So nice to get the W and take care of business against a lesser team. A couple individual thoughts:
-- Tough to see brissett struggle and then get benched as we take control of the game. (As an aside, weird to think we won an ACC tourney game w/o battle and with brissett on the bench.) There's been a lot of talk of regression and I don't think we've really seen much evidence of that. His 3-point shooting is way down, but it's a relatively small sample size -- if he makes seven more of his threes over 32 games his percentage is basically where it was last year.
But even if that's what you want to focus on, his other numbers are in the same neighborhood in terms of per 40 stats and his finishing inside the 3-point line has actually improved as much as his 3-point numbers have regressed -- 44% vs. 37%. The thing that's frustrating with Brissett -- who plays hard consistently, by the way -- is that he rarely gets himself into good shooting positions.
There was a sequence at the start of the second half, where he got the ball and drove to the right but at a pretty flat angle against a zone (not a great move) and ended up flinging up a blind sort of half hook that missed everything. We got the board and then hughes took two power dribbles to clear some space and then rose up for a 15-footer in rhythm and buried it. If I were working with Brissett in the offseason I'd be hammering home the importance of going up vertical and in rhythm. He just spends too much time leaning and flinging shots, which worked for Josh Pace, but clearly doesn't for Oshae.
-- Nice defense from the guards in this game. Johnson and McGowan were complete non-factors for the third time. Wilson-Frame always seems to kill us, but ultimately those guys getting nothing is what gave us time to figure things out offensively and pull away.
-- 7 solid minutes from Carey. He wasn't great but he was OK. Just nice to get him in a big game and get some actual minutes from him.
-- We still don't play with enough pace. There was a point where Chuckwu got the ball and was doing his thing where he wrestles it away from three imaginary defenders. Meanwhile the rest of the players in Orange were standing next to him calling for the ball. The fact that no one was running down the floor and filling a lane is bad -- I mean basketball 101 bad. My son plays on a 9/10 year old team and even they know to start filling lanes. It's what makes the one layup from Carey stand out -- he wasn't watching the scrum, he was running the floor.
-- Bring on Duke. Why not beat them twice in one season?
-- Tough to see brissett struggle and then get benched as we take control of the game. (As an aside, weird to think we won an ACC tourney game w/o battle and with brissett on the bench.) There's been a lot of talk of regression and I don't think we've really seen much evidence of that. His 3-point shooting is way down, but it's a relatively small sample size -- if he makes seven more of his threes over 32 games his percentage is basically where it was last year.
But even if that's what you want to focus on, his other numbers are in the same neighborhood in terms of per 40 stats and his finishing inside the 3-point line has actually improved as much as his 3-point numbers have regressed -- 44% vs. 37%. The thing that's frustrating with Brissett -- who plays hard consistently, by the way -- is that he rarely gets himself into good shooting positions.
There was a sequence at the start of the second half, where he got the ball and drove to the right but at a pretty flat angle against a zone (not a great move) and ended up flinging up a blind sort of half hook that missed everything. We got the board and then hughes took two power dribbles to clear some space and then rose up for a 15-footer in rhythm and buried it. If I were working with Brissett in the offseason I'd be hammering home the importance of going up vertical and in rhythm. He just spends too much time leaning and flinging shots, which worked for Josh Pace, but clearly doesn't for Oshae.
-- Nice defense from the guards in this game. Johnson and McGowan were complete non-factors for the third time. Wilson-Frame always seems to kill us, but ultimately those guys getting nothing is what gave us time to figure things out offensively and pull away.
-- 7 solid minutes from Carey. He wasn't great but he was OK. Just nice to get him in a big game and get some actual minutes from him.
-- We still don't play with enough pace. There was a point where Chuckwu got the ball and was doing his thing where he wrestles it away from three imaginary defenders. Meanwhile the rest of the players in Orange were standing next to him calling for the ball. The fact that no one was running down the floor and filling a lane is bad -- I mean basketball 101 bad. My son plays on a 9/10 year old team and even they know to start filling lanes. It's what makes the one layup from Carey stand out -- he wasn't watching the scrum, he was running the floor.
-- Bring on Duke. Why not beat them twice in one season?
