Survival is the theme of this one. We survived in spite of:
- shooting only 38% from the floor, 25% from 3, and an uncharacteristic 12/19 FTs.
- only 3 points from Marcus, and only 18 minutes and 6 pts from Brice because of foul trouble
- letting State clod up the tempo and only scoring 67 w/ only 3 guys in double figures.
Stuff:
- As I posted this week, the key issue would be how our Bigs responded to their "physical" inside play. Started badly --- Brice's first silly foul made him timid and Kennedy wasn't being strong enough with his moves --- but give credit, that improved dramatically in the second half (and I'm sure Roy blistered some 6'9" butts at halftime.
- Speaking of "physical", State's bruisers were getting away with 2-handed push-unders on the offensive glass. If things are supposed to be called tighter THAT needs to be the next point-of-emphasis.With all that we still managed to out-rebound them, and our increased aggression paid off beating them on the offensive glass and on second-chance points.
-The bad news is that we still didn't finish thru contact strongly enough --- Even though we had 17 Assists on 25 made FGs, we blew several Assists (5 of Berry's alone). It was however good to see Meeks play big (in the second half especially). He finished with 23 pts and 5 Offensive boards.
- By and large we played damned good defensive game (again, especially in the second half in which we held them to 33.3% FGs). Our Bigs started challenging every shot. And here's what I REALLY liked from our Bigs. I'm sure Roy knew they were gonna slow it down and run Isolations --- our Bigs finally did their jobs and helped when our Guards forced baseline on drives! THAT folks is the difference between this game and the N. Iowa game in a nutshell.
- Our Guards had good defensive games despite being dwarfed by State's. Marcus did a good job on Rowan. Nate played hard and did some good ball-hawking in his minutes and Joel Berry did a number on Barber. JB had Cat most of the night and the ACC's leading scorer was held to 9, with only 5 coming vs JB. Oh, and he had 5 TOs (Are we seeing a pattern here?... Melo, Cat, Alford, et al, all having rough times holding onto the rock vs our boy Berry? Hmmm...). JB's nasty blocked shot against him that caused a subsequent TO was the coup de grace. Somehow he only got credit for 1 Steal in the melees (shoulda been 2), but he caused 5 more TOs!
- They won the tempo battle, but we kept pushing. We only had 2 true FB pts, but 21 came off the Secondary Break. That persistence paid off. Good win. 5-0. baby!
Oh, and one last thing --- that Offensive Foul call on Jackson on the break was total BS! Even Dookie V recognized it. That should have been a 3-pt play. Fortunately, we, um... survived that
- shooting only 38% from the floor, 25% from 3, and an uncharacteristic 12/19 FTs.
- only 3 points from Marcus, and only 18 minutes and 6 pts from Brice because of foul trouble
- letting State clod up the tempo and only scoring 67 w/ only 3 guys in double figures.
Stuff:
- As I posted this week, the key issue would be how our Bigs responded to their "physical" inside play. Started badly --- Brice's first silly foul made him timid and Kennedy wasn't being strong enough with his moves --- but give credit, that improved dramatically in the second half (and I'm sure Roy blistered some 6'9" butts at halftime.
- Speaking of "physical", State's bruisers were getting away with 2-handed push-unders on the offensive glass. If things are supposed to be called tighter THAT needs to be the next point-of-emphasis.With all that we still managed to out-rebound them, and our increased aggression paid off beating them on the offensive glass and on second-chance points.
-The bad news is that we still didn't finish thru contact strongly enough --- Even though we had 17 Assists on 25 made FGs, we blew several Assists (5 of Berry's alone). It was however good to see Meeks play big (in the second half especially). He finished with 23 pts and 5 Offensive boards.
- By and large we played damned good defensive game (again, especially in the second half in which we held them to 33.3% FGs). Our Bigs started challenging every shot. And here's what I REALLY liked from our Bigs. I'm sure Roy knew they were gonna slow it down and run Isolations --- our Bigs finally did their jobs and helped when our Guards forced baseline on drives! THAT folks is the difference between this game and the N. Iowa game in a nutshell.
- Our Guards had good defensive games despite being dwarfed by State's. Marcus did a good job on Rowan. Nate played hard and did some good ball-hawking in his minutes and Joel Berry did a number on Barber. JB had Cat most of the night and the ACC's leading scorer was held to 9, with only 5 coming vs JB. Oh, and he had 5 TOs (Are we seeing a pattern here?... Melo, Cat, Alford, et al, all having rough times holding onto the rock vs our boy Berry? Hmmm...). JB's nasty blocked shot against him that caused a subsequent TO was the coup de grace. Somehow he only got credit for 1 Steal in the melees (shoulda been 2), but he caused 5 more TOs!
- They won the tempo battle, but we kept pushing. We only had 2 true FB pts, but 21 came off the Secondary Break. That persistence paid off. Good win. 5-0. baby!
Oh, and one last thing --- that Offensive Foul call on Jackson on the break was total BS! Even Dookie V recognized it. That should have been a 3-pt play. Fortunately, we, um... survived that
