First, 2 points I think are very important, #1, Roy is coaching for March more than for Nov. He puts guys in tuff situations now so that they can develop later season as well as not find tuff situations new later on. 2nd, while I hate any loss, we had to be tested and UNC playing Texas on Thanksgiving ALWAYS is a tuff one for us. Not the first time Texas has tainted our turkeys.
Now going to say it right now, we missed 7th Woods last night, a point I have seen made by several and kinda funny that others are now saying that, considering discussions about 7th prior to this season. But 7th has been very solid defensively this season and he seems to work better with Kenny, with the experience factor not forcing Kenny to try to help off as much. As for Kenny in this game, no sugar to coat it, it was a bad game. 75 offers an ankle tweek as reason he looked slowish, I can buy that but that being the case makes you scratch your head at 28mins of PT. Looked to me like he over helped way to often leaving his man to far to recover effectively back.
Coby, while it was great to see the kid go off offensively, he did let his defensive assignment force him to trail which forced help, when that help came Coleman found the open man, defensively our back court was just not good. There is a fine line of doing to much, take on to much of a scoring load and getting your team mates involved by looking for the assists that Coby does, is and should be expected to struggle with. A kid as young in our system but as gifted a scorer as Coby should be expected at times to feel like he has to take over when he hits some great shots, Joel did as Marcus did before him. The problem becomes, does taking on that much of the scoring burden remove the rest of your mates and results in their not working as hard to allow us more balance? Last night, as great as Coby's scoring was he did take several shots outside of the offensive flow that seemed to cool everyone else off.
Leaky, yep, a small forward at the PG spot, just as I would have said about Theo at the PG spot, just don't like it and it didn't work well last night thou I will agree in time leaky would be more able than Theo would have been to be a PG, I don't want Leaky at the point but I get why we saw it last night even if I did not like it or feel it was the best move but this IMO was Roy teaching for later season so I will swallow that nasty pill.
The BIG deal last night is what I have been saying all off season, we go as far as our front court allows us, that isn't just about scoring, it is about rebounding, blocking out, defending, playing physically, rim protection, and being in the right spots. Great big men in the paint erase a lot of mistakes, we get very little of that so when Coby for example lets his man get him to a side and drives, there is no great eraser in their to handle and alter the driver and we were VERY slow to the ball and many times no one stopped it? Roy will have a heck of a "teachin moment"! That means some fellas are gonna run some so they can learn to stop the ball. LOL
This game, our front court was NOT strong, yeah, I will agree with Coby, "soft". I think folks already know, I have not been the guy that buys this Luke is a NCAA AA 1st team guy, kid gets all he can out of his body but Luke is just not long nor is he able to carve out space like Meeks was able to. When Luke is not hitting jump shots he isn't going to bring a lot of back to the basket game nor as you see is anyone else. Brooks, disagree he is all that small for a 4 or 5, kid has good reach but he is more a face up guy or a stick back guy. Sterling should be our rim protectors, he has the great length but his feet are really slow and he seems to wilt at physicality. Still say, I would like to see our most physical big man get some run, his feet are slow as well but he stands up strong to physical contact, yeah I am talking about Huff. I get it, Roy is trying to get Brooks and Manley ready for later season and there is so much that has to occur with them he feels it hard to mix Huff in more but not sure if the investments in those 2 is paying off as much as I would hope, so why not invest some in Huff and see what those returns look like.
STILL scratching my head over BRob being the fist 2 guard off the bench when Kenny sits, I just don't see it and I am looking hard. Much as I hate to say it, I would not take Kenny out of the starting lineup but I would have to reduce his PT. I think our best lineup is 7th at the point, Coby at the 2, Naz, at the 3, Cam at the 4 (thou very little difference in the 3 and 4 with this rotation) and a big man and not certain that big man is Luke because he gives us so little rim protection but if Manley is not going to step up big Luke may be our best option.
I am not as upset as many seem to be with this game, I knew we were not going to be undefeated and Texas on Turkey day is always a hard one for us and the learning process is not always easy. I did like the way we fought back late, should not have had to but they did show some late grit that I do think will pay off for us later season. Tip your hat to those Texas guards, they took and early blow and came out swinging as you knew a Shaka Smart team would.
