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Well, there I go doing a write-up about the team and how they should finish above .500 in the ACC and go to the dance again - and then they have to go lose our tune-up opener against UNC Greensboro. Ouch. If our days weren't murky enough with the controversy and frustration swirling around the football team, now we have to start tossing our hands up over the hoops team.
I listened to most of the first half and not much of the 2nd as I was putting my girls to bed. Instead of trying to piece together an analysis based on a box score and some snippets, I'll ask those who actually went to the game to share their insight and analysis. What I will do is post the best and most insightful comments on the next post. Now, that means "fire Coach Hewitt" isn't going to make the cut. I'd like some serious analysis here. Of course, I imagine that most of the internet ranters didn't go to the game so it won't matter. Again - I'm asking those who were AT the game to provide your feedback.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Hoops: Ohhhhh Boy!
Posted by Scott at Friday, November 09, 2007
Labels: Hoops
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17 comments:
UNCG only took 2 types of shots all night. beating our guys down the court for an easy 2, or hitting the open 3 pointer. Clinch was off all night and Morrow did his best to take over the scoring. Didn't do a good job of feeding the posts in my opinion. Most of our scoring was some 3s, short jumpers, or putbacks. We are missing Dickey inside.
I was at the game! Overall, I think we were probably just caught off guard. Remember the year after our final four run, we squeezed by Illinois-Chicago by 1 point. That was scary, and could well have been a lot like this. After that game, we came back for the next one and creamed them.
One thing to note is that we were way out-rebounded in the 2nd half. After we dominated rebounding in the first half 27-14, they turned it around for 22-15 in the 2nd half. The crowd would just groan time and time again when UNCG would get the rebounds from their own missed shots. When we did finally get some, several times we would have a turnover at the other end. Just seemed like sloppy play - like we were sure we'd be able to come back because it's supposed to be a gimme game.
I did like the play from Causey and Bell especially. D'Andre is just a burst of energy on defense and was able to snag a few steals to get everybody going. Causey got everyone fired up with some nice defensive moves and some important 3's as well. You may say "important? but we lost!" and yes, we lost, but his 3's came at important times. I got the impression that he knew his teammates and the crowd were maybe giving up, and took over for a few moments to make a difference and get everyone back in it.
I love that A-Mo has been hyping his defense, and came through today showing how he's improved. He's quick and focused on his man. Didn't see a lot from Jeremis, but I have no doubt that he and A-Mo will recognize what happened tonight and help everyone focus before the next game(Sunday).
Apparently Lewis Clinch didn't have his hottest game, but I didn't notice that watching the game except for his lack of points. I didn't notice that he missed a lot of his shots, but now that I know that, it's clear that his presence was missed offensively.
I think Alade Aminu picked up right where he left off after last year -- with strong performances. I think he's got a little work to do on his Chris Duhon type shot (bouncing off the backboard), but I'm not worried about him.
Gani Lawal looked like he fit right in; I wouldn't have known he was a freshman. He hustles and works hard on both ends. Mo on the other hand was a little timid, as was Storrs for the few minutes he was in. He nailed a 3 right away, but we didn't hear much from him after that. I guess we are not redshirting him this year.
Why did we lose? My take: Clinch's offensive game was off, point guard play was somewhat timid, and we were out-rebounded in the 2nd half.
All in all, I think this will actually have positive ramifications for the season. We'll all remember this negatively because it's the season opener, but I think it has proven to our guys that you can't give up, you can't assume anything, and that we're going to have to work to get results. They won't come by themselves.
- curious
I was there. Here's my take on why we lost. We are playing a complex defense that requires every GT body to be able to keep up with almost anybody else on the other team. That explains why Alade was guarding their guards out beyond 3 pt. land. The defense involves lots of switching, which often resulted in us being out of position and leaving their guys wide open on the far side, as we'd get confused switching in the lane. This killed us. We have got to learn to communicate better.
I have to disagree on Gani Lawal. Yes, he has a great body, tall, fast, can run. However, he played like he was still in high school. His offense was primitive, really just throwing the ball at the rim and planning to follow up with a tip-in or dunk. Unfortunately for him and us, he was playing against big men who let him shoot garbage, didn't foul him, and then blocked him out from getting his own rebound. His D was not that impressive.
At the end (last three minutes), Causey finally started pushing the tempo and driving in to start the offense, wait for them to collapse, and then kick to the open guy for an easy shot. However, for the five minutes before that, nobody was aggressive in seeking a shot, and it was painful. Jeremis does not need to be at the top of the key handing off the ball to someone else. Get under the hoop and post up! Causey seemed to know what he was doing in general, brought some leadership, communication, hustle, defense, etc. Great, wise addition to this team.
D'Andre Bell did provide a nice spark on both ends of the court to get some things rolling. But then he had some mental errors, too.
Anthony Morrow is better on defense. He now pays attention to the whole court when his man does not have the ball. He anticipated screens and was in position pretty well off the ball (welcome changes). He was not super-aggressive on the ball, staying off a step or two. However, Morrow was a machine on offense, tossing in bucket after bucket. Defenders have to respect his shot now, so he's learned to dribble a step or two away from them to get open. Very effective tonight against their shorter guards.
After a year off, I expected Clinch to come out firing, ready to make up for what he's missed. Didn't happen.
Sheehan didn't play. Is he still not ready? Faye has incredible reach on D, but still skinny, weak in comparison to their forwards, and not a big help on offense (opened with an air ball).
Moe (or Mo?) Miller was okay at the point (obviously not great, or we would have won). Seems more like Jarret his freshman year than like Javaris.
What will it take for us to win? Knowing our assignments on D, especially during switches. Being more aggressive on offense to get a good shot (we took a lot of bad ones; people just kept taking shots that you knew were not in their game).
Will it help to have Peacock and Dickey back in the game? Yes, as Lawal is going to get eaten alive by seasoned big men if he doesn't learn the college game quickly.
What a brutal way to learn some lessons. I'm worried that the team will be discouraged about Hewitt's defensive system. The component parts may not be ready to do what Hewitt envisions.
Ran-DMC
Was Faye injured in the game? He only played for 5 minutes, and didn't appear to play at all the second half (I was monitoring the game online only).
Thanks!
Faye showed once again tonight he has no business playing D1 basketball. He single-handedly gave UNCG the momentum back towards the end of the first half.
The randy mcdow analysis was spot on regarding the major points. Without Dickey, Peacock, and apparently Sheehan not ready to contribute, our frontcourt can be worked over. This is a bad sign, as our abundance of big bodies was supposed to be the strength of this team. Somebody made the point earlier in the week that we have 10 or so players capable of starting, but also are equally capable of being reserves. This is a problem in that our roster does not seem to have a clear-cut, reliable, go-to guy to be the on-court leader. Jeremis is a leader, but his impact on the floor has always been somewhat sporadic. Tonight proved that more early losses are certain to follow, and it will be a huge challenge for CPH to build continuity with this diverse and mostly unproven group. It is confusing and frustrating to watch, as I compare the depth and physical talent of this team or last year's, to the much thinner ragtag group CPH inherited in his first year....and coaxed into the dance....and things don't really add up. Not time to panic, but it was a very discouraging night.
CPH always carries on about individual instruction in practice.
I think it shows in a game. They play like five individuals — they never have a flow of a team.
Anyone notice this?
OG-T
I was at the game and was very upset by the continued bad coaching. On D why do our guys get right up on the other team's players? It makes us easy to beat off the dribble and our help defense is atrocious. What the f*$k CPH? Why do we have Jeremis and Alade defending out beyond the 3-point line? It's a strategy for disaster each and every game. Offense was equally bad. Jeremis, for the rest of the season you may not hold the ball for more than two seconds continuously. We have no rhythm, flow or movement most of the time. If I see another high pick for a guard or dribble exchange I'm going to go apeshit. Neither does anything to create shots or put pressure on the defense. Scott says no "Fire CPH" comments. Ok, not tonight, but this kind of loss makes you wonder what direction the program is going in. The word for this night was unacceptable for every coach and player. They should be ashamed......
Once we know our defense and are quick enough to implement it and communicate well, it could be absolutely ferocious, kind of like Tenuta's D (with a solid secondary--meaning you need Kenny Scott and Morgan Burnett and a couple other studs to get the backs of Phillip Wheeler and Vance Walker).
The question is: how long will it take us to get there, and will Hewitt stick with it through some awful losses. He may not be willing to abandon the system he's spent so much time teaching them.
I hope we pull it together, as I do like this team and think they can do something special. Maybe Dickey will have learned to get fired up each single minute of every game and Zach P. learned to keep his intensity but not foul as much. If A-Mo, Storrs, Causey, and Miller can be threats on the perimeter, that will open things for Dickey and Peacock to either take it in or look for Jeremis and Gani to finish.
I was there last night and the team showed one frustrating trend of the CPH era. We lacked any kind of offensive strategy. Throw a 2-3 zone (which UNCG ran in the 2nd half) at us and we can't beat it unless we're shooting well. The off the ball movement was non-existent (Morrow and Clinch would sit outside not really moving). There were offensive possessions in the 2nd half were players would never change sides of the basket once they got the offensive end of the floor. It was in stark contrast to UNCG which had an offensive game plan to create opportunities for shots. #42 for them was given lots of easy baskets as a result. I'm not saying we need to a strict style like the Princeton offense, but we need some semblance of a plan that can create easy baskets. Movement on offense creates seems and gaps that we can then exploit... we really looked like a bunch on individuals. Another word of warning. We were bad at inbounding the ball last year and last night didn't look any better. It shouldn't be that hard to inbound the ball, but we don't seem to move anywhere to make things easy on ourselves.
We were clearly bigger, and better athletically that UNCG. Until very late in the game I thought there was no chance we would lose. Maybe our players felt the same way -- we certainly did not play with passion or urgency.
In the first half they beat our press time and again for easy lay ups. In the half court D we fared pretty well. CPH needs to teach better press, or back off.
We had very little offense except for a brief spurt before the end of the first half. Every time we got momentum, we stalled and let UNCG back in the game.
As already pointed out, our rebounding was bad in the second half. Some of those were just long UNCG shots that bounded out toward half court, but other lost RB's were because we didn't go to the board and block out well.
I hope we learn from this. UNCG is not a good team and you will see them soundly beaten as the season goes on. If we are really this bad it will be a long, long winter.
Can we blame Chan for this loss?
I was there as well and I agree with most of the earlier posts.
Defensively, we looked out of sync. CPH's switching defenses may work wonders down the line, but last night there were way too many easy points given away either as a result of people missing their assignments or being beaten down the court in the transition game. Even the seniors looked confused at times. And there is no excuse for being outrebounded in the second half against a smaller team (their top two rebounders: Stywall and Hines were listed at 6'5" and 6'6" respectively), even without Dickey and Peacock (could Sheehan have helped?).
Offensively, other than A-Mo there appeared to be no spark. I think Causey and Bell did add some energy, but most of that energy was at the defensive end and didn't generate many points. Lawal did OK for his first game, and Mo Miller was respectable (however, it appears we'll miss Javaris for a long time), but other than that we were totally flat. The offense couldn't generate many decent shots and forced up a lot of bad ones (Faye and Clinch in particular).
Throughout the second half, I sensed the crowd was anticipating the 15-0 run that would put them away. It never seemed to materialize. Even with five minutes left, I still thought these guys would come to their senses and put a run together. Come on, this was UNC-Greensboro! Not the guys from Chapel Hill, or even Charlotte.
It never came.
Let's hope this is an aberration and a serious wake-up call for the Jackets. The competition isn't going to get any easier and if we continue to give away as many easy buckets as we did last night, it will be a long season.
Hewitt is a first-rate individual who has restored GT's reputation as a major basketball program. Let's hope he works through this as I'd hate to see him go. Tomorrow's game in Nashville will hopefully be the start of better things to come.
I am not a student of basketball but I am a serious fan. I saw a collapsed defense by UNCG that we couldn't get through for clean shots as well as the lack of tries and inability to hit our three's. There was not enough movement on offense and our defensive schemes were ineffective. We gave up at least five back door plays. Many rebounds were directly to UNCG players and a matter of luck for them.
from Paul 'don't call me Dwayne' Hewitt
per Mark Bradley
'Hewitt has had two losing seasons. Hewitt is 10 games under .500 in conference games. Hewitt has won one NCAA tournament game since 2004. Hewitt has now lost to a team that entered 0-24 against ACC opposition.'
Pretty much says it all.
CPH is a one trick pony. All recruit an POOR COACHING!
I still think Hewitt is a good guy and can be a great coach. However, something is wrong. I saw an interview with Ben Howland from UCLA this morning. I think Hewitt could take a few lessons from him:
1) How he recruits: focus on players that can pass and are playmakers. He does this for every position. Elevates the play of the entire team.
2) How he coaches: Number one rule is "keep it simple". Allows the players to be aggresive.
Watching Hewitt's teams the last few years, the players can't pass and they play tentatively.
Hewitt's system has become way too complex. The players have talent, but they are more worried about the system than playing ball. He needs to simplify things. Then he needs to get some players that can pass. We wonder what is wrong with this senior class; they simply cannot pass. Its tough to have chemistry when you don't know the defensive scheme and you can't pass.
With Hotel Hewitt (and that applies to the team on and off the court) passing, agressive play, and simplification is key.
kn you are right on the money.
Passing is the easiest way to break down a defense. What do you think about putting a guy at the high post? Sheehan seems like natural for that role.
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