The Downside- Wake Forest | Syracusefan.com

The Downside- Wake Forest

SWC75

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- We are heavily dependent on the “Big Three” of Rakeem Christmas, Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney. They put up amazing number sin this game, (see The Upside), but is any of them is not functioning at full capacity, we are mediocre at best. In the first half Gbinije had one point. In the second half and overtime, he had 16. Even with that, we barely pulled this one out. We are counting on these three players to not only be productive but to be consistently productive. All three have been role players until this year and they’ve never shown the consistent production we need from them now. But that’s college ball: you lose guys and new guys have to step forward and be the heroes. If they don’t, it’s a long, long year.

- While those guys are our big three, we can’t go 3 on 5 and beat good teams. We need some production form the other guys. Kaleb Joseph, Tyler Roberson, Ron Patters and BJ Johnson were 6 for 22 from the field and scored 13 points. But it’s not the shots they missed that bothered me. Boeheim complained that Joseph was “just circling around out there”. Patterson drove through the lane several times and seemed to have an open shot at the basket, even a lay-up but used the drives to force the ball to Cooney in the corner. Wake finally timed that and got a big steal late in the game. Tyler Roberson was short on several shots, then made one, then stopped shooting. He’d get the ball 10-15 feet from the basket with no one bothering to guard him and look around for someone else to get the ball to or just dribble it aimlessly. Then he finally made a couple of jumpers down the stretch and looked good doing it. He got 4 offensive rebounds, which is good, but each time looked to pass the ball out to a teammate, instead of trying to score himself when he had the ball right next to the basket. I realize these guys are not the #1 options but you have to make the defense at least respect you.

- I won’t bring up the subject of fronting the inbounds guy to avoid these half-court bombs JB was complaining about in the post- game: it’s too late at night to get into that again. I’ll just say that five guys don’t do a very good job of guarding four guys if they’ve been to make sure not to foul them.

- I think Konstantinos Mitoglou just hit another one.
 
I appreciate your point, but I learned a long time ago the first rule of offense is to feed the hot shooter. It's probably a good thing right now that the support players aren't "demanding their touches," and 6-22 bears witness to that!

I noticed our t/o's were down (7 I think) but we were out-rebounded and that doesn't happen very often, I don't believe.
 
- I think Konstantinos Mitoglou just hit another one.

Good line. I'll be seeing him in my sleep. Very efficient. Converted 10 of 13 from the field. Strange form on his outside shot. Kind of a throwback. Doesn't look like he leaves his feet. Just stands there and flicks his wrist.
 
Roberson's hesitations were phenomenal last night. PLEASE take some shots! God bless him for those rebounds, though.
 
Roberson's hesitations were phenomenal last night. PLEASE take some shots! God bless him for those rebounds, though.
A couple of times, I thought he had very nearly open lanes to the basket since his man was shading to double Xmas and Cooney was being being doubled as well. I'm not sure if it was the angle of the camera or not. Also he looked like he didn't want to get yelled at for taking the ball to the rim and missing.

If he can go after buckets like he goes after rebounds, the kid is going to be a terror for teams to deal with.
 
A couple of times, I thought he had very nearly open lanes to the basket since his man was shading to double Xmas and Cooney was being being doubled as well. I'm not sure if it was the angle of the camera or not. Also he looked like he didn't want to get yelled at for taking the ball to the rim and missing.

If he can go after buckets like he goes after rebounds, the kid is going to be a terror for teams to deal with.
He's got to WANT IT, just like Rakeem has learned to want it.
 
Konstantinos Mitoglou reminds me of our Big East years when a basically unknown bench player comes in and scores almost every time he touches the ball to tag a loss on us and then is never to be heard from again. I for one will remember the Greek. Couple that with one half court shot at the end of the 1st half (and a 2nd in O/T) we normally end up losing a head scratch-er What game. This was a good win and I beleive Tyler Roberson was nervous but as the game progressed he gained some confidence, lot of potential buried in that body. As the next few weeks come I think he will slowly improve and by March will be a different player with moments when he dominates a game.
 
Another key downside point: Kaleb's defense was so bad that JB benched him for almost the entire 2nd half and the OT. He was out of position so many times leaving 3 point shooters unguarded that after screaming at him 3 or 4 times he was benched.
 

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