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Quick stuff (ND game - ACCT)...

gary-7

gary-7

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Jan 27, 2003
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...and biscuits, bitches!

Gonna start right here: To all those who got all bent outta shape over my last analysis, welp --- what we saw tonight is why I felt so lousy after that game... while THIS is what Carolina basketball is about, and what this team SHOULD be capable of. As i said a week ago, we beat dook handily only because they sucked all on their own that night while we happened to make some shots. Tonight?... fact is, we flat-out MADE Notre Dame suck. And that folks, is how it's done.

- Y'see, tonight we didn't shoot lights out --- just decent --- but somehow we laid what was a 50 pt destruction on ND before garbage time. How? Well, the obvious slaughter on the offensive glass gave is a decent working lead, but the blowout came from DEFENSE triggering the running game, triggering the offense.

- The defensive approach was apparent from the outset, as I'm sure the staff pointed out the dook game deficiencies, and tonight we were proactive in perimeter D. What I mean by that is that we were "mirroring" their potential shooters and showing them a "flat" front, accepting switches without getting caught in gap denies... and even when they adjusted to force mismatches, they still had to take tough shots. And instead of overhelping on drives, we relied on solid rotations, strong close-outs and active rim-protection.

- Oh, and stat guy, don't take away a triple-double from my boy Walker MF-ing Kessler. Only 7 blocks? Hmmm... I'm gonna rewatch and count

- Now, that said, we weren't perfect at it right away but Roy's defensive game-plan was excellent. All it was gonna take was turning up all the gears, and when we finally did, well..... boy howdy! Early in the second half things were still itchy, but only because we weren't shooting particularly well for a spell, and we weren't quite "finishing" defensive possessions and/or giving them a free bucket here and there. When they cut it to 12 we were talking about how we should be winning by more... we just needed to take it to the next level. Then we subbed in a crew that included Plates, Harris and/or Leaky defending like demons manning the Wings and Kessler blocking everything in sight. Lemme tell ya, that crew sparked what went on to become a 37-2 run before all was said and done. And that defense turned into offense just like Dean E. Smith always preached.

Anyway, THIS was what I've been advocating and hoping for all season --- utilizing our depth and the respective strengths of our roster. Oh, and the PG play was the best it's been this season, BTW. All told, this was a 9-man assault. That's how you score 101 without lighting it up from 3. Who knows?... we could come out and lay an egg tomorrow, but by gosh, excellence is in there. I say let's do it again... :cool:
 
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1. I've said it at least twice this season, this team has the weapons to average 85pts a game.
2. We are 10 deep.
3. Kessler is a Top 10 pick in '22. I think they missed 2 blocks.
4. Harris and Davis are going to be VERY good next year. 👈
5. Mike Brey didn't get a chance to do his Mike Kay imitation tonight.:mad:
 
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Like I said the other day, it's Kessler time. To see a 7-footer steal the ball and go full court for a lay-up was impressive. And folks talking about Brooks coming back for a 5th year?
 
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Steat said:
Like I said the other day, it's Kessler time. To see a 7-footer steal the ball and go full court for a lay-up was impressive. And folks talking about Brooks coming back for a 5th year?
Click to expand...

it would be nice to have him. But reality is hes the 4th most talented big on the roster. Theres a reason he was a fringe 4 star recruit and the other 3 were consensus top 25 players. While Brooks has progressed admirably theres simply things he’ll never be able to do that Bacot and the 2 freshmen can
 
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All 3 bigs with double doubles. Sharpe not far from a triple double either with 6 assists. While shooting 7-10, 7-10, 7-11 respectfully, I believe. So dominant on the boards it was almost comical. 24 offensive rebounds alone, while ND only had 29 for the entire game.
 
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Notre Dame is a feast team for them inside though due to their relative lack of big men. The key against most teams has to be to wittle them down with fouls defending our bigs so we can feast like we did in this game.
 
In the post game a reporter mentioned to Kessler on the # of blocks, one being a goal (?) tend and another they didn't count, they had him at 9 and 1 more would have been a new ACC record in a game, or am I misremembering?
 
That game looked like what Carolina basketball is supposed to look like. Punish the opponent inside, hit enough 3's to make them defend the floor, transition offense and minimize the turnovers. Davis and Harris getting some deep balls could be a huge factor moving forward - if they can be consistent Walton doesn't have to feel like he HAS to make his 3's. I still wish Caleb would tone down his shot attempts, some possessions he has the ball and you can tell by his body language he is gonna take the shot come hell or high water.

The break led by the bigs with Walton hitting from deep was BEAUTIFUL, although I'm sure for the coaches it was one of those "NO, NO, NO, YES" moments. Complete domination on the boards - 25 offensive rebounds for UNC while ND only had 16 defensive. The shooting was what I felt should be the average night for this team, just over 50% fg, a bit under 40% from 3 and about 80% at the line. Only 11 assists (but still a few brain farts and one that was just bad luck) to 19 assists. The only downside is I wonder how much the inside devastation was to ND's lack of interior as opposed to a 3 man rotation for the Heels. I think Roy called off the dogs a bit when he went small ball in second half for a bit. Almost a shame UNC actually started hitting shots in the second half - they could have had 40 offensive rebounds.
 
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It doesn't matter what mistakes, TO's, miscues, or any other questionable playing, when a team completely dominates a game in this fashion, all else does not matter.

This was as complete and total domination as these eyes have seen in many, many moons. Actually, I have thought and thought trying to recall any game that I have seen over the years that exemplified anywhere near this thorough of an arse whooping and I cannot bring one to mind that was as demonstrative as this one.
( Including the L'ville game)

I had hoped to see this kind of play during the regular season and before now, however, just getting a glimpse of it with the play in this game, it is so gratifying
is it not?

Don't know about the rest you all, but if you can remember back to the older character cartoons, can you remember "Inspector Gadget"? That's who I think Walker Kessler reminds me of. That boy was everywhere during this game, and he is emerging as perhaps, one of the most dominant big men that we have ever had, and that is saying a plenty considering the lineage of big men we have had over the years....., Ahem...., that would also in include yours truly as I could only have wished to have had his talents. But..., again..., that was, as this is, a different era of the game.

I also agree with the posts concerning guard play, as I thought it was the best we have seen. By my count, the players who get most of the minutes only had 8 TO's, and we had unbelievable board coverage on both ends of the floor.

Now, will we continue playing like that or will we revert back to mind numbing bad play? I just don't know with these guys, and Roy said the same in his pre game PC. While I don't think we will see that kind of domination again soon, my hope is that we can continue to play up to that standard as close as possible on a consistent basis. If we do that, we can go much further into the NCAAT than I have felt that we originally could given our roller coaster play this season. Our game tonight against VT will confirm one way or the other.
 
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Quest4Seven said:
it would be nice to have him. But reality is hes the 4th most talented big on the roster. Theres a reason he was a fringe 4 star recruit and the other 3 were consensus top 25 players. While Brooks has progressed admirably theres simply things he’ll never be able to do that Bacot and the 2 freshmen can
Click to expand...
He has done something that the other three will probably never do. He’s stayed for four years of school! LOL. I wish like everything that everyone would stay another year at least. If they don’t, then this year is for nothing IMO. Start all over just like we’ve done the last few years.
 
Considering that we beat this team by a point earlier this season, that certainly was a deliriously impressive performance.
IF (and we know how big that IF has been this season) we can play just as deliberately on defense for forty minutes for whatever opponents we have left this season, well ......;) . When you're cleaning the offensive glass like we did, we're gonna put up some points.
 
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THIS was UNC basketball and what we’ve been waiting to see all season out of this talented team.

Shots didn’t fall, who cares we are going to dominate on the boards, forced live ball turnovers that got our transition game moving, and we moved the ball and fed the post with great entries.

Walker Kessler is going to be one of my favorite Tar Heels by the time he leaves campus and is a lotto pick. His instinct to block shots (jump at the right time, quick second jump, and keeping blocks in bounds) are things you can’t really teach. He is going to be absolutely special.

Let’s get that Q1 win today vs VT.
 
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From the get go you tell the D was different. There looked to be a sense of urgency and just not running through the motions. It was weird seeing a big guy switching to guard, that happens a lot for us, but seeing a big then switch the guard off to another big. The difference tonight it seemed even though a big got switched to a guard the back side help on the drive to the basket was almost always there. But that first 3 #3 hit over Bacot from 28’... I was like here we go again. Plus you could tell in the second half ND was getting scared to finish and get their shot blocked.

I have to admit I was wrong. I was one who thought Kessler was overrated to start the season. His shot looked horrible and had a hitch. I thought he’s supposed to be able to shoot the ball. In my defense I didn’t know he sat out twice for extended periods for COVID reason and had knee issues “growing pains”. Now that he has his legs his shot looks totally different in my opinion. FTs look nice and smooth and you can see that touch he has. He’s looking so good now I’m getting a little worried he might leave! (Somewhat joking). I think he needs to show some more range on his shot before he leaves. Watching him block shots he looks totally under control. He just stands there not taking the pump fakes. The look on his face seems like he’s thinking stop with crap fakes and hurry up so I can block it. I had him with 10 blocks. I don’t think they gave him credit for the block when the shot clock expired, he blocked the ball right before it expired. The 10th one was wiped away on the bad call for goal tending. Ball was still going up.

Was is it just by chance that the bigs played better just due to the size of ND or because Brooks wasn’t in there. I feel it looks like Brooks has been slow this year and almost going through the motions. 3 guys last night looked like they played with their hair on fire!
 
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I am so proud of the effort our boys showed last night! Grown man ball all around. We will need to continue this type of play and we will end this season with some Real Tar Heel bball!
 
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The thing about shot blocks is there are 3 types.
1) Help defense blocked shots (I block your mans shots)
2) Mano-e-Mano blocked shots (I blocked my mans shots)
3) Intimidating Erasers (I block everyone’s shots)

Type one and type two are much more common than type three. Type three starts to get into the opponent’s head every time they drive. Type three is crazy special and changes EVERYTHING on defense.
Last night Kessler was type three!
It wasn’t just how many blocks he had. It was he had them everywhere on everyone. He blocked jumpers, layups, putbacks, etc... he came from the key and blocked a layup, he came from the paint and blocked jumpers, etc...
By the middle of the game they were missing almost everything around the basket because they were rushing or shooting awkward angles because of the mere threat of a block. That intimidating Type 3 presence is a defense’s version of a hot three point shooter. It changes everything and opens up soooooo much aggressiveness from our guards on D.
Have yourself a game Kessler!!!
 
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That my friends was a good ole fashion ASS WHOOPIN!

Now we can say that we just had such a strong size advantage in our front court and we did but we had that same advantage the first time we played them and needed a late Leaky bucket to win that one. First off Laz caused us all kind of trouble in our first meet with them, he was relatively quiet last night. Hubb went off on us first meet, relatively quiet last night.

Kind of reminds me of Coby playing he point as a freshman, he tended to struggle a little bit the first time he saw a ACC team but when we saw a team for the second time he was much much better, why because Coby learned his opponents the first time around as well as the staff making adjustments. So what happened last night, some from column A and some from column B. Shot selection from our guards was top shelf, you have seen me talk about shot selection, not rushing your shot all season, last night was why. But Roy has made a couple adjustments as well, first of course is kessler is playing much more, he is your rim protector. Guards penetrate the lane can be played for the kick when you have that intimidating shot blocker back there, lets your guards not have to help as deep, can hawk the passing lanes.

The other noticeable adjustment is that we are switching off much more off that high pick, we see now Sharpe and Kessler especially switching off for a bit on to a guard which allows us to stone the penetration and draw the defense in allowing set up for the kick out spot up shooter. The other adjustment I see is that Roy now has them identify the shooters and do a lot of face guarding to harass the catch for the big time shooters. Laz was not going to beat them with long jumpers this time, Hubb was not going to beat us unless he did it from half court. So the help defense is now not drawing our guys away from hot shooters, sweet!

What Kessler did last night just can not be over stated, he was just dominant, you combine that skill level, soft touch, length, and motor? Then you put a version of Bacot that comes to battle or raw boned physicality of Sharpe and things can quickly go to what we saw last night. One segment that stands out for me, Kessler blocks Laz, Laz gets the rebound so Kessler blocks his second shot with the other hand? And you kidding me, your 7'+ center shooting the passing lanes snagging the steal and taking it the length for a lay in, really? LOL

So now we have strung together back to back games where we played well, I do think we can actually play even better, imagine Brooks being available and playing like he did vs duke or Walton heating up. Last tourney format we played in, early season, we didn't play well the second day so real interested to see if we can carry this current level of play all the way thru this tourney, if we can we should be able to win every game by a solid margin, it we don't then things can get dicey. The key is our guards continuing to make good decisions with shot selection and keeping the TOs down, and just feeding the front court beast. The question for me is not can they, the question is will they, we will see.
 
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i don’t intend this as a shot towards Brooks because he’s been playing decent lately but wow it was cool seeing those 3 bigs get all of that playing time.
 
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the way kess intercepts the pass in the back court reminds me of hans.
the way kess shot blocks in the front court reminds me of henson.
 
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Awesome game. I loved the 15 minutes when it was boring because we were destroying them.

All that being said, we did this in part because ND only has about 7 players. They cannot press us and/or really pressure us the way other teams are going to. I loved watching this game, but I would like to see us handle full court pressure and/or have a good defensive team pressure us and have us not turn the ball over. If we can do that, we are a dangerous tournament team.

If we cannot do that, our success in the tournament will be mainly dependent on match ups.
All that being said, I'm having fun thinking about it, so its a pretty good day.
 
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Due to the major mud-hole stomping, it's somewhat forgettable that ND had the ball down 59 - 47 early in 2nd half. I doubt it makes a difference but had they gotten it under 10 there....

Kudos to Kessler for getting the block and then scoring at the other end, to start the 37 - 2 run.
 
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37-2 run??? That’s amazing. Roy should bench the guy who gave up the 2.
 
UNC-75 said:
37-2 run??? That’s amazing. Roy should bench the guy who gave up the 2.
Click to expand...
I bet it was Platek. ;)

(That is a total joke, just poking the bear! Platek and everyone played well last night. Only Kerwin, my favorite, had an off night, shooting anyway).

As @dadika13 has said, all threads somehow regrettably have to devolve into Platek threads. :confused:
 
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Tarheel75 said:
It doesn't matter what mistakes, TO's, miscues, or any other questionable playing, when a team completely dominates a game in this fashion, all else does not matter.

This was as complete and total domination as these eyes have seen in many, many moons. Actually, I have thought and thought trying to recall any game that I have seen over the years that exemplified anywhere near this thorough of an arse whooping and I cannot bring one to mind that was as demonstrative as this one.
( Including the L'ville game)

I had hoped to see this kind of play during the regular season and before now, however, just getting a glimpse of it with the play in this game, it is so gratifying
is it not?

Don't know about the rest you all, but if you can remember back to the older character cartoons, can you remember "Inspector Gadget"? That's who I think Walker Kessler reminds me of. That boy was everywhere during this game, and he is emerging as perhaps, one of the most dominant big men that we have ever had, and that is saying a plenty considering the lineage of big men we have had over the years....., Ahem...., that would also in include yours truly as I could only have wished to have had his talents. But..., again..., that was, as this is, a different era of the game.

I also agree with the posts concerning guard play, as I thought it was the best we have seen. By my count, the players who get most of the minutes only had 8 TO's, and we had unbelievable board coverage on both ends of the floor.

Now, will we continue playing like that or will we revert back to mind numbing bad play? I just don't know with these guys, and Roy said the same in his pre game PC. While I don't think we will see that kind of domination again soon, my hope is that we can continue to play up to that standard as close as possible on a consistent basis. If we do that, we can go much further into the NCAAT than I have felt that we originally could given our roller coaster play this season. Our game tonight against VT will confirm one way or the other.
Click to expand...
Mitch?
 
Kessler taking the break 2 on 1 and scoring it.
I'd love for Sharpe & Kessler to stay two years, if I'm betting the NBA is going to be all over Sharpe and if Mando & Kessler are here next season, dang, and I mean dang we'd still be good in front court.
 
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Kessler, Love, and Sharpe would all probably get drafted in the 1st round if they went this year.

Likely,

Love > Kessler > Sharpe when all is said and done based on NBA drafting on potentials. If kessler can shoot 3s like he was touted as in HS, he has an unignorable skill set.
 
Steat said:
Like I said the other day, it's Kessler time. To see a 7-footer steal the ball and go full court for a lay-up was impressive. And folks talking about Brooks coming back for a 5th year?
Click to expand...
Rumors on the UK board is that Brooks is looking at a grad transfer route and could be some backchannel communication going on with UK and others being interested
 
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Tarheel75 said:
It doesn't matter what mistakes, TO's, miscues, or any other questionable playing, when a team completely dominates a game in this fashion, all else does not matter.

This was as complete and total domination as these eyes have seen in many, many moons. Actually, I have thought and thought trying to recall any game that I have seen over the years that exemplified anywhere near this thorough of an arse whooping and I cannot bring one to mind that was as demonstrative as this one.
( Including the L'ville game)

I had hoped to see this kind of play during the regular season and before now, however, just getting a glimpse of it with the play in this game, it is so gratifying
is it not?

Don't know about the rest you all, but if you can remember back to the older character cartoons, can you remember "Inspector Gadget"? That's who I think Walker Kessler reminds me of. That boy was everywhere during this game, and he is emerging as perhaps, one of the most dominant big men that we have ever had, and that is saying a plenty considering the lineage of big men we have had over the years....., Ahem...., that would also in include yours truly as I could only have wished to have had his talents. But..., again..., that was, as this is, a different era of the game.

I also agree with the posts concerning guard play, as I thought it was the best we have seen. By my count, the players who get most of the minutes only had 8 TO's, and we had unbelievable board coverage on both ends of the floor.

Now, will we continue playing like that or will we revert back to mind numbing bad play? I just don't know with these guys, and Roy said the same in his pre game PC. While I don't think we will see that kind of domination again soon, my hope is that we can continue to play up to that standard as close as possible on a consistent basis. If we do that, we can go much further into the NCAAT than I have felt that we originally could given our roller coaster play this season. Our game tonight against VT will confirm one way or the other.
Click to expand...
What year did you graduate 75?
 
The past two games cemented Sharpe not coming back in my opinion. He has a NBA skill set for a modern big, moving laterally away from the bucket and passing instincts. He has the raw strength and rim protecter skills, a team will develop those others where he shows great ability, but is lacking in development.

They would much rather groom him to play in the league then to watch him dominate to win a title in college doing what won't translate.

They will hope to see a Bam Abedeyo develop in him.
 
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