Kadin and Papi need to stop getting the ball taken from them under the basket. Reece need to cut down on turnovers both careless and others, Kody needs to catch the ball, Kihei needs to stop committing careless turnovers and attacking 1 on 3 against athletes in transition, Armaan needs to be sophomore Armaan and not freshman Armaan although he looks good attacking the basket, Carson needs to make shots when he gets a chance, Jayden needs to stop committing careless turnovers but to an extent he is who he is, Taine?, Igor looks like a lot of fun.
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So seems most agree cleaning up the turnovers is huge and the defense should
tighten up as the season progresses. Accomplishing those two things, and having TB on the bench, should allow us to avoid becoming a disaster a la UNC two years ago. Maybe go somewhere in the 8-12 to 10-10 range in ACC play?
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I think by January Igor will be playing 10-12 mins a game.
That 19-20 team had 2 upper class future NBA guys in their 4th and 5th years. This team has…if you close your eyes and dream real hard…maybe 3 underclassmen who could make the league if they develop a whole lot.
I think the last time we had a roster of this talent level was 2010?
No idea how good this team can be. But I’d be careful with the overly pessimistic predictions. They’re playing way below the sum of parts right now. Doubt that changes soon but it will eventually and probably suddenly.
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I think there’s some issues with rebounding that haven’t been discussed.
Coppin State had too many last night for their size and skill level. Just didn’t hurt us like a better team would.
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It seems like a few of the non negotiable are currently being negotiated with this team…
Yea I guess my pessimism is just that even if they start playing like the sum of the parts what does that look like? Pastner’s GT teams prior to last year?
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Good things happen when we get out and run when the opportunity presents itself. Finally saw Kihei being that leader guy last night. Lotta dap given out and talking to our guys etc
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I think one way we can cut down on turnovers is limit the high pick and roll with Kihei. That seems to result in a fumbled pocket pass into a live ball turnover too many times. “Best” case scenario is the drive gets walled off, the ball handler U-turns and the offense resets or stagnates. Reece, for all his noted issues finishing at the rim, at least puts pressure on the defense with his drive and opens up kick out lanes.
Since I know we won’t actually stop running that PnR, it would be nice if we started looking to lob to the roll man (esp Kadin) rather than looking to pocket pass. At least then turnovers would be less likely to lead to a fast break opportunity.
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Igor at the 3 seems like a possibility.
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You are who you can defend. But yeah he can definitely be a 3 if it was only offense. He ran that curl beautifully.
Well if Dawson Garcia at UNC can play the 3, Igor can hah.
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UNC fans are complaining about how bad Dawson Garcia is at defense. And that’s by their UNC defense standards.
Incredibly skilled but also huff-like with his foot speed but without the rimprotecting ability Huff gave us.
Positive side is Igor is more athletic than Dawson.
Also, Manek is really bad at defense. Essentially UNC starting 5 sucks at D…. Love has potential.
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Just looked up their scores. everybody (Brown) scoring 80 plus ha
The big-to-big passing (high post to low post, especially) is good for about a 50% turnover rate, as well. But it’s a good idea if we are going to play 2 bigs together.
My optimistic case in the offseason, with status report, was:
(1) Reece development – Status: he’s better in some ways, but he’s still not a shooter. The ceiling is fairly low (for him, this year, and for the team) if he can’t have any gravity out there.
(2) Emergence of Taine or Igor or Carson or anybody really who could shoot/score and force their way into the lineup so we could play one of the Ree-hays alone next to multiple shooters/scorers – Status: my optimism is more or less gone. Either they stink or Tony thinks they stink or something else is going on, and I don’t even like discussing this because the pain is too raw.
(3) Armaan and/or Jayden become a high-level ACC player(s) – Status: nope. Could be nice role players on a better team. Floor is not great. Likely outcome seems to be … just decent pieces. Could it still happen? Slight maybe from me, based on what I’ve seen.
(4) Shedrick ahead of schedule – Status: Nah, not really. A lot of green shoots, but he seems right on schedule. Some nice things; some struggles.
(5) Defense – Status: Psych, break yo neck. I was never optimistic about this defense.
What I will snarkily call the “Trust Tony” optimism, is something like this:
(1) this is a new team and just needs time to get the Sides offense down.
(2) Fix the details: cut down on turnovers, cut down on offensive rebounds; give the starters more reps in the system.
(3) Basically same as 1/2 but for the defense. Improve the rotations. Improve the closeouts. Maybe stop gambling so much. “Look at [example of where guys were where they were supposed to be but somebody hit a 3 anyway], to me that team was just hot and those will equalize” (I’m channeling here).
My view on that “Trust Tony” optimistic case is, even optimistically, that’s basically a top 6-7 ACC team and a bubble team. I think it would be a good outcome (esp. if we are on the right side of the bubble), but I can’t get terribly excited about it.
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Everyone’s covered the negatives pretty thoroughly, so I’m going to go with positives from yesterday:
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As noted in game thread, Igor and Shedrick showed some great flashes. Both players could be important pieces not just for this year, but to pair with the incoming 2022 class (hopefully along with Taine - we need to see what he looks like at the 2/3 instead of the 4 though). Shedrick at center with Traudt and Igor rotating at the 4 and maybe 3 could be pretty fun.
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Armaan’s stroke from three is not great right now, but at least he is finishing well through traffic. Last season he only shot 43% on 2s, but this years he’s up around 56% so far. That was something he said he worked on in the off season, so it’s nice to see it paying off. Also, while he may not be the 42% three-point shooter he was last year, he’s probably better than the 27% shooter his first year. If he can get up to 35-37%, that’d do us a ton of favors, and I certainly think it’s doable. His free throw percentage is also quite good.
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Watching the game I started to become increasingly concerned about Gardner’s ability to score when we allow the paint to become so crowded, but, at the end of the day, despite those challenges, he still led us in scoring, and his ability to draw fouls is going to be critical for this offense all season. He has delivered on the foul-drawing front thus far, which is something we’ve been missing for a while. Need to get him in better spots though.
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It really feels like after the first two games somebody got in Stattmann’s ear and said “You’re a fourth year who has put in the work - just shoot the damn ball”. Does he have a defined ceiling? Probably, but if he can nail a couple threes off the bench when we are in droughts throughout the season, that’s a nice and important contribution.
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All of you guys griping about the game and I couldn’t watch it so I got a couple of questions.
How athletic is Igor and what is going on with Reece?