Just back from the Hump - thoughts on the game

[Irondawg]

Well, that was a pretty fitting end to our season - NC hitting three pretty lucky shots during the last minute and Stewart getting stuffed on a drive late.</p>

Other thoughts:

* They might be young and had a bad season but it was pretty clear who the more athletic team was. Our lack of size really stood out today as we were vastly smaller and weaker at every position on the court compared to NC. Their freshmen were much stronger than our Jr and Sr's.

* Stewart and Jarvis played their hearts out and other than Stewart's ill-fated drive at the end he once again was a clutch shooter for us.

* Shot selection for us continues to be a joke - Bost took a number of rushed pull-up 3's and Turner and Kodi took some horrible attempts. I can probably count the number of poor shots on one hand that NC took. We probably took at least 15 ill-advised shots. Then you look up and you lose by 2 and have to wonder if we had just worked for better shots on half those possessions would we have won by 4-5?

* Kodi continues to be a frustrating guy to watch, both offensively and defensively, but especially on D. He got eaten alive for the most part and today we really needed him and he's our guy with the most bulk to really have matched up to the NC size.

* Lack of depth showed as we really got nothing off the bench again except for some stuff from Turner. Especially lack of inside depth. They just hammered us inside for most of the game. And when Jarvis was out we were helpless in there.

* Ravern gave good effort on defense today but they kept running that guy off multiple screens by guys 4x Ravern's size. He'll never be great there but at least I saw a better attitude out there.

* NC offense sets > MSU offensive sets and it wasn't even close.

* Pretty full crowd - but not a ton of energy in the building. A little disappointing.</p>* I thought we'd have a ton of the 2011 recruits there but behind the bench looked pretty empty

* I really worry about next year with Stewart's steady offense and good D and Jarvis' game-changing ability on the defensive end.

 

[JimC1097]

[No message]

 

[lariverdog]

First basketball game I've been to in a long time. Its a long haul for me, so give me a break.

So yeah, I played a little basketball in my day. I played before most of you were born and I know the game has changed (Jerry West was my hero).

I'm not going to lay blame but I am going to make 1 comment:

This team was not ready to play. So spread it around, coach or player. But, this team was not ready to play.

The only sport I play now is tennis. I now how critical ( cause I'm old) for me to prepare both mentally and physically. When I was young, I didn't really do anything from a prep pont of view. Now, what I eat and when I eat before I play is essential. Same with travel, but that doesn't matter for this game. I'd love to know how this team approached an 11 am game because my guess is not very well.

 

[karlchilders.sixpack]

considering the let down we had there, I'm not a bit surprised that we lost, and sort of expected it.

No,they were not ready to play, and I understand why.

Season over!
</p>

 

[FQDawg]

Shot selection for us continues to be a joke - Bost took a number of rushed pull-up 3's and Turner and Kodi took some horrible attempts. I can probably count the number of poor shots on one hand that NC took. We probably took at least 15 ill-advised shots. Then you look up and you lose by 2 and have to wonder if we had just worked for better shots on half those possessions would we have won by 4-5?

Could not agree more with this. I stopped counting how many bad shots we took. At times, it was quite clear that whoever had the ball was just going to jack up a contested three from two steps behind the line. The other frustrating thing was that even when we did throw up bad shot after bad shot, we didn't even bother to crash the boards and try to rebound.

Watching UNC run their offense and watching us run our offense was like night and say. They were always moving off the ball and working passes around until they got a decent shot. We barely move and even when we do try to reverse the ball, we take our sweet time doing it. The whole point of ball reversal is that you make the other team's defense move and hopefully exploit a mistake - especially since the ball moves faster than the opposing player. Instead, we are extremely lackadaisical when we pass the ball. We never seemed to play with any sense of urgency.

I know Stansbury has always stressed defense and rebounding as our calling cards - and I think that's a great approach - but next year, I would love for him to place the same emphasis on running a dynamic, team-based offense.

 

[Irondawg]

And that's my biggest gripe with Stans beyond the poor offensive game plan it's that we jack up so many bad shots with tons of time on the shot clock. That goes beyond "letting them play" and is just poor coaching.

The times we worked the ball better we looked like we could beat anybody. Think back to the 1st half of the FL game in the SEC tourney and most of both KY games. We had stretches yesterday when we worked the ball well. When we got in trouble is when we'd get impatient for stretches.

If I could make Stans change just one thing it would probably be to make sure everyone understands what is an acceptable shot with more than 3 seconds on the shot clock.

 

[PineGroveBully]

I really worry about next year with Stewart's steady offense

Brian Bryant had a very good juco season averaging 21pts, 9rbs, and 4+asts. Maybe he can step in fill that gap, and know that its much better to pull up and shoot the 7-10 foot jumper, instead of driving and getting it slung back in his face.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

We looked ready to play when it was 16-4 less than six minutes in. However, at that time our head coach decided to sub out three of our starters, and within minutes Carolina was ahead again. There is no excuse for that substitution. I guess Stansbury thinks he is some substituting genius and that he will have fresh legs at the end or something. I don't know of many other coaches that would change something that was working as well as our starters were at that time. No way they were tired. If they were, everyone associated with strength and conditioning should have been fired during the time out. It was a stupid, stupid decision and kept us from establishing even more of a working margin.

I don't know why I was even surprised or upset though. It's not like it's anything new.