My Take

[OrangeXtreme]

Regarding the crowd - the price for tickets was ridiculous for a Wednesday at 9PM game. Lower tickets not even facing the court (beyond the baseline) were $140. I have traveled up to Syracuse for a couple football games this year and I cannot imagine how they find people up there willing to spend $140.

All the lower tickets are preferred seats. If you buy from the box office, you'll have to pay a pro-rated portion of the preferred seat donation.

 

[dollarbill44]

To all those who used to complain when JB scheduled cupcakes at the beginning of the year: Don't!

Total lack of confidence among our alleged good shooters, but then a Tony Bennett defense can do that to the best of teams. ACC needs to nip this "exhibition" league game idea in the bud and not repeat next year. Hard enough to get young teams to experiment, learn plays and gel in advance of a normal ACC man-eating schedule. Glad the game wasn't on ESPN for an even wider audience to see.-VBOF

We've scheduled equally tough OOC first games (often even tougher) over the years. It's not the fault of the ACC that we've lost just about all of them.

 

[sutomcat]

I think the difference with Frank Howard is we truly had nobody else. JGIII is a better option right now.

That is an opinion stated as a fact. He might have played better last night but that shouldn't be enough for a final call to be made.

I think the only way to find out who the best PG will be long term is to play them all for a while and see who rises to the top. I don't think any of them played well last night but JGIII was the least worse.

Let's hope someone emerges from this and takes control. We need that badly.

 

[grant]

Wasn't able to catch much of the game last night but looking at the stats, we need our shooters to knock down their shots. We can't have Buddy and Hughes shooting the volume they are and only making around 20% of their shots. I think it sucks that we had to start out the year against such a good team but it is what it is. I feel like no spots are locked down right now so interesting to see who is going to grind and step up.

 

[rrlbees]

That is an opinion stated as a fact. He might have played better last night but that shouldn't be enough for a final call to be made.

I think the only way to find out who the best PG will be long term is to play them all for a while and see who rises to the top. I don't think any of them played well last night but JGIII was the least worse.

Let's hope someone emerges from this and takes control. We need that badly.

i hope someone emerges but based solely on last night, while none of the 3 played well I didn’t think they played all that poorly. And of the 3 I thought Girard was the worst (but nothing by much). Had the only turnovers, his strength is shooting and that was poor and he got killed on defense. I hope we don’t see much of Buddy and Girard together. Might be our weakest backcourt defensively in years. I’d prefer to see a platoon type thing. Play Carey and Buddy together and Goodine Girard together.

 

[Cusefan0307]

i hope someone emerges but based solely on last night, while none of the 3 played well I didn’t think they played all that poorly. And of the 3 I thought Girard was the worst (but nothing by much). Had the only turnovers, his strength is shooting and that was poor and he got killed on defense. I hope we don’t see much of Buddy and Girard together. Might be our weakest backcourt defensively in years. I’d prefer to see a platoon type thing. Play Carey and Buddy together and Goodine Girard together.

Did you see how the game and half started with Carey???? Was I watching the same game?

 

[malpearl31]

My concern is that we start 3 guys right now that are just plain bad on offense/can’t shoot/lack confidence. When Sid, Marek and Jalen are on the court together, I think it’s much easier for the defense to stop Elijah and Buddy. In 2019, I just don’t think you can survive when 60% of your lineup is incapable of being a legitimate threat to score.

 

[rrlbees]

Did you see how the game and half started with Carey???? Was I watching the same game?

yes

 

[cuseinseattle]

Was he there last night? Because I thought I saw him walk past me.

Yes I saw him and Ryan Blackwell after. His son was with him

 

[IthacaMatt]

(1) Carey is the only guy that can beat his man off the dribble and get into the lane. I was mad when JB hooked him for that drive (if that’s what he was mad about, I don’t know). That’s what JB has been telling Carey to do—drive! And he’s still learning to play PG.
(2) Girard is not as athletic or quick so his driving ability against D1 athletes is still a work in progress.
(3) Why didn’t JB give Goodine more time? Buddy wasn’t shooting well, so you gotta see what the other guys can do. Goodine is a really good shooter and has driving ability, though still learning the PG position.

(1) - I think Hughes will be able to do it, too, especially when guarded man to man by other forwards. I was impressed with his game against Carlton, who honestly would be a solid G-5 team.

(2) Girard can get by his defender, but will have trouble this year finishing among the bigs. The answer for him is work on the pull up jumper from 10 feet away.

(3) As the season flamed out in the NCAA last year (and Buddy got torched on D in that game), I was kind of hoping that Goodine and Carey would be good enough to start games, to allow Buddy to ease in off the bench at the 4 minute mark, and position him as our offensive microwave. Over the summer, of course, Buddy got into sensational shape and played very well in Italy and our exhibitions.

Undoubtedly Buddy is one of the leaders of the team, and so my hope of starting games with a more athletic backcourt this year has sailed. But I still believe that Goodine is a fine player, probably has a more solid floor game than Carey does, and should certainly get his chances, especially this early in the season.

For those who say "we have so much more shooting this year, that should make us better" - don't forget, just 3 years ago, we had our top 4 scorers collectively average over 20 three point attempts per game, and hit them from 37% to 42% from three. That's averaging about 8 threes a game just from those 4 guys. That team was a bubble team, 10-8 in the ACC and finished at 19-15 when it was all over.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Edwards is at least a year from making an impact but he has the best upside in a very limited frontcourt. Sid gives us nothing on both ends. He has some semblance of post moves but JB has him scared to do anything at this point.

This is why I said give Bobby Braswell a try. Will he be any worse than Marek? At least he will be able to score, and if people try to guard us man, Braswell will draw the opposing center away from the basket, once he makes a three or two. That opens up the driving lanes for the guards.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Regarding the crowd - the price for tickets was ridiculous for a Wednesday at 9PM game. Lower tickets not even facing the court (beyond the baseline) were $140. I have traveled up to Syracuse for a couple football games this year and I cannot imagine how they find people up there willing to spend $140.

They don't. That's why there is so much silver in the bottom of the stands.

 

[FrancoPizza]

This is why I said give Bobby Braswell a try. Will he be any worse than Marek? At least he will be able to score, and if people try to guard us man, Braswell will draw the opposing center away from the basket, once he makes a three or two. That opens up the driving lanes for the guards.

Yes. Braswell, Edwards, and JGIII all need to play going forward. Need to see what they can do. Sometimes I wonder if JB literally forgets who is on the bench. He's 76.

But this goes back to the larger problem. It doesn't matter who plays if these guys can't be taught to set basic screens and movement without the ball.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Always the PG fault here no matter who it is.

Damn you, Gerry!

 

[IthacaMatt]

. I hope we don’t see much of Buddy and Girard together. Might be our weakest backcourt defensively in years. I’d prefer to see a platoon type thing. Play Carey and Buddy together and Goodine Girard together.

I thought that in the exhibition games, Goodine and Girard had some nice chemistry. Both can handle, both can pass, both can shoot.

 

[IthacaMatt]

My concern is that we start 3 guys right now that are just plain bad on offense/can’t shoot/lack confidence. When Sid, Marek and Jalen are on the court together, I think it’s much easier for the defense to stop Elijah and Buddy. In 2019, I just don’t think you can survive when 60% of your lineup is incapable of being a legitimate threat to score.

Boeheim always seems to start offensively-challenged opening lineups. We routinely fall behind early, somebody gets yanked and yelled at at the first stoppage in play, and then more offensive guys get on the floor. He's been doing this for years.

 

[dollarbill44]

Wasn't able to catch much of the game last night but looking at the stats, we need our shooters to knock down their shots. We can't have Buddy and Hughes shooting the volume they are and only making around 20% of their shots. I think it sucks that we had to start out the year against such a good team but it is what it is. I feel like no spots are locked down right now so interesting to see who is going to grind and step up.

You can't draw too many conclusions from the box score because it doesn't tell the whole story. Our shot selection was not good. We did miss some open 3s, but a large percentage of those were forced shots at the end of the shot clock after a possession without purpose. It looked a lot like any other loss over the last few seasons where we get a JB shrug and comment about how you can't win if you don't make shots.

 

[Consigliere]

Long night, at work, struggling so this is going to be short.

The crowd was pretty small but surprisingly loud. The student section actually showed up and made some noise. It could have gotten very loud if there was more to cheer about.

Someone sang a great NA and got one of the best ovations after I have ever seen. Nice.

A couple of people in my section fell asleep during the game. Literally. If it was ever going to happen, it was going to be last night. Ugly confluence of events.

Some character dressed in a giant orange wig, orange shirt and orange pants got the chance to try and make a shot from the Dunk & Bright bed. When he was asked who he was, he said 'Dome Dude' and took the opportunity to tell Melo his wife loved him. When he made the shot, he walked over to Melo and got a high five.

Melo and Bing both attended the game and were introduced to the crowd during one of the timeouts. Simultaneously using a split screen. I don't know who replaced Brett doing the game production but well done.

This looks to me like an historically bad rebounding team. No one is interested in getting offensive rebounds, we have no good shot blocker and it appears we will be without a real PG this season as well. So there are some problems to overcome.

That said, this should be one of the best outside shooting teams we have had. I think we have a lot of unselfish players who can pass it and there is real hope that the offense is going to be improved. We have the athletes and length to be a good defensive team as well. I am here to say there is hope.

I think there are going to be games when we shoot well and beat really good teams. And games where we shoot poorly and lose to not so good teams. We have a gaggle of athletic bigs. Can a couple of them develop into servicable rebounders? Sidibe and Guerrier are probably our best hopes and they were both disasters last night.

Girard might be the most popular player on the team right now. Already. Big ovation when he came into the game and whenever he did something right. His progress as a college player is going to be fascinating to watch. Few freshman start as fearless as he appears to be.

On the positive side, Edwards looked really promising late. I wonder why we didn't put Carey in when we were pressing? He seems like our fastest guy and most likely player to get steals in the open court.

Took a while but, as always, nice to read an objective assessment.

 

[81South]

Goodine got 8 minutes...that’s not enough run to do anything quite frankly.

Buddy has latitude because I’m sure Jim trusts him immensely but Brycen should have gotten 15-20 minutes last night.

I thought I heard Quincy could score in the post / mid post but we never got him touches there. There’s no reason not to try and play inside out on occasion to see if they double down which will allow kick outs to open shooters.

Edwards def looks very athletic for a big. He just does stuff that makes me say wow. There’s something there and I am very curious to see more.

The press wasn’t great but we forced some turnovers and quick shots. This seems to be a pattern with UVA teams...it should be a strategy of ours to press them earlier in the game.

I think Joes ceiling is so much higher than Carey’s. As such I would be starting Joe from day 1.

Offensively we need to move the ball and we need players to move. If you stand around then get your butt on the bench. We have very capable passers but we didn’t see any of them last night.

kudos to Tony Bennett. The guy has the looks, the coolness, the money and the coaching chops.

 

[007]

That is an opinion stated as a fact. He might have played better last night but that shouldn't be enough for a final call to be made.

I think the only way to find out who the best PG will be long term is to play them all for a while and see who rises to the top. I don't think any of them played well last night but JGIII was the least worse.

Let's hope someone emerges from this and takes control. We need that badly.

Part of the problem, I think, is that we continue to recruit combo guards with length (with a few exceptions) and then play the "least worse" ball handler at PG. There is a difference between playing PG and being a true PG.

Historically, the efficiency of JB's "offense" is very much linked to the play of the PG. IMO, we need a "pure" PG to be successful in this type of offense. The second issue is that by not playing M2M on defense, you can never really simulate in practice what it is required to be successful against a pressure M2M defense because the players aren't being drilled in how to play M2M defense.

 

[two3zone]

Yes I saw him and Ryan Blackwell after. His son was with him

His son is getting super tall, wonder if he is going to get attention.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

My concern is that we start 3 guys right now that are just plain bad on offense/can’t shoot/lack confidence. When Sid, Marek and Jalen are on the court together, I think it’s much easier for the defense to stop Elijah and Buddy. In 2019, I just don’t think you can survive when 60% of your lineup is incapable of being a legitimate threat to score.

I was thinking along these same lines. We need our PG to score with some efficiency, especially with guys like Sid and Marek who aren't expected to ever actually shoot. I was wondering if Howard Washington might get some run, because he really seems like the only true PG on the squad right now, but his shot isn't good enough for JB to trust him out there. Feel bad for the kid.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Goodine got 8 minutes...that’s not enough run to do anything quite frankly.

Buddy has latitude because I’m sure Jim trusts him immensely but Brycen should have gotten 15-20 minutes last night.

I thought I heard Quincy could score in the post / mid post but we never got him touches there. There’s no reason not to try and play inside out on occasion to see if they double down which will allow kick outs to open shooters.

Edwards def looks very athletic for a big. He just does stuff that makes me say wow. There’s something there and I am very curious to see more.

The press wasn’t great but we forced some turnovers and quick shots. This seems to be a pattern with UVA teams...it should be a strategy of ours to press them earlier in the game.

I think Joes ceiling is so much higher than Carey’s. As such I would be starting Joe from day 1.

Offensively we need to move the ball and we need players to move. If you stand around then get your butt on the bench. We have very capable passers but we didn’t see any of them last night.

kudos to Tony Bennett. The guy has the looks, the coolness, the money and the coaching chops.

Not sure I ever saw Quincy in the post/mid post when I was able to watch last night.

Regardless of who posts up, we never ever ever feed the big in there. Even if they just pass it back out, feed the big man, and let him at least pretend to be a threat. And then maybe a guard could cut to the ball and get an easy pass from that big.

But we haven't done that since Rak graduated.

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

Good news:

We will be forced to get most of our offense via the three ball. Hit most of them when they were good looks and not jacks. Should make a lot of threes when not playing UVA. Hughes, Buddy, Girard all have great strokes.

We don't have to get embarrassed at MSG again this year. Barclays is a better place to lose ugly.

Bad new:

Everything else.

 

[VirginiaOrange]

All the lower tickets are preferred seats. If you buy from the box office, you'll have to pay a pro-rated portion of the preferred seat donation.

Then why were the same seats half the price (or less - I do not remember the exact cost) for the crap games? I checked Colgate and others just to see and there was a huge price difference. And I was sent an email playing up that as a football season ticket holder I was getting some sort of special early access and/or pricing. Oh well glad we stayed home - as I expect a lot of people will this year on the snowy days people used to drag themselves up there.