GT Postgame

[Brooky03]

Well, George was a mess for about 5 minutes.

Yes, yes he was.

 

[IthacaMatt]

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.

Kiyan is a walking turnover. JJ can handle the ball under pressure.
Kiyan is a shot maker. JJ isn't.

If this team is going to win with defense, Kiyan is worse than JJ, and JJ plays.
That's Red's decision, win with defense.

Kiyan is valuable as offense off the bench. He's not good enough with the ball and not good enough defensively to play much more than he is. He's got work to do.

 

[Cusefan0307]

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.

Hw 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.

He should be the 8th or 9th man. He played one good game against a power conference team this year the second half against Tennessee. Since February 1st last year in 13 games he’s 62-188 overall in ACC play 33% and 12-64 from 3 for 18.8%. It’s absolutely killing us. He’s been the main reason we’ve lost about 5 games in that timeframe.

 

[cuseinseattle]

If you told me before the game that we would win by 10 I would have kissed you on the face. Yet when the game ended I still felt very annoyed. Sports are weird.

Me too. Which is kind of crazy. It's amazing how we can even make a road victory in double digits not that enjoyable

 

[Scooch]

Well, George was a mess for about 5 minutes.



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.

I don’t know. Yes, Kiyan has a higher turnover rate, but his scoring is much more efficient than JJ. And we don’t have to give all of Starling’s minutes to Kiyan. We could play Kingz at the 2 a bit as well. Most teams play positionless hoops these days anyway.

 

[IthacaMatt]

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 ???

Kingz was our next best player tonight to Donnie. He does so many things beside stand at the 3 point line. He gets to the rim, he defends well on the perimeter and he even blocks shots. I'm not surprised he played so many minutes tonight. Betsey was only 1-4 from the floor when he was out there. Not his night.

 

[Blanko97]

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.

GT is the 76th rated D according to KP, don’t let the ACCN fan service overstate things

 

[IthacaMatt]

He should be the 8th or 9th man. He played one good game against a power conference team this year the second half against Tennessee. Since February 1st last year in 13 games he’s 62-188 overall in ACC play 33% and 12-64 from 3 for 18.8%. It’s absolutely killing us. He’s been the main reason we’ve lost about 5 games in that timeframe.

He appears to be willing to accept being the 4th option on this team, behind Donnie, George and Kingz. Could you ever picture Judah Mintz doing what JJ is doing this season.
Tell me how many teams have a better 4th option than him?

 

[IthacaMatt]

I don’t know. Yes, Kiyan has a higher turnover rate, but his scoring is much more efficient than JJ. And we don’t have to give all of Starling’s minutes to Kiyan. We could play Kingz at the 2 a bit as well. Most teams play positionless hoops these days anyway.

I agree with that, but Kiyan has to get better. We are clearly a better team if he plays better, and I hope he does. I agree that Kingz could play some 2, as well. We are a big, switchable team.

Kind of like that Illinois team that knocked us out of the Elite 8 in 1989. A bunch of great athletes between 6-4 and 6-9 who could switch all over the floor. That's what we aspire to. I see his vision now.
Those Louisville teams under Denny Crum were like that, too, with a PG mixed in.

 

[IthacaMatt]

GT is the 76th rated D according to KP, don’t let the ACCN fan service overstate things

Do you think they were playing tough defense? Did you watch the game?

 

[Cusefan0307]

He appears to be willing to accept being the 4th option on this team, behind Donnie, George and Kingz. Could you ever picture Judah Mintz doing what JJ is doing this season.
Tell me how many teams have a better 4th option than him?

I made a separate thread for this. He leads the team in shot attempts. Obviously Donnie has been injured most of the year, but I see no evidence he’s taken a backseat. If anything those guys are deferring to him too much.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Well, we're up to 31% from three as a team on the season, and 62% at the line.
PROGRESS!

 

[Blanko97]

Do you think they were playing tough defense? Did you watch the game?

I watched it, and watched Monmouth shut us down as well. Our offense isn’t particularly good

 

[IthacaMatt]

I made a separate thread for this. He leads the team in shot attempts. Obviously Donnie has been injured most of the year, but I see no evidence he’s taken a backseat. If anything those guys are deferring to him too much.

In the last 2 games with Donnie back, Donnie has 29 FG attempts to JJ's 17.
That seems good to me. JJ isn't playing hero ball, or 1st option.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I watched it, and watched Monmouth shut us down as well. Our offense isn’t particularly good

We were great for the first 25 minutes. 44 point first half is our best for the year. We average 74 points a game as a team and give up 65. At half time, we were way ahead of both of those numbers.

 

[jgeorge322]

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.

Well do better than .500.

 

[Blanko97]

We were great for the first 25 minutes. 44 point first half is our best for the year. We average 74 points a game as a team and give up 65. At half time, we were way ahead of both of those numbers.

Well when the game is 25 minutes long then I’ll be super proud of them

 

[IthacaMatt]

Well when the game is 25 minutes long then I’ll be super proud of them

You said they didn't play any offense. They played great offense for a big part of the game, getting a 20 point lead. You might think that sucks, but we have been way worse, my friend. We won tonight on the road.

 

[Blanko97]

You said they didn't play any offense. They played great offense for a big part of the game, getting a 20 point lead. You might think that sucks, but we have been way worse, my friend. We won tonight on the road.

I didn’t say they didn’t play any offense, I said Monmouth also shut down our offense because it’s not very good

 

[AZOrange]

30 min of very good basketball. 10 min of very bad basketball. Inexplicable sub patterns again

 

[jordville]

Fun night in Atlanta with a ‘Cuse win!

Lot of seats were still available in McCamish tonight, but there was as a really strong Orange crowd. We had some strong LGO chants going— hopefully they came through on the broadcast. We in attendance were Level 5. Tech fans were loud in the beginning booing Nait anytime he touched the ball. They got fairly quiet as the game went on until late in the second half when we let Tech back in the game.

A few observations from our bench, etc…
- The exercise bike was out for Donnie and Kiyan at times when they were out of the game.
- Sadiq had his back wrapped for most of the second half. He didn’t last long when he was put in. Did they mention any injuries on the broadcast? Sadiq seemed pretty down talking to family and others after the game before getting on the bus.
- Betsy was clearly frustrated playing limited minutes in the second half. One time when he came out, he didn’t go all the way down the line to slap hands— he did get back up and dap the rest he missed. When he sat back down he was short with the managers trying to get him water/towels. Wish he got more run.
- Speaking of more run— Kiyan hardly played in the second half. We could’ve used a spark of offense. We built that 20 point lead and then everything went stagnant.
- Kyle made some nice plays but felt he was limited more tonight because of foul trouble. Souare fouled out pretty quickly. Tech couldn’t shoot to save their lives but were getting quite a bit of second chance opportunities. He had a lot of family/friends at the game. So did Kiyan.
- Donnie was the man! Makes the world of difference with him healthy on the court.
- The only assistant coach who was actively up and engaged during game play was Coach Straughn.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

The game looked like two coaches racing to get fired first

At least ours doesn’t look like DL Hughley

 

[Newhouser]

Me too. Which is kind of crazy. It's amazing how we can even make a road victory in double digits not that enjoyable

It's also a statement on our program that a road win over a bad team down a couple guys is treated like we scaled Everest.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

Disclaimer: I watched the game well after it was over and knew that we had achieved a big lead and lost most of it going in. So that likely distorted my perception of what I was seeing.

Having said that:

-I thought we played pretty well the first half and tech was terrible. Obviously most of this was due to DF. The refs gave us quite a few calls early on but it didn’t help us as they decided they didn’t want any tech guys to foul out in the second half so they were allowed to mug us down the stretch

-someone explain to me why tech commits their 7th foul in the first half on a clear path play and somehow we were only given the ball out of bounds? I know clear path isn’t an upgrade in college but certainly the 7th foul had to be FT.

-freeman could have scored 40 today if he were given the ball the last 10 minutes of the game instead of Boy George pounding the ball into oblivion for 27 seconds a possession and then falling down , but at least he went 10-10 from the line against his ex team.

Heavens to Betsey doesn’t get enough run. He deserves more PT. I can think of at least one guy who he could take some minutes from. I can envision a sweet high / low set involving Betsey and DF. Wing entry pass to DF and if Betseys man drops even a little , kick it back to Betsey for a 3. If he stays home, let DF go to work down low. Make it happen .

 

[Timonen]

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.

Kiyan was checked out at the end of the bench at the nervy timeout when tech pulled to 6. Walked down to get water as soon as red started talking. After the game, jj walked off with his arm around him talking. Was clearly something. Saddiq body language not as bad but not good on the bench. Hated that it got to that after being up 20.