GT Postgame

[Cusefan0307]

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.

Teams take on the personality of their coach. There’s no leader because it doesn’t look like Red is leading. He wants JJ to be the leader, but skill wise he’s not able to do it. He’s a shell of the guy we saw the second semester of his sophomore year. Some of these other guys are deferring to him because that’s what Reds plan was and it doesn’t look like he’s willing or able to adjust that plan.

 

[IthacaMatt]

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.

They ran so many sets, so much motion, so many staggered picks, back cuts, cross lane cuts. It was beautiful. They continued to play pretty good offense for the first 5 minutes or so of the 2nd half, increased the 14 point halftime lead to 20, and then they started getting sloppy with the ball, and thinking the game was already won.

Then GT's big guy Ndongo came back in and was unstoppable inside. For those who are asking, why didn't we try to foul him out, well did you watch the game? It got super physical for the last 12-15 minutes of the game, and GT got away with a lot of physical contact.

They had 4 big guys with 4 fouls with 9:15 to play, and somehow none of them fouled out.

 

[SUalldway]

6 turnovers for N George relates to his excessive dribbling.

And AA needs to step up here. Emphasize this improvement need with George and have the other players help him out to get an earlier pass & get the offense moving

 

[Irt4su]

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

Not considered a road game though

 

[PeteCalvin]

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.

I have always had a problem with inconsistency when it comes to calling a game. If you’re going to call it tight, then do it for 40 minutes. If you want to let em play, then let em play. Don’t change on a dime from first to second half.

The more aggressive team always gets the favorable calls late in a game. Rick Pitino’s LV teams used to get away with mugging guys. Pitino purposely put pressure on the refs to have to figure out what to call and what not to. They can’t call everything, and he used that to his advantage and SU’s detriment on a few occasions, namely the BE championship game where we blew a 17 point lead and he hacked our guards the entire second half.

 

[JustPherU]

I have always had a problem with inconsistency when it comes to calling a game. If you’re going to call it tight, then do it for 40 minutes. If you want to let em play, then let em play. Don’t change on a dime from first to second half.

The more aggressive team always gets the favorable calls late in a game. Rick Pitino’s LV teams used to get away with mugging guys. Pitino purposely put pressure on the refs to have to figure out what to call and what not to. They can’t call everything, and he used that to his advantage and SU’s detriment on a few occasions, namely the BE championship game where we blew a 17 point lead and he hacked our guards the entire second half.

college basketball refs are the worst, it’s not just a few guys but it’s most all of them.

 

[Newhouser]

We’re 15 games in and I think it’s time to admit that this team is bad. Individually, they might be talented but they aren’t a well constructed team whatsoever. That’s a Red problem of course, but I think a .500 ACC record is the absolute ceiling. Red continues to get out coached and the players get out hustled 30 minutes of every game. Idk why they seem to think they’re gods gift to basketball when they couldn’t even beat Hofstra and needed every minute to beat Monmouth, but yet here we are. They play with an ill-advised swagger and they refuse to compete when the ball ain’t going through the net.

I've mentioned before. The team plays like they've accomplished something...they haven't.

 

[IthacaMatt]

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.

Freeman's not always open. He's not the biggest guy in the low post. He does better to get it at the foul line facing the basket. He's not a huge guy. He can't just seal the larger post men of the P4 conferences.

 

[JDubbin]

An ACC road win is never a bad thing, but it certainly felt unsatisfactory…

When it comes to “offense,” you CANNOT run play after play with a big at the top of the key that can’t shoot or dribble. It’s self defeating. Multiple times we have Kyle stand there awkwardly & wait to do a dribble hand-off with players curling… but because he’s not a threat to dribble or shoot, the players don’t get open off the hand-off action, it’s inane & insane! Just cycles & cycles up top outside the 3 point line, until a SU player has to beat the shot clock off a crazy dribble drive/contested shot, inevitably becoming a turnover. I just can’t with all that…

 

[RedtheGOB]

They ran so many sets, so much motion, so many staggered picks, back cuts, cross lane cuts. It was beautiful. They continued to play pretty good offense for the first 5 minutes or so of the 2nd half, increased the 14 point halftime lead to 20, and then they started getting sloppy with the ball, and thinking the game was already won.

Then GT's big guy Ndongo came back in and was unstoppable inside. For those who are asking, why didn't we try to foul him out, well did you watch the game? It got super physical for the last 12-15 minutes of the game, and GT got away with a lot of physical contact.

They had 4 big guys with 4 fouls with 9:15 to play, and somehow none of them fouled out.

Agreed. End of day GT only outscored us by 4 points in the 2nd half when they got their big man back. It was a hard watch for a long time after we lingered around a 15-20 point lead for a while. Tends to happen on the road I guess especially when we got sloppy with the ball. There were a few bad turnovers which really hurt. We just fell asleep.

 

[RedtheGOB]

I have always had a problem with inconsistency when it comes to calling a game. If you’re going to call it tight, then do it for 40 minutes. If you want to let em play, then let em play. Don’t change on a dime from first to second half.

The more aggressive team always gets the favorable calls late in a game. Rick Pitino’s LV teams used to get away with mugging guys. Pitino purposely put pressure on the refs to have to figure out what to call and what not to. They can’t call everything, and he used that to his advantage and SU’s detriment on a few occasions, namely the BE championship game where we blew a 17 point lead and he hacked our guards the entire second half.

Exactly. I almost wanted Autry to get after the refs but it's crazy to do that when we're up 15-20 points on the road and GT basically had no front court for so much of the game.

 

[Oakland]

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?

Apparently not.

 

[Brooky03]

We need a SG with PG sensibilities or a 2nd PG.

We lack guys who can get us in an offense. I took a trip down memory lane and a lot of our really good teams had that 2nd ballhandler who wasn’t just a ‘get mine’ type. They also had loads more talent, but right now I’m going with the PG thing.

Nait is a true PG but limited. We need to field like 1.5 PGs and we’re operating with I think 0.9.

 

[IthacaMatt]

An ACC road win is never a bad thing, but it certainly felt unsatisfactory…

When it comes to “offense,” you CANNOT run play after play with a big at the top of the key that can’t shoot or dribble. It’s self defeating. Multiple times we have Kyle stand there awkwardly & wait to do a dribble hand-off with players curling… but because he’s not a threat to dribble or shoot, the players don’t get open off the hand-off action, it’s inane & insane! Just cycles & cycles up top outside the 3 point line, until a SU player has to beat the shot clock off a crazy dribble drive/contested shot, inevitably becoming a turnover. I just can’t with all that…

Donnie should be at the top of the key as the pick man. He can hit a 3 if he pops open. He loves that 3 point shot from the right side of the key. This gives him more of those attempts, shooting over a guard on the switch.

Or, giving Donnie the ball 15-20 feet from the rim on hand offs, out there on the wing or at the top of the key, opens up lanes for him to dive, or for guards to drive, if they can turn the corner.

Kyle should be on the low block for offensive rebounds, and setting back picks along the baseline for shooters to try a corner three. That's what I think the offense should look like.

 

[IthacaMatt]

We need a SG with PG sensibilities or a 2nd PG.

We lack guys who can get us in an offense. I took a trip down memory lane and a lot of our really good teams had that 2nd ballhandler who wasn’t just a ‘get mine’ type. They also had loads more talent, but right now I’m going with the PG thing.

Nait is a true PG but limited. We need to field like 1.5 PGs and we’re operating with I think 0.9.

Thats JJ's role. And I thought he has been pretty good lately.
Yes, he hasn't shot well, but it's only the last 2 games.

Nine of the ten previous games, he scored double digits, and in the other one, he had 9 points.
He had 5 rebounds today. He's been getting assists. I think his defense is better than last year.

He's not trying to be THE MAN. He's a quality teammate. He has a lot of experience. He's very dangerous in the open floor.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Apparently not.

I thought we did pretty well to keep relative control of the game. It never got less than 6, as far as I remember.

We played pretty well in the last 2 minutes, after about 8-10 minutes of careless turnovers and not fighting hard enough for rebounds.

We made winning plays when it mattered, on the road. I think that was a good experience for the team.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Thats JJ's role. And I thought he has been pretty good lately.
Yes, he hasn't shot well, but it's only the last 2 games.

Nine of the ten previous games, he scored double digits, and in the other one, he had 9 points.
He had 5 rebounds today. He's been getting assists. I think his defense is better than last year.

He's not trying to be THE MAN. He's a quality teammate. He has a lot of experience. He's very dangerous in the open floor.

He’s been the worst player on the floor the last two games and if we lost he would have been the main reason why. It’s was a comedy of errors down the stretch from him. He played well against Stonehill. Big deal.

 

[newmexicuse]

Great to see Donnie back, if he stays healthy, he will be draftable. He looks a lot stronger and more confident than he did last season. We have a star. Easily our game MVP.

George was clutch at the line - he is coming on, but still way too many TOs.

Dont know why Kiyan especially and to a lesser extent Betsey and White didnt get more minutes. Kiyan had a great first half and not enough second half run. Kingz got 37 minutes and JJ got 28 - neither played nearly well enough to earn that much PT, especially when they made a run and the lineup should have been shaken up a bit.

I thought Red did fine except for the minutes allocation. Going Zone for just those one or two possessions got them confused and broke their mojo. The team came out ready.

Big question - who was the end game MVP - George with all those FTs, Donnie with the critical drive or Kyle with the huge block ???

 

[IthacaMatt]

An ACC road win is never a bad thing, but it certainly felt unsatisfactory…

When it comes to “offense,” you CANNOT run play after play with a big at the top of the key that can’t shoot or dribble. It’s self defeating. Multiple times we have Kyle stand there awkwardly & wait to do a dribble hand-off with players curling… but because he’s not a threat to dribble or shoot, the players don’t get open off the hand-off action, it’s inane & insane! Just cycles & cycles up top outside the 3 point line, until a SU player has to beat the shot clock off a crazy dribble drive/contested shot, inevitably becoming a turnover. I just can’t with all that…

You have to remember, GT are a very good defensive team, and they took away the actions at the rim that we ran so many of in the first half. All those dunks weren't there in the 2nd half.

They packed the lane and dared us to drive. They all got 4 fouls, but shockingly none of them got 5. I don't have a problem with the 2nd half offense, except for a couple things - George lost his cool and had a handful of turnovers about midway through the 2nd half, to start their run.

We missed 4 shots and had 4 turnovers on 8 possessions when they cut our 20 point lead to 12. After that, the refs were playing to the home crowd, and let them beat us up for the ball.

The other thing I was disappointed about was that we slowed the game down too soon, and stopped moving when we were trying to run clock. The purpose is not for your PG to waste time pounding the ball into the floor. You want guys cutting without the ball, to get that surprise open layup.

We stopped doing that, while we were slowing down the game. If you play 30 second possessions, you have to get good shots, not hopeful 3's as the clock runs down.

Other than that, I thought we played really well. Very happy with the win. I feel very positive about this run of games. Now, it will be a question of whether they are mature enough, and tough enough, to grind out physical games.

Today, we had a lot of talent on the floor. The balance, with Donnie back, is that we can hurt you in so many ways on offense. We are way less predictable.

 

[Col. Bleep]

And AA needs to step up here. Emphasize this improvement need with George and have the other players help him out to get an earlier pass & get the offense moving

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.

Great to see Donnie back, if he stays healthy, he will be draftable. He looks a lot stronger and more confident than he did last season. We have a star. Easily our game MVP.

George was clutch at the line - he is coming on, but still way too many TOs.

Dont know why Kiyan especially and to a lesser extent Betsey and White didnt get more minutes. Kiyan had a great first half and not enough second half run. Kingz got 37 minutes and JJ got 28 - neither played nearly well enough to earn that much PT, especially when they made a run and the lineup should have been shaken up a bit.

I thought Red did fine except for the minutes allocation. Going Zone for just those one or two possessions got them confused and broke their mojo. The team came out ready.

Big question - who was the end game MVP - George with all those FTs, Donnie with the critical drive or Kyle with the huge block ???

Gotta go with Kyle…only because his facial was THE play of the game. It saved the game.

 

[Scooch]

JJ is 32 for 80 (40%) in the 7 games since Tennessee with 17 assists against 16 turnovers. He’s also 7 for 28 from three (28%) and 11 for 19 from the line (58%).

He’s not good and he shouldn’t be getting 15 minutes a game, let alone 30+.

 

[Brooky03]

Thats JJ's role. And I thought he has been pretty good lately.
Yes, he hasn't shot well, but it's only the last 2 games.

Nine of the ten previous games, he scored double digits, and in the other one, he had 9 points.
He had 5 rebounds today. He's been getting assists. I think his defense is better than last year.

He's not trying to be THE MAN. He's a quality teammate. He has a lot of experience. He's very dangerous in the open floor.

Fair point that he hasn’t been trying to be the man, but I also didn’t see him doing a lot to get the team on track during the rough patch today. That’s not all or mostly on him, but we need more in those crucial moments.

 

[IthacaMatt]

He’s been the worst player on the floor the last two games and if we lost he would have been the main reason why. It’s was a comedy of errors down the stretch from him. He played well against Stonehill. Big deal.

You see, I don't think that's fair. Yes, he shot for 2-10 today, and 2-7 against Clemson.

But he had 5 rebounds today. He had a couple assists and a steal. He was a pretty good ball handler when he was out there.

He even made 4 of 6 from the line, even with those 2 late chokes.

He's a useful piece. These past 2 games not been his best, but he gives us 10 points a game.

He does not take 'ball hog' shots, doesn't make really bad passes into the first row, and he tries a lot harder on defense than last year.

Not every player is a star. Not all of these guys (in fact, not many of these guys) are going to play in the NBA. Give them credit when they play well enough to win a league road game. They haven't regularly done that.

 

[bigmike]

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.

Melo has the balls. Just saying.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Fair point that he hasn’t been trying to be the man, but I also didn’t see him doing a lot to get the team on track during the rough patch today. That’s not all or mostly on him, but we need more in those crucial moments.

Well, George was a mess for about 5 minutes.

JJ is 32 for 80 (40%) in the 7 games since Tennessee with 17 assists against 16 turnovers. He’s also 7 for 28 from three (28%) and 11 for 19 from the line (58%).

He’s not good and he shouldn’t be getting 15 minutes a game, let alone 30+.

If he played about 20-24 minutes a game, that would be best.
But Anthony has not been very good in about a month, as the competition has gotten better.

If Anthony were a bit more physical, a bit better defender, and had a bit better handle, he would be playing more, and JJ would be playing less.

JJ is the better option right now, because he's less likely to turn the ball over than Anthony. Anthony is a better natural scorer, but other other parts of his game make him a liability. Even more than you think JJ is.