Clemson Postgame Thoughts 2

[STEVEHOLT]

biggest off-season coming up for SU hoops in 49 years. We HAVE to make the dance next year or many fans will just check out. 4 consecutive years without our name being called is just unthinkable and frankly will be unacceptable.

someone with some inside knowledge basically predicted every step of what we've experienced the last 5 years and their prognostication for the next few years is scary if they continue to be right. that is to say, our name not being called for the tourney should not have been unthinkable

 

[23Zone]

I will boil it down like this. Clemson has the perfect blend of meat and potato. We are all potato.

 

[FrancoPizza]

someone with some inside knowledge basically predicted every step of what we've experienced the last 5 years and their prognostication for the next few years is scary if they continue to be right. that is to say, our name not being called for the tourney should not have been unthinkable

Who is this Nostradamus?

 

[JoeSU]

Does anyone else find the TV broadcast atmosphere strange at Littlejohn? The student section is obviously behind the ACCN announcers, and I found it distracting to follow their commentary over the at times random screams and shrieks of college-aged girls. Meanwhile, the crowd that was being shown around the court looked like CGI - people politely sitting in their seats, barely moving, despite the action taking place in front of them.
Next time, I will try to remember to mute the TV and put the game on the radio (hopefully they will be in sync).

 

[jsshap]

WHO CARES ABOUT JOE? HE IS GONE.

Judah just went 21 FGAs and 20 PTS!

We have Judah. Judah isn't elite. Judah doesn't get people involved. He complains ALL GAME. He plays terrible defense.

And people still want to pay him a gajillion dollars.

The only silver lining of a loss is the comedy of the implosions on this board

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Does anyone else find the TV broadcast atmosphere strange at Littlejohn? The student section is obviously behind the ACCN announcers, and I found it distracting to follow their commentary over the at times random screams and shrieks of college-aged girls. Meanwhile, the crowd that was being shown around the court looked like CGI - people politely sitting in their seats, barely moving, despite the action taking place in front of them.
Next time, I will try to remember to mute the TV and put the game on the radio (hopefully they will be in sync).

No one mentioned that in the game thread

 

[swish7]

I will boil it down like this. Clemson has the perfect blend of meat and potato. We are all potato.

Well stated. Put another way, we're shake & bake, with no bake.

 

[malpearl31]

Not saying I disagree. I wasn’t able to catch most of the game because of kids obligations, but the one possession I saw early in the game:

Judah dribbling at the top of the key watching Bell jog leisurely across the baseline trying to get open. Everyone else standing completely still doing nothing. It was just awful half court basketball with no movement or purpose.

The one defensive possession I saw that followed:

Judah gets screened at the top of the key. Brown is slow to react to the switch or wasn’t expecting to switch because Judah eventually gets through the screen and now both are idiotically chasing the ball handler as he penetrates toward the low block. Then the ball is kicked out to a wide open JGIII for a 3. It was putrid defensive communication or Judah has the worst defensive awareness of any player I’ve seen. Or was Brown supposed to hedge very hard on that to force that guard away from the basket? We’re seeing the same issues in game 31 that we see saw in November. On both offense and defense.

The defensive sequence you’re referencing - which came at about the 16:00 mark of the first half - was truly awful. It was actually Joe that kicked the ball out to a wide-open Hall for the 3 - but it started with Judah’s indifferent attempt to fight through Hall’s screen, which forced Maliq to stick with Joe. Terrible defensive awareness by Judah, as he decided to also follow Maliq and Joe, and then when Joe whipped the ball back out to Hall, Judah gave a poor effort on the closeout and didn’t even get a hand up to contest the shot.

And that terrible defensive sequence came immediately after an offensive possession where Judah jacked up a 3-pt attempt with 15 seconds left on the shot clock, seemingly without any thought to running a play or to getting anyone else involved. To nobody’s surprise, the shot missed badly (it barely grazed the rim) and the color guy on the broadcast immediately remarked “you take that all day long if you’re Clemson”.

Those two back-to-back possessions kind of sum up the Judah experience for me. I was really hoping that Judah would come back this year as a leader, and would set the tone both defensively and on offense - that he would play lock-down defense on the opponent’s top guard each night, and would run a fast-paced offense that put pressure on the rim and got his teammates open looks. But unfortunately that’s not what we got from him this year.

 

[swish7]

The gap between their 3 bigs and ours is a grand canyon. SCHIEFLIN alone had 16 & 16. Hall absolutely owned Maliq.

Hope some of our dead weight leaves & we can upgrade via the portal.

 

[Col. Bleep]

The bottom line on this regular season seems to be:

Very nice job to get 20 wins again.
Especially with some severe limitations.
It appears that mediocrity is no longer accepted.
But from now on they must be good enough to make the NCAA's without worrying about the conference tournament.
Period.

The Orange need to improve recruiting and portal activity.
Get a center
Get a couple of shooters.

Given players' ability to solicit NIL money before committing to a team it now seems to make sense for everyone to enter the portal. So if Judah departs..,make sure there's a strong point guard next year.

Big task.
But the Orange have fallen from college basketball royalty.
Time to get back in that family.

 

[Newhouser]

It’s simply the problem with Bell. He needs to score A LOT for him to be a positive out there. He doesn’t defend well and he doesn’t rebound. He’s got better, no doubt, but when you add in Judah and JJ, on top of no center, it’s what you saw. Hall could have scored 40 if he wanted

I agree and think Red should have put JT in for Bell to change up looks and at least at some width to the floor.

 

[sugrad68]

Oh the irony. Now we have to root like hell for Clemson to beat WF on Saturday so we finish
6th in the league instead of 7th. If we get past the first game we would face Virginia in the next
round instead of Duke or NC.

 

[Fly Rodder]

8th loss of the season by 15 or more points. In the ACC, only Louisville has more (9).

The likely ACC teams bound for the NCAA Tourney are UNC (0), Duke (0), Clemson (1), UVA (7) and Wake, (1). I'd probably have Wake in over UVA looking at this, but Wake was complete garbage away from home (3-11) this season. UVA has a better record away from homeand only one loss (to UNC) when keeping their opponent under 65 points. But they've had some complete breakdowns much like Syracuse.

Correlation with winning %. R-squared is pretty weak. SU and UVA are the two dots above the trendline. SRS has a better correlation, but UVA and SU are the two outliers again (more blowouts compared to their metrics). Comparing against RPI provides the weakest correlation. According to RPI the top 4 teams in the ACC are UNC, Duke, Clemson and Syracuse.

 

[PhatOrange]

My one post game thought is a shout out to Copeland for doing what he could to battle their bigs inside. It was a good effort.

So was Cuff for dogging Girard. Face guarding him and Girard struggled to touch the ball until Autry helped them out by putting Cuff back on the bench.

 

[charleston]

We were outsized in the frontcourt. Clemson played 5 guys bigger than Maliq, hard to overcome that w no frontcourt depth. Not gonna bash any players or red for tonight but...

Did you notice how much heavier and how more developed their bodies were? Been noticing and saying this for years but the staff continues to recruit awkward 7 ft cat rescuers instead of physically imposing bigs or a big who can shoot from deep.

they were mostly 5th year seniors ...of course they are going to be bigger

 

[CuseFaninVT]

they were mostly 5th year seniors ...of course they are going to be bigger

Oh good grief

 

[CardiacCuse]

The gap between their 3 bigs and ours is a grand canyon. SCHIEFLIN alone had 16 & 16. Hall absolutely owned Maliq.

Hope some of our dead weight leaves & we can upgrade via the portal.

people who want maliq as the starting center next season need to watch this game again in slow motion

hes a great player...but he's NOT A CENTER

he can play center, on occasion - matchup permitting

but no team with ambition would use him as their main center, imo

 

[Dcuse]

The shooting can be corrected by coaches. But no one else in college basketball can draw people to foul like he does. He is not this team's problem. Without a good center, the team need to do double work for the same result. We need Judah back and find a good center from the portal.

Would love to have him back but his shooting can only be corrected by him. Can they help with form? Sure, but in the end, it's only the individual's work ethic that will improve their game.

 

[Fan Always]

Stupid fouling at end of game. Stupid reaching against a 95% foul shooter. Gave Girard and Clemson a gift 6 points.

i question some of the guys basketball IQ sometimes. Thank goodness Mintz stopped trying to make 3's. On every one of his misses, Clemson went down and scored. They also need to make their FT. Just awful last night.

 

[DilemaCuse]

they were mostly 5th year seniors ...of course they are going to be bigger

Lol, sure you can grow over the years but I'm willing to bet they were bigger coming out of high school than Maliq is today as a sophomore, and that's the problem, we get bullied in the paint. The 7ft 200 lb with no offensive skills center targets take too many years to become serviceable and thus forces us to play an average sized PF at C. Or Marek Dolezaj in years past (though I thought Jesse needed to play more). AA needs to look at things differently and not keeping doing the same. They need an enforcer in a game like this, and Peter Carey aint it and Hima is just there taking up a scholly.

 

[billsin01]

someone with some inside knowledge basically predicted every step of what we've experienced the last 5 years and their prognostication for the next few years is scary if they continue to be right. that is to say, our name not being called for the tourney should not have been unthinkable

To be fair it wasn't that hard to predict what we saw the past five seasons. The end of long tenures is almost always a little ugly and disappointing. Dean Smith seemed to avoid it and there have been others but it's not the norm.

What lies ahead the next two seasons is harder to say. Does Red grow as a coach? Does our recruiting pick up a bit? Do neither of those things happen and we struggle? Portal stuff, NIL stuff, the incredible variance with 3-pt shooting in the game. Really hard to say. Wouldn't be surprised to see us continue to struggle but wouldn't be shocked if we are a solid tourney team next year either if we pull the right strings and get a few bounces.

 

[billsin01]

My one post game thought is a shout out to Copeland for doing what he could to battle their bigs inside. It was a good effort.

So was Cuff for dogging Girard. Face guarding him and Girard struggled to touch the ball until Autry helped them out by putting Cuff back on the bench.

Agree on both. Thought Cuffe played really well defensively. Also thought the kids played pretty hard to the finish. A frustrating night and there were physical mistakes but didn't feel like it was a lack of effort. Clemson looked really good and we struggled to keep up. Sometimes that happens.

 

[Red Holzman]

We were outsized in the frontcourt. Clemson played 5 guys bigger than Maliq, hard to overcome that w no frontcourt depth. Not gonna bash any players or red for tonight but...

Did you notice how much heavier and how more developed their bodies were? Been noticing and saying this for years but the staff continues to recruit awkward 7 ft cat rescuers instead of physically imposing bigs or a big who can shoot from deep.

But- Our 5's could defend the CORNER 3!

A big, strong, skilled center would be a very welcome addition.
Would be great to watch OUR big guy demolish the other team inside.

 

[orangecuse]

The gap between their 3 bigs and ours is a grand canyon. SCHIEFLIN alone had 16 & 16. Hall absolutely owned Maliq.

Hope some of our dead weight leaves & we can upgrade via the portal.

Dude doesn't need to look the part of dominating the "over 40 league" (analyst mentioned that during the broadcast) when he can actually pretty much have his way against a P5 team the likes of us.

Disgraceful really.

 

[PhatOrange]

Agree on both. Thought Cuffe played really well defensively. Also thought the kids played pretty hard to the finish. A frustrating night and there were physical mistakes but didn't feel like it was a lack of effort. Clemson looked really good and we struggled to keep up. Sometimes that happens.

Agree with this. The effort was there, even at the end. I just sort of shrugged my shoulders with this loss. Clemson played a good game and obviously executed their plan to take advantage of us inside. I liked our effort the entire game. They tried hard to claw back and win. Just over matched.