LOL, whatever makes you feel better.
You’re kind of a jerk, you know that? But, hey, you are absolutely right about everything; KenPom says so!
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Eh they had a pretty big deficit to UNC-G at one point. Barely escaped VCU. Currently struggling against Seton Hall.
I’ve actually watched some decent minutes. They struggle with similar things that we do - a lot of fouls, poor team defense, lot of ISO on offense.
Difference is Darrion Williams is a true star. Copeland also pretty tough.
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Last year’s Louisville played a tougher schedule to start the season, but they are definitely my yardstick for this team and I like where we’re at by comparison.
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But they blew out a team by more points than we blew out the same team so clearly they’re a lot better. That is truly the only metric that matters
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Yes, but if we’re to be honest though, pound-for-pound their players are more talented.
Matt Able is a 5-star, Williams a bonafide P5 scorer and then majority of their other transfers are from P5 programs. Paul McNeill, sophomore returner, was also a high level recruit.
Still think it’s an example of taking some time to gel. As they’re currently down 14 with Seton Hall stepping to the line to shoot 2 more…
He’s one I wanted so bad when Larranaga retired. Tony Bennett even offered him on his Birthday And we were his 18th offer on the day he turned 18 
It’s so strange that despite having a lot of length and athleticism NC State is actually pretty bad defensively. It’s the illusion of length but if you just attack them aggressively they falter pretty quickly defensively.
Will be interested to see how we defend their quick guards thought (interested to see how we defend anyone going forward LOL)
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Wait oh wow just checked scores and saw the current NC State score……. when I said they were bad defensively I didn’t mean that bad LOL
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They’re playing zone now and it’s kinda working. Wish we had thrown this out against Butler
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NC State played zone vs VCU and it didn’t look good at all
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Zone would be a useful changeup to slow down a run or stop an opponent’s rhythm. I would suggest using it 2-4 series in competitive games. It is gets torched, will not be worst than our current man defense. I would hope our man defense will be serviceable by February but right now we might need to switch it up from time to time.
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NC State plays a lot of zone of a couple different varieties.
And it has been really poorly executed in the games I’ve watched. There’s a lot of pressure but it has been easily exploited. Or they foul.
Yeah it feels like we should at least entertain zone (not necessarily going 100% zone) as a bad man to man defense the whole game is gonna get old quick.
NC State got absolutely spanked after you posted this lol. Don’t disagree they’ve been better than us to the point of your post but getting worked by Seton Hall is 100% a worse result than our loss to Butler
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Turns out it is actually not easy for a new coach to throw together an entirely new roster and consistently play like a top 20 team in November.
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Indeed. This will knock them way down from their current #23. But this was never about comparing UVA to NC State. The larger point is that good teams facing coaching and roster turnover still find ways to perform. Teams always have issues - injuries to key players, majority freshmen starting lineup, etc. We can find excuses in many different ways, and it will drive us in circles. If we look at the data we have, we see potential but also some clear concerns.
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What I see is (1) very, very few teams have entirely new rosters and perform at a high level (even fewer also have a new coach), (2) examples that have been pointed to haven’t necessarily been so much better than UVA (‘25-26 NC State, ‘24-25 Louisville), and (3) UVA has been pretty good so far this year, especially factoring those things in. They’ve blown out the teams they were supposed to blow out and they went 1-1 on a neutral court against two top 50 teams, and were competitive in the loss. The sky is not falling. It is very fair for a team with single digit seed or even top 20 hopes to drop a game in November like the one UVA lost to Butler.
I think UVA has looked like a top 40 team, has had stretches within games where they looked like a Sweet 16 team, and they have more room for improvement than most top 40 teams.
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Are you sure? Because your post was literally about comparing NC State results to UVA results.
I’m all for making an argument but your argument seems to bend the facts.
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Yup, I’m sure. The larger point was about teams finding a way to win. Happy to debate that if you want. EDIT/UPDATE: That is, unless your real goal is to just make yourself feel better because I hurt your feelings 
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That’s my goal
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