Hauser/Huff may have changed Tony’s view on this. I guess we will see. I’m sure Traudt will be a shooter…
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Who is Chris McGahren?
Walk on
Well his numbers are terrible!
(Just kidding around - go walk ons!)
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DavetheWave makes a great point above so let’s have that discussion DTW! This is our biggest issue in my opinion because we never ever ever seem to get “easy baskets”. Define that how you want, but playing slowly and deliberately leads to fewer and fewer easy baskets, and it also increases the “value” of each possession. Missed shots hurt us more than our opponent. Turnovers hurt us more than our opponent. We essentially have a razor thin margin of error and that leads to a tightness in play that is really evident/visible at times. We also don’t rebound well offensively and we don’t run seemingly at all so it is rare when we get an easy one. All of this leads to those long scoring droughts which are tough to take when they are happening.
I also think our glacial pace at which we play would be fairly easy to recruit against. Granted, we have so many other strong selling points in our favor, but If I were recruiting against us, I would be quick to point out how few shots we take and what that would mean for the recruit.
Lastly, I hope the M’s don’t leave in search of playing time but I fear they might. I do feel like there were some opportunities this season to get these guys some meaningful minutes to keep them motivated, positive, and feeling like they were contributing. I’m sure there will be more as we head into March. Let’s hope we recognize that as I think they will be important players next year for us. Would hate to see any of them go.
So many great observations/opinions on this thread. We have smart fans. I love it.
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Kinda makes you play tight on O as well. Feel like early in guys careers at Uva they are focused on what NOT to do wrong as opposed what TO do thats right. Near impossible to get through when you might play 2 minute clips and come out. Tough to know tbe solution other than getting guys real minutes somehow unless they are completely out of the present teams plans
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That is what I mean. Because each possession is so much more “valuable” to us versus our opponent, the pucker factor is high and we play tight. Especially the guys off the bench. Your mentality shifts to the “don’t screw up” mindset instead of the “let it fly” mindset. It’s just tough to be last in the country in anything.
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I have mostly made peace with our slower pace but I do agree that it could be a recruiting issue. A few thoughts:
- our guys have to get used to playing at a faster pace in the NBA (this sort of ties in with recruiting)
- playing at a slower pace can be a hindrance when we do find ourselves in game trying to come from behind (i.e., we are not as comfortable playing fast than other teams)
- Even if we remain one of the slower teams, I’d like to see us selectively run a bit, maybe earlier in the season to (1) increase our team’s comfort level with it a bit (though I have no idea if this is at all realistic) and (2) see if guys have some skills that our pace might be covering up
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As you know I have been all in for point 3 for lotta reasons. Especially when your primary ball handler is 5-9 esque and speedy
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No problem with being one of the slowest teams. But we should at least catch up to the rest of the sport so we aren’t 4 or 5 possessions per game behind the second slowest P6 team.
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Does anyone have numbers on us coming back from “big” deficits? It would make sense that we would struggle to comeback, but I honestly think we do as good as if not better. I could be way off, but even this year against Iowa (down 20 1st half) and JMU (down 10 with under 7 minutes left).
Obviously the Houston game was blowout from start to finish, NC St. we couldn’t get a stop, and Clemson would be counterexamples, but was it pace that kept us from coming back or just not scoring/not getting stops?
No numbers, just intuitions. I’m thinking more of a shorter term comeback, like doing what FSU did to us on Saturday. Or trying to come back from 15 points or so down to a plucky underdog who shall remain nameless…
I think it’s a mix of personnel and also experience trying to play at a bit more pace.
I get what you’re saying but I think you are more talking about urgency than pace. Playing fast for the sake of gaining more possessions is not always productive. Playing with more urgency in those situations you mention could benefit us though, and would in turn, increase our pace.
For example, when we were down 9 at ND, we scored 12 points in the last minute. Needed to turn it up so we did. Had ND turned it over or missed FTs the way we did against FSU and we do to them what FSU did to us.
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We’re actually not even the slowest per Kenpom. We’re barely faster than North Texas (solid mid major team).
First time in at least 5 years we aren’t dead last and we are still 3 possessions per game behind the second slowest power conference team!
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North Texas has really come up fast in the world of being slow. What’s interesting is McCasland was with Scott Drew at Baylor for 6 seasons, and Baylor seems to be right in the middle of D-1 (on average).
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We are dead last - Kenpom is adjusted pace.
Raw pace we are over a possession behind North Texas
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Ha. how in the world does Ken adjust pace?
This is a great thread. I noticed when we fall behind late in games, we pick the tempo up to try and catch up. I honestly feel like the ball moves more, Reece was more aggressive and as a whole offensively we looked better. I believe we could push the ball 5 times per half a few more regular season games could’ve or maybe would’ve been won.
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I think it’s basically done by the pace of teams you play. If Gathers and Kimble had played us, they’d have had 60 possessions. Which makes them look slow.
I always get confused between Westphal and Westhead? Which guy was “the system”?
Edit - Westhead. Who coached Craig Littlepage in HS. That may have come up on LRA’s podcast with Littlepage.