All of them would have started if Seventh was the guy they had to beat out..
Coby White next year...
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All of them would have started if Seventh was the guy they had to beat out..
Oh yeah, Isaiah and especially Kennedy were definitely better than what we are likely to see overall, but Kennedy couldn't go up for a lob, and Isaiah tended to play away from the basket. So they weren't really great targets for the kind of passing I'm thinking about.
Unless we see some stellar improvement, we will still rely on our outside shooting a lot. But if Sterling, in particular, comes along well, he could be the kind of easy target inside that we haven't really had lately.
Imagine if we had Kennedy this season.
If Seventh is looking for material to stoke his "I'll show them" furnace, this is the place to come.
I don't like to see our guys get beat up, but Seventh needs that fire lit.
I think he can show us. I hope he does. This is his chance.
Clearly I am higher on 7th than most, maybe even to the extent that I see more of what I want to see in him and maybe not as open minded as maybe I should be. But I do think 7th can play well for us and I actually do think he can do that as our starting PG. Kid has been snake bit with injury since the summer before his freshman season and that just has put him behind. It seems just as he is beginning to play well for us he is yet again side tracked by injury, I liked what I saw from him early on this season, I could see the improvement, and then wham, comes yet another injury. You add that to the real fact that he played behind Joel, a legendary PG for us, for each of his 2yrs so far with us, he wasn't going to get a lot of run any way, so when he did get a minute or 2 he was not able to settle in, he pressed things to much and things snow balled down hill on him.
Now Joel has gone, the door is wide open for 7th at the point, it is HIS job now to lose, he now has the keys, he is not borrowing Joel's keys any longer. 7th has the entire summer to work KNOWING, he is now the guy that is the assumed starter at maybe the most critical position in Carolina basketball. Telling ya now guys, you do not have to worry about fire in 7th Woods, the fire is there, the confidence did wane in those first 2 seasons for the reasons I outlined above but this kid has the fire. I strongly believe he turns the corner next season and folks will begin to see the 7th Woods folks wanted 2yrs ago, if he can finally get thru a season injury free. Love Coby, just not so sure him as our primary PG is best for the kid, I want him to focus more on being a scorer for us as opposed to having to run our offense and lose his scoring.
I agree. Wasn't the huge improvement I was hoping for, but there was definite improvement.
If he can make a similar improvement this off-season, he and we may be in good shape. But injury set him back again. And he may need to do more than just show similar improvement to secure the job - with the guys nipping at his heels.
Another concern for 7th is he has not shown the ability for his body to hold up an entire year which means a back up plan is needed for when he is in street clothes. I am hoping his body holds up and allows him to become the best player he can be but concerning none the less.
I'm obviously a Seventh skeptic, but I will say this - the best case scenario for PG is Seventh being good enough to win the job.
Not sure I understand. While yes, clearly we want Seventh to be as good as possible, I think it's also feasible that Coby White has a big freshman year. I wouldn't bet on it, but the guy looks like a really talented scorer. Why would that be worse than Seventh significantly stepping up his game?
A few reasons:
1) Next year's team is desperately in need of plus defenders. The only players I feel comfortable projecting as net-positives on defense (against good teams) are Williams, Little, Brooks, and Woods.
2) I think Coby has the ability to succeed at PG (and PG has to be his long term position if he wants to be an NBA starter), but he's an absolute natural as a scorer. It'd be easier for him to maximize his value if he doesn't have to focus the majority of his attention on running a new system.
Fair, those are good points.
Luke is just a weird fit as a player. He's a great offensive player but tough to align on defense. IC has a front page article right now showing our efficiency margin was +17.3 points per 100 possessions when Luke played the 5, but only +1.3 points with Luke at the 4. Attribute some of that to Cam, but I think Luke is a matchup nightmare for opposing 5s and his spacing made our offense devastating (Luke's personal scoring and efficiency numbers were way up at the 5 spot as well, and this is over 400 minutes).
So I think we need to accept defense is going to be a good rather than great with Luke in there (Manley isn't great yet defensively either). I guess that means Seventh's defense is at a premium, but perhaps Coby can play with Kenny/Nas and one of them can matchup with the other team's primary initiator? All but the very best teams have one guard who's not a big offensive threat, though it is asking a ton of Coby to learn our system, point guard duties, and defending in 6 months.
I think it has little to do with Luke . Think it has more to do with getting the extra big off the floor which was a negative and getting another superior player in their place.
...Isn't that what I said? Luke at the 5 is an offensive mismatch but he did not play effective interior defense.
I think you said this. Maye really wasn't a nightmare matchup for 5s at all. When we went to a smaller lineup, Maye's numbers fell off a lot. He stopped shooting from 3 as much and seemed to be less of a focal point. In theory, he should be in stretching the 5 out to the perimeter and being able to take him off the dribble or hit a 3. The reality is, this did not show very often later in the season.
The efficiency numbers are simply better just because a dead spot on offense was filled with an offensive contributor.
You say Maye's numbers were up dramatically when he played the 5. I would like to see these numbers personally. If that is true, I will retract my statement, but my eyes told me Maye played worse as the year went on and the main difference as the year went on was going to a small lineup with Maye at the 5. (Plus better competition).
Honestly, looking at Luke's stats I can't even find much rhyme or reason to them. I mean, yes, all his single digit scoring games were against ncaa tourney teams. But, other than that I don't know. I do know he feasted on NC State both games and on Boston College. Maybe we should look to those 3 games to see why those teams were ones he predominantly feasted on.
Mods here don't want anyone linking IC content, but his numbers at the 5 were dramatically better than his numbers at the 4.
What I see with Luke is he seems to do well when he has a quickness advantage over his defender, even if that defender has size over him. But he struggled vs quicker big men and just truth is Luke isn't real quick. Bagley for example, very quick off his feet, caused Luke to rush his shots, Bagley had both a length and quickness advantage over Luke, bad matchup, same really for the A&M big man.
Someone mentioned the scoring different Luke at the 4 vs the 5 and we scored better with Luke at the 5. But the reason is we had another big time shooter on the floor in Cam when Luke went to the 5, allowed us to have better spacing and forced a lot of help that allowed us to have an open shooter. Fundamentally Luke is solid, blocking out for example but he just is not overly quick nor a high riser for an ACC 4 or 5. My opinion guys!
I won't link to the article but it's written by Adrian Atkinson talking about Luke's positional impact. Do a search for it. They've got the numbers broken out as such:
Luke at the 4: 677 minutes, 19.3 points/40, 50.5% True Shooting %
Luke as a "Death Lineup" 5 (with Joel/Theo/Cam/Kenny): 348 minutes, 22.2 points/40, 60.8% TS%
Luke as a non-Death Lineup 5: 162 minutes, 26.2 points/40, 58.9% TS%
Now consider that a good chunk of his minutes at the 4 were played during the OOC when we were playing somewhat weaker opponents. I think it's fair to say Luke was significantly better at the 5 spot, and our team was WAY better with him at the 5: 16 points of efficiency margin is the difference between us and Rutgers this year.
I agree. I hoped all year he would shoot more threes, given how deadly he was from there. Hope we see a bump up next year.
Oh yeah I agree. Subbing in Cam for Brooks is a huge offensive boost, and the effects it has on spacing improved others' offense (as we see with Luke moving to the 5).
That's why my argument is we need Luke at the 5 and Cam/Nas at the 4, even though it hurts the defense compared to a Luke/Sterling (or Brooks) combo. The offensive boost is just too big to give up. That's before factoring in offseason improvements though, hopefully the big guys take big leaps forward.
Yeah, but have to factor in development for Manley and Brooks, if they do what I expect them able to do then I want luke more at the 4 because Manley especially brings much more length to defend other 5s. If Manley and Brooks can become go to inside the paint scorers it will allow Luke to take his man outside and allow us better spacing than we had last season with him at the 4.
I strongly believe that if we can get Manley, Brooks, and Huff able to post up inside and give us solid scoring we can be better than we were this past season where we had to rely on harder jump shooting and got very few easy inside looks. I felt we had to work way to hard for our scoring ops this season because we didn't have the traditional UNC inside scorers that tend to free up outside shooter for cleaner looks. Theo negated a lot of that but it was what IMO took us down in the end. Jump shooting is not there every game, inside the paint cleaner look for talented big men tends to be there every game, as Dean taught. We just didn't have the experience or development of our bigs to give us that this season, Luke gave us all he could but our big men are our keys for next season, if they develop in to threats at both ends we will have enough PG play and shooting. IMO...
Hope Coby comes in on Fire! And i also hope 7th beats him out for starting PG. It's really that simple. Coby can spell 7th, KW, and SF if need be. If 7th makes the strides Roy will have tons of options for any given situation. Gonns be another fun year y'all. Jump on board and enjoy the ride.
I see Roy going with Seventh out of loyalty while Coby learns how Roy want's him to run his offense. Coby eventually taking the starting job will be a combination of Seventh struggles and the inability of Roy to keep the talent of Coby on the bench in a backup role. Roy will never totally give up on Seventh but will do the inevitable of placing Seventh in a backup PG role. Roy sometimes has the ability to let the world see why he makes personnel changes before he actually makes it.
I think the only thing that stops us from going small again next year is if Manley becomes a very good poster scorer. And that is certainly possible.
I also think that Luke will do better at the 4 when there is a real offensive post threat at the 5. We have some oddball bigs next year. All with different strengths and different weaknesses.
I also think that Luke will do better at the 4 when there is a real offensive post threat at the 5. We have some oddball bigs next year. All with different strengths and different weaknesses.
I was encouraged by the progress that Seventh was making, especially with a pull up jumper. He says that he understands what needs to be done now, how things should work, but.... it is more difficult to do than to say. (The old easier said than done adage.) He will have scoring options at every position (mostly) to get the ball to or to drive and dish, pull up, or get to the rim. If his decision making improves significantly, I believe that he will have a productive season.
It remains to be seen if Coby or any of the other incoming freshmen have enough of the innate abilities required of a point guard in the North Carolina system to be able to step into the point guard role and be effective.
I hope that we will be able to get some good reports from the summer pick up games to maybe get a bit of info as to how the new guys integrate into the returning players.
Gosh I hate the dog days of sports between basketball and basketball.
It remains to be seen if Coby or any of the other incoming freshmen have enough of the innate abilities required of a point guard in the North Carolina system to be able to step into the point guard role and be effective.
I hope that we will be able to get some good reports from the summer pick up games to maybe get a bit of info as to how the new guys integrate into the returning players.
Gosh I hate the dog days of sports between basketball and basketball.
