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Alabama vs Carolina sweet 16 game thread on Thursday 28 March 2024 in LA

Well….. Not gonna hate on Coach. Players gotta make shots when given the chance. Questionable sub pattern? Well if I could live with some of Deans substitution patterns (Buckley anyone) I can live with Coach Davis’s
On to football I guess and next year. Let’s see what happens in the portal now.
Go Heels!
 
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Well….. Not gonna hate on Coach. Players gotta make shots when given the chance. Questionable sub pattern? Well if I could live with some of Deans substitution patterns (Buckley anyone) I can live with Coach Davis’s
On to football I guess and next year. Let’s see what happens in the portal now.
Go Heels!
Portal should be interesting
 
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That Withers 3 was a killer. Up one, 1:02 left and 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Then he compounds it by gifting Nelson an and-1 seconds later.

There were other things late you can point out as well, but that 8 second exchange was a 5 point swing. Tough to recover from that.

Withers has athleticism and had his moments, but his very poor BB IQ and his playing way too loose with the ball makes me wonder why we brought him in.
 
That Withers 3 was a killer. Up one, 1:02 left and 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Then he compounds it by gifting Nelson an and-1 seconds later.

There were other things late you can point out as well, but that 8 second exchange was a 5 point swing. Tough to recover from that.

Withers has athleticism and had his moments, but his very poor BB IQ and his playing way too loose with the ball makes me wonder why we brought him in.
He was the best option to try & guard Nelson cause no one else could
 
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Still - all year I felt like all our perimeter guys shot best when ec passed to them or at least moved the ball. Way too much rj iso ball and him having to dribble and try to create open shots. He can - but those are way harder than catch and shoot open shots - for rj or anyone.
There’s no question, all season our best offense was with Cadeau and RJ on the floor. The lineup data says that.

Ironic due to tonight’s events but our actual most efficient lineup during the season was Cadeau-RJ-Ingram-Withers-Bacot

Also from a logical perspective, RJ isn’t a PG. He’s better off the ball.

I do think a lot of this had to do with the defensive end. Hubert started the second half switching all ball screens. He probably wanted more size.

Trimble also turned down open 3s in the second half so it’s not as if his made 3s gave him a lot of confidence to keep shooting in rhythm. He even turned one down to end up shooting a 12 foot fadeaway that got blocked. He honestly looked scared offensively to me despite making early jumpers.

I disagree with the rotation. I would’ve just played the starters the entire second half excluding foul trouble. But there are avenues where I see why Hubert did what he did.

I disagree with him though. If I’m losing, I’m losing with my 5 best players. Not our 7th and 9th best players.
 
That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
 
Withers 3 and Bacots missed dunk was the dagger.. 1 made three by RJ and we win too.. I'm not even hurt for some reason. RJ pulled a Love.. both teams lost tonight too
 
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RJ is not a pg and everyone can see it except Hubert. There is no excuse for our true pg being benched while RJ pounds the air out of the ball.
Nice you just won the “Dumb Dumb post of the year” award! Didn’t complain about RJ’s abilities all year but now that he had ((((1)))) bad game you want to call him out like that is frightening- Who are you?

I’m glad ACC Coach of the year Hubert Davis decided to roll with RJ instead of EC; EC would have been a massive liability! MASSIVE!!!!! I would have rolled with ACC Player of the year RJ Davis till the freaking wheels fell off as well! It was a good decision we just lost. Period.
 
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That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
Well played post there Sir! I agree 100%
 
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Yes - in hindsight with rj having a bad shooting night - super unfortunate.

I would’ve picked literally anyone else in this region to play than Alabama. They can be off or on shooting and tonight they were on. If they are off they give up and get beat by average teams. Unfortunately tonight wasn’t that night.

But let’s be real. They had better ATHLETES on the court at most every position except HI and if Trimble was on court.

bacot, jwash withers wojcik are not athletes at all on the level of these bigger better jumping faster Alabama players. Could say that about Cadeau and rj too.

In these sorts of matchups it can be a hard uphill battle to be smaller and less athletic at nearly every position- especially when their shots are falling and our best player has maybe worst game in 2+ years. Just sucks.
 
Blown chance to make a final 4.. all we had to do was win and then beat Clemson.. seemed too easy after all. I'm ready for next year. I have loved Bacot all 5 years but I'm ready to see UNC without him.
 
That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
Agreed. Great post. I just hate that the L comes to that pos oily cockroach / snake oats. They will probably beat Clemson too. Not sure then who they’d meet in final four - UConn?
 
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Blown chance to make a final 4.. all we had to do was win and then beat Clemson.. seemed too easy after all. I'm ready for next year. I have loved Bacot all 5 years but I'm ready to see UNC without him.
Agreed. He is persistent and consistent - but in the clutch he too often has played below the rim and gotten dominated be equal or even seeming lesser players. How did Nelson own him tonight? How does he miss so many close shots / dunks?
 
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That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
Perfect summation
 
That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
Agree 100% about withers shot
 
Nelson will revert to his usual self next game and score three points like his last two games in tournament. Career game against us…never fails
We got 11 points from Trimble and Wojcik. And Cadeau made more 3s tonight than he did the entire month coming in. Good fortune went both ways tonight.

Nelson also barely played his last two games. He puts up Harrison Ingram like production and no one here says Ingram will revert back to whatever when he drops 20.

He’s a good player who had a favorable matchup. Credit to him for taking advantage.
 
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We got 11 points from Trimble and Wojcik. And Cadeau made more 3s tonight than he did the entire month coming in. Good fortune went both ways tonight.

Nelson also barely played his last two games. He puts up Harrison Ingram like production and no one here says Ingram will revert back to whatever when he drops 20.

He’s a good player who had a favorable matchup. Credit to him for taking advantage.
He averages 11.4 points so safe to say the game of his life and it seems to happen to the heels a lot. Just sucks it happen tonight while rj struggled too. Oh well.
 
I’ll just be happy when I feel our coach can out coach others. Talent gets you so far but there are times when adjustments determine the outcome of the game. I have not seen that yet with current staff.
I don’t think this UNC team was particularly talented. In fact, I think it got about as far as their talent level, the second weekend.

From a talent basis, I thought Alabama looked much more like some of the good Roy teams than this UNC looked.

That’s just me though. I think the staff got a fair amount out of this group.
 
I’ll just be happy when I feel our coach can out coach others. Talent gets you so far but there are times when adjustments determine the outcome of the game. I have not seen that yet with current staff.
Agree with this. But when we shoot 25% in second half - 10/40 - pretty fortunate to be up 3 late. People need to make shots.

We should’ve given rj some chance to get going in second half but once it was clear he was just going to be off, we should’ve pounded it inside or found opportunities in the paint on almost every possession. To me that would mean ec in place of wojcik - and running more stuff in the paint for bacot and especially Harrison.
 
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HD putting Wit in on Nelson from 5:00 till 1:30 was genius… we went from down to a lead because of the move and we had a chance

… Then Wit showed why he was getting burst minutes and not long minutes all season with back2back stupidity :/
 
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Drive and dish. Alabama shut down our perimeter late in the game. RJ and Cadeau can drive and dish. I may be wrong but I think that is what we needed late in the game. Credit to RJ he recognized his theee ball wasn’t falling but found other ways to score late
 
RJ shot bad but he played well, EC played 4 1/2 minutes in the 2nd half, he played 8 1/2 mins in the first half and we was winning by 8 at half time and we lost, I feel certain we was in the plus with him on the court.

Maybe not playing him more was the correct move but I can't buy that without some explanation.
 
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I’ll just be happy when I feel our coach can out coach others. Talent gets you so far but there are times when adjustments determine the outcome of the game. I have not seen that yet with current staff.
He made lots of adjustments in this game. One might say too many? Not sure why we went away from Cadeau and back to RJ pick and role, or Wojcik on the wing.
 
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He averages 11.4 points so safe to say the game of his life and it seems to happen to the heels a lot. Just sucks it happen tonight while rj struggled too. Oh well.
I didn't think it was the game of his life. He had several 20 points games this season. He's a good offensive player and we didn't defend him well.
 
That was arguably the best game of the tournament for just basketball fans with no rooting interest. It sucks to come up on the short end of a classic game as a fan of one of the teams though.

Bama made tough shots, and we matched them. It was a game of runs. The Withers 3ball was the biggest mistake to me.
I'm not sure why everyone has such a problem with the withers 3?

It's probably a 35% shift for him, he's wide open at the top of the key. That's really a decent shot, and if we go up 4 the game is probably over. I'd rather have a layup but that's not at all a guarantee. I thought the shot was fine at the time? And I still do.

His foul afterwards was bad. If Cadeau wasn't hurt I'm mystified why he didn't play more in the 2nd half though. That was the big mistake to me.
 
I'm not sure why everyone has such a problem with the withers 3?

It's probably a 35% shift for him, he's wide open at the top of the key. That's really a decent shot, and if we go up 4 the game is probably over. I'd rather have a layup but that's not at all a guarantee. I thought the shot was fine at the time? And I still do.

His foul afterwards was bad. If Cadeau wasn't hurt I'm mystified why he didn't play more in the 2nd half though. That was the big mistake to me.
For me it's because I do not think he has shot it at 35% from 3 all year, but even more than that, for me, is he has not even looked for his 3 much at all in the past 12 games or so, passing up looks quite often. It hasn't been a shot he looks comfortable with this year, especially the 2nd half of the year.

Time was left on the shot clock, I think with the score and time situation that is not the shot to take. I wish it was one of those "no, yes" reactions for me if he drained it, cause I did give out the audible "nooo", but a bad look in my opinion with time/score and how he has played in his role.
 
He shot poorly from 3 all season, and there was simply too much time left on the shot clock. The RJ high screen and roll with Bacot was working. You let your star players run the play that's been working.

Withers problem is he has low bball IQ. He can't figure out why Bama left him open there. He thinks that's a good shot.
 
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For me it's because I do not think he has shot it at 35% from 3 all year, but even more than that, for me, is he has not even looked for his 3 much at all in the past 12 games or so, passing up looks quite often. It hasn't been a shot he looks comfortable with this year, especially the 2nd half of the year.

Time was left on the shot clock, I think with the score and time situation that is not the shot to take. I wish it was one of those "no, yes" reactions for me if he drained it, cause I did give out the audible "nooo", but a bad look in my opinion with time/score and how he has played in his role.
Looked it up. He was 4 for 19 this year on 3's.
 
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