First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Jan 6, 2018, 5:30 PM

Louisville's length was bothersome, and is this a preview of UNC, then? Yet we handled it pretty well in a largely half-court, slow-down game, so I have to say kudos there. Our guards, who penetrate pretty well, got rejected a lot when they went among the trees. It would be nice to see a forward slash down hard and get the dime but we don't seem to have a forward who wants the ball that badly, or guards who look like they're willing to dish - not sure which. Once or twice they did flick it to Thomas under there, but his hands are a little suspect and he loses the ball if it isn't perfect. Still, Thomas is a must-have on the court, has decent inside moves (and left hand), and good defender (includes rebounding), and alters shots with his length. He only played five minutes in the first half.

I like the defense I see out there, the rotations, the quickness, the coverages. This is speared quite a bit by (in order) Reid and Mitchell, Devoe, and Grantham, and Thomas as rim protector (when he can stay out of foul trouble).

The big guy Donnal off the bench is a critical depth element and he does serviceable work during Thomas's foul outages, and's a good pick-and-roll screen hedger also.

Grantham impresses me as a cerebral, mature player who plays within himself and does not try to do too much for his ability. He helps in handling the ball on the perimeter and against pressure as well. He had solid defense and some important rebounds, which is more than I've seen out of him in the past. I was disappointed in his outside shooting. I'm not bothered when a player has an off night and the balls rim in and out, but his are bad misses, as if he isn't familiar with the spacing or rims. However, then I learned in the post-game that he had stomach problems going in, so I'm going to give him a pass on this today. I know all about these problems, and they're tough.

The other bench scrubs that came in (Skara, mainly) were solid guys who worked hard, produced some statistically, and stayed in the flow and did not upend the rhythm of the team. Brownell seems very comfortable with his rotations. I still think he lacks in understanding rhythms of players, and if a player is playing well he should be left in the game. Some players get better and better and more in the flow as they get more and more sweaty and tired, but there seems to be this carousel philosophy that they're tired and they have to come out every three minutes. (I never had "TV timeouts" in college, and rarely came out of the game). On Grantham's dunk-and-one, he was immediately pulled out of the game. I would hope this is ONLY because he was sick and expended a lot on the play and needed to come out. Otherwise, you leave him in after that play because that got him and the crowd going.

By and large we were an ice-cold shooting team today, so I'll just blame the winter air. We got plenty of looks and shots, but nobody did much till later in the game. This must have been our low percentage for the year, can't imagine this not the case. Yet look at the FT's - outstanding percentage once again, and needed those late, in OT especially.

I'm going to say to the guards in critical late game situations when a player like Thomas gets the rebound and tends to panic - run UP to him and get the ball from him like a handoff. He made a very bad turnover with about a minute to play, frenetic all around him, he panicked and threw it away. I looked at the guards and they were just standing there waiting for him to pass the ball through a suspect lane. Or the big guy should be trained to call a timeout as worst case - but don't just chunk the ball away.

I saved the best for last and that is the scorer/pickpocket number two. This guy is a lynchpin player, must have on the court. I say number two because he needs to keep playing the way he plays and forget his own name, let nothing go to his head, because he is the real deal and the reason we won, the easy MVP, if you were to name one player on the court. Don't go near this guy on a sidewalk or airport unless your wallet is in a pouch bag! His scoring and defense (5 steals) were instrumental. Two steals late were huge turning points in the outcome of the game. He is by far the best scorer on the team and a potential All-ACC first teamer, and I haven't even seen the rest of the players in the ACC. He just needs to keep forgetting who he is, look like a kid on Christmas morning out there, and this team can go places.

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We are a very talented bunch, with good players at all five positions and what seems to be excellent team chemistry.

As you probably noticed, our backcourt is our strength this year. What you didn't see yesterday, with the exception of Reed, is that Mitchell, Reed, and DeVoe all play smart basketball for the most part, and can all shoot the ball. Yesterday was easily our worst outside shooting performance of the year. We typically make them at a much better clip. Nonetheless, Reed and DeVoe stepped up in crunch time yesterday and made huge shots.

Grantham has been a wonderful surprise this year. He seems to benefit a lot from not having to share court space with Blossomgame. He has been shooting lights out this year. However, toward the end of our previous game against BC, he got floor burn on his right (shooting) hand. This surely affected him yesterday, as did the flu. In every game this year except yesterday's, he can be counted on for big shots, tough rebounds, and good senior leadership.

As you noted, Thomas doesn't have the softest hands, and he does have a propensity for fouls. He is absolutely critical for our team's performance moving forward. While Donnal is a serviceable backup big man, it will benefit us greatly for true freshman Amir Simms to continue to develop. He already has a developed body, and was our highest rated recruit in the 2018 class, but he is still learning. I thought he played well yesterday in the minutes he got.

Brownell stated in his postgame press conference that we need to continue to develop depth. We only played a few reserves yesterday. Ideally, we will get to the point over the next 3-4 weeks where we can go 9-10 deep. It would be great if Donnal, Skara, Simms, Trapp, and Oliver all give us valuable minutes each game. This is certainly more difficult when playing top 25 conference foes, which we will do regularly throughout the next couple of months.

I still contend that this is arguably our most talented basketball team we've ever had, top to bottom. While there are no Larry Nances or Elden Campbells on this team, there are some very good players. I love our balance on offense, and the fact that any of our starting five can (and have) scored 20 points in a game this year. I don't know that we have ever had that, as well as very good team defense, on one team.

Here's to beating the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill this year, for the first time ever!

First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Re: First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Re: First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Re: First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Re: First viewing of Tiger BB, and analysis (long, nuanced)...

Maybe you need to watch NC

Hopefully you can watch more of our games this year.

Re: Hopefully you can watch more of our games this year.

Re: Hopefully you can watch more of our games this year.

Thanks, we are about the same age.

#2 Reed is the man. He's been our clear stopper to date in

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