USC Upstate game thread

[dtm1997]

For starters, it looks like we'll have good TV coverage.

http://www.theacc.com/#!/page/rsn-affiliates-usc-upstate-at-georgia-tech-12-06-2014

They're off to a nice start, but they've lost their 2 games to better competition.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/team/_/id/2908/south-carolina-upstate-spartans

We'll get an extra day of rest before the game and I'm hoping we'll sit Travis to a degree, let him recover from heavier minutes the past 10 days.

I'd be most interested in seeing Tadric & Ben get a bunch of minutes, as well as see if Chris Bolden can build off of lasat night.

 

[RamblinRed]

Their KenPom rating is close to IPFW's. 6-2 on the year, so not a complete patsy. They have outscored their opposition by an avg of 20 ppg. (A Couple of those games are against non Div 1 teams).
They have 2 guards that can really score the ball in Greene and Miller.
one 6'10, 250 big.

 

[New Old Guy]

Their KenPom rating is close to IPFW's. 6-2 on the year, so not a complete patsy. They have outscored their opposition by an avg of 20 ppg. (A Couple of those games are against non Div 1 teams).
They have 2 guards that can really score the ball in Greene and Miller.
one 6'10, 250 big.

Red,

What do you think of Cox so far this year? I probably expected too much based on watching him against us last year in NYC, and he has shown good tough rebounding and occasional flashes of fairly smooth offense. But when our opponents smother him underneath the offensive board, he often gets a TO or throws up a kind of shot put ball that doesn't go in. Of course most anyone would get flustered when double or triple teamed under the basket, but as a fourth year player with a ton of SEC experience it seems like Demarco should be able to handle the pressure a little better.

I hope to see some improvement Saturday and steady progress through the rest of our non ACC schedule. We really need him (and Cox and Samson) to be strong underneath as the season goes on.

 

[McCamish Maniacs]

They have 2 guards that can really score the ball in Greene and Miller.

Both are averaging over 15 ppg, but they're averaging a pretty good amount of points as a team

The 6-11 guy isn't even their leading rebounder. 3rd actually behind two 6-5 guys

 

[Peacone36]

Start Tadric, sit Q to start this one.

 

[Connell62]

Bolden is ahead of Tadric in the rotation right now and rightfully so. Other than a few poor decisions, Chris has played pretty well. Tadric is experiencing some growing pains right now and will likely see his minutes cut until starts playing within the flow of the offense.

 

[RamblinRed]

Cox has been slightly better than i expected. Anyone thinking they were getting what they saw in NY last year was overestimating - that was his best weekend of the year.

I thought he would rebound well, score around 8 per game, hopefully provide solid interior defense. I did not expect him to be a major offensive player - his career doesn't suggest that.

 

[LargeFO]

Anybody in Charlotte that has basketball tix they can't use and could email just for some Tech booties in the seats?

 

[collegeballfan]

From ramblinwreck.com ----- FWIW

"Tech's victories over Rhode Island and Northwestern caused a jump of more than 100 spots in the various RPI rankings, lifting the Yellow Jackets into the top 50 from No. 156 in both the CBSSports.com and ESPN RPI rankings. The Rams were 29th in the CBSSports.com RPI rankings at the time of their meeting in Orlando. Northwestern was 90th. The Jackets are 3-1 vs. teams in the top 100."

 

[Peacone36]

If we can somehow win in Dayton and hope for NW to have modest success on the big 10 we may have an outside shot at a bid if we can win the ACC games we should win.

 

[dtm1997]

I'm gonna talk thru chat although there's gonna be a lot of football talk. Exciting day for GT.

https://gtswarm.com/chat/

 

[Ggee87]

How are they not calling these And 1s? Thats the 3rd ive seen this game. What a joke.

 

[Jacket4Life]

It's shocking to me we still can not recruit any shooters. We still have no real 3 pt threat.

 

[ATL1]

Sigh

 

[awbuzz]

Had to go away at the half... recorded the game... very disappointing finish to the game.
Too many half arsed weak passes being stolen... we can't shoot from beyond the 3 pt line to save ourselves...

 

[dtm1997]

Before I say anything else, let me open by saying that USC-U deserved this win. They hustled way more than us on both offense & defense and they had some really good shooters canning 3s. I believe this is the 3rd year in a row they've pulled an upset like this.

Today's loss is 100% on Brian Gregory on multiple levels and the idea that he floated in a post game quote that we're worn out after 5 games in 8 days is a cop-out, given our depth.

• Several players are having difficulty in perimeter defense. While their shooters would've made us pay regardless, if we'd have played more zone defense, at least we would've kept track of their players. Too often, we're just flat out getting lost on defense, leaving a jump shooter wide open.
• We actually made some great adjustments at half time to take a lead, but it was disappointing to not see those adjustment through... getting the ball down low, driving the lane, generating more fouls. I don't care if Cox misses all of his FTs if we've fouled 3 of their players out and they lose that offense. We were in the 1&1 with 12 to go and up for 2 shots with 7 to go, but none of USC-U's players fouled out. You've gotta exploit that weakness.
• With a quick opponent that was far & away out-hustling us, we couldn't afford to have both Cox & Mitchell in simultaneously. When we went to a smaller lineup, we were able to recover better on defense.
• The ill-advised 3ptrs, often times too early in the clock, need to stop.
• We knew 2 weeks ago this game was going to have little to no crowd to lift up the team. That needs to be understood well in advance and the coaches need to be motivational enough to get the players up to fight through that. BG's teams at GT have almost always played with strong effort. If they'd have shown that from beginning to end tonight, we're likely in better position at the end of the game. Very poor energy & toughness tonight.

It's just really disappointing that we could have won this game, given post halftime adjustments, and instead we moved away from the successful adjustments and gave the game away through lack of effort.

 

[alaguy]

We could have done this well with Blewitt.Amazing that they come in OUR gym and make us look like the "who is that" team.
Gregory will remember this game for a while for "obvious reasons".

 

[dtm1997]

We could have done this well with Blewitt.Amazing that they come in OUR gym and make us look like the "who is that" team.
Gregory will remember this game for a while for "obvious reasons".

I hope they all remember this game for a while.

 

[dtm1997]

For your hollow comfort, it's apparently sh** the bed Saturday in college hoops, in addition to us, NJIT won at Michigan, Green Bay won at Miami, North Florida won at Purdue.

 

[Stinger90]

I hope they all remember this game for a while.

USC Upstate is a scrappy team, but we still should be able to beat a team like that. We are not going to beat anybody committing turnovers and missing our outside shots like we're doing *sigh*