...and we did what we had to do and played through it.
Let me get this out of the way and get to more pleasant stuff. The officiating in the first half especially was just gawdawful --- not just the lack of calls, but even the basic mechanics were unacceptable... and Mike Eades --- good grief --- once you signal set to play on an out-of-bounds situation, just give the guy the damned ball. You do NOT pull the ball back unless there's a horn. That sumbitch has done that to us all season, where he pulls the ball away after we go into our play and f***s up the entire sequence. Roy had some choice words for Eades later and the officiating was better in the second half, but still. There was one sequence on the glass where the Pitt guy literally had Brice in a headlock (in MMA it would be called a "rear naked choke"). Nothing. And there's no way a Pitt team should shoot 25 FTs to our 18. Here's the thing though --- this game was called in way to fit Pitt's style and they flat took advantage of that but we played through it. Our guys got tough and did what they had to do.
What we needed to do:
- I said yesterday we needed to protect the defensive glass. Pitt got 11 Offensive Rebounds but honestly many of those were on air-balls or odd bounces. By and large we cleaned the defensive glass and won the rebounding battle 30-25. Calling Pitt "physical" is like calling an ocean "wet" --- we did the job we had to do.
- I also said we needed to finish stronger inside. We did. We had 13 Blown Assists that didn't result in FTs (compared to being in the 20s last game). That ain't too bad, and we finished better at the rim --- and not just our Bigs. Our Perimeter guys were also taking it to the rack strong.
- 40%+ 3-point shooting was a good (and very realistic) goal. I figured something like 6/15 from deep would do the trick. We were 6/14 --- I'll take it!
More good numbers:
- FT shooting again. 16/18 is a winner. That's almost 89%.
- FG shooting. We shot 58.9% FGs for the game (and 61.3% on 2-pt shots). That's more like it. And we were over 61% for the entire second half. That's how you hang 49 pts on em.
- While we didn't get to run as much as we like, we still pushed tempo. The box score numbers are again misleading (as they often are). We actually scored 28 pts. in our transition game --- 8 Fast Break, 20 Secondary Break.
- We had 10 TOs. More than I like, but they were TOs of aggression for the most part. JB and Nate had some that came from simple miscommunications and Marcus tried to force a couple of passes, but by and large we held on to the ball despite several hands usually grabbing and clawing at us. The better news is we had 18 Assists on 33 made FGs.
Kudos:
- Good early minutes from Big Joel.
- Good moves by Roy. Counter-intuitively he went "small" early in the second half and we did pretty well in that. Justin had been having a rough game, but seemed to respond to banging in the 4 hole.
- Speaking of that, Hello, Kenny Williams! With Theo and JJ both gassed, Roy brought in KW at the 3 and he responded. Now, I was gonna write something about him before his big shot. All season I've harped on KW being an advanced defender for a frosh --- well, he showed it. Artis (constant traveling and all) tried to take him to no avail. And then, finally, KW nailed his first trey, and that one was going in as soon as it left his hand. Hope that's the spark that sets him off.
- Speaking of defense, Berry flat did a number on Pitt's very good Sr PG (Happy Feet) Robinson. And speaking of D, our Help D was wayyy better today. Bigs were protecting the rim and perimeter guys were. stepping in. Great sequence late --- after a Timeout, Nate was guarding Robinson, who had already taken him to the rack twice. This time JB was lurking and helped off his man and comes up with one of his 4 Steals. I have a feeling that was discussed on the sideline because we were laying for Robinson's drive.
- Kudos to Theo for big energy, some aggressive attacking and 7 dimes.
- Double-Double (what else is new?) for Brice 19 and 10 (and let's not forget those 5 Blocks).
- I liked the way Marcus' deep stroke looked --- and Roy called a few iso plays for him in clock situations. Good to see.
- Good on Nate for persevering. Got stuffed inside a couple of times but kept attacking and didn't hang his head over Robinson overpowering him on drives. Nate kept fighting and got his hands on some balls on D and made some nice plays and good takes --- did what he had to do.
- And finally JB deservedly "got the chicken" (as we used to say back in the Holly Farms days) --- 20 pts and took over the game at key spots the way a true Lead Guard should. Hit from deep and took it the rack and scored, it seemed, whenever we needed one. When our perimeter guys are scoring they can't pound on our Bigs as much.
Really nice 17 pt. win against a legit tourney team --- let's keep going.....
Let me get this out of the way and get to more pleasant stuff. The officiating in the first half especially was just gawdawful --- not just the lack of calls, but even the basic mechanics were unacceptable... and Mike Eades --- good grief --- once you signal set to play on an out-of-bounds situation, just give the guy the damned ball. You do NOT pull the ball back unless there's a horn. That sumbitch has done that to us all season, where he pulls the ball away after we go into our play and f***s up the entire sequence. Roy had some choice words for Eades later and the officiating was better in the second half, but still. There was one sequence on the glass where the Pitt guy literally had Brice in a headlock (in MMA it would be called a "rear naked choke"). Nothing. And there's no way a Pitt team should shoot 25 FTs to our 18. Here's the thing though --- this game was called in way to fit Pitt's style and they flat took advantage of that but we played through it. Our guys got tough and did what they had to do.
What we needed to do:
- I said yesterday we needed to protect the defensive glass. Pitt got 11 Offensive Rebounds but honestly many of those were on air-balls or odd bounces. By and large we cleaned the defensive glass and won the rebounding battle 30-25. Calling Pitt "physical" is like calling an ocean "wet" --- we did the job we had to do.
- I also said we needed to finish stronger inside. We did. We had 13 Blown Assists that didn't result in FTs (compared to being in the 20s last game). That ain't too bad, and we finished better at the rim --- and not just our Bigs. Our Perimeter guys were also taking it to the rack strong.
- 40%+ 3-point shooting was a good (and very realistic) goal. I figured something like 6/15 from deep would do the trick. We were 6/14 --- I'll take it!
More good numbers:
- FT shooting again. 16/18 is a winner. That's almost 89%.
- FG shooting. We shot 58.9% FGs for the game (and 61.3% on 2-pt shots). That's more like it. And we were over 61% for the entire second half. That's how you hang 49 pts on em.
- While we didn't get to run as much as we like, we still pushed tempo. The box score numbers are again misleading (as they often are). We actually scored 28 pts. in our transition game --- 8 Fast Break, 20 Secondary Break.
- We had 10 TOs. More than I like, but they were TOs of aggression for the most part. JB and Nate had some that came from simple miscommunications and Marcus tried to force a couple of passes, but by and large we held on to the ball despite several hands usually grabbing and clawing at us. The better news is we had 18 Assists on 33 made FGs.
Kudos:
- Good early minutes from Big Joel.
- Good moves by Roy. Counter-intuitively he went "small" early in the second half and we did pretty well in that. Justin had been having a rough game, but seemed to respond to banging in the 4 hole.
- Speaking of that, Hello, Kenny Williams! With Theo and JJ both gassed, Roy brought in KW at the 3 and he responded. Now, I was gonna write something about him before his big shot. All season I've harped on KW being an advanced defender for a frosh --- well, he showed it. Artis (constant traveling and all) tried to take him to no avail. And then, finally, KW nailed his first trey, and that one was going in as soon as it left his hand. Hope that's the spark that sets him off.
- Speaking of defense, Berry flat did a number on Pitt's very good Sr PG (Happy Feet) Robinson. And speaking of D, our Help D was wayyy better today. Bigs were protecting the rim and perimeter guys were. stepping in. Great sequence late --- after a Timeout, Nate was guarding Robinson, who had already taken him to the rack twice. This time JB was lurking and helped off his man and comes up with one of his 4 Steals. I have a feeling that was discussed on the sideline because we were laying for Robinson's drive.
- Kudos to Theo for big energy, some aggressive attacking and 7 dimes.
- Double-Double (what else is new?) for Brice 19 and 10 (and let's not forget those 5 Blocks).
- I liked the way Marcus' deep stroke looked --- and Roy called a few iso plays for him in clock situations. Good to see.
- Good on Nate for persevering. Got stuffed inside a couple of times but kept attacking and didn't hang his head over Robinson overpowering him on drives. Nate kept fighting and got his hands on some balls on D and made some nice plays and good takes --- did what he had to do.
- And finally JB deservedly "got the chicken" (as we used to say back in the Holly Farms days) --- 20 pts and took over the game at key spots the way a true Lead Guard should. Hit from deep and took it the rack and scored, it seemed, whenever we needed one. When our perimeter guys are scoring they can't pound on our Bigs as much.
Really nice 17 pt. win against a legit tourney team --- let's keep going.....
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