...and Cory can join Lunardi and GFH.
I'm starting with two complaints on an otherwise good day because the first one led to the second one. Y'see, I had the initial pleaseure of watching this one without sound but the graphics on the screen told me some moron had no clue as to how to keep stats --- I mean, did we bring our lame-ass home stat guy with us to Charlotte? So anyway, that made me go back and watch the recording to rechart every damned thing, which caused me to have to hear that jackass Cory Alexander say utterly stupid sh** before the game was a minute old... 🦨
- Bottom line? Just as I thought, I was right. The "official" box score had us for 19 Assists on 28 made and I called BS. Sure enough, the FACT is we had 23. They shorted VAL 1 and jacked 2 from EC (what else is new?), and even shorted Russell Hawkins 1 --- Come on, man, stealing a stat from a Blue Steel kid in the ACCT?... SMDH.
- So look, I started with this because I want it known that we flat-out SHARED the rock --- 23 dimes on 28 FGs --- which was one of the big positives of this one. On that note, WIthers' Brady Manek imitation came from rhythm-3s off passes, and get this --- we only took ONE step-back 3 (HALLELUJAH!) all game (that was missed, BTW).
- Besides the passing, maybe my favorite thing was GETTING THE BALL INSIDE. And OMG, we actually had a Post-Repost sequence --- can't even remember the last time I saw that --- we missed the shot, but still. And perhaps Hubert finally remembered whom he played for, as the first call of the 2nd half was a post entry (!).
- On that note, I was pleasantly surprised to see some nice mods on our half-court actions. If you noticed, we were the most VERTICAL we've been all season, incl using the two-high sets to set up hard dives instead of ball-screens and hand-offs. PLEASE keep that up. Sure, ND doesn't have much size, but playing inside-out is important against anybody, and that starts with, well... inside! And although we didn't need them much today, there were some nice kick-outs from the post as well.
- Effort was there from the outset on both ends (as there damn well should be) and we has some nice team defense possessions. We also really got out in transition, and other than some forces (Ian) and fumbles (Seth), we mostly kept the pressure on their defense and spent less time walking the ball up. Given that effort, I didn't mind that was slowed down late --- gotta preserve the legs for tomorrow afternoon!
- Speaking of defense, Hubert did a nice adjustment on Burton, deploying Drake, Eliot and Seth to take turns making his life miserable --- held him to 11 on 3/11 shooting --- and that in and of itself was pretty much lights out for ND. Speaking of Drake, son, you're 6'6... stay on your feet when you're guarding a smaller guy!... you have a a chance to be a true "plus" defender" with some more experience.
- One last defensive superlative was improvement on the BACK-SIDE. That's been a sore point too often, and our rotations were much more active and on-time today.
- One final thing that made me smile was when ND tried Zone, and we sliced it up, including a sharp post entry and a sweet cut from the "short corner", so yeah, that lasted all of 2 possessions.
- Finally, I really liked Hubert's approach today --- made some nice adjustments while nonetheless letting the guys play a bit more freely. My only complaint was how we handled the final minute of the 1st half. With the ball and 50 seconds left, we should have called the timeout right there --- the guys on the floor were flat-out gassed, and it's also an op to set up a 2-for-1.
Anyway, damn strong showing, just as we needed --- TCB and do so with style. Hopefully we won't revert to horizontal sh** and ball-screen hell tomorrow. Sure, Wake is better and more physically implosing than ND, but sound basketball is sound basketball. And we'd better be ready --- Wake will be playing for their lives, so effort and focus needs to be there from the tip! So... same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel...
I'm starting with two complaints on an otherwise good day because the first one led to the second one. Y'see, I had the initial pleaseure of watching this one without sound but the graphics on the screen told me some moron had no clue as to how to keep stats --- I mean, did we bring our lame-ass home stat guy with us to Charlotte? So anyway, that made me go back and watch the recording to rechart every damned thing, which caused me to have to hear that jackass Cory Alexander say utterly stupid sh** before the game was a minute old... 🦨
- Bottom line? Just as I thought, I was right. The "official" box score had us for 19 Assists on 28 made and I called BS. Sure enough, the FACT is we had 23. They shorted VAL 1 and jacked 2 from EC (what else is new?), and even shorted Russell Hawkins 1 --- Come on, man, stealing a stat from a Blue Steel kid in the ACCT?... SMDH.
- So look, I started with this because I want it known that we flat-out SHARED the rock --- 23 dimes on 28 FGs --- which was one of the big positives of this one. On that note, WIthers' Brady Manek imitation came from rhythm-3s off passes, and get this --- we only took ONE step-back 3 (HALLELUJAH!) all game (that was missed, BTW).
- Besides the passing, maybe my favorite thing was GETTING THE BALL INSIDE. And OMG, we actually had a Post-Repost sequence --- can't even remember the last time I saw that --- we missed the shot, but still. And perhaps Hubert finally remembered whom he played for, as the first call of the 2nd half was a post entry (!).
- On that note, I was pleasantly surprised to see some nice mods on our half-court actions. If you noticed, we were the most VERTICAL we've been all season, incl using the two-high sets to set up hard dives instead of ball-screens and hand-offs. PLEASE keep that up. Sure, ND doesn't have much size, but playing inside-out is important against anybody, and that starts with, well... inside! And although we didn't need them much today, there were some nice kick-outs from the post as well.
- Effort was there from the outset on both ends (as there damn well should be) and we has some nice team defense possessions. We also really got out in transition, and other than some forces (Ian) and fumbles (Seth), we mostly kept the pressure on their defense and spent less time walking the ball up. Given that effort, I didn't mind that was slowed down late --- gotta preserve the legs for tomorrow afternoon!
- Speaking of defense, Hubert did a nice adjustment on Burton, deploying Drake, Eliot and Seth to take turns making his life miserable --- held him to 11 on 3/11 shooting --- and that in and of itself was pretty much lights out for ND. Speaking of Drake, son, you're 6'6... stay on your feet when you're guarding a smaller guy!... you have a a chance to be a true "plus" defender" with some more experience.
- One last defensive superlative was improvement on the BACK-SIDE. That's been a sore point too often, and our rotations were much more active and on-time today.
- One final thing that made me smile was when ND tried Zone, and we sliced it up, including a sharp post entry and a sweet cut from the "short corner", so yeah, that lasted all of 2 possessions.
- Finally, I really liked Hubert's approach today --- made some nice adjustments while nonetheless letting the guys play a bit more freely. My only complaint was how we handled the final minute of the 1st half. With the ball and 50 seconds left, we should have called the timeout right there --- the guys on the floor were flat-out gassed, and it's also an op to set up a 2-for-1.
Anyway, damn strong showing, just as we needed --- TCB and do so with style. Hopefully we won't revert to horizontal sh** and ball-screen hell tomorrow. Sure, Wake is better and more physically implosing than ND, but sound basketball is sound basketball. And we'd better be ready --- Wake will be playing for their lives, so effort and focus needs to be there from the tip! So... same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel...
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