...and if you're forced to open the season with a damn conference game, well, ya might as well win it!
And that's the theme tonight --- acceleration. To be sure this accelerated ACC schedule --- especially starting off against a team with five returning starters, no less --- forced us to accelerate some learning curves. It wasn't always pretty, but it worked out pretty danged well.
Let's start with the bad side of that:
- Accelerated heart rates. There was definitely some opening-night adrenaline and wide eyes out there early that resulted in some ugly shot attempts, bad decisions and poor ball-security.
- Keeling in particular was less than judicious with the rock, picking up some bad TOs from taking the ball into no-man's land, as well as missing some defensive rotations. I'm sure Christian will be ok once he gets his feet wet at this level, and as soon as he figures out he can't get away with the same stuff here as in the Big South.
- Cole was also jacked up and it showed early with some forces and TOs.
- In the first half we were forcing drives instead of reversing the ball in transition. Missing those transition ops plays right into the hands of and experienced bunch like ND. We also weren't creating good entry angles.
But boy did that turn at halftime:
- Accelerated learning curve. Yeah, Cole took some lumps in the first half, but he flat dished out the lumps in the second! Once he hit a rhythm-3 off a catch, that lit the fuse --- and young fella lit up ND! Just as important, other than a freshman mistake in Press-O, Cole took better care of the rock and got us into tempo.
- Speaking of which, accelerated tempo. As I posted this week, this would be a game in which tempo was key. In the first half we allowed ND to dictate their tedioius, methodical tempo, But the second was a different story. Following what I'm sure was a "stern lecture" from Roy, the last 20 minutes looked like Carolina basketball. After trailing by a putrid scoire of 31-30, we reeled off 46 2nd-half points (and that's no small feat against a team that stubbornly keeps game in the 60s.
A few stats of note:
- The obvious good team number that jumps out is rebounding. 51-31 advantage for the good guys, and it finally fueled our transition game in the second half.
- The obvious bad one is TOs. 18 is not awful but most of those came in the first half. Cleaning that up was a big factor in our clenching run.
- And fo course Cole's opening night line (breaking McCants's frosh scoring number) is something special. and howz about a PG's first double-double including the Rebound number?
- Going back to the accelerated tempo, the second half shooting numbers reflected our moving the ball in more Carolina-like fashion, to the tune of improving from 31% to 64% FGs! We also kept ND out of their comfort zone, holding them to 35% for the game.
- One concern was 10/17 FT shooting. Fortunately ND uncharacteristically helped us out by laying a few bricks of their own. The good news was being 50% from 3 --- pretty impressive with BRob missing --- thanks largely to Cole and AP.
Random stuff:
- Pierce looked a bit more comfortable tonight than in the exhibition, mixed it up on the glass and gave us a solid 20 minutes.
- Leaky quietly did yeoman's work logging 32 minutes with a Theo-like stat line. With Brob out and Pierce playing a good bit of 4, Leaky spent almost all of his time at his natural 3 position where he does his best facilitating.
- My biggest concern was not getting the ball in the paint!...something I'm sure Roy will let the guys know about. Ultimately we can't rely on late-shot-clock heroics --- we need to play inside-out.
- Speaking of Bigs, Bacot showed some flashes tonight. As his post repertoire smoothes out he's gonna be a good one. Let's hope that leg tweak on the fall wasn't serious.
- With functionally a 7-man rotation there were some major minutes played by some guys (39 for Garrison!), and with relatively few whistles there wasn't much time to catch a breath. At one point late in the second half the whole team was flat-out gassed, to the point Roy actually called a Timeout
) after Andrew was too gassed to get to his spot on time and Cole was too gassed to make the pass.
- Speaking of these guys, with Cole as our new Floor General, Andrew was his veteran First Officer, directing traffic, calling plays, balancing the floor and generally wrangling the troops. Platek logged a career-high 25-1/2 minutes (and 24-1/2 of those were with Cole) and Roy even called a couple of Isos for him. BTW, this was easily our most productive backcourt, at a pace of better than 2 ppm, and a strong +/-.
- Finally, speaking of plays, although we were primarily freelance, Roy was very judicious with his set plays and our execution rate was impressive, especially on OB plays.
Well alrighty then --- cast right into the fire and we're 1-0 (1-0). I'll take it! Let's get BRob healthy and get right back at it...
And that's the theme tonight --- acceleration. To be sure this accelerated ACC schedule --- especially starting off against a team with five returning starters, no less --- forced us to accelerate some learning curves. It wasn't always pretty, but it worked out pretty danged well.
Let's start with the bad side of that:
- Accelerated heart rates. There was definitely some opening-night adrenaline and wide eyes out there early that resulted in some ugly shot attempts, bad decisions and poor ball-security.
- Keeling in particular was less than judicious with the rock, picking up some bad TOs from taking the ball into no-man's land, as well as missing some defensive rotations. I'm sure Christian will be ok once he gets his feet wet at this level, and as soon as he figures out he can't get away with the same stuff here as in the Big South.
- Cole was also jacked up and it showed early with some forces and TOs.
- In the first half we were forcing drives instead of reversing the ball in transition. Missing those transition ops plays right into the hands of and experienced bunch like ND. We also weren't creating good entry angles.
But boy did that turn at halftime:
- Accelerated learning curve. Yeah, Cole took some lumps in the first half, but he flat dished out the lumps in the second! Once he hit a rhythm-3 off a catch, that lit the fuse --- and young fella lit up ND! Just as important, other than a freshman mistake in Press-O, Cole took better care of the rock and got us into tempo.
- Speaking of which, accelerated tempo. As I posted this week, this would be a game in which tempo was key. In the first half we allowed ND to dictate their tedioius, methodical tempo, But the second was a different story. Following what I'm sure was a "stern lecture" from Roy, the last 20 minutes looked like Carolina basketball. After trailing by a putrid scoire of 31-30, we reeled off 46 2nd-half points (and that's no small feat against a team that stubbornly keeps game in the 60s.
A few stats of note:
- The obvious good team number that jumps out is rebounding. 51-31 advantage for the good guys, and it finally fueled our transition game in the second half.
- The obvious bad one is TOs. 18 is not awful but most of those came in the first half. Cleaning that up was a big factor in our clenching run.
- And fo course Cole's opening night line (breaking McCants's frosh scoring number) is something special. and howz about a PG's first double-double including the Rebound number?
- Going back to the accelerated tempo, the second half shooting numbers reflected our moving the ball in more Carolina-like fashion, to the tune of improving from 31% to 64% FGs! We also kept ND out of their comfort zone, holding them to 35% for the game.
- One concern was 10/17 FT shooting. Fortunately ND uncharacteristically helped us out by laying a few bricks of their own. The good news was being 50% from 3 --- pretty impressive with BRob missing --- thanks largely to Cole and AP.
Random stuff:
- Pierce looked a bit more comfortable tonight than in the exhibition, mixed it up on the glass and gave us a solid 20 minutes.
- Leaky quietly did yeoman's work logging 32 minutes with a Theo-like stat line. With Brob out and Pierce playing a good bit of 4, Leaky spent almost all of his time at his natural 3 position where he does his best facilitating.
- My biggest concern was not getting the ball in the paint!...something I'm sure Roy will let the guys know about. Ultimately we can't rely on late-shot-clock heroics --- we need to play inside-out.
- Speaking of Bigs, Bacot showed some flashes tonight. As his post repertoire smoothes out he's gonna be a good one. Let's hope that leg tweak on the fall wasn't serious.
- With functionally a 7-man rotation there were some major minutes played by some guys (39 for Garrison!), and with relatively few whistles there wasn't much time to catch a breath. At one point late in the second half the whole team was flat-out gassed, to the point Roy actually called a Timeout
) after Andrew was too gassed to get to his spot on time and Cole was too gassed to make the pass.- Speaking of these guys, with Cole as our new Floor General, Andrew was his veteran First Officer, directing traffic, calling plays, balancing the floor and generally wrangling the troops. Platek logged a career-high 25-1/2 minutes (and 24-1/2 of those were with Cole) and Roy even called a couple of Isos for him. BTW, this was easily our most productive backcourt, at a pace of better than 2 ppm, and a strong +/-.
- Finally, speaking of plays, although we were primarily freelance, Roy was very judicious with his set plays and our execution rate was impressive, especially on OB plays.
Well alrighty then --- cast right into the fire and we're 1-0 (1-0). I'll take it! Let's get BRob healthy and get right back at it...
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