Speaking of development, I neglected to mention Love's noticeable improvement in body control on his jumpers. That body lean has mostly disappeared.
Quick stuff (dook game)...
- Thread starter gary-7
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Ha, I knew I could count on that one single basket in his entire career being the counter Come on, Gary. I’ve acknowledged many times he’s obviously a good, hard working young man who plays hard. But shall I point out the 10 or so examples we have all seen of him getting his lay up blocked? All I said was the obvious. Play D and shoot an occasional 3 is his forte.
SMFH. It's far from a single basket and no, you really didn't state anything "obvious"... at least not to anyone who doesn't rely on lazy confirmation bias based on an obviously false narrative.
I agree the rebounding margin should have been even larger, we gave up far too many second chance points off their 10 OR’s. It was driving me crazy. Rebounding is perhaps our biggest strength, we need to dominate the boards to be consistently successful, especially when we have shot so poorly.
And obviously, everything looks better when the ball is falling. I didn’t think this team had it in them to shoot 67% from 3 point range. Couldn’t believe it. If we could shoot in the upper 30’s going forward, it would open up the offense for us. But good golly Miss Molly, our FT shooting is atrocious. It very nearly cost us this game. Too many games are won or loss at the line. If our guys don’t step up and make more of those “freebies”, we won’t reach our potential.
I too have to mention the costly TO’s, they frustrate me to no end. Many of them are “unforced”, just sloppy passes. Our ball integrity is very bad. It has to improve.
A classic d00k/UNC game.
And obviously, everything looks better when the ball is falling. I didn’t think this team had it in them to shoot 67% from 3 point range. Couldn’t believe it. If we could shoot in the upper 30’s going forward, it would open up the offense for us. But good golly Miss Molly, our FT shooting is atrocious. It very nearly cost us this game. Too many games are won or loss at the line. If our guys don’t step up and make more of those “freebies”, we won’t reach our potential.
I too have to mention the costly TO’s, they frustrate me to no end. Many of them are “unforced”, just sloppy passes. Our ball integrity is very bad. It has to improve.
A classic d00k/UNC game.
I think it is important to recall, Walton is still just a freshman and he has less game experience than our other back court guys. His defense will come along in time, kid has the on court maturity to understand that is an area he will have to focus in on in the off season. The kid brings us much more than he tales away so negative focus on the weak points of his game for me is a bit out of place. Saying it as nice as I can, did Kerwin give up 87pts all on his own, if not why are we banging on him today? All this talk of how we are such a poor jump shooting team and Kerwin went 4 for 4 from 3 last night and folks want to talk about his not being a stellar defender?
Sorry, we beat duke at cameron and Kerwins 4 for 4 from 3 sure as heck helped that happen!
Nailed it about Walton. Could not have said it better.
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Your taking issue with what you see as criticism of Kerwin? It is abundantly evident that his on the ball defense, his closeouts, his ability to successfully rub off of screens set against him are lacking, and does not have enough experience and quickness to react or anticipate his opponents moves while on defense. This is typical for many 1st year players and is a fair assessment as I see it.
He will get better as you yourself mentioned and I also believe that. While he was very important to our success last night, he also was a sieve on the defensive side of the ball, and we all certainly love to see those 3's go down, it's also fair to note that we have lost more than a few where he has hit those shots, and in one or more of those he hit 4.
Go back and read my post again, I only am pointing out how much better I think he will be in the future, and we will just have to live with his weak defense until he improves on that side of the ball.
I see you are back to being your normal ahole self when someone disagrees with you. You and the Platek family must be related. You're that guy that people try to give the benefit of the doubt to but you just can't help yourself. Whatever, Gary - you're right and everyone else is wrong, and nobody else should have an opinion if it differs from yours. Thanks for clarifying again.
A Freshman's Defensive ability is so hard to judge in the recruiting world. Some of these kids play for terrible high school and AAU coaches that don't teach any defensive fundamentals. I would venture to say that, more times than not, they sit in a 2-3 Zone (one that is terrible btw), because coaches think a 2-3 zone is easy...when in actuality, to do it right, as in any zone, you have to have solid man principles.
There are very few high school coaches, and probably even fewer AAU coaches, that can really teach defense and defensive fundamentals/principles. Some of these kids have no idea what "help side" is, what "hedge" means, what "ball line" means, etc. It takes these young guys a while and it's becoming more and more evident in the 1 and Done era
I actually thought Harris' foul was pretty terrible. There were like 6 seconds left, and we just want to wind the clock down at that point. A foul introduces too many potential variables. Platek's foul at ~14 seconds also didn't accomplish much I thought. Platek also jumped out at the shooter (Roach?) at the very end that seemed very risky with no potential for reward. I'd have played mostly straight up.
Any win at Duke is a good win; however, if we are hitting threes at 66% and shooting 15 we should be winning by double digits.
Defensive lapses replaced turn overs as our potential downfall. How many uncontested layups does there need to be before somebody starts defending better?
Watching the game I thought the Free throws were awful, but we hit 60% and the misses were all our bigs. I have gotten use to Bacot and Brooks hitting them. If they both made one more we would have been around 70% which is not good, but acceptable. I would love Sharpe to be able to hit 60% of his FT's by the way.
Again, a win is a win. I think we need to go 50% down the stretch to make the tournament. A win tonight against Miami is needed. Virginia, VT, Florida State are all in our future.
Defensive lapses replaced turn overs as our potential downfall. How many uncontested layups does there need to be before somebody starts defending better?
Watching the game I thought the Free throws were awful, but we hit 60% and the misses were all our bigs. I have gotten use to Bacot and Brooks hitting them. If they both made one more we would have been around 70% which is not good, but acceptable. I would love Sharpe to be able to hit 60% of his FT's by the way.
Again, a win is a win. I think we need to go 50% down the stretch to make the tournament. A win tonight against Miami is needed. Virginia, VT, Florida State are all in our future.
What I took issue with was the single out of Walton when as a team we gave up 87pts. I am not suggesting Walton is a solid defender but calling him a sieve and no mention of anyone else's defensive issues isn't what I consider reasonable.
Walton played 24mins as our starting 2, Steward 23mins as duke's starting 2, Walton scored 12 in his minutes and Steward hit for 11pts in his. Steward took 10 shots, Walton took only 4. By contrast, Roach scored 16 as the duke starting PG in 28mins and Goldwire 7 in 25mins? Clearly at times Walton may have given up some to one of their PGs but Walton defending a PG is out of position. Moore scored 15 in 29mins vs our lock down defender Leaky? Moore isn't exactly a scoring juggernaut. Yet we are discussing Walton's defensive effort vs duke? Kid does have a long way to go as a defender but no way I watch that game vs duke and come away red circling Walton's defense as reason they gave up 87pts. I can however look at what Walton did on offense and give him a lot of credit for why we scored 91 to win the game, not just the 4 for 4 from 3pt area but in the ability to get better spacing because the opponents realized they could not help off of him.
David..., your spitting into the wind here. I singled him out because of his current and future value as a Tar Heel, not to throw shade on him. And besides, it was just an "in passing" observation..., one that was fair I believe and had nothing to do with the performance(s) of any other player either good or not so good, just him. If you take exception to that or disagree...that's fine, but I wont argue the point any further.
Walton definitely isn't going to make any all defensive teams, but overall, this just isn't a great defensive team. I would agree that singling him out, especially as a freshman, is a little unfair giving the performance of most of the team. I think Roy should focus more on offense when it comes to lineups and subs. Roy's magic number is 80 and he's going to need that more than ever with the team performance on D.
This was your typical UNC vs duke game (without fans in the stands) and if I have learned 1 thing about UNC vs duke games is throw out everything that you think may happen and strap in for a nail biter. This one was no different and as always, I would have been happy to take a 1pt win BEFORE this game because the ball always bounces funny in this game.
It read to me like shade, the word "sieve" sure strikes me as shade thrown, even if not intended. I do not disagree and have shared as much, that defense is not his strength for now and that I do see that as a focus point for him in the next off season. I agree for example he needs to better understanding of when helping deep is a better idea and when it isn't, needs to understand man you ball, yes he will blow a rotation to often, yes all those things. But the kid has not received huge minutes this whole season, really his minutes didn't really get big until Roy put him in as a starter. Yet from the time Roy did install this kid as a starter, we have played progressively better over all game by game with the lone exception of that Clemson game. My point is over all I see this kid as a very strong net positive. If he is a net negative guy then by all means circle to his short comings but as a net positive guy I think looking at his positives is more accurate.
I don't think I have been rude in stating my case, I just strongly disagree and my disagreement is framed in a in general lack of joy in the fact that we just beat duke, it is almost like a downer tone across the board (not singling you out) and frankly, I don't understand that.
I would take a 1 point win vs. Duke any day of the week and twice on Sunday. My whole house was excited about the win.
Two wins vs. Duke may be more important to me than making the NCAA tournament, though I hope that I do not have to find out for sure.
People forget that Duke was a 3.5 point favorite going into the game. The way the game played out it sure seemed like a 10 to 12 point UNC victory should have been the result. Nonetheless, we went in as an underdog and came out with a win.
My observation of Walton may be a little diff. He’s the best shooter on a unc team, by which is used to out rebounding and out scoring teams. I really don’t get the whole mantra of some peeps thinking Roy wins by defending. Kerwin can fill it up. Fact. His defense is lacking on a team that is lacking defense. With Andrew on the floor the team is not shutting teams down, but the offense can struggle at times. Roy knows these things, hence the change in playing time. I get it, Roy harps on defense as all coaches do, but he knows where is bread and butter is. PG play determines what we do as of right now. All IMO
Some stats in the Duke game that you may not see again:
Field goal attempts
Leaky 4-4
Walton 4-4
Sharpe 5-5
13 - 13
Speaking of Walton, if he sticks around for 3-4 years I predict he will break Marcus Paige's 3-pt record.
Where would the Heels record be without Walton this year? The kid helps out with spacing and that may be a gross understatement.
Field goal attempts
Leaky 4-4
Walton 4-4
Sharpe 5-5
13 - 13
Speaking of Walton, if he sticks around for 3-4 years I predict he will break Marcus Paige's 3-pt record.
Where would the Heels record be without Walton this year? The kid helps out with spacing and that may be a gross understatement.
Spot on bama dude, everyone want s to talk defense for this UNC team but I very strongly believe our winning is much more about offense than defense, we score 80+ we win, we don't and it is a nail biter. I will gladly give up some on defense for big time offensive production.
This team has shown stretches of really good D. They have the length, athleticism, and depth to be a very good defensive team, but offense + rebounding is how this team will win! Lock down in spots, full/3/4 pressure in spots to either speed the other team up or generate TOs, and a pinch of scramble should be enough to get it done. BUT we still have to identify and strap up shooters, help more intelligently and rotate better, and reduce our own TOs. Better D + more efficient O and we are golden!
