Tulane

glandon1960

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
174
Red's comments are in right in line with what I saw last night.
This team may be a little (not a lot) better than we thought. I see better chemistry than I have seen in several years - looks like players are buying into the concepts Pastner is teaching on offense and the pace, movement, structure looks so much better than it did 2 weeks ago .... and more movement - ball and player with purpose - than we've seen since the final four team.
Penn State and Tennessee are not very good this year - those are both winnable games for this team even on the road - and I think will tell us something about how this team will play when things get tough .... I don't like our chances against VCU. Tulane has a larger rebuilding effort than we do .... Ohio is very good and I will be surprised if they do not make the NCAA.

This team still has nearly no margin for error against a top 100 team.
We have 4 players that are capable of scoring more than 20 in a game - Tadric, Okogie, Lammers, and Q.
Josh or Justin could go off, but neither really look to score. Moore's outside shot needs a lot of work - teams are going to play off him and dare him to shoot.
Anyone else getting 10 points will be a huge bonus most nights.

To beat a top 100 team, you need (at least) three players (most likely 3 of these 4) to have good scoring games. Against Ohio - only 2 (Tadric and Lammers) hit anything except the side of the backboard. Keeping most of our key 5-6 out of foul trouble is also key - which is part of why I think we are looking like Syracuse with all the match-up zone ... but part is because I know we still struggle to stop dribble penetration. I see a lot of holes in the zone - but the teams we've played so far have not exploited them ... will be curious to see how this progresses.

We also need to take care of the ball ..... I agree with the comments on Moore - he will make 1-2 incredible plays per game with his athletic ability - but he needs to cut down the 3-4 really bad plays to 1 per game. Heath was not much better last night, but have seen enough of him to not think last night will be the norm.

I sit near the visitors bench .... a couple knowledgable Tulane fans behind me commented on how much they liked Lammers - good decisions passing, length to alter shots, nice touch ... they fairly criticized him for being 'soft' (not taking it up strong - being more a finesse player with fade aways, etc. vs. power). They commented on how hard Q was crashing the boards (thought he got away with some fouls, but liked his aggressiveness). On Okogie - they said, and I agree, that if he develops a reliable 3 point shot and pull up 15 footer - he could be All-ACC in a couple years.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
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11,497
I watched the second half of the Tulane game. Here's what I saw:
  • Lammers makes some nice tough shots under the basket.
  • Tulane is 1-3 (now 1-4) and we let them keep playing their way into the game.
  • We're faster and have better ball movement than the last few years.
  • We make some ugly turnovers.
  • Tulane seemed stronger behind the arc than we were. They made a really long 3 in the second half.
  • Overall, our defense looks better (surprisingly). It takes more work on the opponents part to get a guy wide open for a shot than the last couple of seasons.
  • Can we set a screen? I don't think I saw one last night. I saw some illegal screens by Tulane, though. I guess we don't have that shooter that you'd want to screen for.
  • Frontcourt looks OK. Backcourt is just kinda there. Am I wrong on this?
  • We get rebounds. Not always, but we seem better. Again, it's Tulane.
  • Team did not look gassed in the last 5 minutes. The ten minutes before the last 5 minutes were getting scary though. Not much depth, huh?
  • Looks like it'll take more than just one more season to get good. Unless someone or multiple someones come in next year's recruiting class, I think we'll get a little better next year and the year after.
 

RamblinRed

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5,862
One note i forgot to add.
Tulane scored with 6.3 seconds left in the first half to cut the lead to 3. Pastner called a TO.
We managed to go 94 ft in 6 seconds with a couple of nice dribbles and passes and get a good look (that Okogie nailed). Q made a beautiful pass to okogie instead of taking a shot himself and Okogie was able to just beat the clock on a great look not too far from the bsaket.
It was nice to see a well designed play executed for a positive outcome and it lead to a 5 pt rather than 3 pt lead and gave okogie (according to Josh himself) alot of confidence going into the second half.
 

YlJacket

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,260
One note i forgot to add.
Tulane scored with 6.3 seconds left in the first half to cut the lead to 3. Pastner called a TO.
We managed to go 94 ft in 6 seconds with a couple of nice dribbles and passes and get a good look (that Okogie nailed). Q made a beautiful pass to okogie instead of taking a shot himself and Okogie was able to just beat the clock on a great look not too far from the bsaket.
It was nice to see a well designed play executed for a positive outcome and it lead to a 5 pt rather than 3 pt lead and gave okogie (according to Josh himself) alot of confidence going into the second half.

There was also a spot in the second half when we really needed a hoop coming out of a TO and ran a nice action off our standard look that got Lammers a back door alley oop basket. Again a well designed look out of a TO - something we haven't seen for a while.
 

RamblinRed

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There was also a spot in the second half when we really needed a hoop coming out of a TO and ran a nice action off our standard look that got Lammers a back door alley oop basket. Again a well designed look out of a TO - something we haven't seen for a while.

This was a really nice play as well.
 

Connell62

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3,092
Late to the party, but I saw this quote from Pastner's post game interview regarding free-throws, and it is just another reason that he has really grown on me.

Absolutely no sugar-coating things!!

On making free throws in the end of the game:

“One of our goals is to make more than the opponent attempts and we accomplished that again today. We’ve got to step up and make our free throws. Now we made them when they counted late in the second half, but early on we just left so many points on the board. We want to play in attack mode and we’re playing that way and the way we are cutting and we’re getting to the free throw line, we’ve got to put the ball in the basket. We can drill, we can run the guys for it but in the end, I told our guys, we’re in the ACC. This isn’t boy’s basketball, this is men’s college basketball. When I send a note to another coach in college, I address it Coach So-and-so, Men’s Basketball. You’ve got to be tough enough to step up to the free throw line and put it in. We don’t need to really over analyze anything, you’ve got to be tough and put the ball in the basket.”
 
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