...and lots of mixing and matching tonight, for a variety of reasons.
- Lineups: We played mostly Hybrid with Luke at the 4, with a bit of Traditional with Brooks playing a few minutes of 4, and a stint of Small with Luke at the 5. Also, Roy utilized 7, count em, 7 backcourt combos in the first half alone. In order of appearance:
Berry/Willams, Berry/Woods, Felton/Woods, Berry/Felton, Berry/Platek, Felton,Platek, Woods/Platek
- Speaking of which, it was good to see 7th playing some 2. Also, we saw some of the on-the-fly interchanging between 1 and 2 with JB, 7th and Jalek all doing some of that at times. The interchanging worked ok on the fly, HOWEVER, in the second half there were a series of possessions where 7th ran Point and JB slid to the 2 for full possessions and that mostly wasn't pretty. The first was a set play which was ok, but the rest just didn't mesh (more on that below).
- Kudos to Luke and Theo for all-around games. Luke's 20 Pts, 9 Rebounds, 4 Assists and 2 Blocks in 37 minutes was a herculean effort, and Theo threw in a Swiss Army Knife performance with 18 and 5 to go with his 6 Dimes.
- Color me impressed with big Manley yet again. All our Bigs took their defensive lumps against Bucknell's experienced guys, but Sterling's 16 and 13 in just 17 minutes is damned solid. I also am loving that sweet lean-in turn-around --- that's some classic Post stuff right there folks!
- We shared the ball very nicely with 22 Assists on 31 made FGs --- often making the extra pass --- and even with that we blew myriad opportunities, especially in transition, by not catching the ball or on passes that were a hair off. In other words the number of dimes and made FGs both could've been higher.
- Speaking of transition, this is where the biggest differences occurred in our team performance. We had 14 Fast Break pts., but 6 of those came breaking the Press late. The other issue was in our bread-and-butter. In the first half we scored 27 of our 50 pts off the Secondary Break --- that's Carolina Basketball --- in the second half however, that number fell to 10. #Yikes
- On Joel Berry's return: I've played PG with two fingers on my lead hand taped together --- and that's bad enough --- but I've never tried it with a brace. As I suspected the problem he is going to encounter comes in "gathering" the ball, especially off the dribble. In other words he won't be able to smoothly move into a shooting motion, so you won't see his trademark quick-trigger 3s and pull-ups... and he'll have trouble keeping a grip on the ball finishing inside until he gets that thing off his hand. It can also affect passing on the fly. Considering the latter, it's impressive JB amassed 6 Assists and only committed 1 TO in 30 minutes, but I'm not surprised he had a rough shooting night.
- Speaking of which, with all that said it's a damned good thing we had him. Without JB there's a good chance we lose this one. First, we are just night-and-day better defensively with the Dog out front. He only got credit for 2 Steals, but he directly caused 4 other changes of possession. Moreover, the team-D functions eons better. The defensive fall-off when he left the game was palpable.
- In reference to something mentioned above, the other thing we lose without JB playing PG is spacing and floor control. As for playing together, Joel and Jalek function OK interchanging, but with 7th the spacing collapses. What I saw tonight just reinforces my previous observation that everyone will be better off with 7th playing the 2. Speaking of Guards, Jalek still has a lot of work to do on the defensive end.
- We rebounded well enough, considering some of the long caroms in their missed 3s, holding a 47-28 advantage, including 16 Offensive.
- After a very shaky start, we finished a respectable 25/33 at the FT line.
- Finally, as for this season's rule changes/emphases --- cracking down on screen shenanigans and hooking, happy-feet in the post, etc --- I absolutely agree with all of them. That being said, I'll just say Les Jones & co. didn't have a very consistent night and leave it at that. But again, that can be a good thing early in the season as a lesson for our young players. Bucknell was an experienced and, um, "crafty" bunch and being exposed to the tricks of the trade will hopefully pay experiential dividends for our younguns as the season goes on.
Anyway, it wasn't ideal, but it was a win --- and it doesn't appear anyone else got hurt, so there's that. Here's hopin' the Leader Dog gets that junk off his paw by Monday!
2-0...
-
- Lineups: We played mostly Hybrid with Luke at the 4, with a bit of Traditional with Brooks playing a few minutes of 4, and a stint of Small with Luke at the 5. Also, Roy utilized 7, count em, 7 backcourt combos in the first half alone. In order of appearance:
Berry/Willams, Berry/Woods, Felton/Woods, Berry/Felton, Berry/Platek, Felton,Platek, Woods/Platek
- Speaking of which, it was good to see 7th playing some 2. Also, we saw some of the on-the-fly interchanging between 1 and 2 with JB, 7th and Jalek all doing some of that at times. The interchanging worked ok on the fly, HOWEVER, in the second half there were a series of possessions where 7th ran Point and JB slid to the 2 for full possessions and that mostly wasn't pretty. The first was a set play which was ok, but the rest just didn't mesh (more on that below).
- Kudos to Luke and Theo for all-around games. Luke's 20 Pts, 9 Rebounds, 4 Assists and 2 Blocks in 37 minutes was a herculean effort, and Theo threw in a Swiss Army Knife performance with 18 and 5 to go with his 6 Dimes.
- Color me impressed with big Manley yet again. All our Bigs took their defensive lumps against Bucknell's experienced guys, but Sterling's 16 and 13 in just 17 minutes is damned solid. I also am loving that sweet lean-in turn-around --- that's some classic Post stuff right there folks!
- We shared the ball very nicely with 22 Assists on 31 made FGs --- often making the extra pass --- and even with that we blew myriad opportunities, especially in transition, by not catching the ball or on passes that were a hair off. In other words the number of dimes and made FGs both could've been higher.
- Speaking of transition, this is where the biggest differences occurred in our team performance. We had 14 Fast Break pts., but 6 of those came breaking the Press late. The other issue was in our bread-and-butter. In the first half we scored 27 of our 50 pts off the Secondary Break --- that's Carolina Basketball --- in the second half however, that number fell to 10. #Yikes
- On Joel Berry's return: I've played PG with two fingers on my lead hand taped together --- and that's bad enough --- but I've never tried it with a brace. As I suspected the problem he is going to encounter comes in "gathering" the ball, especially off the dribble. In other words he won't be able to smoothly move into a shooting motion, so you won't see his trademark quick-trigger 3s and pull-ups... and he'll have trouble keeping a grip on the ball finishing inside until he gets that thing off his hand. It can also affect passing on the fly. Considering the latter, it's impressive JB amassed 6 Assists and only committed 1 TO in 30 minutes, but I'm not surprised he had a rough shooting night.
- Speaking of which, with all that said it's a damned good thing we had him. Without JB there's a good chance we lose this one. First, we are just night-and-day better defensively with the Dog out front. He only got credit for 2 Steals, but he directly caused 4 other changes of possession. Moreover, the team-D functions eons better. The defensive fall-off when he left the game was palpable.
- In reference to something mentioned above, the other thing we lose without JB playing PG is spacing and floor control. As for playing together, Joel and Jalek function OK interchanging, but with 7th the spacing collapses. What I saw tonight just reinforces my previous observation that everyone will be better off with 7th playing the 2. Speaking of Guards, Jalek still has a lot of work to do on the defensive end.
- We rebounded well enough, considering some of the long caroms in their missed 3s, holding a 47-28 advantage, including 16 Offensive.
- After a very shaky start, we finished a respectable 25/33 at the FT line.
- Finally, as for this season's rule changes/emphases --- cracking down on screen shenanigans and hooking, happy-feet in the post, etc --- I absolutely agree with all of them. That being said, I'll just say Les Jones & co. didn't have a very consistent night and leave it at that. But again, that can be a good thing early in the season as a lesson for our young players. Bucknell was an experienced and, um, "crafty" bunch and being exposed to the tricks of the trade will hopefully pay experiential dividends for our younguns as the season goes on.
Anyway, it wasn't ideal, but it was a win --- and it doesn't appear anyone else got hurt, so there's that. Here's hopin' the Leader Dog gets that junk off his paw by Monday!
2-0...
-
