GT Postgame

[RedtheGOB]

I will give Red free coaching tips --- Your best player is Donnie Freeman. Your best offensive player is Donnie Freeman. On offense, your best offensive player must touch the ball, and you should run your offense through him every time down the court. Also, under 1 minute to play up 6 and they aren't fouling, and you don't get the ball to Freeman in the post, that should be grounds for immediate firing. Terrible

I think Donnie was part of the problem in that bad run too tho. Not nearly as bad as the guards, but no one was decisive. Everyone took their foot off the gas.

 

[Eric15]

I would give anything to get one more crack at Vegas with Donnie available.

 

[IthacaMatt]

George kind of lost his nerve there for a while with about 10 minutes to play. We stopped moving when we slowed down. We started playing the clock too soon.

Donnie was terrific, even if he did let a couple important rebounds get ripped out of his hands (again).
George getting fouled and making his FTs calmed him down a bit toward the end.
I thought we closed the game out well, after nail biting time.

I wasn't unhappy with JJ making a couple drives late to try to be the closer.
He got to the rim both times, missed a layup and got fouled on the other, but didn't get the call.
He tensed up on those late FTs, but overall, I thought we did reasonably well at the line.

We attacked their big men over and over, and had them all in foul trouble all game long.
We out rebounded them by 10, blocked a bunch of shots (7 officially), but I think Kyle got a couple additional tips that wound up as Ga Tech offensive rebounds.

[Edit; looked at the box score - Betsey also had a block but didn't get credit, and Will Kyle had 3 that I saw, but apparently only got credit for that one late monster block on Ndongo. I give us 10 for the game.]

An awful lot to like about tonight.
We played the best any Red team has played for the first 30 minutes.
If we can keep that up, keep up the motion, keep up the effort - we could win the rest of January.

 

[tptcuse]

10 point victory on the road. Easily beat the spread. Most first half points this year. Held GT to 39% from the field, 22% from 3. Outrebounded Tech by 10. Anybody happy?

Every single Red flag was on display in the last ten plus minutes of this game. Weird substitutions. Terrible situational awareness. Missed free throws. Getting the ball grabbed out of our hands. Stupid turnovers. JJ missing layups. Iso ball. Waiting too long for timeouts. Not doing what worked previously...and more.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Only saw the first half.

Sounds like JB didn't leave his magic end game slide rule around for the current staff.

 

[721Comstock]

So much for dry January.

 

[Brooky03]

I will give Red free coaching tips --- Your best player is Donnie Freeman. Your best offensive player is Donnie Freeman. On offense, your best offensive player must touch the ball, and you should run your offense through him every time down the court. Also, under 1 minute to play up 6 and they aren't fouling, and you don't get the ball to Freeman in the post, that should be grounds for immediate firing. Terrible

fwiw, Red isn’t on the court and we might not have the guy/guys who can get the ball to Donnie where and when he needs it.

It’s not as simple as Donnie posting up and passing him the ball. If it were that easy, Shaq would’ve scored 80 points a game even if he was 30% from the stripe.

 

[Scooch]

Nait had 17 points on only five shot attempts. 10-10 from the line. That part was great. The 6 turnovers needs to improve.

This sums up SU hoops. Very talented and impossibly sloppy.

 

[phil77]

I think Donnie was part of the problem in that bad run too tho. Not nearly as bad as the guards, but no one was decisive. Everyone took their foot off the gas.

Nah there were possessions when the guards were running around the 3-point line over dribbling and not passing, and Donnie was camped at the 3-point line to get out of the way like it was on purpose. The first half when we were rolling it was mostly through Donnie in the second half, it seemed our guards wanted to get theirs and the offense stalled out.

 

[RedtheGOB]

Did anybody really think this game was over when we were up by 20? Don’t we know better?
-obviously Donnie was terrific. 27 points and nine rebounds is pretty nice. And there still is room for improvement. He still needs to go to the basket stronger and not fade away. He lost a couple of rebounds that were in his hands. But this kid is a game changer for our team. God do I wish we had him for the whole season.
-George was so solid in the first half and then he was so awful on the second half. The free throws were huge. And in the first half he took care of the ball and did not force bad shots. But in the second half his turnovers were just atrocious. Imagine trying to force the ball to Souare?
-Kingz had perhaps his worst game of the season.
-despite horrific defense, two for 10 shooting and two turnovers (not counting his three missed three-pointers, which are effectively turnovers), JJ played more minutes than Betsey and Kiyan combined. The play when he went to the basket instead of running clock showed that he is either stupid or selfish. Either way isn’t particularly good.
-Kiyan on the other hand looked as comfortable as he has looked all season in the first half. I can’t fathom how he did not play more in the second half, particularly when we knew that Georgia Tech was going to foul. He should have been subbed in for either Kyle or JJ.
-at the end of the day every single one of us would have taken a 10 point win on the road before the game started. So there’s that. But the lack of poise and effort on defense we showed to almost give up a 20 point lead makes it hard to be particularly optimistic that we can win close games against good teams.

Kiyan gets a short leash and no run late in the game. JJ gets the opposite. Someone is going to have to have the balls to walk into Autry's office and show him how ridiculously bad JJ's metrics and play has been and say he might be better as a 6th man. If not they'll all be gone anyway.

 

[PeteCalvin]

Agree, they were straight mugging and body-checking Freeman. Ndongo committed like 7-8 fouls easy in the game. Number 5 came real early with an over the back over Freeman, but the refs refused to call it.

It’s absolutely criminal that we didn’t go after Ndongbo when he had his 4th. We stopped going inside. Instead, we let the guards drive and turn the ball over. Why was Betsey not in the game the last 5 minutes over JJ? He could have scored those little 6-10 footers in the lane all day!

 

[capeorange]

Jj - 8 points in 28 minutes
Kiyan - 11 in 18

But we need jj for his level 5 d

 

[malpearl31]

One thing I was looking for in the 2nd half (hoping to see, really) was for somebody on the court to gather his teammates and basically say, “Hey! We’re not losing this game! Let’s go!”

But I just don’t think we have a guy like that on the roster… Donnie appears to get a little too emotional out there, JJ just is not that kind of guy and I don’t think Kingz is, either. It really comes down to Nait, but it’s kinda hard to rally your teammates when you’re the guy that commits multiple lackadaisical turnovers every game. At least he wasn’t afraid on the FT line late in the game, gotta give him that, I guess.

 

[nccusefan]

Hopefully Red can get the team to give the same effort they gave the first 30 minutes for full 40 minute games.

On the plus side we did win the game and beat GT by more on the road than Duke beat them at home.

 

[JustPherU]

GT is the second worst team in the ACC. We beat GT by the same amount as Drake, and drake played them at full strength

We also beat them by 4 more points than Duke did and Duke was at home.Not that it means anything,

 

[phil77]

I agree with what you're saying and implying, but our opponents know this too.

Its college the coach needs to draw up plays and sets to get him the ball in the post. I don't need him to shoot every time down the court, but he has to touch the ball and be involved in the offensive sets to draw the attention of the defenders to help others. Can't just park him in the corner and let the guards dribble the ball around like idiots.

They were soft trapping on the pick and roll. Could have Donnie set the pick and get the ball off of that. That is what happened on the dunk.

Our coach needs to get creative to get him the ball. Your excuse can't be well they took Donnie away. You have to force-feed him because that is the way the offense works.

 

[phil77]

Every single Red flag was on display in the last ten plus minutes of this game. Weird substitutions. Terrible situational awareness. Missed free throws. Getting the ball grabbed out of our hands. Stupid turnovers. JJ missing layups. Iso ball. Waiting too long for timeouts. Not doing what worked previously...and more.

Correct

 

[PeteCalvin]

Only saw the first half.

Sounds like JB didn't leave his magic end game slide rule around for the current staff.

One thing JB always did out of a timeout was call an easy play for a quick bucket. Red doesn’t seem to have any of those.

 

[RedtheGOB]

George kind of lost his nerve there for a while with about 10 minutes to play. We stopped moving when we slowed down. We started playing the clock too soon.

Donnie was terrific, even if he did let a couple important rebounds get ripped out of his hands (again).
George getting fouled and making his FTs calmed him down a bit toward the end.
I thought we closed the game out well, after nail biting time.

I wasn't unhappy with JJ making a couple drives late to try to be the closer.
He got to the rim both times, missed a layup and got fouled on the other, but didn't get the call.
He tensed up on those late FTs, but overall, I thought we did reasonably well at the line.

We attacked their big men over and over, and had them all in foul trouble all game long.
We out rebounded them by 10, blocked a bunch of shots (7 officially), but I think Kyle got a couple additional tips that wound up as Ga Tech offensive rebounds.

An awful lot to like about tonight.
We played the best any Red team has played for the first 30 minutes.
If we can keep that up, keep up the motion, keep up the effort - we could win the rest of January.

Yea watching the clock and relying on the refs a little too early burnt them bad. The refs sort of said well we're not going to foul any of these guys out. It's on our guys for slacking and playing soft either way. Just think that they were surprised especially Nate and Donnie who had been getting the calls for 30 mins and then were getting mauled pretty good, Kingz too.

Kind've ridiculous that Suare was the only guy that fouled out tonight and the starting lineup of GT all finished with 4 each.

 

[capeorange]

6 turnovers for N George relates to his excessive dribbling.

He was pretty sloppy with the ball especially the last 10 minutes. He didn't seem to want to pass it either but at least he was 10 for 10 at the line.

 

[phil77]

One thing I was looking for in the 2nd half (hoping to see, really) was for somebody on the court to gather his teammates and basically say, “Hey! We’re not losing this game! Let’s go!”

The problem I saw is that our guards want to be those players so they just take ISO after ISO instead of working the ball to the actual best player in Freeman.

 

[Brooky03]

One thing I was looking for in the 2nd half (hoping to see, really) was for somebody on the court to gather his teammates and basically say, “Hey! We’re not losing this game! Let’s go!”

But I just don’t think we have a guy like that on the roster… Donnie appears to get a little too emotional out there, JJ just is not that kind of guy and I don’t think Kingz is, either. It really comes down to Nait, but it’s kinda hard to rally your teammates when you’re the guy that commits multiple lackadaisical turnovers every game. At least he wasn’t afraid on the FT line late in the game, gotta give him that, I guess.

That’s the NIlL era for ya. These guys have known each other, for the most part, for a little more than a semester. That was always a thing with freshman, of course, but there was usually a nucleus of dudes who knew each other for a few years and could at least lead by committee.

We have JJ and Donnie who have been together a minute, mostly with Donnie not on the floor and two GT teammates who shared a cup of coffee together.

 

[HyattsCuse]

Who is paying JJ’s NIL? Can we give a small refund so they aren’t as mad when we cut his minutes in half?

 

[Blanko97]

We also beat them by 4 more points than Duke did and Duke was at home.Not that it means anything,

Duke gets to under perform because they don’t lose to Hofstra

 

[hungrychuck]

A road win in the ACC is good.

Was the near-collapse disappointing? Sure.

Is this a good GT team? No.

A road win in the ACC is good.