MBB @ NC St 2/3 5:30PM EST

[awbuzz]

Final stats
Overall, Miles had a good game.
Ndongo's -17 +/- score though...

 

[apatriot1776]

Final stats
Overall, Miles had a good game.
Ndongo's -17 +/- score though...

Ndongo felt invisible all game, and Gapare ended up on the floor for a lot of minutes. Looked through the season and other than maybe UGA this was Baye's first truly bad game. I don't have a high basketball IQ so I can't tell if the injury was lingering or if it was just a bad matchup or what.

 

[Bogey]

We go through spurts where our passing is so sloppy. Some of the passes we try are maddening, seems like a low basketball IQ to me to even try to make them.
Burns is fun to watch, his passing is impeccable, effortless.

 

[Peacone36]

Wait….i th8nk I’ve seen that movie before…

You don’t even need to watch road games for this program. So much more time for activities

 

[spdrama]

Passing is one of the more difficult things for freshman and new groups learning to play together. Mastering the pass in practice sessions against the same bench players every day is not enough to prepare against the game defenses they will see in the ACC. Between Stoudamire & Wells, they have two of the best teachers and I see significant improvement in Nait George since his first few games. I think the problem is “telegraphing” their passing. Crisp passing can’t work consistently if your defender or target’s defender know it’s coming. Doesn’t mean “lazy” passing when intercepted, but sure looks lazy. Just one more thing that will improve. My suggestion is bring out the tapes of the mid-90s games and make this team watch videos of Drew Barry and Travis Best bring the ball down the court.

 

[dtm1997]

Lack of comments 10+ minutes after the game is deafening.

Probably because the game ended around dinner time, as well as some wanting to watch the pieces of **** lose.

 

[Root4GT]

A few thoughts.

Ndongo had one of his worst games this year. Hopefully that was just lingering impacts from his head injury. He just seemed off all game.

Dowuona does not have the skill necessary to be an effective ACC player. At 6'11" he misses more point blank shots that anyone I have ever seen. He sets really weak screens as well and is not a threat to roll to the basket.

Reeves had a terrible 1st half. Bad turnovers and decision making. CDS quickly sat him down for most of the first half. Good call by CDS. In the 2nd half Reves played much better. Message seemed to get through.

George is developing nicely this year. He is much more assertive now than in December. I like that he is looking for his shot more often and that his 3 point shooting has improved significantly.

Gapare - man if he can ever pull it all together he could be a major impact player. In the first half he had a couple of unreal blocks on 3 point shots closing out from 10 or so feet. A couple of his drives to the basket were jaw dropping until he missed a dunk, walked or missed the FTs. This offseason he needs to shoot 10s of thousands of FT and 3 point shots!

Claude has really given his all the past several games. He battles and scraps. He isn't tall enough to be a force under the basket offensively as he gets a lot of shots blocked from behind. Still I like his effort.

As and aside NCST has won their turnover battle in 18 of their 22 games. They have very good guard play. Of course most of the time they have 4 guards on the court.

Like most games this year we had opportunities to win but didn't do enough to actually win!

 

[57jacket]

A few thoughts.

Ndongo had one of his worst games this year. Hopefully that was just lingering impacts from his head injury. He just seemed off all game.

Dowuona does not have the skill necessary to be an effective ACC player. At 6'11" he misses more point blank shots that anyone I have ever seen. He sets really weak screens as well and is not a threat to roll to the basket.

Reeves had a terrible 1st half. Bad turnovers and decision making. CDS quickly sat him down for most of the first half. Good call by CDS. In the 2nd half Reves played much better. Message seemed to get through.

George is developing nicely this year. He is much more assertive now than in December. I like that he is looking for his shot more often and that his 3 point shooting has improved significantly.

Gapare - man if he can ever pull it all together he could be a major impact player. In the first half he had a couple of unreal blocks on 3 point shots closing out from 10 or so feet. A couple of his drives to the basket were jaw dropping until he missed a dunk, walked or missed the FTs. This offseason he needs to shoot 10s of thousands of FT and 3 point shots!

Claude has really given his all the past several games. He battles and scraps. He isn't tall enough to be a force under the basket offensively as he gets a lot of shots blocked from behind. Still I like his effort.

As and aside NCST has won their turnover battle in 18 of their 22 games. They have very good guard play. Of course most of the time they have 4 guards on the court.

Like most games this year we had opportunities to win but didn't do enough to actually win!

Excellent post Root... Are you reading my mind? LOL. Lots of upside with this roster. Next year looks promising.

 

[MtnWasp]

Roller coaster game from a spectator's perspective. Lots of stretches alternating between fist pumping and throwing a napkin at the TV screen.

We actually outshot them from the floor 41.4% to 37.7% and from three 40.7 to 29%. But due to a -8 turnover margin, they took 11 more field goal attempts than we did and we were minus 5 scoring from the stripe despite only a two shot differential.

We've had some drift in the players that are making positive impacts. Ndongo had a really bad game. But Gapare continues to emerge. Before the Carolina game, I had doubts whether he had an adequate feel for the game to be a good player. But in the last two games I see him really sticking his nose in the action. He's not efficient, but that can come. Gapare's play was my happy take-away from the game.

Scary thought of the day: what our team would look like if we had not recruited George. The team does not function well without him on the court. Watching to see how good he gets during his time at Tech is a big point of interest for me with the program right now.

 

[57jacket]

Georgia Tech unravels in second half in loss at N.C. State

RALEIGH, N.C. – Georgia Tech had the wheels fall off Saturday in the second half and lost 82-76 at North Carolina State inside PNC Arena.

www.ajc.com

 

[Root4GT]

Roller coaster game from a spectator's perspective. Lots of stretches alternating between fist pumping and throwing a napkin at the TV screen.

We actually outshot them from the floor 41.4% to 37.7% and from three 40.7 to 29%. But due to a -8 turnover margin, they took 11 more field goal attempts than we did and we were minus 5 scoring from the stripe despite only a two shot differential.

We've had some drift in the players that are making positive impacts. Ndongo had a really bad game. But Gapare continues to emerge. Before the Carolina game, I had doubts whether he had an adequate feel for the game to be a good player. But in the last two games I see him really sticking his nose in the action. He's not efficient, but that can come. Gapare's play was my happy take-away from the game.

Scary thought of the day: what our team would look like if we had not recruited George. The team does not function well without him on the court. Watching to see how good he gets during his time at Tech is a big point of interest for me with the program right now.

Spot on comment about how the team operates without George on the floor. They frankly appear lost on offense and not very connected on defense when he is on the bench.

He is playing about 30 ( 34 the last 5 games) minutes a game which is a heavy load for a freshman Point Guard. Averaging 10 (13 the past 5)points, 5 assists (6 the last 5) and 2 turnovers per game.

Clearly he is the most pleasant surprise on this year's team!

 

[jacketup]

Game summary: 12 turnovers to 4

 

[MtnWasp]

Game summary: 12 turnovers to 4

12 turnovers in a high tempo game really isn't bad, but forcing only 4 is remarkable. And I bet that their points off of our live-ball turnovers probably accounts for the point differential in the game.

 

[awbuzz]

12 turnovers in a high tempo game really isn't bad, but forcing only 4 is remarkable. And I bet that their points off of our live-ball turnovers probably accounts for the point differential in the game.

Points of of turnovers were 4 - 18... Only 6 point loss, so w/o reviewing the play by play, I'd bet your right, especially if we could back out some of the FT they made in the last couple of minutes that helped provide the final spread.

 

[alagold]

12 turnovers in a high tempo game really isn't bad, but forcing only 4 is remarkable. And I bet that their points off of our live-ball turnovers probably accounts for the point differential in the game.

yep, we are last in conf in forcing TOs. With our weak sloppy passes that led to easy baskets we gave the game away, even with a decent shooting game.

 

[MtnWasp]

Spot on comment about how the team operates without George on the floor. They frankly appear lost on offense and not very connected on defense when he is on the bench.

He is playing about 30 ( 34 the last 5 games) minutes a game which is a heavy load for a freshman Point Guard. Averaging 10 (13 the past 5)points, 5 assists (6 the last 5) and 2 turnovers per game.

Clearly he is the most pleasant surprise on this year's team!

George is not necessarily an explosive player so the degree to which he impacts the game may not be obvious to everyone. But his impact becomes obvious when he is not on the floor. The team looks totally different when he is not in there.

There was not ton of tape on him out of high school, but what there was does not hint at the caliber of player we have. He looked like a pesky defender and a pass first guy with very limited scoring skills or explosiveness.

What we have is a player of unusual savvy. He must have the attitude and learning ability to soak-in what Stoudamire is teaching incredibly fast and to apply that on the floor in ACC games. He is not a finished product by any means, but the rate by which he improves, the manner in which he finds ways to impact the game is remarkable.

Stoudamire has intentionally checked his inclination to gush. "Nait is ascending," is all he said after the Carolina game.

George plays with a similar chip as Alvarado. He seems to love to play. But George is a much bigger player than Alvarado and is much further along compared to the Freshman Alvarado. I think his game IQ is ahead of his conditioning and skills development. If George gets stronger, he may be a Derron Williams type of PG or in the Jason Kidd mold, if readers will forgive the comparison.

What is the upside here? That is what I want to watch as we go along.

 

[GaTech4ever]

I must admit, from being at the game it looked like Gapare’s minutes really hurt us, especially for a stretch in the second half. His mistakes almost render him unplayable, but we’re so under-talented that I guess we let him develop with minutes.

 

[MtnWasp]

I must admit, from being at the game it looked like Gapare’s minutes really hurt us, especially for a stretch in the second half. His mistakes almost render him unplayable, but we’re so under-talented that I guess we let him develop with minutes.

He had the best +/- line of any player on the team, so I guess he wasn't hurting the team that much....

 

[Rzunz]

George is not necessarily an explosive player so the degree to which he impacts the game may not be obvious to everyone. But his impact becomes obvious when he is not on the floor. The team looks totally different when he is not in there.

There was not ton of tape on him out of high school, but what there was does not hint at the caliber of player we have. He looked like a pesky defender and a pass first guy with very limited scoring skills or explosiveness.

What we have is a player of unusual savvy. He must have the attitude and learning ability to soak-in what Stoudamire is teaching incredibly fast and to apply that on the floor in ACC games. He is not a finished product by any means, but the rate by which he improves, the manner in which he finds ways to impact the game is remarkable.

Stoudamire has intentionally checked his inclination to gush. "Nait is ascending," is all he said after the Carolina game.

George plays with a similar chip as Alvarado. He seems to love to play. But George is a much bigger player than Alvarado and is much further along compared to the Freshman Alvarado. I think his game IQ is ahead of his conditioning and skills development. If George gets stronger, he may be a Derron Williams type of PG or in the Jason Kidd mold, if readers will forgive the comparison.

What is the upside here? That is what I want to watch as we go along.

Steve Nash is his hero

 

[YlJacket]

I finally got to see the Jackets live yesterday. You can definitely see the emphasis on long and lean with the younger players. Looking at them versus Burns was actually pretty funny. Ndongo would push for all he was worth and Burns didn't even know he was there But while Burns did command a lot of attention when he was on the floor, he wasn't the difference in the game.

We lost the game with that drought to start the second half and couldn't catch up. More specifically, State's guards beat our guards on both ends of the court.

the headline for their defense is their full court pressure, but with the exception of a really stupid pass by Reaves and a couple of ball handling errors, I don't think that was a major issue directly. What it did do though was put them in position to pressure us in the half court which they did relentlessly. We would get the ball across half court, pause for a second to try to get set and they would be all over George, Miles or Sturdivant - plus overplaying all the other wing passing lanes. We were trying to start our sets with the ball inside the wolf's head logo at half court with hard ball pressure and no easy pass to relieve the pressure. It was also too far out for a ball screen to really be effective so our screening looked really bad too.

When a guard is faced with this situation they have to be able to beat their man/ball pressure and still have control to be able to start the offense top of the key or foul line extended - whichever. Keep it a team focused offense. Instead our guards would look to beat their man but it became a lot of one on one drives to the basket with only a couple of kick outs for shots. This perimeter pressure from State is why we ended up with only 10 assists but really why State forced 12 mostly live ball turnovers and got 18 points off turnovers from them.

Having said that, we did beat them off the bounce a fair amount and had our chances. But we did play much more of a one on one offensive game than I would like and I expect that CDS would like. George played well and is going to be a really good PG for us but I would love to see him break that pressure but still be able to be in control enough to start our offense from top of the key and get everyone involved.

As an aside, I think this is the major reason Ndongo had a bad game yesterday. He gets a lot of his points off roll action and in working in concert with the guards. He isn't one who - yet - can simply get the ball and get his own shot effectively.

On defense we worked hard but State made our guards go through multiple solid screens every time down court - especially with Burns. They would run a cross stagger screen - get the ball foul line extended and then force the defender back through a screen and roll with Burns. Our effort was there but their guards were good at forcing the defender back into a solid screen so they had a half step or more advantage in the lane. It caused a lot of help rotations in the paint with long close outs on shooters. You could see the effort on our part but their solid screen game caused us major problems.

End of the day though this was a game where we couldn't make the plays when we needed to. Crucial live ball turnover leading to points or missed shots under pressure when needed. The 18 points off turnovers was too much.

I know we are not technically a young team but I consider us a young team with George, Ndongo and Gapare. You can see the potential in them. Losing Kelly will hurt next year but with a couple of new pieces you can see a pathway to a good ACC team.