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Message: [QUOTE="Orangezoo, post: 3626563, member: 237"] Ok so early morning today and had a long webinar I could recite by heart so I joined but watched the game again. First of all I will try not to revisit the obvious things we all saw around Kadary, Quincy and Guerrier. So many positives there. Same with Newton really. Let's start with Defense. There were only 5 slow/weak closeouts on threes through the 10 minute mark of the second half at which point started garbage time. Joe's defense deserves a call out because he was MUCH better on D. Also he looked slow live but when you rewatch the game the entire zone was moving together as it should and far less ground had to be covered. The entry pass at the top of the key was much more difficult for Niagara and thus you had far less ground for the team to cover. That said when things did break down, Joe and really everyone did a good job rotating minus a few plays. Top of the key penetration was rare but it did happen a couple times. Niagara wasn't as quick as Bryant and Green but yet the entire defense having at least practiced some moved as a unit. Maybe better than I recall seeing most of last year. Special call out to Woody on D because he started out with a couple bad fouls. He quickly did better moving his feet without getting into the ball handler. His defense alongside Kadary at the top of the zone made a hellish day for Niagara guards even worse. He tipped two balls that are passes we often give up to the wing. Kid has great instincts and appears super coachable. We gave up very little in transition last night. Some of that was Niagara but a lot was just great work on the boards and hitting our shots. Offensive rebounding made it really difficult on Niagara. Ok over to offense. Again- let's focus on Joe for a second. He looked a lot better despite his shot still being off and a few turnovers. He had some very nice passes and made some nice plays to probe the defense. He deferred a ton. He still isn't last year speed but against Niagara we weren't running crazy amounts of screens running him all over to get open 3s. The movement and spacing on offense was solid and looked to really give Griff, Marek and Quincy lots of room to operate. There was no need for Joe to play at a breakneck pace. He was under control just as Kadary was the most important 2/3 of the game. Shot selection was good all around minus maybe a couple from Griffin. Otherwise those we missed were good looks of a pass, screen or good individual move to get open. Once again I can't emphasize in the context of playing withing the game plan and playing winning basketball how much better Joe looked. He was frustrated as he wanted to be 5-6 from 3 as he should have been but overall I am far less down on him rewatching the game. Other notables on offense were that Marek was a bit too timid for a while. It didn't hurt us but those turnovers being bitten by smaller guards slowed him down. I like that he can bring it up but he needs to be smarter about it. Still he was solid on both ends overall. As our senior leader we need his best. Final notable was that Griffin is going to take a bit to find himself in this offense. He is a hard-nosed kid who plays balls to the wall so I have full faith it will click. Rewatching the game I feel a lot better about having to be shorthanded. [/QUOTE]

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