiency in what he does better gives Golden the edge. Even more so when neither of the two teams had ACC level pointguards otherwise.
Down low Miller was the best post player, and far and away defensively, but the 13-14 team was not only more talented but the pieces fit together better. Carter was more talented than either Mitchell or Jacobs and the only thing that makes the decision close is the injury. Carter averaged 13.8 and 7.8 over the last 9 compared to 9 and 9.5 for Mitchell and 11.8 and 5.7 for Jacobs over the current 6, and keep in mind rule changes have changed to favor offense and Carter was playing with Miller which no doubt drove down his rebounding numbers . On top of that Miller/Carter complimented each other much better than Mitchell/Jacobs. The former was clearly a center/pf combo that had Miller's stellar defense cover for the biggest deficiency that was Carter's defense. Miller's passing also helped fill the lack of a true point guard role that the team has. Mitchell and Jacobs largely fill the same role. Holsey was the better player than White but it really is a matter of offense vs defense in either case. Lastly Miller and Holsey were together for 5 years, both in the second year playing with Carter, and the three had 3/2 years in the system, compared to this being the first year Mitchell/Jacobs/White are playing together, 2 in Mitchell/Jacobs in terms of practicing together. The frontcourt in 13-14 was more talented, had more experience, in terms of in the system and playing together, and complimented each other better.
SF is better this year than that year but not by so much as to make up for 13-14's advantage in the front court, or at the PG spot.
I think if you watched more of the games you'd at least see the merit of the "level of play" argument. I thought this year's GT team looked different than the last couple years in closing out several games, including Tennessee, VCU, and UVA. The difference this year being confidence and ramped-up aggressiveness down the stretch that suggested to me they were mentally tougher. True the team recently looks eerily familiar in 2nd halves compared to last year (which isn't the year we're comparing). My takeaway there is that BG is proving he can coach any team off the cliff. He might be in his own head now.
Against Tenn. we were playing a team starting nobody taller than 6-4 iirc, or maybe it was 6-6. Also in that game we were up 67-60 with 5 to play scoring only 2 points the rest of the way, committing 3 turnovers on consecutive possessions, and even putting them on the FT line with a chance to tie. And two games after that the ETSU game happened. Against UVA we were up by 11 at the half and allowed them to come back and tie it. When we went up 11 with 2:20 to play we continually did the one of the two things you absolutely can't do in with that kind of lead late. We sent them to the foul line again and again, 8FTA for UVA over the last 2 minutes. We also missed 6 FTs over the last 90 seconds including 2 front ends of one and ones leaving a potential 8 points on the floor. That game wasn't a testament to a change in what was happening. It was the same old things that have been happening that cost us games late that happened to not bite us in the rear that time. Two games later the same thing happened and it did cost us. Against VT we had a 10 point lead with 4 and change left. They had a chance at 10 free throws over the last 4 minutes, only took 9 because they missed the front end of a 1 and 1.
Re: adjustments, disagree on playing Q more. His weaknesses on both ends are being exposed. Tadric would be the better complement, imo, to the Smith/MGH backcourt because he can do at least 2-3 things better than the other G/SF options. Also, imo, we don't need to bite any bullet with Lammers. He's already experienced and talented enough to get more minutes. Additional experience is now the cherry on top.
Either way I think something needs to be done there. I'd play Q more because he''s more likely to have a big game and win us won. The way I look at it is Q is more likely to get us wins, while Jackson is more likely to prevent us from losing by 15+ You play for better average when you're good and for better peak when you're not imo. Of course I still think what would be best is to go 1-3-1 on defense with Q at the point and Lammers down low, but we're getting away from single game adjustments with that one. Regardless whatever The bite the bullet about Lammers was more in regards to last year and earlier this year as well as the mindset that it's better for the program that he get starter level minutes now regardless if it is what is best for the next game.
