My take:

[jayparr]

I'm with you. Sadly, there's not a lot of discipline in basketball anymore. That's one of the things I have really enjoyed about watching this Georgia Tech team. For the most part, they have been disciplined on both ends of the court.

Thanks for your reply! Yes you are so right!!! And that is what's great about our team and staff! You can see plays being called from the coaches and then implemented by the players! And we do see some great athleticism by our players when the opportunity arises. This is just fun team to watch!!!!!! I had season tkts for 9 yrs in Cremins era. And this team is just as much fun to watch as those years, because of the WHOLE TOTAL PICTURE!!!!

 

[jayparr]

I was in and out on this game and just watched (Most of) the second half. For the majority of the second half, UK looked like a more "disciplined" team (relatively speaking). They did run a set offense and on several occasions gave up a decent shot to get a better one. I thought they would win. UNC on the other was doing exactly what you said. Very little offensive continuity. A high screen most of the time with the shot clock under 10 and a forced (bad) shot. The UNC switch to zone seemed to be enough to get UK out of their rhythm. UNC made a few good defensive plays (or UK made bad turnovers, depending on your perspective) and 3 or 4 or 5 of the UNC "wild shots" started to fall. To your point, I would much rather watch GT style of play. Although the "athletic feats" aren't as frequent, I appreciate that type of basketball. Then again, that is how i learned the game. I guess if you learned it another way you might have a different perspective.

This reply is forwarded from my reply to jbix80. Thanks very much for yours, and by the way I have lived all my life in Newnan. And I work in the Sheriff office. Hope you don't come by to see me sometime at the work place!

 

[YlJacket]

I think you are

Here are KenPom efficiency rankings for the remaining teams:



Gonzaga

1 Overall

14 Off

1 Def

UNC

3 Overall

6 Off

18 Def

Oregon

10 Overall

16 Off

19 Def

USCe

25 Overall

105 Off

1 Def

That can't be right. UNC at 18th best D team in the country? No way. We know UNC doesn't play defense.

 

[YlJacket]

Question for you. If you had better athletes who were more skilled offensively than your opponents why would you want to slow things down and run very defined half court plays? Seems to me I would want to push the ball, take advantage of my athleticism advantage and pressure the other team with speed as much as I could. Just seems logical to me. For both UK and UNC.

FWIW both of them run reasonably structured secondary break patterns that balance the floor, have defined roles/spots for players to go and a basic pattern for ball movement looking for a good shot or drive. UNC is famous for their secondary break which is what they are running most of the time. If you watch they reverse the ball to the other side of the court more than most any other team deep in the tourney. KY runs a 5 out system out of their break focused almost entirely on their guards being able to break down their defender. They were running that set all second half which is what caused Roy to go zone for a brief while just to get a break from the matchups.

It isn't Duke running set plays to get Reddick a shot off of 4 distinct picks but there is more structure in both teams than you are giving credit for.

 

[jayparr]

Question for you. If you had better athletes who were more skilled offensively than your opponents why would you want to slow things down and run very defined half court plays? Seems to me I would want to push the ball, take advantage of my athleticism advantage and pressure the other team with speed as much as I could. Just seems logical to me. For both UK and UNC.

FWIW both of them run reasonably structured secondary break patterns that balance the floor, have defined roles/spots for players to go and a basic pattern for ball movement looking for a good shot or drive. UNC is famous for their secondary break which is what they are running most of the time. If you watch they reverse the ball to the other side of the court more than most any other team deep in the tourney. KY runs a 5 out system out of their break focused almost entirely on their guards being able to break down their defender. They were running that set all second half which is what caused Roy to go zone for a brief while just to get a break from the matchups.

It isn't Duke running set plays to get Reddick a shot off of 4 distinct picks but there is more structure in both teams than you are giving credit for.

Thanks for the thought out reply! For me it seems more like a 10 car mad dash for the Daytona finish line!

 

[BeeRBee]

Thanks for your reply! Yes you are so right!!! And that is what's great about our team and staff! You can see plays being called from the coaches and then implemented by the players! And we do see some great athleticism by our players when the opportunity arises. This is just fun team to watch!!!!!! I had season tkts for 9 yrs in Cremins era. And this team is just as much fun to watch as those years, because of the WHOLE TOTAL PICTURE!!!!

Interestingly, Pastner was quoted a couple of times during the season as saying he told the team that he did not want to be calling plays for them. His ideal is to teach them a system, and then let them execute it without him having to yell out instructions on every possession. In that respect, I suspect it is very similar to what YIJacket was describing for KY and UNC.

My personal observation this year was that he did a lot less "sideline coaching" on offense than Coach Gregory did in the past.

I suspect that Tech's lack of individual athleticism this year means that most possessions required multiple passes and movement in order to create a good shot or drive opportunity. For KY and UNC, individuals able to utilize their athleticism to create scoring opportunities may make it look more like an uncoached offense, rather than a system, even when it is.

 

[jayparr]

Interestingly, Pastner was quoted a couple of times during the season as saying he told the team that he did not want to be calling plays for them. His ideal is to teach them a system, and then let them execute it without him having to yell out instructions on every possession. In that respect, I suspect it is very similar to what YIJacket was describing for KY and UNC.

My personal observation this year was that he did a lot less "sideline coaching" on offense than Coach Gregory did in the past.

I suspect that Tech's lack of individual athleticism this year means that most possessions required multiple passes and movement in order to create a good shot or drive opportunity. For KY and UNC, individuals able to utilize their athleticism to create scoring opportunities may make it look more like an uncoached offense, rather than a system, even when it is.

Sorry; I have to disagree! I saw CJP and assistant coaches calling plays and coded words!

 

[GSOJacket]

I also noticed the lack of ref'ing going on in large sections of the game.

You can see why we beat North Carolina, and why several other teams did too. They have great 5* players at every position, but they have to make 50%-55%+ of their shots, because they don't play defense. Honestly, they rarely play defense. If they play a game where they're not shooting well, they're dead.

UNC did not come close to having their best game yesterday, BUT, relative to their early season meeting, which UK won, Carolina played excellent defense against UK's terrific guards, Fox and Monk (25 points between them). Also note that the player who won the game for them, Luke Maye (17 points in 20 minutes), came to UNC as a preferred walk-on.

 

[Peacone36]

UNC did not come close to having their best game yesterday, BUT, relative to their early season meeting, which UK won, Carolina played excellent defense against UK's terrific guards, Fox and Monk (25 points between them). Also note that the player who won the game for them, Luke Maye (17 points in 20 minutes), came to UNC as a preferred walk-on.

They also switched from M2M to a zone right before that 10-0 run. That's not because RW is a bad coach...

 

[YlJacket]

Thanks for the thought out reply! For me it seems more like a 10 car mad dash for the Daytona finish line!

One story from Roy's show today. They practice the end game scenario they used to beat KY. Not a specific play to get the ball to May, but a desire to get the ball in the open court and take their chances with a playmaker rather than trying to run a set play against a set defense. The key is getting the ball inbounded quickly before KY can set up their D which is what they work on and were ready to execute. The story I thought was interesting was that Calipari told Roy after the game that he was trying to call time out himself to set his defense but the ball came in bounds so quickly he couldn't get it called. It isn't the kind of coaching you are looking for where specific designed plays happen but it is really good coaching nontheless. I am a fan of trying to get the ball in the open court rather than trying to run a set play against set D - especially when it works like this one did

That is not to say I agree with all of Roy's TO calls - or rather reluctance to call TOs. He can at times be rather pig headed about them.

Beyond that, I think you are overstating the number of pure "plays" CJP called for GT this year. Against man defense, 90% of the time we ran a princeton based set with multiple options/cuts/counters but not specific plays to get the ball to a specific person. We ran multiple guys off Lammers and looked for backdoor cuts or straight drives whenever they were available, but no set play per se. We did on occasion run set plays off this action to get the ball to specific people - the most common one we ran was a back pick against Lammers defender to get him a lob dunk. We usually ran that coming out of a TO when we needed a basket. While our set had more motion and passing than certainly KY's 5 out set, it was in reality not a lot different in that neither is a set "play" in the way I think you are using the word. Though it is a set or structure for movement you are a lot more used to seeing.

 

[senoiajacket]

Question for you. If you had better athletes who were more skilled offensively than your opponents why would you want to slow things down and run very defined half court plays? Seems to me I would want to push the ball, take advantage of my athleticism advantage and pressure the other team with speed as much as I could. Just seems logical to me. For both UK and UNC.

FWIW both of them run reasonably structured secondary break patterns that balance the floor, have defined roles/spots for players to go and a basic pattern for ball movement looking for a good shot or drive. UNC is famous for their secondary break which is what they are running most of the time. If you watch they reverse the ball to the other side of the court more than most any other team deep in the tourney. KY runs a 5 out system out of their break focused almost entirely on their guards being able to break down their defender. They were running that set all second half which is what caused Roy to go zone for a brief while just to get a break from the matchups.

It isn't Duke running set plays to get Reddick a shot off of 4 distinct picks but there is more structure in both teams than you are giving credit for.

I haven't watched UNC a ton this year. In fact, I haven't watched a significant amount of college basketball, however, my observation in the second half of the UNC/UK game, when UK made their run, UNC was helter skelter on offense, forcing up several "difficult" shots early in the shot clock. I won't call them bad shots, because when UNC made the run in the final 4 minutes they also took some shots I thought were not high percentage .... but they made them. I am not saying they should slow the ball down just for the sake of running an offense. However, when they cant get an advantage in transition, I wonder how much better they could be with their superior athletes if they did run a more "set" offense as opposed to just trying to create, one-on-one.

 

[YlJacket]

Recognize both teams are really good and do actually play defense, so it is not surprising that both don't look good at stretches in the game. They both had stretches where they looked bad on offense. FWIW KY goes to a one on one set more than UNC does.

My point would be they are running more structured sets than folks are giving them credit for - but the teams are good so players do what they have to / think they need to in order to make a play.

 

[RamblinCharger]

They also don't play defense. When they have games where they don't get calls or don't shoot the ball well, they are very vulnerable.

UNC and Kentucky play pretty good defense. Especially when it matters. Idk what some of you have been watching. Like someone posted, UNC is 18th in defensive efficiency. The KenPom rankings are usually spot on.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

UNC and Kentucky play pretty good defense. Especially when it matters. Idk what some of you have been watching. Like someone posted, UNC is 18th in defensive efficiency. The KenPom rankings are usually spot on.

I just watched UNCheat's last couple games. The opposing teams passed the ball around a few times and nobody on UNCheat was rotating over to cover. I didn't go look at their defensive rankings - I just made that observation by watching them play and noticed their lack of energy as a team.

 

[YlJacket]

Ken Pom has them around 18 if I remember ESPN's post above. Doesn't mean every possession or that the team you saw them play couldn't shoot so they were playing off. I wouldn't consider them any where near an elite defensive team but when they are in the moment they can do it. How well they do play D will likely determine how well they do this weekend.

 

[ESPNjacket]

Ken Pom has them around 18 if I remember ESPN's post above. Doesn't mean every possession or that the team you saw them play couldn't shoot so they were playing off. I wouldn't consider them any where near an elite defensive team but when they are in the moment they can do it. How well they do play D will likely determine how well they do this weekend.

I'd say the top factor is Oregon's ability to keep UNC off the offensive boards. UNC is the top team in the country in offensive rebounding %, while Oregon is 179th in defensive rebounding %.

Pace is interesting to watch in this game. UNC likes to play fast (50th in tempo), while Oregon plays much slower (241st). I think UNC's preference for fast play is what leads some fans to think they aren't running a system. It appears they are rushing things when it actually is their system to play that way. I think Pastner prefers to move to that style when we have the players to execute it, FWIW.

 

[Peacone36]

Bell vs Jackson is very intriguing. The game could be won or lost right there