Measuring-stick game. If this were a home game, we’d most likely be having a different, more positive conversation. I did not see the game, but I like what I’m reading here from a competitive standpoint.
Carolina vs UConn at Madison Square Garden game thread——Tuesday 5 December
- Thread starter IDUNK4HEELS
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Cultural loss. Hubert has more talent but his system is too simple, dominated by iso ball on offense and poor on ball defense, too easily defeated by the first ball screen. If you put our players in UConns system and their players in Huberts, its a +30 blowout.
Great post. Yes - plenty to work on but plenty to feel good about too. Starting with EC and Ingram - and the improvement of Trimble. And have to assume Ryan will get it figured out. I hope we get more out of Washington and play him more too.
Would much rather go to battle with these guys than the psychological dumpster fire the Love factor last year. Even when winning it wasn’t something I felt you could rely on - the team consistently competing as a cohesive unit that liked / respected each other. To many infighting issues.
This group feels different. A better TEAM psychological makeup. And today was a good learning opp. But they have to find a way to win one of the next 2
hubert can’t play the games but i fear this is our ceiling under him. we show flashes at times, but can’t get over the hump consistently. i also continue to question the timing of some of his rotations. tough loss. maybe i’m looking into it too much but fear this is unc basketball under hubert.
Got to give Uconn some credit all of our shots where contested and no open looks, while they had wide open looks and noncontested lay ups and dunks all night long.
We show flashes of good things we are not consistent at all, and we don't rebound worth a shit.
We show flashes of good things we are not consistent at all, and we don't rebound worth a shit.
We got practically nothing outta two starters that’s the problem then the bench we’ll need I say more.
We CANNOT lose the next two games we have to find a way to win them both otherwise smh
will probably get bashed for this but.... does anyone else start to think we are lacking talent at this point? Rotations have been trimmed to bare minimum and the guys we are playing outside of RJ and Ingram aren't producing.. Bacot is a mirror image of his junior season self, Ryan couldn't hit the ball into the ocean (from what he's supposed to be), Withers is a bust, Wojcik is exactly who I knew he'd be (a limited role player from a small school), Washington just seems very inconsistent, and Trimble is another one who is hot or cold and gets limited minutes.
Cadeau has been great but he hardly brings anything on the offensive end which kinda hurts.
Really outside of RJ and Ingram, we are lacking skilled scorers and shooters.
Cadeau has been great but he hardly brings anything on the offensive end which kinda hurts.
Really outside of RJ and Ingram, we are lacking skilled scorers and shooters.
You can't play 13 guys, so it's not that I mind adding someone like Okonkwo specifically. We only have 11 scholarship players so we could've done more; certainly if any of the rumor guys (Moore Monsanto, Knecht, etc) didn't come here because of them it was a big mistake.
This isn’t an overly talented team. Our talent and depth was overstated by many. UConn is basically bigger at each position and I don’t think they’re any less athletic than UNC.
We’re capable of being really good though. But probably either need to shoot it really well. Or RJ and Bacot need to have big games. Why? Because we don’t have devastating talent.
I’m not too worried about Cormac Ryan. It’s a make or miss game. He’s not shooting to his capability. On the other hand Ingram is shooting way over his career averages. Water will find its level eventually. But Ryan needs to make his shots.
Less of an offensive worry for me but a defensive worry. This team needs to find ways to be good for a few 4 minute spurts defensively. They’re never going to be a good defensive team for 40 minutes. We’re too small. We have no shot blocking. But they have to be able to hold teams without a field goal for like 3:00 a couple of times per game.
UConn is really good though. No surprise they beat us. It probably would’ve been better for us if they lost to Kansas. Maybe a little extra focus coming off a loss.
Yeah you're right.. our defense is pretty bad!! And we definitely lack shot blocking and our rebounding has been bad!
Our defense against top 50 BartTorvik teams ranks 119th in the country. Our offense against top 50 opponents ranks 4th in the country.
That’s the story. For whatever flaws this team may have offensively, it’s proven to be an elite offense against quality opposition.
We didn't add enough to be a truly great team. Ingram was the only high end transfer, and RJ/Bacot both have flaws. They are good but not #1 option on a championship team good.
I was shouting from the rooftops we needed one more guy; we're really lacking in wing shooting and defense. Lots of bigs and point guards, but we're not deep and don't have much defensive talent.
RJ, Ingram, Cadeau, and Bacot is actually a really talented offensive quartet at the college level. It's the other end where they're not difference makers, apart from some flashes from Ingram and Bacot's rebounding. We've come a long way from the length/athleticism of Theo/Jackson/Hicks/Brice/Bradley terrorizing teams.
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We can outscore a lot of teams with good offense but look at how we make ok teams look great and so many players have career or season best games against us.
Not talking about UConn. They are well coached and get the right guys good shots in the right places. And they shoot really well.
I know we don’t want to be beaten to the hole for layups but it just seems that we don’t fight thru screens enough, don’t work hard enough, lose our guys on the 3 line - that teams take and make way too many wide open 3s. And our “strategy” is to hope they miss open 3s. I such that strategy would change. I doubt it ever will.
Yea this is honestly one of the least athletic UNC teams I can recall. And that’s going to be a challenge all year unless Cadeau and RJ grow 4 inches by the end of the season.
And the bench puts you in a hard spot. As of now, Wojcik and Withers are offensive 0’s. And you need to outscore teams to win. A flawed team. But a flawed team that can win a lot of meaningful games if they shoot it well.
I realize EC Zand RJ work their butts off but I still think their size hurts them some in defending and stopping bigger players. And rebounding. It seems Seth should get more time. Feels like he’s best csndidate to lock down a specific hot player.
Or Ingram on larger players at the 3 or 4 position
I’ll say it again. It’s going to be a challenge all year unless Cadeau and RJ grow 4 inches. Lol
Yeah I know. Me too. You have to love all he’s given to UNC and he loves the University. I guess I just think of what he could be if he had - say - Ingram’s fight / fire, engine. Or like even 70-80% of psycho T or Sean may. He’d be first team AA. Not happening though. He can work a lot harder , get better at finishing. Somehow Washington needs more time to give bacot more rest. So he doesn’t look gassed all game.
As of now, I think we have to outscore teams so I’d hesitate to start Withers or Washington at the 4. Idk if Washington can play the 4. UConn would’ve hunted his matchup against Karaban. And right now Withers is an offensive 0.
I think the discussion is different if Ryan makes a couple of 3’s. And Ball of UConn missed a couple of 3’s instead of going 3/6 when he came into the game shooting 22%.
Yes of course. It's really hard to guard guys 4-5 inches taller than you who are also stronger. It should've been really obvious to people that an RJ/Cadeau backcourt is way too undersized to be good defensively. You need to pair them with freak athlete wings or a monster stopper at center (like Clingan) to mitigate these issues. They're a bad fit with Bacot (who is alright on D due to his rebounding, but not a guy who cleans up other's mistakes) or a slender 6-5 wing like Ryan. These are just obviously bad fits defensively.
Would be really nice for Washington or maybe even withers ? Or High? to make a quantum leap as a paint / rim protecting defender. Then maybe we could play perimeter guys one on one heads up, without perimeter defenders having to help and sag into the paint - leading to kickouts where our opponent has like 3 seconds to line up and shoot a wide open 3 just like a free throw. Can’t even say how much I hate that.
Not going to happen. Washington is much worse than Bacot defensively; he's a sieve due to his lack of strength + mobility. I don't think he's going to suddenly get much quicker; he can gain some strength but that's a 1-2 year task.
Withers is a 5th year college player and not a particularly good one. I don't know why some have such high expectations for him; it's akin to expecting Wojcik to make a quantum leap. Paxson is only 4 months older than Withers. The guy is who he is.
High has some defensive talent IMO -- quick feet for his size and a high motor. But he doesn't have the technique, strength, nor basketball IQ yet to actually be a plus defender, and he wouldn't be some amazing rim protector anyway. He's also a total offensive zero right now, so that would just create other problems.
Cormac has to become an elite shooter in order for us to become an elite team this year. I kept wondering what we would look like if we would have gotten Knecht from Tennessee instead of Cormac. But we didn’t. Missed free throws, not being tough enough to rebound better and Cormac’s inability to throw it in the ocean was a big reason for the loss. Also, Bacot just cannot be great in big moments and big games. He just isn’t dominant. It looked like he was headed in that direction in the second half of the season in 22 but ever since then he has regressed. When we need a basket we can’t rely on Bacot. With Sean May, Psycho T, Brice, etc…those were players that we knew could score in big moments, in big games and in big situations and please don’t tell me that Bacot isn’t like those players because he has been a fringe Conference POY and AA. EC has to be more aggressive in hunting his shot too because we are getting very little from Withers, Paxson and Cormac. I hope Cormac can put it together because if he does than we will be extremely difficult to beat. Hubert reverting back to not playing his bench as games are getting tougher is beginning to be an issue again. Sometimes players like Washington, High etc can make a huge impact if given the chance. To me though it all comes back to Cormac
Meh. You didn't watch the whole game.
Cormac missing all 6 of his threes was probably the biggest difference. Make 2 or 3 of those and that game is very different
I hate to say this and bring his name up.. but dare I say we could really use Caleb Love... we need another scorer bad
UConn offense just sliced up the Carolina defense. Great ball movement and constant motion/cutting off the ball. If UNC can force tempo and get in transition they can play with anyone but not in a half-court game. Huskies owned the boards and the Carolina offense was usually one and done.
Ryan has not shot well since his injury and Withers is frustrating. Hopefully the problems from last night can be fixed, because UK has similar size and athleticism to copy what UConn did.
When I saw the schedule I cringed at that 8 game OOC (plus FSU) stretch. I hoped we would come out 5-3 with questions answered regarding outside shooting and the rotation. Losing that game does not really change my opinion - this team can be very good in March but there is a LOT of work to do.
Ryan has not shot well since his injury and Withers is frustrating. Hopefully the problems from last night can be fixed, because UK has similar size and athleticism to copy what UConn did.
When I saw the schedule I cringed at that 8 game OOC (plus FSU) stretch. I hoped we would come out 5-3 with questions answered regarding outside shooting and the rotation. Losing that game does not really change my opinion - this team can be very good in March but there is a LOT of work to do.
There should not be shame in losing to one of the best 4 teams in the country right now, this was a bench mark test for us, we have develop more but the good news is we have the talent to do just that. For us to win last night we had to shoot the ball well and we needed that solid if not great shooting from Ryan and Ingram and RJ to continue as he has been. Ingram did fine, his typical solid game but Ryan is still in a funk. We needed a big time game from Bacot knowing that Bacot does tend to struggle when he faces guys bigger than he is, you know the phrase looks like Tarzan plays like Jane, that is Bacot when faced with a guy his own size or more. Really didn't need our 5th year senior big man losing his composure and he let them get in to his head.
We needed our smallish back court to guard some, especially needed to try to contain their 6'5" AA candidate PG, didn't happen. We needed to own the tempo, we didn't. We needed to go deep to our bench ALL Game and what was it, the first 10mins or so of that second half we didn't sub anyone? We needed to not revert to the one on one nonsense and score off of assists, didn't happen. Virtually nothing happened that needed to in order for us to win. No one said that was going to be easy and it wasn't, UConn is very good and IMO one of the clear 4 best teams in the college game right now.
But moving forward, I think this is a game that can ground us a little bit, now we will be able to clearly see how this team handles defeat, does it re-inspire them to work harder or do they wilt like we saw last season? It is a gut check moment and this team has answered in other gut check moments this season, down by 14 in the second half against another top 20 team and coming back for a big win, drilling a top 10 team considered the best defensive team in the country (they are not) as examples. Make no mistake, Ky is a huge game for us as a gauge of how we respond. They have the guards that can heat us up as well.
I am not seriously upset over this game because I didn't expect us to be ready, best I was really hoping to see was Ryan heating up and some production from the 4 by anyone not named Ingram, didn't happen. I did feel Hubert reverted back to some decisions that were not good the last 2 seasons, he has been edging back to that and it needs to stop in it's tracks right now.
I do want to comment on 1 poster concerning a post he made earlier in this thread. This poster has spent a lot of time this season telling us how bad Jalen is, how Withers should not be playing, considers Paxon a wasted scholly, shares how High is not ready and laughs at Konkwo And yet, this same poster has wanted us to run run run. But as if that were not enough, he now wants Ryan to sit and in the very same posts implores that we need to press all game??? Do you get what I am saying, you don't need to be an expert, you just need some good ole fashion common sense to realize that you are not going to be effective trying to push tempo red hot, press all game, and do all that with just 5 players. You push tempo and be able to press only by playing DEEP in to your bench...
We needed our smallish back court to guard some, especially needed to try to contain their 6'5" AA candidate PG, didn't happen. We needed to own the tempo, we didn't. We needed to go deep to our bench ALL Game and what was it, the first 10mins or so of that second half we didn't sub anyone? We needed to not revert to the one on one nonsense and score off of assists, didn't happen. Virtually nothing happened that needed to in order for us to win. No one said that was going to be easy and it wasn't, UConn is very good and IMO one of the clear 4 best teams in the college game right now.
But moving forward, I think this is a game that can ground us a little bit, now we will be able to clearly see how this team handles defeat, does it re-inspire them to work harder or do they wilt like we saw last season? It is a gut check moment and this team has answered in other gut check moments this season, down by 14 in the second half against another top 20 team and coming back for a big win, drilling a top 10 team considered the best defensive team in the country (they are not) as examples. Make no mistake, Ky is a huge game for us as a gauge of how we respond. They have the guards that can heat us up as well.
I am not seriously upset over this game because I didn't expect us to be ready, best I was really hoping to see was Ryan heating up and some production from the 4 by anyone not named Ingram, didn't happen. I did feel Hubert reverted back to some decisions that were not good the last 2 seasons, he has been edging back to that and it needs to stop in it's tracks right now.
I do want to comment on 1 poster concerning a post he made earlier in this thread. This poster has spent a lot of time this season telling us how bad Jalen is, how Withers should not be playing, considers Paxon a wasted scholly, shares how High is not ready and laughs at Konkwo And yet, this same poster has wanted us to run run run. But as if that were not enough, he now wants Ryan to sit and in the very same posts implores that we need to press all game??? Do you get what I am saying, you don't need to be an expert, you just need some good ole fashion common sense to realize that you are not going to be effective trying to push tempo red hot, press all game, and do all that with just 5 players. You push tempo and be able to press only by playing DEEP in to your bench...
I believe the drop defense on the screen we do because of Bacot literally just murders us defensively. Almost all the big offensive games stem off this screen drop defense.
I don't know how many times I have said this but here we go again! LOL I do NOT like Ryan at the 3 and Ingram at the 4 as our base line up and especially having the back court duo of Cadeau and RJ starting for us, it makes us to small against team that have solid length.
I have wanted Seth to back up Cadeau and Ryan to back up RJ, want Ingram at the 3 backed up by BOTH Ryan and Paxon and I want either Jalen or Withers at the 4 with Bacot backed up by High (would have gone to a version of hack a shaq with Konkwo last night to put Klingan on the foul line).
At this point I would have a strong talk with Withers, right now he is either a foul or a TO waiting to happen, can't have that. He is forcing things that just are not there, making really bad decisions that would have to improve to be considered poor. Simplify your game young man, stop trying to show you belong and simply play your role. Your role is to defend hard without fouling, if you do foul send a message with the foul, no cheap ones, you have been picking up cheap ones. You are forcing way to much, make the simple pass, rather than driving in to waiting defenders. You have a RED light for taking contested shots. I want you setting good solid screens without fouling and then make a sharp cut thru the lane within a passing lane. I want you to catch, take 2 steps and finish hard at the rim, I am fine with the occasional mid range jumper but I do NOT want you dribbling the ball, you are not a guard!
Would have another strong talk with both Ryan and Paxon, fellas, you are 2 of my green light shooters but you are not making shots, we need to correct that. Jalen, I want to start you at the 4 but son I need you to defend the other teams power forward, I need some toughness on that defensive end and I need you to stay alert. On the offensive end, I want you to use that jump shot, even to the trey when you have a clean look. And Mondo, you do know it is a legal move to pass the ball back out and re-position for a better look, you do know that right?
You guys must not be watching the games or something. On Kenpom we're 7th in offense and 47th in defense. The problem is not that we need more points! We scored more than Kansas did, but we allowed 87! We allowed 92 to Tennessee! The problem starts and ends with defense. And lol at Caleb Love helping.
Bacot sucks anymore.. Not sure what has happened to him. He used to be dominant down low. He misses everything now. Fades away with his hook shot. Who does that?
Yes and that drop is really hurting Jalen, he doesn't have the bulk to make it hard to drive around that Bacot has so he is getting caught in drop and trying to get back out to an open guy that as soon as Jalen steps to him drives hard past him. Our guards are not able to contain their man so we are having to switch a ton and at times we switch when we don't have to? Teams are forcing us in to size miss-matches and exploiting it as soon as it occurs.
Not sure you're watching closely either. I don't see much drop coverage. We're switching most screens, but that leads to lots of mismatches.
What coverage do you propose instead?
Not sure you're watching closely either. I don't see much drop coverage. We're switching most screens, but that leads to lots of mismatches.
What coverage do you propose instead?
