UVA @ GT, 7pm ET, ACCNX

CINCYMETJACKET

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I’m hoping the Men won’t be as tired. The Women played 3 games within 5 1/2 days and W.F. was pumped to make up for the 29 point drubbing to G.T. @home.
Actually, by my calculations it was 4.75 days based on a 6 pm start time on Tuesday 2/2 against Cuse, a game against Clemson on Thursday 2/4, and the game against Wake at 12 pm on Sunday 2/7. Give or take 2 hours for the game time finish against Cuse on Tuesday, which would lower that 4.75 number. So our Women basically played 3 games against very good opponents in a 4.75 (or less) day span. Played great in Q1 of the Wake game, but then I suspect fatigue set in after the initial rush. Fought hard as they always do, but couldn't hit shots for most of the game, which is a sign of fatigue to me.
 

CuseJacket

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Big game for a number of reasons.

This is our last remaining opportunity to grab a quad 1 at home. We are currently 1-3 in quad 1 games.

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It's a big game for ACC standings. A win keeps us in the top 6. A loss knocks us back to .500 in the next tier of teams.

Perhaps as much as anything, this is an opportunity to rocket the program into the national conversation, both for NCAAT discussions and overall program perception.

Jackets are 4.5 point underdogs. We have Jose Alvarado on our side. Let's do this.
 

MidtownJacket

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I think I like this match up for the same reasons as I liked it the first time. Namely, I think our D will be harder for their O than their D will be on our O.

Having said that:
  • We need Devoe to play wire to wire with his hair on fire for this to work.
  • Moses has to start with his foot on their throat and not let up.
  • Jose is going to have to find (I think) 5 minutes of bench time to survive this stretch of games.
  • Hoping Kyle can spell him and run the point for a bit.
  • Bubba and Devoe need to bring the ball up as frequently as the game allows when Jose is on the court.
This feels like a good opportunity to get one back, since I truly felt we were the better team last out against them.
 

CuseJacket

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In gauging my feelings about tonight, I was thinking back to the prior tilt. Kehei Clark was for all intents and purposes embarrassed by Jose for almost the entire 40 minutes. Jose just completely outclassed him to a point that I think surprised Kihei and Tony Bennett. I wonder how that might motivate Kihei or the Cavs to change their approach tonight.
 

Techster

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Key, IMO, are Hauser and Huff and how we intend to prevent them from eating us alive on mismatches. In the first game you could tell they emphasized attacking Alvarado when he rotated over to defend Hauser. Alvarado was able to pick off some passes or get his hand on the ball to create TOs in the first half, but in the second half they took advantage of the shear size disparity.

Huff has turned into a REALLY good player this year. That's a 7'1 guy that has guard skills and can shoot from anywhere. He's just a matchup nightmare for any team, not just GT.

I'll be focused on how we use Moore and Usher. Those guys have the length and athleticism to limit Hauser's productivity and hopefully give us a better defensive matchup with Moses on Huff.

If Usher has the game we know he can have on the offensive end, and Devoe shoots lights out...the good guys win. I fully expect Jose to be "Jose" and Moses to flirt with his usual double-double.

Bennett is a heck of a coach, and he has some really good players to create mismatches...I actually think this will be a lot tougher than the first game. What wrinkles will Pastner and our staff throw at Bennett this time? Should be a fun game...but I fully expect all of us to sit on the edge of our seats the entire game.
 

lv20gt

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Last time out the game was almost dead even across the board. They had a rebounding lead, but we had a turnovers advantage. They shot slightly better overall, we shot better from behind the arc. Both teams fouled little.

UVA is a tough team that is well coached and they'll adjust to what we did. I don't expect Clark to struggle as much as he did and I worry about our ability to defend Hauser and Huff especially if UVA tries to do what ND did. On the plus side, it's hard to imagine Mike having any worse of a game this time.
 

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Last game for a long time where our opponent doesn't have a significant rest advantage. Gotta take advantage of simply an even playing field, LOL.

9 games left. 2 of the 9 are against teams above us in the standings - Virginia at home, Virginia Tech on the road. The other 7 games are teams below us.

A 6-3 finish (just to pick something) puts us at 11-7 in the ACC and 15-9 overall. I think that gets us into the NCAAT, especially considering how we've been playing since the first 2 games. We'd likely finish around 5th in the ACC.

We could run the table (doubtful). We could also have a huge swoon due to lack of rest compared to our competitors - it wouldn't take much to go 3-6 with the lack of recovery time we'll have. Hopefully we can get it done. Big home win streak on the line, big post season conversation on the line.
 

Connell62

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In gauging my feelings about tonight, I was thinking back to the prior tilt. Kehei Clark was for all intents and purposes embarrassed by Jose for almost the entire 40 minutes. Jose just completely outclassed him to a point that I think surprised Kihei and Tony Bennett. I wonder how that might motivate Kihei or the Cavs to change their approach tonight.
Bubba had the match-up with Clark. Shut him down almost the entire game except for the late two that proved to be the game winner.

I suspect we similar match-up's tonight with maybe a little more 1-3-1. Regarding Hauser, Jose did a great job on him for the first 2/3rd of the game, then he went crazy.

Huff absolutely killed us up there, we have to try and slow him down in the paint. Hopefully Moses can play to his level tonight. We need him in a major way.

Biggest thing, we have to make three's. Mike Devoe was invisible up in Charlottesville. Break out tonight and lead way for us Mike D!!

If we can get hot and spread their defense out, I like our chances, but we will not catch them by surprise. This is one we are capable of, but man it will be tough.
 

ESPNjacket

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Too bad most of the country will not be able to watch it ACCX. What are the chances this game will be in Fox Sports SE in Savannah?

* On the flip side, the entire country will get to see us play Friday night on 1 day rest. Just unbelievable.

It is an ACC RSN game. It is mostly carried by the Fox Sports regionals. Check your local listings.
 

4shotB

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Can I call for CJP's head to roll now? Or do I have to wait until we are down 4-2 1:30 into the game? ;)

They have me interested. I plan to watch. Is the transfer from Marquette that killed us up there that good all the time or was that a "one off" event? Who is our best matchup with that guy? Or heck, is Coach a zone guy? I know this question is tipping my hind. I am just glad we are back to where I want to watch them. As I have said elsewhere, this team seems to take care of the ball. That is top of the list in my eyes for "watchable" BB.
 

Jazzchaz

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Coverage of this game is horrible. First, they had the camera on Clark on the bench and missed Parham's three. Then they miss a Parham free throw.
That split screen with commercials during play is BS and the announcers fail to say who fouls are on. I'll stop for now.
 
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