Love Hughes at point forward w/ Boeheim and Girard on the wings

[pfister1]

I thought the coaches and team did a really good job of exploiting miss matches the whole game.

To answer your question, I thought the last timeout and resulting play were awful. They went away from the above statement at the end of the game.

Fiasco is strong for how well the game went, but it didnt need to be that close at the end.

I thought the offense played really well with Howard Washington in the game in the second portion of the first half. I thought JB waited too long in the second half to remove JGIII and try HW to see if that combination would spark the team. Then when it was clear that the strategy coming down the stretch was going to be to burn clock and have Eli play hero ball, he should have brought JGIII back in earlier than he did to give the VT defense a greater threat to deal with and make it harder for them to help against Hughes.

I also thought the last possession after the timeout was disappointing. I have no idea what was drawn up and whether it was executed as drawn up or not, but hopefully that wasn't what was drawn up.

 

[81South]

Say what you want but tech moved the ball well all game long and got good shots.

Basketball is a game of runs and they made one late but we held on!

 

[City of Cuse]

I thought the offense played really well with Howard Washington in the game in the second portion of the first half. I thought JB waited too long in the second half to remove JGIII and try HW to see if that combination would spark the team. Then when it was clear that the strategy coming down the stretch was going to be to burn clock and have Eli play hero ball, he should have brought JGIII back in earlier than he did to give the VT defense a greater threat to deal with and make it harder for them to help against Hughes.

I also thought the last possession after the timeout was disappointing. I have no idea what was drawn up and whether it was executed as drawn up or not, but hopefully that wasn't what was drawn up.

Agreed, I was saying the same thing. They were shooting over girard in the second. Thought howard could have came in earlier, especially with the run cuse went on in the first.

 

[Alsacs]

My god we won a game on the road where we were an underdog and people want to rip on JB.
I never want to be lumped in with anyone who claims I am anti-JB.

Jeez being legitimate critical of obvious deficiencies and just complaining after a great freaking win are different.
No coach is perfect. Hell under this standard how the hell doesn’t he get criticized for the NC game in 2003 where we had a double digits and held on by 3.

When you are the underdog style points don’t matter.
The defense with Girard is an issue but I believe JB will play offense/defense at the end of games if he realizes the problem.
VPI made a lot if open 3’s.
The zone gives those to teams that move the ball.

 

[SUbear]

I'm probably thinking of a different one, but JG3 had a similar moment when he had the ball in his hands after he was eyeballing the one guy after the foul, and put up a bad shot rather quickly, if I recall corrently. The announcer said the guy got inside of Joe's head, and that appeared to be the case.

yes I remember that incident too, different from mine.

 

[City of Cuse]

My god we won a game on the road where we were an underdog and people want to rip on JB.
I never want to be lumped in with anyone who claims I am anti-JB.

Jeez being legitimate critical of obvious deficiencies and just complaining after a great freaking win are different.
No coach is perfect. Hell under this standard how the hell doesn’t he get criticized for the NC game in 2003 where we had a double digits and held on by 3.

When you are the underdog style points don’t matter.
The defense with Girard is an issue but I believe JB will play offense/defense at the end of games if he realizes the problem.
VPI made a lot if open 3’s.
The zone gives those to teams that move the ball.

Great point, I was just about to compare this years vtech team with hinrich's kansas team.

It was a good win. Hopefully with a down league this year we can sneak some other ones.

 

[Jake]

My god we won a game on the road where we were an underdog and people want to rip on JB.
I never want to be lumped in with anyone who claims I am anti-JB.

Jeez being legitimate critical of obvious deficiencies and just complaining after a great freaking win are different.
No coach is perfect. Hell under this standard how the hell doesn’t he get criticized for the NC game in 2003 where we had a double digits and held on by 3.

When you are the underdog style points don’t matter.
The defense with Girard is an issue but I believe JB will play offense/defense at the end of games if he realizes the problem.
VPI made a lot if open 3’s.
The zone gives those to teams that move the ball.

From tip to final whistle, he is exceptional.

 

[hoopsupstate]

um I don't want to sound like a jerk and I enjoyed the win, but we had an 8 point lead with 3:48 and the coaching was a total fiasco from then on. VT had a possession to win it, and a guy took a terrible shot and we hung on. the coaching was garbage for the last 4 minutes.

JB can’t make shots.

 

[007]

um I don't want to sound like a jerk and I enjoyed the win, but we had an 8 point lead with 3:48 and the coaching was a total fiasco from then on. VT had a possession to win it, and a guy took a terrible shot and we hung on. the coaching was garbage for the last 4 minutes.

VT had great ball movement and hit big shots during that run. It happens and, IMO, had nothing to do with a coaching fiasco. And...a defensive adjustment by JB (great move) played a big role in that "terrible" shot by VT.

I know Jake already called you out on this. But, can you point out specifically the coaching moves that resulted in the fiasco?

 

[Bayside44]

VT didn't come out into the last possession expecting Hughes up top.

I believe Buddy got fouled on that quick 3. 3 more there helps. Hughes was defended well on that last possession. Best thing VT did was bait Washington into that quick 3.

 

[orangehomer]

So I’m curious. How was the coaching a disaster? What specifically do you think JB did that cost us that lead?

what was the fiasco?

we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

If we are going to ask Hughes to carry us late on ISO plays in close games it might be an idea to sit him around the 8 minute mark. If Washington can be a reliable handle you’d put him in when Hughes is out and could go small with Buddy at 3 or big with Marek there and Quincy and Sid in the game.

 

[rrlbees]

we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.

That’s not what happened really. Unless you’re thinking of that last possession only. When we were up 8 with 3:48 left, we had the following possessions.

Buddy missed 3
HoWash missed 3
Hughes missed 3
Hughes made basket on drive
Marek made basket (nice pass from Hughes)
Hughes miss (final real possession)
Marek made FT

 

[Gabjon]

we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.

From the 4:11 mark (66-58 SU)

Washington was in over Girard because he is a better defender and we have the lead.

Girard was subbed in because they double off of Washington and he didn't make them pay.

ISO ball at the end of the game puts the ball in our best player's hands limits the chance of a T.O. and allows us to run the clock.

We scored 4 pts out of it, Hughes passed to Marek down low for 2 and a banker by Hughes.

VT "crumpled" because JB put Hughes at the top of the zone the opponent was not expecting someone his size defending him on that shot attempt.

VT went 5-8 from the field but only 1 was from 3s.

It reduces the possession in the game and makes the opponent have to play almost perfect to win.

 

[rrlbees]

Love the comments

 

[CuseMan4]

Joes deficiencies showed last night. When he is closely guarded by a superior athlete he struggles much as Buddy did last year. Hopefully he will improve year over year but at 6'1 at best and not the quickest he is always going to be at a disadvantage.

Agreed. This may sound a little crazy but we obviously have 3 really good shooters in Girard, Buddy and Hughes. I wouldn’t mind going 4 out...with Marek down low. With a line up of:
PG-Washington
SG-Girard
SF-Boeheim
PF-Hughes
C-Marek
Hughes and Buddy to some extent have showed the ability to drive and Washington has showed the ability to drive and find the open man. It spreads the floor for our players. Yes we would be smaller but I think it would cause some matchup problems for our opponents.
Not saying this is something we should do for large portions of the game but 3-5 minutes a half depending on how the game is going. Just a thought

 

[Jake]

we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.

We had one possession where having Washington in the game hurt us. That was on his missed 3. If Washington makes it, the giddiness here would have been overwhelming.

JB then immediately sent JG3 back out there to prevent them from doubling Elijah.

I can’t think of a preferred set to run on a final possession than Hughes ISO. That last possession he was flanked by two great shooters and was operating essentially 1 on 1. I’ll die on that hill EVERY FREAKING GAME with this team. Hughes can shoot, drive or dish. He’s shown the ability all year long.

If you want to say that one possession where HOWash missed the three could have decided the game. I’d understand that, but there’s still 3 min left and we were still up 6.

And as others have stated, his decision to insert Hughes at the top of the zone on the last possession was an excellent adjustment for a game situation. It was something we hadn’t seen all year. it’s not like we have a corpse on the sideline.

You can argue with JB’s philosophy, you can argue with his program management, but dude is straight up solid from tip to final buzzer when it comes to game strategy.

 

[FrancoPizza]

The zone gives open 3s to teams that move the ball.

ive always said JB’s teams go as the offense goes because the zone will have plenty of matchups where it’s completely exposed... whether it’s open 3s or Sid charging to the corner on a white horse for a medieval joust.

 

[malpearl31]

we had an 8 point lead with 3:48. we went to iso for hughes which I think resulted in two points. we blew the lead and va tech crumpled on their chance to win it with 8 seconds lefts. did you think the hughes iso was good coaching? and, if you were planning to iso hughes wouldn't you want your best shooters on the court, namely girard instead of Washington? which we wasted 2 minutes on Washington.

You should re-watch the game - your recollection of how the final 3:48 unfolded is not very accurate.

JB did not call for a Hughes iso until there was 2:30 remaining, and that possession did result in a forced shot by Elijah (as Cone essentially ignored HoWash to double/help on Hughes). After VaTech then scored to cut the lead to 1, JB called a timeout with 1:52 left and replaced HoWash with Joe.

The first possession after the timeout saw Hughes iso’d up top - but now with Joe in the game, there was no double-team coming. Interestingly, JB also apparently coached Hughes to start his drive relatively quickly (perhaps anticipating that if a double came, it would come late?). Elijah made his move to the basket with 22 seconds still left on the shot clock. Marek got his layup with 17 left on the shot clock and 1:38 left on the game clock.

Next possession, same play call. Hughes iso up top, no double off of Joe or Buddy, Elijah made his move to the basket and scored again with 12 on the shot clock and 1:00 on the game clock.

Final SU possession was a 3rd straight iso for Hughes. This one started later - after calling a timeout, SU only had 16 seconds to shoot and Hughes didn’t get the ball up top until the shot clock had ticked down to 8 seconds. We ended up with a Hughes fade-away jumper that did not catch the rim, resulting in a shot clock violation with 0:10.3 remaining in the game.

And finally, after VaTech advanced the ball over half court and called timeout to setup their final possession (with just 0:07.4 remaining), JB subbed in Bourama for Joe and shifted Hughes up to the top of the zone. This gave us two 6’-6” guys up top, which clearly bothered the VaTech play call for Nolley to launch from the top of the key (which is clearly his preferred shooting spot if you paid attention to both games against them).

So to answer your questions: Yes, the calls for Hughes isolations were good coaching. We got 2 important buckets down the stretch by going through our best player. No, we did not waste 2 minutes of game clock running isos for Hughes with HoWash on the floor.

And I believe your original quote was that “the coaching was garbage for the last 4 minutes”. Lol. Methinks that says more about your understanding of the game of basketball than anything else...

 

[malpearl31]

You can argue with JB’s philosophy, you can argue with his program management, but dude is straight up solid from tip to final buzzer when it comes to game strategy.

Amen and spot on! The lengths some people go to in an effort to criticize JB are just too funny sometimes. Calling the coaching in the last 4 minutes “garbage” is just silly, even for this board.

 

[orangecuse]

We had one possession where having Washington in the game hurt us. That was on his missed 3. If Washington makes it, the giddiness here would have been overwhelming.

JB then immediately sent JG3 back out there to prevent them from doubling Elijah.

I can’t think of a preferred set to run on a final possession than Hughes ISO. That last possession he was flanked by two great shooters and was operating essentially 1 on 1. I’ll die on that hill EVERY FREAKING GAME with this team. Hughes can shoot, drive or dish. He’s shown the ability all year long.

If you want to say that one possession where HOWash missed the three could have decided the game. I’d understand that, but there’s still 3 min left and we were still up 6.

And as others have stated, his decision to insert Hughes at the top of the zone on the last possession was an excellent adjustment for a game situation. It was something we hadn’t seen all year. it’s not like we have a corpse on the sideline.

You can argue with JB’s philosophy, you can argue with his program management, but dude is straight up solid from tip to final buzzer when it comes to game strategy.

Hey, how'd you do that? Your "'if' Washington makes it" hypothetical received the reception as did my "what if" in a different thread, although with mine, the reception was in reverse.