Why GT couldn't maintain it's magic

[RamblinRed]

Good article by Ken and what happened in the second half of the ACC season.

http://www.myajc.com/sports/college...-its-magic-season-end/4BlNtYyY2UO7W41dDLk6xJ/

Largely boils down to 2 large items
1. Teams adjusted to what GT was doing
2. GT had injury/fatigue issues.
He had 5 reasons

1 and 2. rematches and form holds - GT went 0-5 in rematches. To be fair 4 of the 5 were on the road and those teams won 70% of their home games but GT's effective FG% went down and the opponents went up in all 5 games.

3. Unable to adjust - teams started sagging more against GT later in the season.

“I probably have never seen it this packed in on teams, whether I’ve coached or even seen,” Pastner said. “It’s just not normal to pack it in as much as they do.”

GT took 23.4% of its shot from 3-pt range first 9 ACC games, 28.1% in the second 9 games. GT shot 37.1% its first 9, 29.7% its second nine. That's the difference between cherry picking your 3-pt shots and being forced to take them.

4 and 5. Injury and Fatigue -
Losing Gueye was bigger than it looked. He was giving Lammers and Stephens 5-6 mpg of rest each. When he went down that changed. Lammers avg 36 mpg through Clemson, but after that he avg 38.6 mpg (excluding the foul plagued game at Wake) the rest of the way.

“They look so tired,” Pastner said. “I just think we maybe ran out of gas as we were coming down the homestretch.”

Injuries mounted the last half of the season. All teams have them, they just struck at once for GT, with a team that really didn't have the depth to overcome them. Heath and Ogbonda had the flu, Stephens, Lammers and Jackson all had ankle injuries, Okogie had a knee injury and Moore had a hernia.

“It’s not having 13 guys,” Pastner said. “It’s just being able to get into a seven-, eight-man rotation so you can rest some guys.”

 

[Milwaukee]

1. Not having any pure outside shooters.

 

[awbuzz]

1. Not having any pure outside shooters.

.. or two...

 

[RyanS12]

We need a pg that can attack the rim in a half court set. We need an Adam Smith type shooter at the 2 spot stretch 4 that can open the lane and give Ben room to work. Double down on Lamers and we have a pure shooter from 3 PT line or a 4 with mid range. Also let's JO or Tad cut to the rim. I'd be all for 2 grad transfers at those spots if we can't land Tucker Walker or the Intl big.

 

[Peacone36]

We need a pg that can attack the rim in a half court set. We need an Adam Smith type shooter at the 2 spot stretch 4 that can open the lane and give Ben room to work. Double down on Lamers and we have a pure shooter from 3 PT line or a 4 with mid range. Also let's JO or Tad cut to the rim. I'd be all for 2 grad transfers at those spots if we can't land Tucker Walker or the Intl big.

Sounds like what you're going to see is 2PG, 2 big wings and a big. Both of the wings are going to be shooters. At least that's the impression I get from both what CJP has said and our recruiting tendencies.

 

[g0lftime]

Classes take their toll as well. It seemed like I was always tired by middle of the quarter. I think a lot of schools don't have the academic loads on their players that we do. It can drain you.

 

[lv20gt]

We need a pg that can attack the rim in a half court set. We need an Adam Smith type shooter at the 2 spot stretch 4 that can open the lane and give Ben room to work. Double down on Lamers and we have a pure shooter from 3 PT line or a 4 with mid range. Also let's JO or Tad cut to the rim. I'd be all for 2 grad transfers at those spots if we can't land Tucker Walker or the Intl big.

Agree on the PG. Moore already can attack the rim, but he needs to work on his jumper to keep defenders honest. Also think Alvarado will provide some of this. Disagree on Smith. We need an all around player who can also shoot. Not shooters who are below average in most other areas.

Also, hell no on the grad transfers. They are the reason GT had the issues we had this year.

 

[mstranahan]

I think it boiled down to teams seeing how we were playing and changing their game plan accordingly It's that simple.

We can't play the fatigue card. Duke just won 4 games in 4 days with 6 or 7 players.

Any way you slice it, this team overachieved all rational expectations and should be feeling the love from all tech fans. They had a friggin great year and they should be incredibly proud of how they represented the Institute

 

[slugboy]

I think it boiled down to teams seeing how we were playing and changing their game plan accordingly It's that simple.

We can't play the fatigue card. Duke just won 4 games in 4 days with 6 or 7 players.

Looking at our box scores, we have about 3 players providing significant scoring. On a good day, 4, but not often. For one of the main players, he got little to no rest or relief, and not much for the other two main scorers. I'll agree that changing game plans made a big difference.
However, putting the burden on about 3 players is going to have a fatigue factor too. You could see it in their faces and on the court--at least, I thought so.
In comparison to Duke, 6 or 7 players may be more depth than we have right now, so I'll keep counting some of the last part of the season as fatigue.

Any way you slice it, this team overachieved all rational expectations and should be feeling the love from all tech fans. They had a friggin great year and they should be incredibly proud of how they represented the Institute

Agree.