I saw that game. I thought the announcers were going to splooge over themselves from verbally fellating Hurt and the dookies.
OOTB Carolina Basketball Discussion Thread
- Thread starter carolinablue34
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I saw that. 37 points. In a loss. I think he was only 2 for 6 from 3. I wonder who was guarding him. There are two theories:
1) play him “normal” with your best defender - when that guy can be on the court. Let’s say Leaky plays him and holds him to at or under 20. And say Leaky scores 6-8. I’d really like our chances.
2) double on Hurt or do extra to try to keep the ball out of his hands. I don’t like this option because it just leads to some other average or slightly above average guy (Dook is deep in those) going off.
Just play him straight up and make it really hard to get off clean wide open shots. Leaky is best equipped with height, reach, quickness, to somewhat contain Hurt. We have enough guys who can score especially on the inside that Leaky doesn’t have to worry about big contributions on that end.
That said - Hurt has had foul trouble a few times at least this year including fouling out late when Duke really needed him. So if Leaky or whoever Hurt is guarding could attract 2-3 fouls on him in first half, that’s all the better. I think they really struggle offensively with him on the bench.
I didn’t see the game but checked the score late.
such a shame they lost yesterday. I was crushed.
that they lost in OT made it even harder to take.
Losing at home again - can it get any worse?
oh - getting swept this year by the team we just hung a 45 point L on. Unbearable.
It seems entirely irrelevant who Duke loses to, how many games, home or road, what their conference record looks like - their tourney prospects never seem to diminish in the eyes of the “experts”. Weird.
I think you go at Hurt and make him play D and get in foul trouble for sure...
Louisville also has no bigs. We dominated them inside so obviously Hurt went off against their soft ass team.
He should get just a bit more resistance vs. our front line.
He should get just a bit more resistance vs. our front line.
this is ridiculous to watch and i’m sorry i’m doing it and commenting.
I've still got it on, but basically stopped paying attention to this shit show.
Painful to watch. Regardless of whether we somehow magically, randomly, "out-talent", out-physical teams....this year and last are the most inconsistent teams I can ever remember. Even the 8-20 team you knew consistently had not enough talent to expect a win. This year - they have the physical gifts it seems to win, but they don't because they are so inconsistent.
Even if most of the guys can't buy a 3 pointer, we are just plain big and deep enough on the interior that if we had guards who could pass the ball to them, and if they could catch and finish, we'd be fine even without 3 point shooting. Scoring on passes inside and from offensive rebounds would be way more than enough to cover for our mostly putrid 3 point shooting.
But we turn the ball over on what seems like half the trips. I get it and could somewhat live with it if it were Duke or Arkansas or UVA from years gone by....but Syracuse didn't do a lot to force turnovers. Neither did FSU. This UNC team literally just throws it away, or worse yet literally throws a live ball assist to the other team, with literally zero regard for valuing the ball. Zero. Infuriating. Like a bunch of the dumbest of dumb fks.
Something is totally FUBAR about the chemistry and mindset of the guys on this team. Love - Brooks for starters. These guys look like 10 individuals out there. No cohesion. No leader. No liking or even respecting each other.
I know I've said all that before. Nothing new. Time for a reset. Who is next candidate for an actual leader? Walker Kessler? I am not sure if it will ever be Love. I feel like his head is in the NBA, not on this team already. "F the team how can i get mine" seems like his mindset.
Sorry to vent - this group of individual players is just so freaking far from "Play hard. Play smart. Play together" we've become accustomed to. They get an F grade on all 3 of those for the year, IMO.
Even if most of the guys can't buy a 3 pointer, we are just plain big and deep enough on the interior that if we had guards who could pass the ball to them, and if they could catch and finish, we'd be fine even without 3 point shooting. Scoring on passes inside and from offensive rebounds would be way more than enough to cover for our mostly putrid 3 point shooting.
But we turn the ball over on what seems like half the trips. I get it and could somewhat live with it if it were Duke or Arkansas or UVA from years gone by....but Syracuse didn't do a lot to force turnovers. Neither did FSU. This UNC team literally just throws it away, or worse yet literally throws a live ball assist to the other team, with literally zero regard for valuing the ball. Zero. Infuriating. Like a bunch of the dumbest of dumb fks.
Something is totally FUBAR about the chemistry and mindset of the guys on this team. Love - Brooks for starters. These guys look like 10 individuals out there. No cohesion. No leader. No liking or even respecting each other.
I know I've said all that before. Nothing new. Time for a reset. Who is next candidate for an actual leader? Walker Kessler? I am not sure if it will ever be Love. I feel like his head is in the NBA, not on this team already. "F the team how can i get mine" seems like his mindset.
Sorry to vent - this group of individual players is just so freaking far from "Play hard. Play smart. Play together" we've become accustomed to. They get an F grade on all 3 of those for the year, IMO.
Love could have been the hero if he didn't choke like a french whore at the free throw line.
At least with our track of win one lose one the are scheduled to beat Dook.
This team is just irritating. And Roy needs to hire some assistants that won't just kiss the ring. He needs someone who will pull him to the side and say what the **** are you doing. His substitution patterns have been awful and guarding the three continues to kill us. We've been outscored there by over 200 points this year.
I’d wager anything that during Roy’s term here overall we’re at or near the bottom in the acc in ft shooting and defending the 3. Both continue to kill us game after game, year after year. Now the ft shooting is complicated I admit but there’s def a pattern. When you’re bad practically every year it’s systemic. As for defending the 3 that’s just plain stubbornness keeping him from adjusting.
just can’t believe the amount carolina hands that touch the ball off a missed shot or a pass that don’t continue to remain in carolina’s possession, if that even makes sense.
it’s almost like there’s no urgency to protect the most valued possession on the court, aside from his timeouts, or course.
and .90 ft shooting(18 straight iirc) vs fsu to .63 vs syracuse...dafuq, man.
it’s almost like there’s no urgency to protect the most valued possession on the court, aside from his timeouts, or course.
and .90 ft shooting(18 straight iirc) vs fsu to .63 vs syracuse...dafuq, man.
I have a hard time believing that Roy Williams is actually coaching them to specifically NOT defend the 3point shooters.
I agree. It is just illogical, unfathomable. Inconceivable? (Princess Bride reference).
What I do think is that he often coaches expecting these guys to do more than they are capable of from a pure athleticism, and experience, and basketball IQ standpoint.... to be able to help off your guy, near or in the lane, and to be quick and smart enough to get out and return, recover and defend / contest your guy you left on the three line. Which then just becomes a fancy long de facto way of saying what is the real result: leave the guy wide open for a three.
I think it becomes a sort of way of Roy wanting to have his cake, and to eat it too. The expectation that these guys are able to execute experienced help-and-recover defense - is not realistic.
Option B is play everyone straight up one-on-one; don't help, except bigs defending the rim in the paint already. But we struggle at having defenders quick or experienced enough to keep in front of the guy they are defending on the dribble drive, so Roy doesn't have a great defensive option there, either.
Plus, defense has never really been Roy's "thing" that much, anyway, outside of stomping and crouching and clapping on the sidelines, so....
It seems beyond stubborn to coach these kids to leave deadly three point shooters wide open, over and over. I just can't believe he's that stubborn.
And, I agree... He's not a defense wizard. He's going to outscore you, not keep you from scoring. If they weren't turning it over half the time, it wouldn't be so bad.
I don't think he's telling them in practice not to guard it. It's just a byproduct of his defensive philosophy and he won't change his philosophy. All he would really have to do is change how he teaches help defense.
Lunardi has us 37th and a 10 seed. That’s 6 positions higher than “last four in” territory. He has dook in “first four out” at 70th. So the margin is razor thin. We have to win out and win at least one game in acc tourney I would think.
If we beat them, then I think we are without a doubt off the bubble. If we lose, then I think we have to have a win in the ACC tournament. duke could put themselves on the bubble with a win vs us and a win in the ACC tournament.
I’m certainly no expert like Gary is but this is how it has been explained to me over and over again with Roy’s three-point defense. There’s two main ways people create three point shots the high ball screen and the drive and kick out. Most teams defend hi ball screens by fighting over top through the screens. Roy doesn’t. He coaches to go under the screens. The philosophy is to force them to shoot versus to drive. Then on the drive and dish Roy coaches to collapse on defense and to leave your man to help on drives to the basket. In fact he obsessed over it. If you don’t do it expect to be yanked. Prob is these days you’re usually leaving a competent shooter open to do this. This dates back to dean’s philosophy that an open 3 is more preferable to someone driving. THATS NOT THE CASE ANY MORE. Finally there’s Roy’s obsession with rebounding. We’re constantly one of the best rebounding teams in the country due mainly to everyone collapsing into the lane after a shot. The trade off is if you don’t get the board you’ve left people wide open. How many times have you had your heart ripped out by a missed shot turning into a wide open 3? So Basically the key is to stop dribble penetration up top for Roy’s system to work. That requires....guess what...excellent defense on the ball by not only your guards but your small forward. We haven’t had that.
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That's 100% accurate. I'll also add that we usually have a decent size advantage down low because Roy uses two bigs. Why not just use that advantage and make them score over the bigs on a drive instead of collapsing and allowing a wide open 3?
Been preaching this to the moon.
One of the advantages of having bigs is that you can help less...we help more. Makes zero sense, it's basketball from 1970.
So get this...since 2009, not including last season which was most certainly WORSE...unc is 12th in acc in 3 pt def. They are also DEAD LAST in 3pt attempts allowed per game. They are also 12th in ft shooting same time span. At no time under Roy has unc been better than 4th in the acc in ft shooting. They finished 4th once and 5th once. (National title years of course) then 12-16 rest of the years.
My theory on the free throw thing is that a lot of old school coaches do a poor job of replicating the experience of shooting in a game. You can sit in an empty gym and bang out 1000 free throws a day, but that's completely useless when you go to the line with a heart rate that's 30 bpm higher than it is during shoot around, plus fatigued legs, different depth perception, etc. With 3 point shooting, most coaches will use some kind of drill to replicate catching/shooting at game speed. But with free throw shooting, everybody just stands around at the end of practice trying to see who can make the most in a row before you do conditioning.
It still amazes me how free-throw shooting is difficult for any of these players! It's learning THE SAME SHOT, over and over. It's just muscle memory. When you've been playing for 10 years... how can you struggle with that shot? It's even called FREE throws! You stand there, and you learn to make that shot. I've never understood how some of these guys-- not just at UNC-- can make the same kind of misses. Do the granny-shot if needs be. It's like a shooting gallery-- the more you do it, the better you get. You have no choice but to get better.
I'll take your word for it....if this is the way they practice FTs it is D U M B dumb. Like you said, practice them in game situations. Practice them within a live scrimmage, or better yet, immediately after or intwined in with running sprints. Teach them to get calm, collect themselves, and realize it takes a bit more push on FTs when you are tired.
We did this in high school thirty years ago even in Podunk, Nowhere. Should be common sense for Roy and his assistants.
And make them run much more if they miss them in this game-simulation scenario. They have to learn to think about making the shots, and to take them seriously. And have consequences for careless attitudes and misses.
100% agree.
And people with nearly zero physical skills (like me) can pretty easily be taught the mechanics of aligning front foot, elbow, wrist, with the basket, so missing left or right should be extremely rare, if ever. Then its just distance. And getting enough arc on the shot, and shooting it over the front of the closest part of the rim....again, not hard to learn. Basically no player ever has an excuse to be under 70%, and our wings and guards should be 85%+
It’s a byproduct of OAD and AAU culture. Making FTs doesn’t get views on your tik tok. You can’t start to “build your brand” based off 90% FT shooting. It will win you a lot of games though. But, like you said, it takes practice. And these kids today can’t be bothered with practicing FTs. They have too many other things to do like practicing 30 footers, putting guys on skates and searching for the newest and wildest hairdo. Throw in the 4 hours per day they need to promote themselves on social media, and where do you expect them to find the time?
I’ve always heard that guys are expected to put up extra shots on their own time, or with one of the assistants. Idk what they do in practice but if Roy’s philosophy is just get in the gym and put up a huge number of shots, then that might explain the poor performance.
Um, you do realize that FT % nationally has risen pretty much every season since 1995? 70% FT shooting would have been 80th in the country in 1997. By 2005, 140th. By 2015, 166th. This season, 210th.
It's similar across the board, players have gotten much better at FT% basically every year in the past 25 seasons.
Great thought, but not one fact that actually backs it up. Solid get off my lawn moment though.
So what you're saying is our guys are worse than the 90s era? I'm guessing we would have to go back to the 20s before our FT shooting was decent. Or possibly just go back to before Hubert was hired?
I'm saying the whole "kids only care about hair and tik tok" and don't practice FTs has no actual data to back that up when you look at NCAA FT% across the years. Kids these days shoot better across the board than their 90s, 2000s, and 2010 counterparts.
As for UNC, we stink no matter what era we're talking. We were top 40 in FT shooting the year we lost in the Natty to Nova. That's the best I could find for the last 10 seasons.
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High school or college?
Nevermind. You’re talking college. I’m not. Therefore I’ll consider myself right until proven wrong.
Those are college stats. Don't think you can get HS stats but I'd tend to think they correlate since HS players become college players.
Where they presumably get better because they have real practice.
But you might be of some use to me. Go find the freshman only FT trends and report back. Have that on my desk by COB.
*checks notes* Looks like I had it right. You did, in fact, miss the joke. But I do wonder if the numbers show that we are worse, or at least improved at a slower rate, since we hired Hubert.
