Will the “Iron Five” be helped from injuries and fatigue this season?
- Thread starter IDUNK4HEELS
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I do agree that the door was WIDE open for Dunn to get playing time with Walton's struggles, and he looked like a deer in headlights when he got a look. Not saying he cannot develop to be a very solid piece, but he was not a step in. Hubert would of loved for that option.
Trimble, will get that look, we will see how he responds, I think he is very capable to step up. Leaky was ripped by many on here, was the easy take, I was NOT one. I said he would leave as a BELOVED Tarheel thought of fondly and I was scoffed at for it. Theo struggled much like him as a much more heralded recruit and I compared Leaky to him in the way he will be remembered. Leak is going to be a LONG TIME HEEL favorite.
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I'm glad to find out I wasn't the only one who could see Leaky growing into a great Tar Heel! To some peeps, scoring is the only way to contribute. Both Dunn and Trimble have the will, athleticism and strength to be + defenders. I think defense and ball security will determine who gets the most minutes between them. (barring the dreaded I word) I do think Trimble adds some alpha dog that Dunn hasn't displayed as yet. I can see both playing and I can see Dunn really being important by ACC time!
My sense from HS and Blue-White clips is that Seth Trimble could start at point if we needed him to. Sure, he'd be a freshman so that wouldn't be ideal - but he could.
The main question mark is how he'll hold up under the stronger defensive pressure he'll see at this level. Fortunately for him and us, we don't have to worry about that, since he'll have the luxury of coming off the bench.
I thought Dunn looked good (except for the 1 fumble) in the BW game. But I still expect that he'll be the 4th back court option. Which probably means no better than 10th option overall.
The good news for Dunn and a few others is that this is a championship contender team. If Hubert is willing, that means there should be plenty of games where there will be decent PT even for guys toward the end of the bench.
I agree and I do know this much, if RJ were to go down to injury and miss multiple games, the guy I want running the point is Trimble and it really isn't close. I do solid agree that Trimble could start at the point (if RJ were not there) but also agree it isn't ideal to have a freshman as our starting PG. We have been thru several consecutive seasons with freshman PGs, it was not good. Coby, Cole, RJ all wonderful talents but as freshman PGs the team did not do what Carolina does.
I see Trimble as the primary back up for BOTH RJ and Caleb.
Just having additional talented players this season should keep the team strong and fresh late in games and hopefully injury free…
While both can play lead guard, I like RJ at the point as much as possible, especially in half court situations. I love having Seth who can come in and spell either spot. That’s a luxury we didn’t have last year.
I don't want us to have any player on this team average over 30mins a game. In any individual game sure, guys having a good game ride the hot hand for sure but over the course of the season with our level of depth and assuming things not to be dictated by injury, no one player should have to average over 30.
Left up to RJ he will play 40mins if you let him so playing him as much as possible I may have to step back from.
I'll just say that we'd better hope that doesn't happen --- and not just for the obvious reasons.
We’re in agreement. I don’t want any of our guys averaging over 30-32 MPG. But when RJ is in the game, I want him playing lead guard, especially in half court sets.
Arch, the wildcard on that note may be how closely opponents study last season's film. As discussed previously, down the stretch Hubert successfully "schemed" space for RJ, and all I can say is that if I'm coaching against us there's no way in hell I'm letting my Big accept those high switches.
Probably the most underappreciated skill of a legit PG is the innate ability to create space and angles --- for their teammates and themselves --- and we simply don't have one of those guys, so kudos to the staff's adjustment for sure.
So now though, here we are in the 3rd year when Combos typically start to "get it". Thus, if opposing coaches do in fact adapt to our tricks, I fully expect RJ's own adaptation to be one of the early "tells".
I feel very good with Trimble's ability to create space for himself and I think he will be fine at creating good ops for others once he has established as a guy that demands a double (and that will happen, I think fairly early next season). We gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.
Now it does have me question not so much next season as the season after, when Wilcher gets here and not considering a Cardeau reclass scenario, lets as well say RJ leaves after next season (which I in no way expect). IN that event we would have Trimble and Wilcher as our PG options, which one starts at the point and which 1 gravitates to the 2. Wilcher has next level basketball IQ, I would suggest Kendal Marshal like in that respect if not even more. But Trimble has that really strong body, off the charts athletism, and solid quick handles. Clearly IMO a duo PG situation and may well be as good as you will get in todays college game. I don't know that I would favor one over the other to be more the lead guy, if they got their communication down solid, that would be a whale of a back court combo.
Gary was talking about how he would not allow his big man to accept the high switch so the natural question is what do you do to counter it? Now not mentioned far to often is Bacot's ability to set a great screen, other aspects of Bacot's game are discussed a lot but you don't often hear folks talk about his ability to set solid screens at great angles, it may be the best part of his over all game. Big bulky guy, great feet, and experienced to the extent he understands the angles. It all really starts with his ability to set that.
So what do you do, you could switch to zone but not many programs will do that, they don't play zone enough to be able to do it well. WE play against enough zone that we know how we want to attack them for the most part, step a guy like Nance in to the middle and either take their shot quickly or dump it off, Brice Johnson. Or you could try to wall off the cut off the screen but who do you do that with, you going to let RJ come off the screen free? Can you get enough diversion on a hedge and still recover in time to stop the guy that set the high screen from rolling down? That was where teams struggled with us late, they had to hold the hedge to long and had to cover our big man rolling down, it broke the defense down.
So I am curious gary, what would you do, asking only because I am interested in how you would attack that? I know Roy tried to have his big men hold the hedge longer so the chaser could recover but that was really hard for big men to get the timing down on, Meeks for example really struggled with it.
So what do you do, you could switch to zone but not many programs will do that, they don't play zone enough to be able to do it well. WE play against enough zone that we know how we want to attack them for the most part, step a guy like Nance in to the middle and either take their shot quickly or dump it off, Brice Johnson. Or you could try to wall off the cut off the screen but who do you do that with, you going to let RJ come off the screen free? Can you get enough diversion on a hedge and still recover in time to stop the guy that set the high screen from rolling down? That was where teams struggled with us late, they had to hold the hedge to long and had to cover our big man rolling down, it broke the defense down.
So I am curious gary, what would you do, asking only because I am interested in how you would attack that? I know Roy tried to have his big men hold the hedge longer so the chaser could recover but that was really hard for big men to get the timing down on, Meeks for example really struggled with it.
And that's one of the main reasons accepting those forced mismatches played right into our hands. I'd be flatting those screens all day and taking my chances with RJ from 25 ft.
If we are setting the screen at 25 feet then that is a whole different problem, which we certainly had in the first half of the season with strong on ball extended pressure, but hopefully not the major issue anymore.The decision on dee should be forced at the 3 line not 25 feet out.
I also think Caleb is going to get many more looks as the initiator of that "rub" then many people believe he will from previous comments. I believe defenses will see each of our combos in that action. I do not think Hubert is just sending a smoke screen out for his fondness of the interchangeable initiator.
That middle screen tweak was devastating last year. Peeps will have studied it so we will need to adjust it slightly once they prove they can D it up. I believe we will see more high/low Big action and baseline screen action to go with it. I also agree that Love and other wings/guards will see more open looks as peeps try to step in from the wing to slow the penetration or respond to the High/Low!
Defense will adjust, that is what defenses do, they try to take away what you do best. But the thing with a defensive tweek what do you give up in order to stop that look? You have to give up something, it is a rob Peter to pay Paul deal.
That's when you have problems....when Peter AND Paul can play!
I think we have one of those teams that can play multiple different styles effectively!
I think we have one of those teams that can play multiple different styles effectively!
I didn't mention that but yes, I certainly think we'll see variations in initiators. Fact is, opponents adjust and when you're operating with Combos you hafta adjust right back.
D, I think I answered that one post down, and I think we all pretty much agree there will be more adjustments made in our offensive initiation as opponents react to what we did last season.
Back to your question, I also made a mental note last season that if I was defending us with a decently mobile Big, I'd shoot some high traps at RJ (like a snap 30 or 40 in our system) and put some pressure on his decision-making (which candidly, is not a strength of any of our Guards). Bottom line is that RJ is like a football Scat-Back in space when mismatched with a Big and he'll just wear you out in that situation. To defend him you hafta keep someone in his grille and make him create his own space.
And BTW, speaking of space, I'm gonna respectfuly disagree with your take on Trimble. At this stage Seth is still way far removed from being a PG, especially when it comes to spacing. In fact, that is the single biggest skill he's gonna need to improve on as a Combo. Good news is he has kindred spirit guys in front of him to learn from who've had 2 seasons under their belts (not to mention a pretty danged good coach in Jeff).
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Good reply gary, I would like for you to speak to the quality of screens Bacot sets, for me he showed a really good understanding of the nuisances of setting a great screen and understanding what you want to accomplish (broad scope picture) by setting it. Yeah, RJ will put a big man defending him on a string unless that big gets some help. Just don't know how long the other team will give RJ clean looks from 25" when he nails 2 or 3 in a row. But as I said earlier, you have to give up something to stop another thing.
Yeah, we respectfully agreed to disagree on the Trimble question, we are just going to see that one differently and that is fine, what is more important than not agreeing is doing so respectfully and I feel like we have done that. I do appreciate the fact that you mentioned, that Trimble does have some really highly experienced guys ahead of him to learn the ropes from and yeah, Jeff should be a great teacher/mentor for him.
I am glad you mentioned spacing because that to me was a huge difference maker in our late season run to the title game last season, as opposed to earlier in the season. I just really want to see us incorporate more of our Carolina primary and secondary breaks and I think we have the depth and talent to do that this coming season. I can just see guys like Nance/Puff/Washington as trailer on our secondary breaks!
Gary, maybe I should have added this to my last post but didn't. I think maybe the best tact is to make sure the defending guard does his work early, as you offer throwing some traps up early helps this but you want to try to keep the ball handler from getting to the angle he wants before getting to the screen, not easy to do with a great ball handler, not to piss folks off but I actually don't see RJ as a great ball handler nor do I see Caleb as such. RJ is a much improved ball handler than he was as a freshman but he will never get confused with Ty Lawson nor will his decision making ever reach Kendal Marshall or Ed Cota levels. So yes, stressing his ball handles would be the tactic I would go to first. But RJ is a decent enough ball handler that squeezing him will not be an easy task. The go to move for most coaches is to switch off the high pick but the way we were burning opponents you have to do something else.
For realz, there's just no overstating the importance of spacing in basketball. Dean was very much a Geometry teacher in his coaching philosphy, after all. And as most on here probably know too well, not having a legit PG who can innately facilitate that has given me pesonally a running 4-year headache
. In fairness, Cole at least had the instincts, although still a work-in-progress as a frosh, but everyone else since Joel???... Phew! Just yikes.Thus, nor can I overstate how pleased I was with the staff's compensations in scheming spacing, that (more than any other factor this side of Birdy Manek) carried us to the Natty game.
As for Bacot, yes, his fundamental soundness in such things as setting good screens shouldn't be overlooked. Truthfully, Mando is not what you'd call a "pretty" player --- not explosively athletic nor do his skills always look the smoothest --- but he has quietly turned himself into one helluva all-around Big.
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I believe Dean was a math teacher, maybe actually taught geometry as a college coach for a while. I do recall that math did frame a great deal of what Dean taught on the court. What I mean is that his back ground in mathematics strongly influenced his perspective in how he taught on the court. I seem to recall his discussing that at some point?
Getting into the attack range is the biggest difference to me. We struggled mightily with heavy on ball pressure early on. If we are able to handle into that range, I think Hubert is very much big on creating mis matches with that high screen. I do think RJ and Caleb shoot it too well for a go under flatten out solution. Especially with Caleb quarterbacking the decision.
It is not a complicated set, but SO hard to defend with skilled options. They run many of the pro Pistol sets at that point, react automatically according to how the defense reacts. Similar to the RPO sets in football, you have an automatic answer to how the "decision" defender reacts.
It is not a complicated set, but SO hard to defend with skilled options. They run many of the pro Pistol sets at that point, react automatically according to how the defense reacts. Similar to the RPO sets in football, you have an automatic answer to how the "decision" defender reacts.
I agree but if Caleb is off with his shot then that’s where I hope his growth has improved. Create, then dish or finish. Don’t force it til u find it. ie Kansas
I get that, and do not totally disagree, but early in the year he would back off, ND game etc., he can't do that. The Duke final four game, he struggled 1st half, he kept "forcing" it for a lack of a better word, they were not easy shots, even the UCLA game he kept searching and caught that groove. They bow out on both occasions if he backed off.
I think we’re on the same page here. We have more scoring options this year though and Love needs to recognize that fact. The pros want to see him show the ability to lead a team, not just by making clutch shots, but in getting good shots for others and finishing at the rim. IOW, becoming a more complete player. Better shot selection is key for him in making that next progression from a clutch shooter to a facilitator and floor general.
It is important to keep searching and not completely shut it down but to say that we bow out if he doesn’t find his shot on those games isn’t all together fact. Could have been more shots for someone hotter. I agree, we won some games with him finding it but we lost the chip because he never found it. Brady could have used those shots and I believe we win. None the less, we can afford an off night a little more from some of our guys this year, with a better bench.
There is a happy medium, sweet spot, with that for sure. For me I do not see any way we advance past UCLA without Caleb seeking tough looks, and hitting them. He was the only real guy who could create and score when opposing defenses were locked in, UCLA was locked in on dee. That is why, in my opinion, when he would defer early in the season when opposing defenses were locked in and he was "off" we got beat in those type games. Others did not create and make the tough ones.
RJ has some of the create ability, but his size makes it difficult for him still, he has the mentality though, quick enough, and did enough when Caleb & Brady were out against Baylor to eke out a total survive and advance after the huge lead.
Brady was not a shot creator, when teams prioritized staying home with him with a tough defender, he was not getting those off on a regular. Mando as a post guy, needs the space and entry feeds from guys easing ball pressure to feed, we struggled against those teams dee pressure. Caleb can get his shot off when looks are hard to find.
Much prefer hitting on all cylinders, doing as we please, but UCLA for sure, also Duke and Kansas we struggled creating, and in those scenarios it was Caleb who had the skill set to create and hit some tough contested looks, that was the difference in going home or getting the narrow victory.
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There does need to be a "happy medium" with Caleb, you don't want to shut him down from worry is this a bad shot and will Hubert pull me to "if it feel like Leather it is my shot". I do believe that went to often to the it feels like leather side. He has to pick his spots better and frankly, taking 10 bad shots that are missed just so you can shoot yourself hot did work at times where we pulled out the game in a nail biting fashion but I have to ask how much those misses hurt, would we have needed to be in a nail biter without those 10 warm up tosses? They, especially Caleb tend to allow themselves to get "baited" in to a one on one game rather than play Tar Heel basketball.
This trouble creating issue is not really an acceptable excuse for taking so many bad shots or last second on the shot clock heaves. Do your work earlier, don't just toss it around the horn for 10-15 seconds, attack, force the defense to move. Over the last couple years how often did you see us come down on the offensive end, call off the break, pass the ball around the horn and a shot goes up without the ball ever touching the paint? That is not Carolina basketball, not blaming Hubert for that only because his bench was not really ready to help, clearly an Iron 5 is not going to look to fast break as much but that should not be a thing now going in to this season. We had some discussion of the high pick action in this thread, darn good way to attack the defense rather than simply toss it around the horn. That was schemed by Hubert and the staff so clearly the need for individual creation is less important than coordinated attacks schemed by the staff, 5 on 5 beats 1 on 5.
There are times that the team just needs someone to take over for a while, Marcus would do that time to time but for the most part the one on one stuff hurts more than it helps. It is like being in a big hole, say down 15pts and coming down taking rushed treys to try to make up for it when you were better off looking to get an easy 2, some points beats no points off a rushed trey that the other team rebounds and goes the other way with.
Agreed, hopefully as mentioned earlier we run more, and have less trouble getting into some fluid half court action into attack range to avoid under 10 on the shot clock gotta make something happen mode.
Joel often had to do that as well under 10, but he would pinball his way into the paint and get one up to the rim more then take the jumper, then our glass work would often act as the best offense for those trips.
DSouthr just believe in Love. Every great team got the alpha male that take and make tough shots. You seem to think that every last second shot he took was his fault.
RJ dribbled half the shot clock down many times. Or simply the opposing defense gave us nothing at times.
Instead of constantly harping on one player….be grateful the kid willed us to the championship game when no one including you thought it was possible.
Caleb is a hard worker and will probably average 20, 6, and 6 with maybe 2 it’s…..and lead us to the championship. I hope you will be happy for him
RJ dribbled half the shot clock down many times. Or simply the opposing defense gave us nothing at times.
Instead of constantly harping on one player….be grateful the kid willed us to the championship game when no one including you thought it was possible.
Caleb is a hard worker and will probably average 20, 6, and 6 with maybe 2 it’s…..and lead us to the championship. I hope you will be happy for him
Speaking of RJ, he is also a junior now along with Caleb, that matters. He seems stronger physically, his height is what it is, but with the added physical strength and loads of experience now, I think he has that alpha mentality as a vet who will be very aggressive along with Caleb, and both more equipped while driving into the lane in the half court.
Each did great work in their freshmen summer with their shot from range. Both eyed improvement with strength handling the ball in the half court, and strength/efficiency finishing/dishing while driving to the cup this summer. I have heard Caleb talk multiple times that that has indeed been his focus, I believe it was RJ's too.
That back court is going to be a HANDFUL if both are fully capable and confident initiating and making decisions in the paint, because they each were deadly catch and shoot guys already last year, and will be cocked and ready to fire as one of those options when the other creates this year for sure.
Each did great work in their freshmen summer with their shot from range. Both eyed improvement with strength handling the ball in the half court, and strength/efficiency finishing/dishing while driving to the cup this summer. I have heard Caleb talk multiple times that that has indeed been his focus, I believe it was RJ's too.
That back court is going to be a HANDFUL if both are fully capable and confident initiating and making decisions in the paint, because they each were deadly catch and shoot guys already last year, and will be cocked and ready to fire as one of those options when the other creates this year for sure.
This is such a good thread.
Let me throw out a completely different question.
What do you guys think about playing Leaky and Puff on the wings at the same time?
Glancing at the heights and weights that were just released, I think Puff is the only guy who lost weight. He's very quick and a good defender. When Caleb goes to the bench, why not give Puff extra minutes at the 2?
We often talk about going small, but this team also gives us the option to go big and really big.
6'11 - Armando
6'11 - Pete
6'9 - Leaky
6'8 - Puff
Most teams couldn't do that because that many big guys wouldn't be able to play good enough defense. But Leaky and Puff absolutely can play good enough D.
I could even see that team playing some box and 1 or triangle and 2.
If Puff's outside shooting shows up, and Leaky continues to keep them honest from deep, we might want both of those guys out there at the same time for part of many games.
Let me throw out a completely different question.
What do you guys think about playing Leaky and Puff on the wings at the same time?
Glancing at the heights and weights that were just released, I think Puff is the only guy who lost weight. He's very quick and a good defender. When Caleb goes to the bench, why not give Puff extra minutes at the 2?
We often talk about going small, but this team also gives us the option to go big and really big.
6'11 - Armando
6'11 - Pete
6'9 - Leaky
6'8 - Puff
Most teams couldn't do that because that many big guys wouldn't be able to play good enough defense. But Leaky and Puff absolutely can play good enough D.
I could even see that team playing some box and 1 or triangle and 2.
If Puff's outside shooting shows up, and Leaky continues to keep them honest from deep, we might want both of those guys out there at the same time for part of many games.
