Miami at GT

lv20gt

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5,580
Between FTs, open looks at the 3, and some layups we had every opportunity to win this game and just couldn't hit the shots.

Thought defense was solid overall and it bodes well that even against their back court we were able to generate chaos. Khalid had the best game of his career and it was nice to see Kelly hit a couple as his stroke can help us in future games. Usher had a good all around impact kind of day.

But Josh and co have to get away with this overthinking and trying to get cute nonsense. The small ball line up with Ush at the 5 doesn't work against good teams. Sure we had a good 5 minute stretch with it, but the other 20 minutes we tried it, it was horrible. Keep it simple. Play Howard. When Howard comes out, play Saba or Meka. Maybe if Coleman and Kelly were juniors, or Smith or Sturdy had the experience of a year playing and an offseason to reflect, it might be worth it, but that isn't true. Saba and Meka may not be ready for what we need, but that doesn't matter, because neither are the aforementioned players ready to do what we need in a tiny ball line up.

And if we thought going small was a way to play for a win, then you don't sit Devoe. I don't care if he was off a bit. He still needs to be on the court if you're playing for a win. And if you're not, then you play the back up bigs to get them experience.

Moses Wright developed in part because he actually played. He played 414 minutes as a freshman. Saba has played a total of 153 in his career, and there is no way he is in a worse spot than Moses was as a freshman.
 

GTNavyNuke

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Between FTs, open looks at the 3, and some layups we had every opportunity to win this game and just couldn't hit the shots.

Thought defense was solid overall and it bodes well that even against their back court we were able to generate chaos. Khalid had the best game of his career and it was nice to see Kelly hit a couple as his stroke can help us in future games. Usher had a good all around impact kind of day.

But Josh and co have to get away with this overthinking and trying to get cute nonsense. The small ball line up with Ush at the 5 doesn't work against good teams. Sure we had a good 5 minute stretch with it, but the other 20 minutes we tried it, it was horrible. Keep it simple. Play Howard. When Howard comes out, play Saba or Meka. Maybe if Coleman and Kelly were juniors, or Smith or Sturdy had the experience of a year playing and an offseason to reflect, it might be worth it, but that isn't true. Saba and Meka may not be ready for what we need, but that doesn't matter, because neither are the aforementioned players ready to do what we need in a tiny ball line up.

And if we thought going small was a way to play for a win, then you don't sit Devoe. I don't care if he was off a bit. He still needs to be on the court if you're playing for a win. And if you're not, then you play the back up bigs to get them experience.

Moses Wright developed in part because he actually played. He played 414 minutes as a freshman. Saba has played a total of 153 in his career, and there is no way he is in a worse spot than Moses was as a freshman.

I always say that Pastner is a better coach when the players make the shots (tic). Flush and on to VT.
 

slugboy

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This was a game to enjoy watching Usher and Khalid. Normally if I tell someone Khalid scored 19, they’ll think we won in a laugher.
I had fun watching them. I didn’t have as much fun with our defense.
Points were scarcer on the rest of the lineup. We need more than 4 combined points from Devion Smith, Sturdivant, and Howard. More than 6 assists too. Devoe had a respectable game for almost anyone else on the team. We just need more than 12/4/5 from him.
Nice to see Trae in the arena though.

C8D8ED17-E830-4C53-A877-40AD6A263222.jpeg
 
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gt24

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354
I always say that Pastner is a better coach when the players make the shots (tic). Flush and on to VT.
i like the TIC. a few additional notes in support of your shot-making observation... pastner always says this is a shot-making league. the reality is that its not just the ACC. (natural reaction is "duh".) but the analytics of modern bball are very clear and demonstrate how significant each "factor" of the game is. for awhile the "4 factors" were thought to be the keys. but as more and more research and analytics has been pored over, the evidence is that the "4 factors" are far from being evenly weighted in predicting W/L. eFG is by far the number one predictor of W/L. a distant second is extra possessions in the form of TOs and O-rebs.
 

gte447f

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My 8 year old son had a game today, so this was the first, and hopefully only, home game this season that I will have had to miss. I listened on the radio, and it sounded like we played pretty good defense, but didn’t take advantage of enough of our opportunities on offense. Also, and this is not meant to be a swipe at the refs since I wasn’t able to see the action, but the free throw disparity seemed almost insurmountable no matter how well we might have been able to play otherwise. Miami was +18 on made free throws. They were 21/25 and Tech was 3/10.
 

Fatmike91

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SW Florida
In the last two games we've seen:

- Kelly matter
- The zone matter
- Deebo hunt his shot
- Khalid play the best game of his career
- Usher go off

We need to figure out how to keep a big on the floor. If we can do that, and hit the bunnies and free throws we'll win some games still this season.

Separately, I think Jim Larranaga is a very good coach. Miami is lucky to have him. He attended Archbichop Malloy High School in Queens the same as Kenny Anderson and Khalid Moore.

/
 

alagold

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WE played ok but the FT difference KILLED us. They just made their shots (esp FTs) and we didn't.That's even with KMoore having a career scoring game.
Usher is getting close to super-human (esp if he could hit 3s). Made a run at a triple -double.
We have got to get more Offense out of the 5 spot.
 

GTbball2016

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1,108
WE played ok but the FT difference KILLED us. They just made their shots (esp FTs) and we didn't.That's even with KMoore having a career scoring game.
Usher is getting close to super-human (esp if he could hit 3s). Made a run at a triple -double.
We have got to get more Offense out of the 5 spot.
PG play was horrible today
 

Connell62

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Mike’s in a funk right now. He’s been really up and down. That’s the tough part of drawing every teams beat defender. We get a normal Mike Devoe game and we may stolen it.

We dug too deep of a hole. Nice effort to get back into it but Miami is a good team. They finally got it back on track and put us away.

Loved seeing Pastner get into that ref. He had made several ticky-tack fouls on us while letting Miami handcheck and bang us around. Need to see more of that type energy from those guys in the floor.
 
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