Yes. If Buddy doesn’t go off, the plus minus changes. Same with Marek’s big half. Q becoming a rebound machine helps the plus minus. ND not taking FT helps the +|-
I haven’t watched a lot this year. K is certainly a plus player, and at times, Joe has looked like a shell of himself, and his confidence seems gone. I saw that he is asthmatic. I am wondering if he has just been wiped by the virus.
Buddy is finally rounding into form. Not sure if it’s was the virus, stoppages in play/practice. Just a weird year, especially for our shooters. If just one had struggled, I would think it was just that type of year, but both have really struggled, both were sick.
We would have been an interesting team with Sid in the middle.
Yeah, it's amazing that every thread becomes Joe vs. Kadary. Kadary had a great game, didn't think Joe was individually the reason for the disastrous first half but clearly Kadary was a HUGE factor in the comeback. Where that leaves us going forward I guess we'll see.
A few other (non-Kadary) observations instead of starting a new thread:
On both sides of the ball it's amazing how much better shooters shoot with their feet set. Buddy has a tendency -- I think due to not having the quickest feet -- to not have his feet set and his base underneath him when he shoots. He always moves well without the ball but we don't always do little things to get him an extra beat and he doesn't always get his base underneath him when he's in a hurry. Against ND, he was set and had clean looks a lot and he was absolutely brilliant. Some of this had to do with Buddy's technique and some with guys getting him looks (Marek, not shockingly, had a couple really pretty quick looks and Buddy was ready to shoot).
On the other side we did a better job of taking away the three, obviously, in the second half. ND had a bunch of possessions in the first half where they passed the ball around a bit but essentially just caught and shot clean. Wertz, for example, was red hot most of the night, but the one time I remember us running him off his spot, he pump faked and then tried to shoot a three and it clanged off the backboard. Some teams will move the ball well and create open looks -- they do it against man defenses as well. But we can't just allow them to swing the ball around and shoot open, stand-still threes all night (obviously, i guess).
Really a bummer (obviously) we didn't have Sid this year. We're now 11-0 when being even or winning the rebounding battle. We wouldn't be undefeated with Sid, but if he makes a difference in a couple games, this team might really have something. Nothing more to be said, but just sucks.
Q contributed in a big way and I love the kid, but he's been struggling a bit. In his last six games, Q is averaging 11 ppg on 38% from the floor, 70% from the line, 22% from three. The first 13 games he was at 17 ppg/57%/35% from 3/75% from the line. What's more, he was getting to the line 5x a game. he's down to around 3 the past six games. He's still huge for us. Love the kid, but hope he is just in a bit of a slump and breaks out -- against Duke would be a nice time for that. One thing I don't love is when he makes that move baseline then stops and pumps and tries to figure it out. Just go up strong with that thing!
Bras played well. Would love to see a bit of woody but nice to see bras contributing. Nothing spectacular, but plays with good energy and he's a decent threat to knock down a shot.
Griffin's weird year continues. Some games he's the best player on the floor. Didn't think he was absolutely awful per se, but shot selection was not awesome and his defense wasn't great either in the first half. Wonder if there are some maturity concerns here. Not saying he's a bad kid, but he's had a few games where he's getting into it with some player or another and some games where he just hasn't been mentally checked in to the proceedings. Not trying to insinuate I know anything, just unusual to see a guy who's clearly very talented play exceptionally hard sometimes and then appear to be checked out for long stretches at others. Hope he rebounds big against Duke. And, by the way, he always seems engaged on the bench so perhaps I'm way off.