Right, trap games happen during the good times.
I voted ābelowā on us scoring 50 points. During the UNC post-game presser, CTB sounded like he was doubling down on our current offense. To paraphrase, āthey had open looks, but they couldnāt get the ball into the basketā. Iām starting to think that what may be an āopen lookā for CTB is just not enough space for our players to comfortably shoot.
Weāre also underdogs. Not sure any game as underdog is a trap game. We can stop thinking about the tournament if we lose and it would be a good sign that we might be able to handle tournament pressure if we win. Hope Tony coaches very aggressively this game. If it means calling 3 first half timeouts then so be it. Itās a must win and we canāt sit back and watch another opponent build a 15+ point lead
We gotta be mentally tougher in this one than against Tech. To me thatās the biggest thing. Can we be resilient when we arenāt scoring and they hit a few?
Nightmare scenario is if we canāt.
Overall Iām very intrigued and could see this going many different directions.
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We are going to win.
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Offense needs help but you canāt blame it all on that when the players miss 22 of 23 shots. Not all of them were great shots but some were. The system is a piece of it for sure but the players have to get it done too.
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Iām so sick of the āitās the playersā argument. Weāve had two entirely different teams with completely different players be awful on offense. Itās the culture and itās the system
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Would suggest reading @Cuts_from_The_Cornerās recent piece. Itās all of it, players, culture, system, other teamās adjustments to what was working for us. He breaks down the different factors pretty well.
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So its all the coaches fault that they miss 22 of 23 shots? Nowhere did I say it was all on the players. Its everything (system, coaching and players) but players cant completely crap the bed with the shots they take. They make 5 of 23 and its a different game - and thats only 22%.
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Happy cake day Timmy
Yes. Players gotta make shots. We had plenty of opportunities vs UNC
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Positive Vibes today! (unless we go down by more than like 5 points and then all hope is lost)
I re-read @Cuts_from_The_Corner on both BC games last year, and it made me feel better about our defense for this game and worse about our offense.
Post was just backing our guys down into the post (heh) from the perimeter, and that wonāt fly against Minor (I hope). The articles reminded me that Reece wasnāt 100% in the away game last year, which was a problem. And Dunn was hugely impactful with rim protection in limited minutesā¦now he plays a lot.
But on offense last year, Gardner kept us afloat with a lot of good (and difficult) 1-on-1 shotmaking, and we had a very hard time pulling Post away from the basket. They even switched some on screens and figured that we couldnāt punish Postās slow-footedness enough and that they could help aggressively off of our worse shooters.
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Thatās cool that youāre referencing them like this. One of my hopes in doing all of the games is that they could be used this way across seasons.
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Except last year they were 305th in terms of three point percentage and this year they are 38th (on higher volume).
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True. I was mostly focused on the Post matchup, because if we can contain him without sending too much help, we might be able to to suppress their 3P attempts. But they are a different team, worse defensively but much better offensively. Though their best offense happened earlier in the season, theyāve been a little worse in conference play (even adjusted for opponent).
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We played hard vs. UNC. Just couldnāt hit the broadside of a barn with our offense.
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Hav this is really cool. Have you guys been putting one out for every game?
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Noā¦Doug makes his picks based on lines he likes. I talk about UVA hoops a lot with him but I think he has only featured us 3 times. He is astonished by our offenseā¦
Itās a fun side hustle and Doug is very good at what he does. We hired him in August after The Daily Wager Show was canceled due to the ESPN Bets fallout.
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Solid pick up in Doug. I like his work for sure and heās one of those voices that Iāve looked to in the past for data when doing my thing.
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