...and I'm sure for our old-school State-haters like @mikeirbyusa this one had to be particularly sweet 
. I can tell ya that for a hoops-junkie like me it was nirvana, no matter whom it was against.
Stats
- Easy place to start: We beat em by 51. FIFTY-ONE. #Biscuits
- We played Carolina Basketball formula today. Defense fueling transition game = points. 20 Fast Break and 21 Secondary Break Pts.
- Believe it or not, I'm gonna throw out some bad (or at least not-so-good) numbers: 68% FTs, 17 Blown Assists and 10 Blown Secondary Breaks. So...how'd we mitigate those? Effort on loose balls and on the boards. We had 50 Rebounds ... FIFTY... including 17 Offensive against a team with some hosses up front.
- Speaking of rebounding we spread them around. 8 a piece for Luke and Tony, 5 each for KM and JB and Theo.
- Good (not unconsious) FG shooting - 49.9%, Very good 3-pt shooting 12/27 (and we were heat-checking a few times).
- We held a team that scored 104 in an ACC game last week to 56...and 36.5% FGs and 3/11 from 3, plus, bless their hearts, they were brick-layers from the line. The number that really stands out is the dearth of 3-pt attempts. We were solid up in their grilles. #DEFENSE
- Shout-outs to the bench. Contributions everywhere. Luke was excellent throughout. Tony was sorta invisible in the first half (I was afraid Anya ate him) but had a big, active second half and finished with 11 pts. Neat, solid performance by Nate, and 7th had IMO his best game with a solid 6 pts and 4 Dimes, including some excellent passes in the Break.
- Our firepower was on full display with JJ and JB. Buckets was heat-checking again - 21 pts, 6/11 3s, and Berry just scored pretty much whenever he felt like it, and in a Berry-like fashion - 19 pts on only 10 shots, Dog had a full line with 5 Rebounds, 5 Assists (7 Blown) and 2 Steals in a day we only needed him for 23 minutes.
- AND.... at the 13:47 mark of the first half Theo Pinson made his long-awaited return, and wasted no time being Theo. Yeah, I wanted him to see the ball go in the basket ---- he was jacked up for sure and was shooting too hard--- but he still stuffed the sheet with "Theo" things - 5 Rebounds, 5 Assists and 4 Steals in 13 impactful minutes. Welcome back!
stuff
- Starts right here, folks: DEFENSE. That was the best team defensive game I can remember for a long, long time. I know not everyone gets off on all those things but our Help-D was mostly flawless. We were funneling, communicating, beating them to spots, getting in passing lanes, stepping in gaps and sliding back-side. For this ol' coach that was basketball pornography... and while Ol' Roy prolly wouldn't use that term, I'm betting he was feelin' it too. Hell, we were so damned good in base 22, he didn't have to play anything else all day!
- Speaking of which, Kennedy had himself a stellar outing, even going coast-to-coast (albeit at cruise speed) on a steal-and-score. Hicks moved his feet as well as I've seen him and Kenny was a dog to play against. Kennedy and Hicks did what they had to do and were just plain better on both ends than the wuffie front line.
- and speaking of dogs ----- JB just flat did a number on Dennis Smith. Dog was up in his sh** from the tip and wasn't having any of DSJ's vast repertoire of fakes and jukes. Smith's stat line ended up not looking that bad but he got almost nothing on Berry, and his frustration showed early with stupid fouls. Let's be clear, Dennis is a monster talent --- reminds me of Baron Davis --- and will be OAD, but he came up against the best all-around PG in college basketball today. And I'll add one other thing: The couple of times I've watched State this season, their offense is very dependent on DS, and Berry took him out of rhythm early and we were just too good defensively to let them beat us anywhere else.
- I hafta say this --- Anya. Yikes! That kid came in to college chunky (but athletic), but now he's just obese. He fouled a couple of our guys with his belly rolls. His sole offensive moves these days are leaning on someone til they go out of bounds then laying it in. My point is, how in the hell could State's "conditioning' program allow that to happen??? We've seen Kennedy Meeks bust his ass through injuries to remake his body. Well, meanwhile Anya must've stolen all the food Kennedy wasn't allowed to eat. I hope y'all appreciate Jonas and our program, AND appreciate how hard a naturally stout kid has to work. Kudos to Kennedy.
- Finally. There was a long back-and-forth on officiating last week, so I want to give credit where it's due. My UGA buddy had to endure Karl Hess in Athens Saturday, in a game in which an altercation (y'all may have seen) broke out (imagine that). By contrast, early in this one today we both noticed how these guys had taken control of the game early --- called it tight but not ticky-tack, and most importantly blew the whistle on early illegal body-checks. Thus, actual basketball was played.
So a big shout-out to Ron Groover, Keith Kimble, Matt Potter. Honestly I'd only heard of two of them but damned if they didn't call a great game. I noticed maybe 3 blown calls (which is good), and 2 of them favored us... but none affected the flow of the game. In other words, all 3 of those could have gone against us or vice versa. It wouldn't have mattered --- not because we blew State out, but because the game was called properly in general, so a close game would have been every bit as fair. And that's the point. How refreshing is it to not see players getting knocked into next week without FTs? Props to the zebras for enabling pretty basketball.
Folks, we got to see Carolina Basketball at its finest today. No team in the country can play with us if we do that. #Clinic
. I can tell ya that for a hoops-junkie like me it was nirvana, no matter whom it was against. Stats
- Easy place to start: We beat em by 51. FIFTY-ONE. #Biscuits
- We played Carolina Basketball formula today. Defense fueling transition game = points. 20 Fast Break and 21 Secondary Break Pts.
- Believe it or not, I'm gonna throw out some bad (or at least not-so-good) numbers: 68% FTs, 17 Blown Assists and 10 Blown Secondary Breaks. So...how'd we mitigate those? Effort on loose balls and on the boards. We had 50 Rebounds ... FIFTY... including 17 Offensive against a team with some hosses up front.
- Speaking of rebounding we spread them around. 8 a piece for Luke and Tony, 5 each for KM and JB and Theo.
- Good (not unconsious) FG shooting - 49.9%, Very good 3-pt shooting 12/27 (and we were heat-checking a few times).
- We held a team that scored 104 in an ACC game last week to 56...and 36.5% FGs and 3/11 from 3, plus, bless their hearts, they were brick-layers from the line. The number that really stands out is the dearth of 3-pt attempts. We were solid up in their grilles. #DEFENSE
- Shout-outs to the bench. Contributions everywhere. Luke was excellent throughout. Tony was sorta invisible in the first half (I was afraid Anya ate him
) but had a big, active second half and finished with 11 pts. Neat, solid performance by Nate, and 7th had IMO his best game with a solid 6 pts and 4 Dimes, including some excellent passes in the Break.- Our firepower was on full display with JJ and JB. Buckets was heat-checking again - 21 pts, 6/11 3s, and Berry just scored pretty much whenever he felt like it, and in a Berry-like fashion - 19 pts on only 10 shots, Dog had a full line with 5 Rebounds, 5 Assists (7 Blown) and 2 Steals in a day we only needed him for 23 minutes.
- AND.... at the 13:47 mark of the first half Theo Pinson made his long-awaited return, and wasted no time being Theo. Yeah, I wanted him to see the ball go in the basket ---- he was jacked up for sure and was shooting too hard--- but he still stuffed the sheet with "Theo" things - 5 Rebounds, 5 Assists and 4 Steals in 13 impactful minutes. Welcome back!
stuff
- Starts right here, folks: DEFENSE. That was the best team defensive game I can remember for a long, long time. I know not everyone gets off on all those things but our Help-D was mostly flawless. We were funneling, communicating, beating them to spots, getting in passing lanes, stepping in gaps and sliding back-side. For this ol' coach that was basketball pornography... and while Ol' Roy prolly wouldn't use that term, I'm betting he was feelin' it too. Hell, we were so damned good in base 22, he didn't have to play anything else all day!
- Speaking of which, Kennedy had himself a stellar outing, even going coast-to-coast (albeit at cruise speed) on a steal-and-score. Hicks moved his feet as well as I've seen him and Kenny was a dog to play against. Kennedy and Hicks did what they had to do and were just plain better on both ends than the wuffie front line.
- and speaking of dogs ----- JB just flat did a number on Dennis Smith. Dog was up in his sh** from the tip and wasn't having any of DSJ's vast repertoire of fakes and jukes. Smith's stat line ended up not looking that bad but he got almost nothing on Berry, and his frustration showed early with stupid fouls. Let's be clear, Dennis is a monster talent --- reminds me of Baron Davis --- and will be OAD, but he came up against the best all-around PG in college basketball today. And I'll add one other thing: The couple of times I've watched State this season, their offense is very dependent on DS, and Berry took him out of rhythm early and we were just too good defensively to let them beat us anywhere else.
- I hafta say this --- Anya. Yikes! That kid came in to college chunky (but athletic), but now he's just obese. He fouled a couple of our guys with his belly rolls. His sole offensive moves these days are leaning on someone til they go out of bounds then laying it in. My point is, how in the hell could State's "conditioning' program allow that to happen??? We've seen Kennedy Meeks bust his ass through injuries to remake his body. Well, meanwhile Anya must've stolen all the food Kennedy wasn't allowed to eat. I hope y'all appreciate Jonas and our program, AND appreciate how hard a naturally stout kid has to work. Kudos to Kennedy.
- Finally. There was a long back-and-forth on officiating last week, so I want to give credit where it's due. My UGA buddy had to endure Karl Hess in Athens Saturday, in a game in which an altercation (y'all may have seen) broke out (imagine that
). By contrast, early in this one today we both noticed how these guys had taken control of the game early --- called it tight but not ticky-tack, and most importantly blew the whistle on early illegal body-checks. Thus, actual basketball was played.So a big shout-out to Ron Groover, Keith Kimble, Matt Potter. Honestly I'd only heard of two of them but damned if they didn't call a great game. I noticed maybe 3 blown calls (which is good), and 2 of them favored us... but none affected the flow of the game. In other words, all 3 of those could have gone against us or vice versa. It wouldn't have mattered --- not because we blew State out, but because the game was called properly in general, so a close game would have been every bit as fair. And that's the point. How refreshing is it to not see players getting knocked into next week without FTs? Props to the zebras for enabling pretty basketball.
Folks, we got to see Carolina Basketball at its finest today. No team in the country can play with us if we do that. #Clinic
