SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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- It’s obvious the three pointers killed us, as they almost did Sunday. In his presser, JB said it was the same problem: we let them have open shots. I don’t quite agree. Wake made 25 footers, often well defended. NC State was hitting wide-open conventional three points, (7 of 13 in the second half. Our players might have been worn down by the Wolfpack press, which they used whenever they could throughout the game. Another factor may have been something we did very well: we had 11 steals and 32 points off 19 turnovers. We may have had so much success doing this that we focused more on stealing passes than covering shooters.
- The Wolfpack was a better defensive team than I remember from past seasons Kevin Keats had his men almost standing in our player’s sneakers. They forced 15 turnovers of their own. They weren’t stealing passes. They were picking our pockets.
- They were also stunting our drives. JB said that we got what we wanted off of our drives but I don’t think we did. Our guys had to drive around 2-3 defenders to find and opening. They double-teamed both Battle and Howard, whoever had the ball. There was a good bit of fouling on those drives and the ref called some of it but not all of it. Early in the game, much of the fouling was done with the legs, if you catch my drift.
- Our overall free throw shooting wasn’t terrible (70.4%) but we missed 5 of 14 in the second half and that number of missed really impacted the strategy in the late possessions because we were down 3-4 points and had to look to long range shots, which we are not good at.
- I don’t know if we can even make it through this season. Players keep getting injured. Paschal Chukwu hurt huis back and in effective. So was Bourama Sidibie, who is hurting again. Marek Dolezaj turned an ankle and appeared mildly hobbled. Well, they say everybody is sore this time of year.
- The Wolfpack was a better defensive team than I remember from past seasons Kevin Keats had his men almost standing in our player’s sneakers. They forced 15 turnovers of their own. They weren’t stealing passes. They were picking our pockets.
- They were also stunting our drives. JB said that we got what we wanted off of our drives but I don’t think we did. Our guys had to drive around 2-3 defenders to find and opening. They double-teamed both Battle and Howard, whoever had the ball. There was a good bit of fouling on those drives and the ref called some of it but not all of it. Early in the game, much of the fouling was done with the legs, if you catch my drift.
- Our overall free throw shooting wasn’t terrible (70.4%) but we missed 5 of 14 in the second half and that number of missed really impacted the strategy in the late possessions because we were down 3-4 points and had to look to long range shots, which we are not good at.
- I don’t know if we can even make it through this season. Players keep getting injured. Paschal Chukwu hurt huis back and in effective. So was Bourama Sidibie, who is hurting again. Marek Dolezaj turned an ankle and appeared mildly hobbled. Well, they say everybody is sore this time of year.
