Article UVA Game

kg01 · Jan 19, 2018

CuseJacket said:
Blah, blah, blah ...

Long story short, despite UVA playing 9 guys that day, including a future NBA Rookie of the Year on that Tony Bennett coached team, it's been 20+ years since UVA saw a Final Four.

This can't be right. I were told Tone Bennett collaborated with Brad Stevens to invent the game of basketball. Weird.

(If you can't tell, I also rail against the notion that Brad Stevens is flawless as a coach. Sorry, if Rondo stays healthy they get swept in the 1st round.)

RamblinRed · Jan 19, 2018

Thoughts.
This game went about as i thought it might, not as I hoped it would. UVA has held 2/3 of their opponents under 55 points this year.
There was no point in the 2nd half where I thought GT had any realistic shot of winning. Any remote chance ending when Josh missed the layup after cutting it to 10 the previous possession.
UVA plays very well and both ends of the court and seldom does stuff to beat itself. It' sort of like playing a boa constrictor, they just keep tightening around you, willing to run their offense and their defense for 30 seconds at a time.

Lammers should have been pulled earlier, he was not good tonight. He was good defensively in the first half, but after that was a negative. In the second half UVA consistently got a guard matched on Ben and then had the guard take Ben off the dribble for layups. Was completely off on offense all night and not really looking for his shot much.

AD should have played more. Both with Ben and in place of him. After Ben missed the short jumper badly in the second half he should have been pulled. I didn't see Ben make a single jumper in either pre-game warmups (where I was only watching him a little) and half time warmups (where I watched him alot). AD plays with alot of energy which this team needed. I was annoyed with his foul at the end of the first half, but it really had no effect on the game. Would have been 8 instead of 9 pt game. That was a huge shot though. 5 pt game at halftime against UVA is a very different game than 9.

Josh was taken out of the game by UVA's defense. He also seemed a little passive. Their man defense on him was really strong and when he tried to drive he seldom got a good shot.

i thought Alvarado played pretty well for facing UVA's defense the first time. He didn't shoot well, but he had 5 assists to 3 TO, 6 rbs and 3 steals.

Jackson had a solid game. He is one player on the team that is comfortable with off balance type shots that UVA forces you to take.

Nice to see Curtis hit the threes. One was from really deep. They also used him to bring up the ball alot to relieve pressure off of Jose. He was really beat at the end of the game. He should have played fewer min. I don't think he is quite 100% back in terms of conditioning but he'll get there. He needs to move better without the ball to give himself more shot opportunities. Something he will likely improve on as he gains experience. He's one of our better players in terms of not making dumb mistakes.

I'll go with Ivy here on one thing he has been mentioning. Last 3 min we should have played Wright and/or Cole. The game was over, let them have a few min at that point against high level competition.

UVA frankly played harder (and better) than GT did last night. They consistently won the 50/50 balls. The first half was one of the most impressive displays of defensive basketball i've seen. At the under 8 min time out it was 13-7 with both teams shooting under 25% and neither team really able to do anything against the other teams set defense.

I'll also note that the individual I went to the game with mentioned before the game that none of our guys seemed to be hitting their shots in warmups. UVA had a large contingent there - maybe 30-35% of the arena.

Some notes from Pastner's post game comments on the radio.
He was bitterly disappointed about the TO.
He mentioned that we will get old and stay old, but that will only happen with 3-4 recruiting classes, you can't wave a magic wand and make it happen.
For this team to win it has to do 3 things - limit TO, make FT, play hard (win 50/50 balls, outrebound the opponent). Didn't do any of those things well tonight.
He was pretty hard on Lammers. Said it is all in between his ears now and we need him to have a breakout game as we need him on offense.
Based on his comments it was pretty clear that the #1 goal of the defense last night was to not allow UVA to go off from 3 (they had 3 guys shooting 40%+ from three in ACC Games coming in). Held them to 23%, so mission accomplished there. But in the second half they consistently hit mid range jumpers as well as getting those layups. my comment - you always have to give up something on defense. We gave up mid range jumpers and they hit them from about the 8 min mark of the first half on. GT did a really good job on Hall and a decent job on Guy. Hunter killed us. Jerome also played well.

FWIW, tracking the efficiency rankings of the players in just ACC games and comparing it to last year.
Okogie is playing slightly better than last year, despite the poor outing last night. His efficiency numbers are in the range of an 2nd or 3rd team All-ACC player.

Lammers efficiency numbers are way down from last year. Roughly 60% of his performance last year. He is avg just 8.8 ppg in ACC games shooting 32% FG, 50% FT. He is avg 10.8 rpg and over 3 bpg which is good. His asst:to ratio is also far worse. Basically he is playing well defensively and horribly offensively. His efficiency % are roughly equivalent with a run of the mill ACC starter. He needs to do far better or GT will not win many more ACC games.

Jackson's efficiency numbers are slightly better than last year and in line with a high level ACC starter. RB numbers are much better than last year.

Alvarado's efficiency numbers are currently about 80% of Heath's last year. He scores more, but not more efficiently than Heath did and his assist and TO numbers are worse. I expect as the season goes on and he adjusts to the level of play that he will likely match if not exceed Heath's efficiency numbers.

AD has been the most pleasant surprise so far. His efficiency numbers are actually quite close to Q from last year. You can make a strong case he should be playing more min. I'd argue for about 8 more mpg (if he can keep from fouling out) with this split pretty evenly between spelling Lammers at 5 and playing more at 4. 7.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg, shooting 64% FG in only 23 mpg. His efficiency numbers are those of a ACC starter.

Haywood's and Alston's efficiency numbers are getting pretty close to each other and I expect Haywood will pass Alston as the season goes on. Both have efficiency numbers similar to a standard ACC backup.

Comparing this year's team to last year (both largely used 7 man rotations - especially after AD got injured last year)
Josh is playing a little better than last year as is Jackson.
Lammers is playing alot worse.
Alvarado is playing below the level of Heath, but I think that is likely to change as the season goes on.
AD is playing close to the efficiency level as Q, but plays more than 10 min less per game (and likely couldn't play close to Q's min as he would foul out).
Haywood and Alston overall are stronger as the current 6 and 7th efficiency players than Moore and Heyward were last year and I think Curtis in particular is likely to see his numbers get better as he gets in condition and more experience.

Basically you could say GT is getting slightly better play at the 2 and 3 compared to last year. Get slightly worse play at the 1 (but hopefully that will improve), slightly worse play at the 4 (which is actually a positive as that was expected to be the biggest issue this year) and much worse play at the 5 (which is a big negative surprise). Bench is roughly the same.

Whether this team can be as good or better than last year's team (regardless of final record) is largely dependent on how much Jose and Curt can improve as they gain experience and can Lammers start playing anywhere near the level of last year.

One last note, the 3 top 3-pt shooters on the team in ACC games so far are Josh, Curtis and Jose. They have the 3 best percentages and account for 85% of the made 3.

MWBATL · Jan 19, 2018

connell62 said:
Personally, I thought that the real game changer was Ben's two missed free-throw's out of the time out late in the first half. He's usually reliable at the stripe, but missed both.

Afterwards, they went on run to close out the first half and we were never able to recover. He knocks down those two free-throws and it is a one possession game with the crowd in it.

I agree COMPLETELY. For whatever reason, Lammers was a detriment to us last night on offense (an absolute stud on the defensive end). Turnovers and those missed free throws seemed to take the air out of the building.

Fatmike91 · Jan 19, 2018

Virginia is a really good team. They made some shots.

The biggest issue is the game was officiated in a way that helps them (reminded me of the Big East basketball meat grinder from ~2005). The freedom of movement rules were not being enforced last night. If our cutters routinely get held we aren't winning. Period.

I guarantee you that the officiating won't be like this when Virginia plays in Cameron next week...

/

Peacone36 · Jan 19, 2018

RamblinRed said:
Thoughts.
This game went about as i thought it might, not as I hoped it would. UVA has held 2/3 of their opponents under 55 points this year.
There was no point in the 2nd half where I thought GT had any realistic shot of winning. Any remote chance ending when Josh missed the layup after cutting it to 10 the previous possession.
UVA plays very well and both ends of the court and seldom does stuff to beat itself. It' sort of like playing a boa constrictor, they just keep tightening around you, willing to run their offense and their defense for 30 seconds at a time.

Lammers should have been pulled earlier, he was not good tonight. He was good defensively in the first half, but after that was a negative. In the second half UVA consistently got a guard matched on Ben and then had the guard take Ben off the dribble for layups. Was completely off on offense all night and not really looking for his shot much.

AD should have played more. Both with Ben and in place of him. After Ben missed the short jumper badly in the second half he should have been pulled. I didn't see Ben make a single jumper in either pre-game warmups (where I was only watching him a little) and half time warmups (where I watched him alot). AD plays with alot of energy which this team needed. I was annoyed with his foul at the end of the first half, but it really had no effect on the game. Would have been 8 instead of 9 pt game. That was a huge shot though. 5 pt game at halftime against UVA is a very different game than 9.

Josh was taken out of the game by UVA's defense. He also seemed a little passive. Their man defense on him was really strong and when he tried to drive he seldom got a good shot.

i thought Alvarado played pretty well for facing UVA's defense the first time. He didn't shoot well, but he had 5 assists to 3 TO, 6 rbs and 3 steals.

Jackson had a solid game. He is one player on the team that is comfortable with off balance type shots that UVA forces you to take.

Nice to see Curtis hit the threes. One was from really deep. They also used him to bring up the ball alot to relieve pressure off of Jose. He was really beat at the end of the game. He should have played fewer min. I don't think he is quite 100% back in terms of conditioning but he'll get there. He needs to move better without the ball to give himself more shot opportunities. Something he will likely improve on as he gains experience. He's one of our better players in terms of not making dumb mistakes.

I'll go with Ivy here on one thing he has been mentioning. Last 3 min we should have played Wright and/or Cole. The game was over, let them have a few min at that point against high level competition.

UVA frankly played harder (and better) than GT did last night. They consistently won the 50/50 balls. The first half was one of the most impressive displays of defensive basketball i've seen. At the under 8 min time out it was 13-7 with both teams shooting under 25% and neither team really able to do anything against the other teams set defense.

I'll also note that the individual I went to the game with mentioned before the game that none of our guys seemed to be hitting their shots in warmups. UVA had a large contingent there - maybe 30-35% of the arena.

Some notes from Pastner's post game comments on the radio.
He was bitterly disappointed about the TO.
He mentioned that we will get old and stay old, but that will only happen with 3-4 recruiting classes, you can't wave a magic wand and make it happen.
For this team to win it has to do 3 things - limit TO, make FT, play hard (win 50/50 balls, outrebound the opponent). Didn't do any of those things well tonight.
He was pretty hard on Lammers. Said it is all in between his ears now and we need him to have a breakout game as we need him on offense.
Based on his comments it was pretty clear that the #1 goal of the defense last night was to not allow UVA to go off from 3 (they had 3 guys shooting 40%+ from three in ACC Games coming in). Held them to 23%, so mission accomplished there. But in the second half they consistently hit mid range jumpers as well as getting those layups. my comment - you always have to give up something on defense. We gave up mid range jumpers and they hit them from about the 8 min mark of the first half on. GT did a really good job on Hall and a decent job on Guy. Hunter killed us. Jerome also played well.

FWIW, tracking the efficiency rankings of the players in just ACC games and comparing it to last year.
Okogie is playing slightly better than last year, despite the poor outing last night. His efficiency numbers are in the range of an 2nd or 3rd team All-ACC player.

Lammers efficiency numbers are way down from last year. Roughly 60% of his performance last year. He is avg just 8.8 ppg in ACC games shooting 32% FG, 50% FT. He is avg 10.8 rpg and over 3 bpg which is good. His asst:to ratio is also far worse. Basically he is playing well defensively and horribly offensively. His efficiency % are roughly equivalent with a run of the mill ACC starter. He needs to do far better or GT will not win many more ACC games.

Jackson's efficiency numbers are slightly better than last year and in line with a high level ACC starter. RB numbers are much better than last year.

Alvarado's efficiency numbers are currently about 80% of Heath's last year. He scores more, but not more efficiently than Heath did and his assist and TO numbers are worse. I expect as the season goes on and he adjusts to the level of play that he will likely match if not exceed Heath's efficiency numbers.

AD has been the most pleasant surprise so far. His efficiency numbers are actually quite close to Q from last year. You can make a strong case he should be playing more min. I'd argue for about 8 more mpg (if he can keep from fouling out) with this split pretty evenly between spelling Lammers at 5 and playing more at 4. 7.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg, shooting 64% FG in only 23 mpg. His efficiency numbers are those of a ACC starter.

Haywood's and Alston's efficiency numbers are getting pretty close to each other and I expect Haywood will pass Alston as the season goes on. Both have efficiency numbers similar to a standard ACC backup.

Comparing this year's team to last year (both largely used 7 man rotations - especially after AD got injured last year)
Josh is playing a little better than last year as is Jackson.
Lammers is playing alot worse.
Alvarado is playing below the level of Heath, but I think that is likely to change as the season goes on.
AD is playing close to the efficiency level as Q, but plays more than 10 min less per game (and likely couldn't play close to Q's min as he would foul out).
Haywood and Alston overall are stronger as the current 6 and 7th efficiency players than Moore and Heyward were last year and I think Curtis in particular is likely to see his numbers get better as he gets in condition and more experience.

Basically you could say GT is getting slightly better play at the 2 and 3 compared to last year. Get slightly worse play at the 1 (but hopefully that will improve), slightly worse play at the 4 (which is actually a positive as that was expected to be the biggest issue this year) and much worse play at the 5 (which is a big negative surprise). Bench is roughly the same.

Whether this team can be as good or better than last year's team (regardless of final record) is largely dependent on how much Jose and Curt can improve as they gain experience and can Lammers start playing anywhere near the level of last year.

One last note, the 3 top 3-pt shooters on the team in ACC games so far are Josh, Curtis and Jose. They have the 3 best percentages and account for 85% of the made 3.

When Hunter hit that triple to end the first half they should have just ended the game right there. The second half was just played to piss me off

lv20gt · Jan 19, 2018

First off there's a reason UVA is the #2 team in the nation. They're really good and there's no real shame in losing to them. Thought we played well overall and showed that defensively we can hang, but we aren't there yet on offense. And that makes sense considering we have a freshman PG playing 40 minutes, and very little depth. We were handily beat by a team much better than us. It was a 10 point game with 8 minutes left and we had a chance, but we have less depth and less experience, and UVA was able to use their advantages in both to push the game out of reach, which is what you expect looking at the two teams.

One thing Ben needs to learn is to view his fouls as a resource. You don't want to foul, and with how much we need for him we can't risk him fouling out, but he had no fouls last night. Sometimes it's worth a foul and two FTs to send a message that other teams shouldn't come into the paint. Not just because of the threat of a block but because of the threat of getting your *** put on the floor. Despite the early blocks UVA wasn't afraid of attacking him and a hard foul or two would have given them something else to think about.

And again. We absolutely need to develop some interior depth both for the rest of this year and next. The decision to just refuse to get experience for our young bigs is going to bite us big time down the stretch and next year.

mstranahan · Jan 19, 2018

Watch UVA play a team you don't care about (remove any emotion). Their defensive rotations are amazing. Watch how they move to cover pick & roll, side ball screen, skip passes etc. It's phenomenal how seldom a guy is truly free and uncovered.

sgreer · Jan 19, 2018

RamblinRed said:
Thoughts.
This game went about as i thought it might, not as I hoped it would. UVA has held 2/3 of their opponents under 55 points this year.
There was no point in the 2nd half where I thought GT had any realistic shot of winning. Any remote chance ending when Josh missed the layup after cutting it to 10 the previous possession.
UVA plays very well and both ends of the court and seldom does stuff to beat itself. It' sort of like playing a boa constrictor, they just keep tightening around you, willing to run their offense and their defense for 30 seconds at a time.

Lammers should have been pulled earlier, he was not good tonight. He was good defensively in the first half, but after that was a negative. In the second half UVA consistently got a guard matched on Ben and then had the guard take Ben off the dribble for layups. Was completely off on offense all night and not really looking for his shot much.

AD should have played more. Both with Ben and in place of him. After Ben missed the short jumper badly in the second half he should have been pulled. I didn't see Ben make a single jumper in either pre-game warmups (where I was only watching him a little) and half time warmups (where I watched him alot). AD plays with alot of energy which this team needed. I was annoyed with his foul at the end of the first half, but it really had no effect on the game. Would have been 8 instead of 9 pt game. That was a huge shot though. 5 pt game at halftime against UVA is a very different game than 9.

Josh was taken out of the game by UVA's defense. He also seemed a little passive. Their man defense on him was really strong and when he tried to drive he seldom got a good shot.

i thought Alvarado played pretty well for facing UVA's defense the first time. He didn't shoot well, but he had 5 assists to 3 TO, 6 rbs and 3 steals.

Jackson had a solid game. He is one player on the team that is comfortable with off balance type shots that UVA forces you to take.

Nice to see Curtis hit the threes. One was from really deep. They also used him to bring up the ball alot to relieve pressure off of Jose. He was really beat at the end of the game. He should have played fewer min. I don't think he is quite 100% back in terms of conditioning but he'll get there. He needs to move better without the ball to give himself more shot opportunities. Something he will likely improve on as he gains experience. He's one of our better players in terms of not making dumb mistakes.

I'll go with Ivy here on one thing he has been mentioning. Last 3 min we should have played Wright and/or Cole. The game was over, let them have a few min at that point against high level competition.

UVA frankly played harder (and better) than GT did last night. They consistently won the 50/50 balls. The first half was one of the most impressive displays of defensive basketball i've seen. At the under 8 min time out it was 13-7 with both teams shooting under 25% and neither team really able to do anything against the other teams set defense.

I'll also note that the individual I went to the game with mentioned before the game that none of our guys seemed to be hitting their shots in warmups. UVA had a large contingent there - maybe 30-35% of the arena.

Some notes from Pastner's post game comments on the radio.
He was bitterly disappointed about the TO.
He mentioned that we will get old and stay old, but that will only happen with 3-4 recruiting classes, you can't wave a magic wand and make it happen.
For this team to win it has to do 3 things - limit TO, make FT, play hard (win 50/50 balls, outrebound the opponent). Didn't do any of those things well tonight.
He was pretty hard on Lammers. Said it is all in between his ears now and we need him to have a breakout game as we need him on offense.
Based on his comments it was pretty clear that the #1 goal of the defense last night was to not allow UVA to go off from 3 (they had 3 guys shooting 40%+ from three in ACC Games coming in). Held them to 23%, so mission accomplished there. But in the second half they consistently hit mid range jumpers as well as getting those layups. my comment - you always have to give up something on defense. We gave up mid range jumpers and they hit them from about the 8 min mark of the first half on. GT did a really good job on Hall and a decent job on Guy. Hunter killed us. Jerome also played well.

FWIW, tracking the efficiency rankings of the players in just ACC games and comparing it to last year.
Okogie is playing slightly better than last year, despite the poor outing last night. His efficiency numbers are in the range of an 2nd or 3rd team All-ACC player.

Lammers efficiency numbers are way down from last year. Roughly 60% of his performance last year. He is avg just 8.8 ppg in ACC games shooting 32% FG, 50% FT. He is avg 10.8 rpg and over 3 bpg which is good. His asst:to ratio is also far worse. Basically he is playing well defensively and horribly offensively. His efficiency % are roughly equivalent with a run of the mill ACC starter. He needs to do far better or GT will not win many more ACC games.

Jackson's efficiency numbers are slightly better than last year and in line with a high level ACC starter. RB numbers are much better than last year.

Alvarado's efficiency numbers are currently about 80% of Heath's last year. He scores more, but not more efficiently than Heath did and his assist and TO numbers are worse. I expect as the season goes on and he adjusts to the level of play that he will likely match if not exceed Heath's efficiency numbers.

AD has been the most pleasant surprise so far. His efficiency numbers are actually quite close to Q from last year. You can make a strong case he should be playing more min. I'd argue for about 8 more mpg (if he can keep from fouling out) with this split pretty evenly between spelling Lammers at 5 and playing more at 4. 7.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg, shooting 64% FG in only 23 mpg. His efficiency numbers are those of a ACC starter.

Haywood's and Alston's efficiency numbers are getting pretty close to each other and I expect Haywood will pass Alston as the season goes on. Both have efficiency numbers similar to a standard ACC backup.

Comparing this year's team to last year (both largely used 7 man rotations - especially after AD got injured last year)
Josh is playing a little better than last year as is Jackson.
Lammers is playing alot worse.
Alvarado is playing below the level of Heath, but I think that is likely to change as the season goes on.
AD is playing close to the efficiency level as Q, but plays more than 10 min less per game (and likely couldn't play close to Q's min as he would foul out).
Haywood and Alston overall are stronger as the current 6 and 7th efficiency players than Moore and Heyward were last year and I think Curtis in particular is likely to see his numbers get better as he gets in condition and more experience.

Basically you could say GT is getting slightly better play at the 2 and 3 compared to last year. Get slightly worse play at the 1 (but hopefully that will improve), slightly worse play at the 4 (which is actually a positive as that was expected to be the biggest issue this year) and much worse play at the 5 (which is a big negative surprise). Bench is roughly the same.

Whether this team can be as good or better than last year's team (regardless of final record) is largely dependent on how much Jose and Curt can improve as they gain experience and can Lammers start playing anywhere near the level of last year.

One last note, the 3 top 3-pt shooters on the team in ACC games so far are Josh, Curtis and Jose. They have the 3 best percentages and account for 85% of the made 3.

Brilliant write up! This is why I do not have to read AJC anymore!!

YJMD · Jan 19, 2018

They're a good model for the kind of execution we need to get to. Rebounding, transition defense, ball pressure especially on post entry... There were individual plays where they made mistakes but never had a lapse in intensity. We did and let them push a recoverable lead into decisive advantage several times. Offensively, they aren't that talented and did take bad shots but didn't rush them or fail to get rebounding position and get back in transition. Just becomes an empty trip instead of an easy path to the rim for us. They were much better at getting the ball in the paint mostly off the dribble. From there a pull-up or floater is impossible to defend and even if a lower than desired percentage opportunity, just getting off a clean shot is huge. They really deny the opportunity for penetration. I think we needed to counter that with more floor separation so there's room to navigate and maybe hit a cutter or kick the ball out to a shooter from a double team. If the rotation isn't immediate they recover off double teams amazingly.

slugboy · Jan 19, 2018

While I still had hope of getting back into the game in the second half, the odds were slim halfway through the second half. You definitely want to win a game like that (and we could have played a lot better), but there was an opportunity for some of our younger players to learn what playing against a top-flight team is like. If Wright and Cole aren't practicing hard enough, playing last night would have taught them how hard they needed to practice. It's too late to redshirt them now, but it feels like this year is nearly redshirt year for them that still burns eligibility.
UVa won the 50/50 balls, but it's not just last night. Maybe my eyes are lying to me, but it seems like about half of our midrange and 3-point shots miss and get rebounded by the other team. I feel like we don't get offensive rebounds at nearly the level of our competition.
On an inside shot, I see us get rebounds, but midrange or farther, it seems like there are three opponents under the basket and no Jackets.
Is it just me?

senoiajacket · Jan 19, 2018

ilovetheoption said:
The thing is, this is true. We're a system team, and more often than not we're going to have to rely on 3 and low four Star guys, who have been in the weight room and work for 3 years or 4 years to where they are good as upper upperclassman. Guys like Devon Hall, or guys like Malcolm Brogdon. Does this maybe limit us a little bit from being the very elite elite elite Best of the Best? Yeah probably a little bit.

That said, it's a nice problem to have. We were crappy. So if I have to choose between crappy but with a potential to be the best of the best of the best, or just really really good all the damn time and maybe we'll get lucky and win a title or two, sort of like Syracuse does with their system, I'll take it.

And for those who don't care for this style ...... well, it's the model we are trying to emulate although I am not sure get old/stay old equates to get slow/stay slow. However if we are getting 3 star guys, it probably won't be often where we go to a create your own shot offense. And I am ok w that. I watched the end of WVU v KANSAS on Monday and watched the WVU point guard create his way to a home court loss by completely failing to try to pass, dish, or assist on four straight shots over 3 possessions.

hoo_ps · Jan 19, 2018

Do you guys think that CJP's comments regarding Lammers are harmful? If Lammers is mentally "fragile" as stated, it seems like the coach should be trying to pump him up and not publicly embarrassing him. When Ty Jerome was going through a rough stretch earlier this year Bennett public comments were that Jerome was great and he had Bennett's total confidence. Seems like a public comment like that is corrosive not just to Lammers but to the team. That comment made me recoil.

msargent1 · Jan 19, 2018

hoo_ps said:
Do you guys think that CJP's comments regarding Lammers are harmful? If Lammers is mentally "fragile" as stated, it seems like the coach should be trying to pump him up and not publicly embarrassing him. When Ty Jerome was going through a rough stretch earlier this year Bennett public comments were that Jerome was great and he had Bennett's total confidence. Seems like a public comment like that is corrosive not just to Lammers but to the team. That comment made me recoil.

He's been pumping Lammers up, and it doesn't appear to be working. Maybe he wants him angry so he'll be more aggressive/assertive.

burlgt · Jan 19, 2018

msargent1 said:
He's been pumping Lammers up, and it doesn't appear to be working. Maybe he wants him angry so he'll be more aggressive/assertive.

The Alvin Jones strategy. His first few years, he was way too passive until he got mad. Then he was great for about 4 minutes until he calmed down again.

YlJacket · Jan 19, 2018

You don't know for sure unless you know all the interactions and relationship between CJP and Lammers. But my bet is that comment isn't anything he hasn't said to him 10 times already. And for what it is worth in the context of we HAVE to have you shoot more it is 100% correct. I have a question about his ankle and whether there is a residual impact on his jump shot but he still has to take more shots.

ramblinwreck1378 · Jan 19, 2018

ilovetheoption said:
People say the same about GT on offense. Tbh, I LOVE watching UVA play, especially on defense. If it's not against your team, watching how hard we work off the ball to help, and hedge, and make what should be safe passes dangerous is awesome. It's a ballet. Once you know what to look for (again, similar to GT football on offense), it really is beautiful.

That said, I do understand that we foul 4 times every single possession, and if the refs ever called it fair, we wouldn't win a single game.

This is something I wish we did a better job of. Our big guys don't really hedge as much as they just switch for a second and then try to scramble back to their man. Last night was a little different in that we switched on virtually every screen, which is a strategy I didn't disagree with given the amount of movement in UVA's offense.

But UVA does a great job of redirecting the ball handler on on-ball screens, allowing their guard to recover, and then retreating back to their man. It's not a switch, it's literally a wall to cut off the ball handler and limit his options off of the screen. I know we don't play man a ton (although we have more lately), but if we're going to continue, I think this is an area in which we can improve.

kg01 · Jan 19, 2018

burlgt said:
The Alvin Jones strategy. His first few years, he was way too passive until he got mad. Then he was great for about 4 minutes until he calmed down again.

Ha. That's hilarious. Dude was ferocious when he was mad. Any other time, he was just kinda out there.

GTbball2016 · Jan 19, 2018

kg01 said:
Ha. That's hilarious. Dude was ferocious when he was mad. Any other time, he was just kinda out there.

That Georgetown NIT game was incredible

orientalnc · Jan 19, 2018

GTbball2016 said:
That Georgetown NIT game was incredible

OG-T · Jan 19, 2018

UVA GAME REPORT CARD:
Coaching — "C". With the 4 days (and two practices on Monday) since Pittsburgh game, I would have thought CJP would have put in some special plays/movement that VA had not seen. Also, I was waiting for full-court or 3/4 court press to disrupt the negative flow of game — maybe it works against us, but we needed something instead of watching a slow death going from 8 points to 18 point deficit.
Lammers — "D". Maybe for Defense, but actually for disappointing. Started with strong block party, but overall, he played like a shy freshman. Concerned his funk is going to continue. He lacks any aggressiveness on offense, or any leadership role. He's not a natural leader; he has quiet leadership with his performance, but his funk is not leading the way. More TOs than points. Missed FTs. UGHly.
Gueye — "B". He just didn't get the opportunity. I liked his aggressiveness toward the end. He should have been given more opportunity to bring activity to the paint for possible offensive rebounds — a potential weakness of VA defense.
Okogie — "D". I think he's the most talented, game-changing player on the floor for a majority of games. But he disappears. It's perplexing. He has the ability to slash and slice when he can't rise over a defender, and seems to be TOO passive. Last night was another example of his "Ghostkogie" — just disappearing.
Jackson — "B". He had his way on many drives. Had some frustrating turnovers, and missed his two 3s. If he had other reliable threats on the floor, his grade would have improved.
Alvarado — "C". LOVE his toughness and willingness to take it to anyone (sure it gets blocked some time, but he puts pressure on a defense) — I wish Lammers had some of his attitude. 1-7 shooting and 5 TOs, but he shouldn't have the leadership burden as a FR in this game — it's on Lammers and Okogie.
Alston — "C-". Not much playing time, and mostly ineffective.
Haywood — "B+". Encouraging shooting touch, and active defense. My knee-jerk complaint is his movement without the ball to try and get himself open for more shots; might be product of system. One addt'l observation is he still seems hampered by the shin injury; there is a strange hobble to his stride.

We'll see what UNC brings.

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