A little Friday reading for anyone inclined…
The Reece!! To Taine hiding in the corner for 3 is what I have been saying about Reece!! Taking more chances and making plays. He doesnt try that pass, a tough one, before this year. Great play and momentum changer as you said
I didnt see in the game but Eli helps in the post really well Tags the big and gets him to pass out. Back to his man quickly and the true STOCK? play on the shooter
Block and Steal in one
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One of the most enjoyable things about the CTB tenure over the years is when we just absolutely break the will of a team through our defense.Yes, I’m talking about holding Harvard to 27 points back in 2014, but I’m more talking about snatching the morale of one of your conference rivals and watching them suffocate under the weight of your defensive tenacity and system.
Hell yeah. I’ve seen the will to fight leave opposing players before during a game, but I can’t recall ever seeing it so strongly leave a coach too.
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I hadn’t noticed Ryan celebrating Taine’s three even before the shot went up, and while he was supposed to be screening. That is hilarious. Confidence in your teammate!
When watching a game now, I sometimes see a play and think “Cuts is gonna have thoughts on this.” That dreadful fast break by Rohde was one of those plays. We didn’t even get a shot up. I would rather Jake mangle a dunk. Thankfully it was at a point in the game where it didn’t really matter.
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Thank you for your continued hard work. I learn a ton from these notes, and always see something I missed while watching the game.
Thank you for showing the Eli clips too. Many of us are confused as to why he shouldn’t be playing more. He just brings a whole different dimension and, as Fresh said, he covered the switches in the post very well, and pulled down a tough rebound in traffic.
Thank you.
Go HOOS. Play free and with JOY. Have fun. Beat FSU.
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Re Elijah, I was thinking this as well:
While that ship appears to have sailed, you never know. It was his late game play against N.C. State that earned Jordan Minor the opportunity to start
Elijah’s defense in trash time might get him at least a tryout in some real minutes. Probably not but maybe. Fingers crossed.
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Just spitballing but could be our 7-0 streak. It’d be fun, though!
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Good points from both yall. Also Elijah came in with Minor for the “trash time” and was very solid defensively and ok with the ball at State
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I hope this actually isn’t the answer.
You can definitely can and should continue to try to make improvements to areas that could benefit from it even when you’re winning.
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I actuallly had this same exact though. Like you know Tony was watching that and said “Well there is a whole month ahead for us to take another step and Gertrude could be a piece of that”
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FSU isn’t going to be the right matchup for Gertrude, both because of the size disadvantage and because of his looseness with the ball against FSU’s effective pressure.
Maybe next week against Pitt, who has a much more traditionally sized backcourt with Lowe, Leggett, and Carrington.
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That’s fair yeah. Need to out discipline FSU.
If he just has a handle tigher, he could EAT vs the Hokies and their nonexistent perimeter defenders.
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When the coaches get to an 8-9 man rotation, and that rotation is winning, that’s the rotation.
If one of the rotation guys starts slipping below the acceptable floor, that rotation can change.
I’m not making an affirmative argument for it, just stating what we’ve seen the past 10+ years. There hasn’t been an exception for incredibly fun and exciting first year players and I doubt it starts now.
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My case for Elijah against FSU is that because they are so aggressive but sacrifice help positioning to be aggressive, you actually have to beat them off the dribble rather than with off ball movement. If you beat your man, the help just isn’t there, because they are face guarding off-ball and denying passing lanes.
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And then it’s “DUNK YOU VERY MUCH”
Of course, I am in the camp who would start Eli today over Rohde, so I may not be the most impartial observer 
Go HOOS. Play free and with JOY. Have fun. Beat FSU.
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I still hold out hope that this rotation could change the way Tony substituted Mamadi for Jack in the 2019 tourney run. Yes, Jack played a key role against Purdue, but otherwise, Mamadi was the man from 2H of Gardner webb onward.
Maybe it’s late February, or mid/late March, but I still believe we could see Eli in the starting rotation…Tony recognizes talent, and Eli IS talent.
Ok, don’t want to get this to be a parallel to the Eli thread. Sorry.
thanks again for the hard work every game on the Cuts write-ups.
Go HOOS.
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Nah. Reason you dont play Eli at FSU is cause FSU will love him
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Beat long athletes with long athletes. Yes this. X is 6-4 but can easily play to 6-7 if thag makes sense
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I get you, that is what happens most of the time. It’s what happened last year down the final stretch before the ACC Tournament in some of those close wins against bad teams and, eventual, bad losses when we weren’t playing as well across some areas but kept with the same rotations because we’d been winning with it.
I’m just saying that you can (and should) isolate the variables. For example, I wouldn’t advocate messing with our frontcourt situation at all right now because all four are playing very important roles and Dunn is even filling that SF role a lot of the time. But between Harris sometimes sharing the floor with Beekman and Rohde playing the way that he is, there’s definitely areas where it’s worth trying new ways to improve right now, even though the overall results on the court have been positive holistically.
That’s a generally favorable approach strategically, IMO, independent of this specific situation.
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Doesn’t change the fact that he’s a massive turnover risk and FSU’s defense turns everyone over.
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