MBB - 🤞 Clemson 2/21 GAME THREAD.

[GTpdm]

That box score, it's hard to look at.

Your cute-dog powers will not work on me:

 

[jacketup]

This is a poor shooting team. On offense, that's the way it is.

However, you can bring your defense every night. Look at Clemson's shooting percentage last night. Look at UNC's when we beat them. Same with 'Cuse. That stat tells the story.

Now, did UNC have a bad shooting night or did we play better defense? If the defense was better against UNC than against Clemson, why? Was it effort or coaching?

Pastner was great at teaching and mixing defenses. The NBA only plays man. Do we need a defensive specialist assistant?

 

[Tech Lawyer]

Our coach still believes he is coaching NBA players. Talk about players packing it in. Sorry, coach. The players effort reflects your effort which appears to me to be disorganized, ill prepared and uninspired.

 

[GaTech4ever]

I’m not sure what it is about Ndongo, but it’s almost like there’s these mental lapses where he looks totally checked out/lost. But I can’t really frame it as a lack of effort. Likely just needs more game experience. However…

Looking ahead, one thing that’s concerning is that he’s only a year younger than PJ Hall. If I’m Ndongo, not sure I can wait until I’m 23-24 to start my pro career especially when my skill level is already this high as a 21 year old freshman. The quickest way for him to develop (in terms of physicality, consistency, and playing better competition) is in the G League. He’s not getting Bacot $ at Tech, he won’t be a first round pick because of his age, and he won’t get a degree (at this stage in life) because he’s too good to stay 4 years (and would mean he’d be a 25 year old rookie). Would like to hear other’s opinions on this and where I may be missing the mark.

 

[spdrama]

O

This is a poor shooting team. On offense, that's the way it is.

However, you can bring your defense every night. Look at Clemson's shooting percentage last night. Look at UNC's when we beat them. Same with 'Cuse. That stat tells the story.

Now, did UNC have a bad shooting night or did we play better defense? If the defense was better against UNC than against Clemson, why? Was it effort or coaching?

Pastner was great at teaching and mixing defenses. The NBA only plays man. Do we need a defensive specialist assistant?

Nope! We need to be able to compete against the elite teams in recruiting. No way offense needs high level skill players, but anyone can play defense every night if coached right. GT has lagged way behind in recruiting for years.

For anyone naive enough to claim this group is CDS’s guys, how many top recruits were still available when he took over last March. Ndongo was stolen from Rutgers. George, Sacko & Souare were HS leftovers after the 2023 class was already picked clean. Portal was just best available & willing to come to Atlanta to fill the bare cupboard.

Whoever thought or thinks this team was going to bring home a winning season is naive. Every rating group from NET and KenPom to pre-season ACC had GT in the bottom 3, from which it has barely shown upward movement at any time, despite a good early start and some big wins. CDS said from the beginning this team’s margin of error against EVERY SINGLE OPPONENT would be minuscule. I interpret as meaning having your A game every night for 40 minutes. It’s just not going to happen. Why do you think he said that? He knew this team would have to play mentally & physically tough to
win any game on the schedule. No easy games. We lost to teams that are not worse than us by any real degree, just similarly challenged.

Our best players, all 2 of them, will be what? 3rd team ACC? Honorable mention? How many conference wins does that get you?

The future is in recruiting successfully and this year is a start, and a late start. Failing at recruiting for years is what got this team in this hole. CDS is our best chance right now of getting us out of the hole. It was never going happen overnight in season 1.

 

[Pappa P]

They did this at the timeout after his free throws. The applause was pretty mild though.

That’s because at least half the non-student fans were Clemson fans. Yeah it’s a frustrating year. But when Tech fans don’t show up and even worse sell their seats to the opposition - that sends a shameful message to the players, coaches, and recruits. I know, I know - “if we start winning, the seats will fill up.” I’m almost to the point where Tech fans are so fickle that they don’t deserve winning. I’m fed up … not with the team, but with the fans.

 

[Connell62]

I was surprised at how lazy the team's play was. We were totally lax on three point close-outs and on offense, we were just jacking up whatever. 6 Assists? Seriously? We were outshot from the floor 53% to 30%.

Stoudamire's presser was more exciting than the game. He doesn't relate to this team. We'll have to see if the can relate to youth of this generation in general or if his problem is with this group specifically.

But I'm glad he is disgusted because the play of the team last night was just lazy basketball. I think it took a lot of guts to say, "when I get my guys in here..." Personally, I liked the comment. We'll see if he can back it up.

Yeah, I love the fire and calling it like it is. He had every right to be pissed off with his team.

It’s like I said elsewhere, I’m tired of getting our asses whipped and not fighting back, and I’d bet Damon feels much the same.

I’m confident that Damon said what he said because he has tried everything possible to implement his standard - that he has spoken so often about - and all the different tactics he has used to "motivate" them this year hasn't worked.

We play hard every other game, and when the going gets tough, we just wilt. There’s nothing more frustrating as a coach. I’m not even in the locker room practice, and I know all the euphemisms. “Get lost in the little things”, “Play for the name on the front and back of the jersey”.

He wants guys that have competitive spirit and hate losing, but have accepted it.

 

[Connell62]

If he is mentioning things like "when I get my guys" during pressers imagine what he is saying to them during practice. My thoughts would be that those pressers are filtering some things that he actually says during practice or close doors. So if you're constantly ridiculing, humiliating, & condescending players and now starting to do it openly, I'm not sure they would play their best or give 100% effort & energy. He mentions when he played a lot.... these kids are of a different era they are not the same, their inability to overcome struggles or adversity is very limited so their shut down is quicker than 70's and early 80's babies. So can you lose a team of this day & era yes very quick.

Quick example Deion Sanders during pressers says his O-line sucks and he will be in the portal, shortly after his quarterback starts getting mauled.... defenders had a straight path to him. Quarterback didn't play the last two games because he knew what was in store.

No offense, but that’s soft. Their inability to overcome struggles is limited? Sounds to me that they need someone CDS more than ever. How are you benefiting them by taking it easy on them?

Life is hard, get them ready for the expectations now. I’d love my son to play for a coach that has a standard and isn’t willing to deviate from it.

If they can’t get onboard with what the coach demands, the portal is wide open for them.

 

[lv20gt]

It's always funny how standards and high expectations are only ever a thing that relates to the players and never the coach.

 

[LargeFO]

It's always funny how standards and high expectations are only ever a thing that relates to the players and never the coach.

So does that include your years and years stint of lowering expectations and making excuses for Pastner? Or is it just a pick-and-choose scenario you're running?

 

[lv20gt]

So does that include your years and years stint of lowering expectations and making excuses for Pastner? Or is it just a pick-and-choose scenario you're running?

Nice deflection bud. Guess it's too much to ask of CDS to take some responsibility for the team he is the head coach of.

 

[LargeFO]

Nice deflection bud. Guess it's too much to ask of CDS to take some responsibility for the team he is the head coach of.

No deflection here. Just call a hypocrite a hypocrite. Bud. You ever gonna own it?

 

[Tech93]

I thought CDS was very honest in his presser. I believe we’ll have a good team by his third year but there have been reasons to doubt.

 

[lv20gt]

No deflection here. Just call a hypocrite a hypocrite. Bud. You ever gonna own it?

It's 100% a deflection to bring up Pastner here. You can't even pretend that CDS takes any responsibility after losses.

But since you brought it up, Pastner won ACC CotY for greatly overperforming with the group that he inherited instead of throwing them under the bus after every loss. He also had our first back to back winning conferences records in a quarter century and our first conference championship in a similar amount of time. There was at least some level of success to earn leeway in balancing the problems he had to believe he could have success in the future. Even with that I routinely criticized his stubbornness with regards to the Princeton and especially his tendency in his later years of going small ball lineups to the detriment of the development of our bigs, and even before he was fired last year I said he likely wasn't going to be the guy to fix things long term but was against firing him because we were unlikely to land someone actually better at that time (and the way things have played since then haven't done anything to prove that fear unwarranted). Just because you refuse to criticize CDS doesn't mean I was the same way with Pastner.

In contrast, CDS has never led his team to the NCAAT as a head coach. He has an overall losing record, and only one winning season as a head coach. He wasn't some long tenured NBA assistant or the secret reason the Celtics were good like people pretend. He was there a year and a half. He only spent two years coaching at the P5 level in any capacity. In short, nothing he has done as a coach warrants the absolute free pass he is being given for this year nor his complete throwing the players under the bus and taking no responsibility for his team's play.

 

[Ramble1885]

Reminder: Cremins went 7-21 in conference play his first two seasons. Let Damon have a little time, (2-3 seasons) then start judging.

 

[Root4GT]

It's 100% a deflection to bring up Pastner here. You can't even pretend that CDS takes any responsibility after losses.

But since you brought it up, Pastner won ACC CotY for greatly overperforming with the group that he inherited instead of throwing them under the bus after every loss. He also had our first back to back winning conferences records in a quarter century and our first conference championship in a similar amount of time. There was at least some level of success to earn leeway in balancing the problems he had to believe he could have success in the future. Even with that I routinely criticized his stubbornness with regards to the Princeton and especially his tendency in his later years of going small ball lineups to the detriment of the development of our bigs, and even before he was fired last year I said he likely wasn't going to be the guy to fix things long term but was against firing him because we were unlikely to land someone actually better at that time (and the way things have played since then haven't done anything to prove that fear unwarranted). Just because you refuse to criticize CDS doesn't mean I was the same way with Pastner.

In contrast, CDS has never led his team to the NCAAT as a head coach. He has an overall losing record, and only one winning season as a head coach. He wasn't some long tenured NBA assistant or the secret reason the Celtics were good like people pretend. He was there a year and a half. He only spent two years coaching at the P5 level in any capacity. In short, nothing he has done as a coach warrants the absolute free pass he is being given for this year nor his complete throwing the players under the bus and taking no responsibility for his team's play.

Pastner had 7 years at GT with one very good year. Overall losing record and conference record around 40% wins.

Pastner got GT BB on probation. Pastner was fired as the program was in the dumps.

He was a nice guy and always positive. That didn’t matter because he lost more than he won and GT BB was a bottom tier ACC team for much of his tenure.

CDS is not a warm and fuzzy coach. He will be judged on how his team preform over several years. What he says is not very important. Results will be what is important. He has several years to show he can get GT to be competitive in the ACC.

 

[MacDaddy2]

Our coach still believes he is coaching NBA players. Talk about players packing it in. Sorry, coach. The players effort reflects your effort which appears to me to be disorganized, ill prepared and uninspired.

I agree and hope that CDS will learn significantly from his first year at Tech.

 

[MacDaddy2]

I thought CDS was very honest in his presser. I believe we’ll have a good team by his third year but there have been reasons to doubt.

Transparency and Honesty are two different things. CDS needs to learn that you do can say nothing and speak volumes at the same time

 

[bke1984]

Yes, this is what I want to hear, confidence and resolve. I truly believe CDS is the man.

Really? You want our head coach publicly saying our players just flat aren’t good enough?

 

[iopjacket]

We are all going to find out if CDS can recruit and coach a winning team over the next couple of years. Some of us think he will and some not. Meanwhile we will argue our point of view. Damon Soudamire demands his team sticking to the game plan and playing scrappy man to man defense. Hopefully the players that don’t buy in to his style of coaching will transfer out this spring. I think Soudamire will be successful, but it will probably depend on how his players react to his coaching style.