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Very quick stuff (dook game 2)...

gary-7

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Jan 27, 2003
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...and well, we beat dook again.

- Unfortunately, it doesn't go much further than that. Although many won't, I feel sure some will get this. For lack of a better way of saying it, this just felt like a one-off. In other words, we fortunately made shots and FTs --- while they, well... helped us out by STINKING. Let's call it straight, that's as bad a perimeter shooting performance I remember seeing from a dook team in a while (especially considering the good looks they got). I mean, Hurt was laying brick after brick --- hell, one of the two 3s he made took all the paint off the rim before spinning in --- the others weren't even close. Here's the thing: Let's not fool ourselves --- we had very little to do with their poor shooting.

- Good on Walton for bouncing back from a bad shooting night with a tremendous one, and Love for another strong showing against our hated rival, and the Bigs for energy and the team for making FTs, but... our scoring too often wasn't the result of good ball movement and there were just way too many fundamental breakdowns. and on the other end, suffice to say dook's offensive ineptitude had little to do with our defense, other than rim-protection (and some of that was covering for some less-than-stellar perimeter work).

- Good to see Garrison's ankle wasn't serous and him making those 3s on his Senior night, and honestly, seeing Big Stir get his first bucket in forever was absolutely heart-warming and hopefully tantalyzing for next season,

Anyway, all I can caution is there was some fool's gold out there tonight, in that it would've only taken a partial reversal of shooting fortunes for that one to have been a nail-biter... and because dook is just not a good basketball team. Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but a repetition of some of what I saw tonight with just a few less shots falling is liable to portend a shorter March than we'd like...
 
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Alot of truth here gary. This was our "B" game, we can play much, much better.
Strange as it may sound I was worried the entire half time break. We should have been up 25.
On a side note, how about the idiots in Derm complaining about the late baskets by our 3 string/walk-ons.
Yet coach "Klassless" is still pressing.:mad:
 
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Gary, this write up is about as on point that you have been all season.

That dook team is not very good, and has a lot more issues with their personnel than we do. I genuinely believe that we would have won regardless of whether the dookies played any better.

What chaps my arse, as it has all season, is the lack of ball security (eg. 19-20 TO's), and careless passing, and just as always, it becomes idiotic to the point that it made even a good thrashing of those guys at times, unwatchable. This could, & should have been 25-35 point skull dragging. The odds-makers had us what a 2 point favorite? I imagine those guys in Vegas, who set those numbers were not very happy with the dookie play.

Well, our immediate fortunes hinge now on how well we can just take care of the ball, the back court making some shots, and the continued good shooting from Walton.

What a season.
 
Fool's gold? Maybe, maybe not. Either way I slept pretty dang good knowing that UNC out rebounded, out shot, out hustled, and out coached that group of arrogant bitches from derm. It was especially sweet because of the thuggery they were using, and for the most part allowed by the refs, in a failed attempt to offset our superiority. The cameo by Sterling finished off a near perfect evening.
 
Sterling Manley looked like he could barely get around on his leg. I know he had an awkward dunk and a block, but looking at him moving around after both didn't look good.

So glad to see him have a moment of glory late with all he has been through. But I saw the same thing. After the block he almost looked like he was about to fall over. But kudos to him for summoning whatever he had left in that body to go hard for a couple possessions.

As far as the game......as mentioned earlier, there was a certain amount of fools gold that some took out of that game. Obviously Duke is a shadow of the team they usually put on the court. And last nights version looked like a team that just wanted to get it over with. Kind of reminded me of last years UNC team.. K didn't even seem too upset with it all. He just sort of sat there and watched them turn it over at a rate not seen in the Smith Center since the heady days of Larry Drew. I was a bit surprised that UNC didn't pound it inside at a higher rate. Especially in the second half. But Walton was hot and sometimes UNCs best offense is the offensive rebound. As things move forward I do hope the staff reduces RJ Davis's playing time. He has talent, but he has to channel it properly. He is a bit of a turnover machine, and always seems to try and put on a dribbling clinic as he searches for any path to create for himself before passing. Nice end to an up and down regular season. Have no idea what to expect from this team as things go forward. At times they look like they can compete with most anybody not named Gonzaga or Butler. At other times they might struggle with a SoCon team.
 
Yes we were careless with the ball some but let's be honest. Dook fouled at will in the 2nd half to get some of those turnovers and not a lot of them were called. Coleman knocked Love out of bounds and they gave the ball to Dook. The refs weren't going to let the Rat get embarrassed on the scoreboard.
 
Dook sucked true. But we got 18 a piece from Walton and Love. Plus 11 blocked shots. If our guards can get close to that every game, we're a force to reckon with if we cut those turnovers in half. And as someone else mentioned Dook was committing assualt and getting away with it the second part of the second half. That contributed to slot of those late turns, but like Roy said, we need to attack the press.
 
Same as the first game against dook ... we sucked but they sucked worse. RJ and Ant were horrific turn-over machines. Very happy to get the win. Go Heels!
 
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Any year Roy can get 2 regular season wins vs the Rat is a good year. This team is an obvious roll a coaster unit and that can come at any interval of time, be it game, half, or even by 3 minute spans. But the guy that is responsible for both of these victories is Love. He gives Carolina that hard nosed, strong pg that imposes his physicality on the pukes. No back down and the hated rivals did bring the pressure yesterday with all their tricks. Caleb is improving running the offensive sets but consistency is not just around the corner. He will need another year at a minimal. Sure he had a couple bone headed mistakes but generally a great game. The offer that never came Calebs way from Vader has delivered two wins and Roy sure needed these in the head to head tally.

RJs stats look ok but his play was an obvious fail to the eye test yesterday. He is just not physically strong enough against an opponent who emphasizes ball pressure, like Goldwire. Regardless if Love leaves this year or after 2 seasons or is possibly sidelined with an injury Roy is forced to play RJ. He may well be our starter next season and Roy needs to judge if RJ can actually get the job done at the 1. Everyone was calling for less RJ but Roy is going the other direction.
 
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Hurt struggled because the focus was to make it hard for him to catch and play him for the jump shot rather than the drive. It forced him to give the ball up much more than he wanted to, that we executed pretty darn well by both Brooks and Leaky. Steward got a few clean looks but we did harass him just enough that he did not shoot himself in to a hot streak. WE switched off more high screens than we have in many games and as such were not forced to scramble. Williams was to a large extent neutralized by physically not allowing him that close in easy position to finish over a defender.

Granted, the 20 TOs were not good but offensively we scored from all 3 levels, felt the mid range jumpers from Brooks was really nice, Brooks had one of his best games this seasons on both ends. Bacot's effort level was really good, especially on Williams. Leaky while quiet on the offensive end was really good shutting More pretty much down and did well when he matched up on Hurt in making it hard for Hurt to get a catch, playing him as a jump shooter so he didn't get a clean look for a shot. Those Hurt missed treys were for the most part due to a hand being in his face and that is how he should be defended.

Nice to see Walton go back to using the shot fake and 1 dribble to re-establish pull up, that was MIA for a few games. Love, took a lot of bad shots that had no board coverage that I consider as a version of a TO but he hit some big time shots that were solid looks. The 20 TOs was not good but we won a lot of the effort plays and our bigs didin't miss a ton of bunnies, all 4 of our bigs played well and even Walker Miller drew a charge, Big Ster got him a flush and a block and that was really good to see.

I didn't see this as fools gold as much as I have seen other games as fools gold, LVille being one example by beating a team that just had not played in about a month. This was IMO 40mins, more important 2 solid halves where we played solid and at times really well. Just felt our defense set the tone early, hit duke in the mouth and just never let them get back in to the game and that has not consistently been the case this season.
 
Any year Roy can get 2 regular season wins vs the Rat is a good year. This team is an obvious roll a coster unit and that can come become so at any interval of time be it game, half, or even by 3 minute spans. But the guy that is responsible for both of these victories is Love. He gives Carolina that hard nosed, strong pg that imposes his physicality on the pukes. No back down and the hated rivals did bring the pressure yesterday with all their tricks. Caleb is improving running the offensive sets but consistency is not just around the corner. He will need another year at a minimal. Sure he had a couple bone headed mistakes but generally a great game. The offer that never came Calebs way from Vader has delivered two wins and Roy sure needed these in the head to head tally.

RJs stats look ok but his play was an obvious fail to the eye test yesterday. He is just not physically strong enough against an opponent who emphasizes ball pressure, like Goldwire. Regardless if Love leaves this year or after 2 seasons or is possibly sidelined with an injury Roy is forced to play RJ. He may well be our starter next season and Roy needs to judge if RJ can actually get the job done at the 1. Everyone was calling for less RJ but Roy is going the other direction.

I saw some of that with RJ last night. It's obvious that he needs to work on his point guard skills over the summer. He is listed as 5'11', but I doubt he exceeds 5'9". Marcus Paige had similar problems as a freshman but he was able to bounce back in later years.
 
...and well, we beat dook again.

- Unfortunately, it doesn't go much further than that. Although many won't, I feel sure some will get this. For lack of a better way of saying it, this just felt like a one-off. In other words, we fortunately made shots and FTs --- while they, well... helped us out by STINKING. Let's call it straight, that's as bad a perimeter shooting performance I remember seeing from a dook team in a while (especially considering the good looks they got). I mean, Hurt was laying brick after brick --- hell, one of the two 3s he made took all the paint off the rim before spinning in --- the others weren't even close. Here's the thing: Let's not fool ourselves --- we had very little to do with their poor shooting.

- Good on Walton for bouncing back from a bad shooting night with a tremendous one, and Love for another strong showing against our hated rival, and the Bigs for energy and the team for making FTs, but... our scoring too often wasn't the result of good ball movement and there were just way too many fundamental breakdowns. and on the other end, suffice to say dook's offensive ineptitude had little to do with our defense, other than rim-protection (and some of that was covering for some less-than-stellar perimeter work).

- Good to see Garrison's ankle wasn't serous and him making those 3s on his Senior night, and honestly, seeing Big Stir get his first bucket in forever was absolutely heart-warming and hopefully tantalyzing for next season,

Anyway, all I can caution is there was some fool's gold out there tonight, in that it would've only taken a partial reversal of shooting fortunes for that one to have been a nail-biter... and because dook is just not a good basketball team. Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but a repetition of some of what I saw tonight with just a few less shots falling is liable to portend a shorter March than we'd like...
Offensively I think our better shooting numbers covered less than stellar ball handling and decisions. Defensively I don't agree fully. I thought our defense for at least the better part of the first half was GREAT! Dook couldn't even run offense for a great deal of the first half and Hurt didn't even get a shot attempt for a long stretch, which included back to back shot clock violations.
Now the second half Dook got some easier looks due more to our mistakes of turnovers and bad shots on offense leading to uneven court coverage, and yes Dook then missed shots they hit in past seasons. I give our defense at least a B grade or higher in this game.
 
Any year Roy can get 2 regular season wins vs the Rat is a good year.
Agreed.

We might meet a 3rd time, in the semifinals. We have to beat Notre Dame (assuming they beat Wake) and then Va Tech. Duke has to beat BC, then Louisville, then FSU.

In other words, that matchup isn't too likely . . . but it's possible.
 
I saw some of that with RJ last night. It's obvious that he needs to work on his point guard skills over the summer. He is listed as 5'11', but I doubt he exceeds 5'9". Marcus Paige had similar problems as a freshman but he was able to bounce back in later years.
Marcus also had Dex to help him get through that freshman year - help he really needed until the last third of the season, when things started to click for him.

I agree that RJ needs work. But I'm not worried about him. He has toughness. He'll get there and will be darn good for us.

I do wonder who will back up at PG if Caleb leaves. KJ? Ant? Kerwin?
 
Marcus also had Dex to help him get through that freshman year - help he really needed until the last third of the season, when things started to click for him.

I agree that RJ needs work. But I'm not worried about him. He has toughness. He'll get there and will be darn good for us.

I do wonder who will back up at PG if Caleb leaves. KJ? Ant? Kerwin?
KJ graduates and would not be an option. Regardless, he is not that good of a point guard at this level. I don't think Walton or Ant are options. As for Walton, leave that kid alone and let him sit out on the wing and hit 6-7 three pointers a game. Roy may be able to go the transfer route for the point guard or a de-commitment.
 
KJ graduates and would not be an option.
I assume KJ will have the same option to return as our other seniors. Don't know if that's true. I raised that question a while back and don't recall hearing a clear answer.

Assuming he could return, would he want to? Would Roy want him?

As for not being good enough, we're only talking about a few minutes per game of backup. He'll be fine for that.

I agree that we don't really want to distract Kerwin from his main job. And I also agree that Roy might be well advised to look for a good option via the transfer route.

And of course this all assumes Caleb leaves. Something I put at no better than 50:50. But that could change with good tournament performances. Plus, as some have said, his body language isn't that of someone who is thrilled to be here.

I don't see Caleb drafted in the first round. But if he wants to leave and is willing to go in the 2nd round, I'm reasonably sure someone will pick him up - even if only to send him to the G League.

Glancing at NBAdraft.net, their mock draft is quite rich in PGs. Eight of them in the 1st round - meaning Caleb faces lots of competition.

Alternatively, I suggest we reactivate Kendall's remaining year of eligibility.
 
By no means would I presume to infringe upon your monopoly on bullshit.
...And well, here he is again sticking to his MO....

You came on here and tried to downplay our beatdown of dook. With all the hardships and trials (and poor play) this team has faced, why not just enjoy a beatdown of the hated rival?

We get it. You love Platek and hate that he doesn't play more.

But it's a really weird flex to come on here and try to minimize and downplay one of the few "feel good games" we have had (and will have) all season. Seems odd.
 
...And well, here he is again sticking to his MO....

You came on here and tried to downplay our beatdown of dook. With all the hardships and trials (and poor play) this team has faced, why not just enjoy a beatdown of the hated rival?

We get it. You love Platek and hate that he doesn't play more.

But it's a really weird flex to come on here and try to minimize and downplay one of the few "feel good games" we have had (and will have) all season. Seems odd.

You guys are ridiculous! Dude just calls it like he sees it whether anyone agrees with him or not, get over it & at least accept that. Not to mention he knows about 10x more about basketball than 90% of the people that post on here. NOWHERE in the OP did he mention Platek. You guys are at best, inferring, & at worst, reaching for shit to rock the boat (or visa versa). I’m ecstatic with a sweep of dook this year, & in particular with the beat down last night, but this team is not all of a sudden perfect, we still have plenty of flaws. Let’s all enjoy the win, & the dark side’s misery, no matter what kind of glasses we look at it with.
 
IIRC the first eight mins or so of the game dook did stink it up, to the point that k pulled his mask down to show it by his facial expression.
He's giving up on his team. Not a heck of alot of HOF coaching in the first half, let alone the entire game. Have some meds and scotch LOM...slink on over to your suite at the psych ward.

Getting a good run in is good for our guys right now. Hope they have a good week coming up.
 
We played well in the first half, but did not take care of the ball. I have said over and over, if we turn the ball over less than 10 we win. (Against almost anyone in the country).

We made up for turnovers with three point shooting and free throws. Truth is if we hold down turnovers we crack 100 and beat Duke by 30.

I don't think this changes my thoughts that we probably aren't consistent enough to win the ACC tournament, or get to the sweet 16 (insert Elite 8 if I have had a drink or two). However, the win solidified what I will consider a solid season. Beat state once, sweep Duke, make the NCAA tournament. From where we were a month or so ago, I am a happy Tar Heel.

And icing on the cake, my Sophomore son watched his first UNC/Duke game in person by "volunteering" at the Dean Dome.
 
...and well, we beat dook again.

- Unfortunately, it doesn't go much further than that. Although many won't, I feel sure some will get this. For lack of a better way of saying it, this just felt like a one-off. In other words, we fortunately made shots and FTs --- while they, well... helped us out by STINKING. Let's call it straight, that's as bad a perimeter shooting performance I remember seeing from a dook team in a while (especially considering the good looks they got). I mean, Hurt was laying brick after brick --- hell, one of the two 3s he made took all the paint off the rim before spinning in --- the others weren't even close. Here's the thing: Let's not fool ourselves --- we had very little to do with their poor shooting.

- Good on Walton for bouncing back from a bad shooting night with a tremendous one, and Love for another strong showing against our hated rival, and the Bigs for energy and the team for making FTs, but... our scoring too often wasn't the result of good ball movement and there were just way too many fundamental breakdowns. and on the other end, suffice to say dook's offensive ineptitude had little to do with our defense, other than rim-protection (and some of that was covering for some less-than-stellar perimeter work).

- Good to see Garrison's ankle wasn't serous and him making those 3s on his Senior night, and honestly, seeing Big Stir get his first bucket in forever was absolutely heart-warming and hopefully tantalyzing for next season,

Anyway, all I can caution is there was some fool's gold out there tonight, in that it would've only taken a partial reversal of shooting fortunes for that one to have been a nail-biter... and because dook is just not a good basketball team. Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but a repetition of some of what I saw tonight with just a few less shots falling is liable to portend a shorter March than we'd like...
Gary you are normally right on in your assessment of games but this time you must have been doing something else while Carolina recorded eleven blocks in the contest. If that is not a defensive presence than I do not know what a defensive presence.is.Also in the first half twice Duke had time clock violations and they looked like a normal Carolina game with all of their unforced errors and turnovers. Yes again I would say DEFENSE caused that and finally Matthew Hurt’s first three outside shots were all bricks not hitting anything while Sharpe was on him, Even the bricklaying union would call that defense. Got to give credit where credit is due and the defense after everything I just pointed out was a big factor is the impressive blow out.
 
...And well, here he is again sticking to his MO....

You came on here and tried to downplay our beatdown of dook. With all the hardships and trials (and poor play) this team has faced, why not just enjoy a beatdown of the hated rival?

We get it. You love Platek and hate that he doesn't play more.

But it's a really weird flex to come on here and try to minimize and downplay one of the few "feel good games" we have had (and will have) all season. Seems odd.
FYI, Platek had a stomach bug and probably wouldn't have played at all if it wasn't dook and senior night.

So no... you don't "get" it.

As for your take on my trepidations about the particulars of the performance, funny, but a former UNC player ITT agreed whole-heartedly.
 
Gary you are normally right on in your assessment of games but this time you must have been doing something else while Carolina recorded eleven blocks in the contest. If that is not a defensive presence than I do not know what a defensive presence.is.Also in the first half twice Duke had time clock violations and they looked like a normal Carolina game with all of their unforced errors and turnovers. Yes again I would say DEFENSE caused that and finally Matthew Hurt’s first three outside shots were all bricks not hitting anything while Sharpe was on him, Even the bricklaying union would call that defense. Got to give credit where credit is due and the defense after everything I just pointed out was a big factor is the impressive blow out.
I specifically mentioned rim-protection, did I not? My point was there were too many times when it shouldn't have come to that. And sorry, but they indeed missed badly on (too many) open looks.
 
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Tummy bug kept our best defender in the last ten years off the court and we still blew the doors off dook. Why minimize probably the best performance of the season by far except for maybe Louisville? Turrribble write up.
 
Tummy bug kept our best defender in the last ten years off the court and we still blew the doors off dook. Why minimize probably the best performance of the season by far except for maybe Louisville? Turrribble write up.
As I said in that OP, some will get it, many won't. Hardly surprising you'd fall into the latter category...
so have a nice day, y'hear?
 
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I just get too stressed to watch any of the Duke games live so I watched the recording last night and watched it again this morning (easier and less stressful to just delete it if we somehow lose and especially lose when we should win).

rewatching-I focused on who played really good defense for us especially to get us ahead early.

I agree that Kerwin’s defense has been slow to come along and has been lacking but for the first half of last night I’d give him an A and give him a B overall. He did let his guy get to the hole too easily a couple times late, but he was one guy who didn’t do that infuriating “half help” off his guy at the 3 point line. Like Ant did at end of first half. Did nothing that stopped the driver in the lane and left his guy wide open for a 3 Duke made.

I believe if Kerwin works hard on his defense and his drive / midrange game he has a chance to be all ACC 1st team next year and maybe our most important player next year (maybe along with Caleb, Kessler, bacot. This assumes dayron doesnt come back). Kerwin seems to be on a Wayne Ellington / shammond / Donald Williams path.

I also thought especially Dayron, plus brooks and leaky were good overall on defense. The whole team seemed disinterested and let too many easy baskets occur when they were up 20 in the last 8 minutes.

I really hope Caleb doesn’t leave. Just from a size and strength standpoint, having Ant and Davis run the point is sketchy at best. They get sort of overwhelmed especially when officials are not calling contact.

I agree that 2-3 of Calebs turnovers and two of his fouls shouldn’t have really gone against him. He got mugged, ridden out of bounds and fouled a couple times, late - with no calls just because he is physically superior to his opponents.

It feels like this team is turning the corner a bit especially if they have time to prepare.

it’s easy to say, but even if this team gets down to 10-12 TOs and continues to have right people shoot at the right times (little Leaky, and get rid of most of the long pull up jumpers early in the shot clock with no passes like Davis took) - they can be a challenge for anyone.
 
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It’s not that hard to understand.

Duke stinks and we blew the doors off of them despite doing some of the dumb shit we’ve been doing all season. I don’t think anyone sees this game and now thinks we are a FF team.

However, we locked in our tourney bid and eliminated Duke in the process. For that, I celebrate.
 
Gary you are normally right on in your assessment of games but this time you must have been doing something else while Carolina recorded eleven blocks in the contest. If that is not a defensive presence than I do not know what a defensive presence.is.Also in the first half twice Duke had time clock violations and they looked like a normal Carolina game with all of their unforced errors and turnovers. Yes again I would say DEFENSE caused that and finally Matthew Hurt’s first three outside shots were all bricks not hitting anything while Sharpe was on him, Even the bricklaying union would call that defense. Got to give credit where credit is due and the defense after everything I just pointed out was a big factor is the impressive blow out.

I thought our 1st half defense was pretty good too. The 2nd half? Not so much. The poor passing and TO's (20 w/ 13 of them steals by the dookies) sullied what could have been most likely the worst beatdown that the Rat has historically had at the hands of UNC. We shoulda skull drugged them for 30+. Then, I would have had a palpable peace in my life. But.... for the record, I am in general, happy with this years sweep of those bastids.
 
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I don't really understand the mentality of our blowout win should have been bigger. Seems like a depressing mentality to have. If we can be upbeat after a loss, like some here have been, then surely we can be upbeat after a blowout win. We made mistakes, but no more than we normally do, so I'll take this win as a win.
 
You guys are ridiculous! Dude just calls it like he sees it whether anyone agrees with him or not, get over it & at least accept that. Not to mention he knows about 10x more about basketball than 99% of the people that post on here. NOWHERE in the OP did he mention Platek. You guys are at best, inferring, & at worst, reaching for shit to rock the boat (or visa versa).
👆
 
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