So, that wasn’t all that much fun. But, after a day or two of rewatching, analyzing, and pondering, I’ve got five key takeaways from Saturday’s loss to Virginia Tech:
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Not that you need the praise at this point, but I must nevertheless thank you again for your efforts. Good stuff, kid (and future Hoo!).
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Nailed it on all of the points. The only thing I’ll add is that the other ongoing trend this year is bad offensive rebounding. Never a strength in our system, but it’s been awful this year
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Lol I had actually planned to include that in the manufacturing of easy points and it slipped my mind so thank you yea good point.
Appreciate it! Thanks for reading.
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Great analysis–many thanks. After watching tape of VT’s strategy, I’ll be shocked if other ACC coaches don’t try the same approach. It’s actually amazing we’ve managed to get as far as we have without a real shooting guard in the lineup most of the time (can Taine Murray enroll for the spring semester? 
) Sure seems like we need to have Tomas on the court more often. As someone else noted in another string, Tomas carried us at times last year. We really could benefit if he could shoot 3s as well as he did last year. Also, although Tomas seems to be regarded as weak defensively (I don’t have the expertise to judge) he has quick hands, is good at deflecting passes and thus often ends up with a few steals when he has more than 10 minutes on the court.
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Have turnovers been an issue for Tomas? I don’t know the numbers but it seems like he’s been turning it over a lot in his brief appearances.
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He has 9 turnovers which does seem high given the limited minutes he has played. On the other hand, he has 13 assists and 8 steals. Except for Beekman with 22 steals and Kihei with 9, no one else has more than 8 steals despite considerably more playing time (e.g., Hauser and Murphy have 8, Morsell has 6 and Huff has 5).
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I think we should just start a thread called “who can we replace Kihei with?”
complement not replace. maybe take couple
minutes away though. is ideal
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Thanks for this @brogdonfanpage
A couple questions for you/the group. I only watched the game live but had a few thoughts on your point about Kadin being out.
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Why do we think McKoy has lost favor so quickly? I know he’s probably a 3 that’s being asked to play 4, but I thought he was a better matchup on Aluma than Caffaro.
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I seem to recall we went small for a good bit to end the 1st half with no Huff or Caffaro - and that coincided with holding them scoreless on 21 for awhile. If I am recalling right, why did we go away from that when Jay got in foul trouble again in 2H?
Broader point being, if Kadin is not available for primetime spot minutes for Huff this year, does it have some merit to try to integrate McKoy or some small ball 5-less lineups? I struggle to see any downside vs. what we throw out there now when Huff is out.
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Interesting take from Seattle Hoo. Similar to what I was thinking. The game went to hell and Huff got into foul trouble once Aluma hit those 2 threes and Jay had to go out and guard him. What if they had stuck to their original game plan and hoped that he would cool down?
https://hoosplace.com/2021/02/02/basketball/4613/
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Honestly, I wouldn’t have mind watching Trey on Aluma a bit more. He chased him off the 3 point line, and there was enough beef in the paint that forced him to take difficult contested layups that he missed in the final bits of the first half. The traditional bigs couldn’t contend with him, but he also didn’t have enough speed or ball handling to create for himself, and placing a smaller more athletic player on him would have allowed Jay to sit back and be the backstop he is so good at being.
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This is a good point. It changed our defense completely and we got whooped. Of course this is all hindsight but Trey had done a decent job on him. We should at least try this out in the future because you know it’s coming. Everyone who can will try the same thing . And we cant quit, NEVER
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I like the idea of letting Jay being the secondary defender; Mutts isn’t really much of a shooter so it’s not like they could have just stuck Mutts in the opposite corner and dragged Jay far away. However, Aluma did some mean things to Sam in the post in the 2nd half; I don’t know if I’d expect Trey to fare that much better.
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And there’s the rub Aluma is far too much for Sam, or definitely Trey in the post one on one. The hope would be with Trey on him if he posted, you could bring the double with Jay or Sam and maybe keep him a bit more off balance. By the time he went to work on Sam, Jay was saddled with foul trouble and couldn’t do much of anything, and Sam just isn’t threatening as a post defender.
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