Instantaneous Ill-Informed Roundball Wrapup: Notre Dame Fighting Irish 89, Georgia Bulldogs 83
by T Kyle King on Nov 25, 2010 9:34 PM EST
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Right there with ya
"I want anything wearing red and black to tear the head off anything that isn't." - Lewis Grizzard
I would agree.
Much more depth this year. Thompkins, Leslie, Robinson can play. Ware and Price are improved. Given time, Brantley, Thornton, and Nolte can make a big impact.
by JoeinSavannah on Nov 25, 2010 9:46 PM EST up reply actions
FWIW, Bama and UGA target Anthony Grant have NBA talent, too
Scored 40-some points in a blowout loss to a baaaad Iowa team last week.
It was frustrating because we had no business letting it get away from us like that.
I was watching the game with my brothers-in-law, one of whom pointed out that the problem was that we got away from forcing our way inside by playing fast, aggressive Decatur street ball and letting a bunch of Midwestern parochial school graduates dictate the way the game would be played. It was very disappointing to have the game in hand and fritter it away like that.
Go 'Dawgs!
Welcome to my love/hate relationship with Georgia basketball
"I want anything wearing red and black to tear the head off anything that isn't." - Lewis Grizzard
Thanks, RedCrake!
I used to have a bit of a breather between the disappointment of football season and the disappointment of baseball season, but now you’ve introduced me to the sport that will make it possible for me to be dejected and angst-riddled year-round! :)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Nov 25, 2010 10:02 PM EST up reply actions
Glad to be of service
"I want anything wearing red and black to tear the head off anything that isn't." - Lewis Grizzard
oh.
is that what happened? Maybe by season’s end, I’ll understand 10 whole things about basketball……
I can bake like a demon.
Not to *overly* be a jerk, but
“by playing fast, aggressive Decatur street ball and letting a bunch of Midwestern parochial school graduates”
The thugs-vs.-sterling-white-boys paradigm is old and moldy. C’mon.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 25, 2010 10:01 PM EST up reply actions
First of all, I was quoting my brother-in-law, so blame him. :)
Secondly, he was exaggerating for the sake of making a point.
Finally, he was endorsing an up-tempo style of basketball and emphasizing the Bulldogs forcing their way inside rather than putting up ill-fated three-point tries from the perimeter. The use of the words “thugs” and “sterling” involves a value judgment which was neither explicit nor implicit in his statement, and which was, in fact, exactly the opposite of the value judgment being made.
The point is that, when Georgia forced its way inside, the Bulldogs scored; when Georgia didn’t, they didn’t.
Also, being able to hit a dadgum free throw would have helped a lot. I have no patience for poor free throw shooting, because I can shoot a free throw. Live-game situations are difficult to simulate with precision, but shooting a free throw is exactly the same every single time. No one should ever be worse than an 80 per cent free throw shooter.
Go 'Dawgs!
by T Kyle King on Nov 25, 2010 10:15 PM EST up reply actions
Sorry for snapping.
Been hearing about thug UGA players with their rippity-rap music and their tats and whatnot from our fanbase for years, so I’ve got a lousy trigger.
There was some level of thought going into breaking that zone, and the perimeter passing was mostly solid. It’s just that the shots were well-contested and just kinda chucked up there. Gotta go in to Trey and then kick it out to beat that zone. Trey was kinda camping out away from the basket early on while he got his sea legs, and it hurt us.
My problem with the misses, other than, you know, being misses, was that they were baaaaad. Not even close.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 25, 2010 10:18 PM EST up reply actions
Exactly.
The Hoop Dogs stopped going inside, and the Irish were able to use the “hack a Shaq” technique because none of our guys could hit free throws consistently. You have to be able to drive the basket and be able to make the opposition pay for fouling when you do. If you can’t, you squander a 13-point lead.
Go 'Dawgs!
I have HUGE amounts
of patience for poor free throw shooting – probably enough for you, me and the rest of the regulars around here. Why? Because I couldn’t shoot a free throw if my life absolutely depended on it. I never could and I’m guessing at this point, I never will.
I can bake like a demon.
You'd learn how to make 'em the way we've got to
Repetition.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 25, 2010 10:27 PM EST up reply actions
probly not
my hand-eye coordination is non-existant. I can’t catch, I can’t throw, I can’t hit a little white ball with a big ole nerf bat. I seriously have absolutely zero talent for actually playing sports of any kind. I understand the basics of football & baseball better that other sports, and being the product of a variety of educational systems, I’ve even been taught the basics of just a whole bunch of “sports” from ping-pong to tennis to baseball, basketball, football, & field hockey. All I learned from YEARS of PE is that I do not have the required makeup to actually participate in these sports by playing them. Don’t know what’s missing – but something most definitely is.
I can bake like a demon.
Then the sport for you, my dear, is cricket.
It’s the only sport in the entire world slower than baseball, and you get to use a paddle the size of the Okefenokee Oar to hit the ball.
See?
by vineyarddawg on Nov 25, 2010 10:56 PM EST up reply actions
Believe it or not -
not even Cricket. I spent an entire school year living in Scotland – and YES they TRIED to teach me Cricket and even THAT did not work!
I can bake like a demon.
I'm sorry to break this to you, podunk...
… but if you lived in Scotland, could not hit a ball with a cricket bat, and could not throw a curling stone, then the sport you’re best at is baking brownies. :-)
(And yelling at the TV during football games.)
by vineyarddawg on Nov 25, 2010 11:08 PM EST up reply actions
and at those two things
I am quite good. Tho they never did attempt to teach me to throw a curling stone, however, given my dismal failure at every other sport I ever tried, I don’t think there would’ve been much point.
I can bake like a demon.
This is neither here nor there, but my brother-in-law . . .
. . . (the same one I quoted above) and I once saw American children playing cricket on the Fourth of July. We were incensed.
Go 'Dawgs!
You're right again, D.N. Nation.
Particular game situations are tough to simulate in practice because of all the variables involved, but a free throw is a free throw. (Insert scene with measuring tape from “Hoosiers” here.) You practice it ’til you get it right, then you repeat that using muscle memory when you step up to the line.
Go 'Dawgs!
Great Game
True, we did miss a good number of FTs and definitely weren’t pounding the ball down low enough.
But we did force the game into Double OT and had the heart to keep fighting, even with Jeremy fouling out in regulation and Tre playing rusty his first game back. And our D wasn’t too bad either
I give them credit for almost taking back a game they had given away, . . .
. . . but, when you’re up by 13 points, you need to be able to hold on to win a game.
Go 'Dawgs!
what is it with Georgia basketball teams
that (at all times and in all places) has these 5 to 10 minute scoreless streaks in the second half? For the first time, it looked like Coach Fox got out-foxed. They packed that 2-3 zone under the basket, and we just threw the ball around it, seemingly unsure of what to do. Late in the 2nd, we started setting a pick up high, and that loosened up the ND zone. Also, it is a very simple formula: hit your free throws/win games; miss free throws/lose games. I am disappointed with the number of times on offense, we chucked/flung up a contested three pointer, only to have no one anywhere near the paint. Did we get an offensive rebound in the second half? Still, the boys fought back twice to tie a game that seemed out of reach. Both overtimes were forced in the last minute? Minute and a half? I am bummed on the loss, but proud of the gutsy, never-die, keep fighting part of it. BTW: was that breakaway slam of Leslie’s in the first half awesome? Really. ’Cause I thought it was pretty awesome.
"...maybe a couple bottle rockets/light the fuse/point it out the window and watch it/ okay, maybe not, nevermind/ let's be responsible/where's the moonshine?
Trey is the key
He was playing away from the basket when he first got minutes, not really helping us break the zone. He was understandably tentative.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 25, 2010 10:51 PM EST up reply actions
Well said, EdDawg.
I completely agree.
Regarding the dunk, my brothers-in-law and I were discussing the demoralizing effect such a dramatic score can have on an opponent, and it occurred to me that there was not qualitatively a difference between that slam dunk and the Ole Miss player’s dive into the end zone against Louisiana State, yet one is a highlight and the other is a penalty . . . and absolutely no one, even folks who consider the slam dunk showy, thinks dunking on a guy ought to be a foul that allows the guy who was dunked on to go to the free throw line. It’s an interesting bit of disconnect there.
Go 'Dawgs!
You've hit on it
This team has to learn in a hurry how to deal with a zone defense, Good grief, Notre Dame did nothing defensively that should slow down any kind of decent team; but when the other team has found its groove offensively—meaning there will be no fast-break points off of rebounds or steals—the recipe to re-establish offensive momentum against a zone are these:
1—shoot over it
2—drive through it
3—(most conventional and most successful) get the ball to a seam where two players must collapse and pass to a player who has rotated to an open spot created by the collapse.
If you do either #2 or #3 you also can get to the FT line, which is a huge ice-breaker in basketball—when you can make your freaking FTs!!!!!!!
Very simply, that display in the second half yesterday was not one of an experienced or successful team. If this is how they’re going to play against the defense they are most likely to see heavy doses of, 14-17 is what we can expect again. Notre Dame is not a team that is going to do well this year, make no mistake about it, and we should have beat them by ten points based on talent. But coaching and execution won that game for them.
Not a good day for Fox’s coaching skills.
Could we have just
held onto the ball about 30 seconds longer and won it there at the end of the game/ot or something????
I can bake like a demon.
and good night, all!!
THWGT!!!!
"...maybe a couple bottle rockets/light the fuse/point it out the window and watch it/ okay, maybe not, nevermind/ let's be responsible/where's the moonshine?
I was channel surfing and ran into my first UGA b-ball game of the season.
Anyone want to guess when I turned it on?… When we were up 10 and directly before we adopted the new 1 second rule: no one inside the arc for longer than 1 second.
Seriously, what was that? And why was this new “phenom” Coach Fox allowing it to happen? Maybe I’m missing something, but they looked like UGA football players… extremely athletic and poorly coached.
The Pillar of Pessimism, the Narrator of Negativity, and the Dictator of Doubt is here to rain on your Utopian Parade.
Let's be fair.
Two years ago, on the night when Felton got canned, we lost Favors to Tech and lost to Florida by some ridiculous score like 67-37. Trey and T-Bird were on that team, too.
We didn’t do a good job attacking ND’s zone, and we didn’t shoot FTs well. We also were in a position to win the game, didn’t get held under 40 friggin points, and even in our most befuddled moments never looked as offensively idiotic as we did under Felton. In two years we’ve gone from the epitome of anti-competitive to where we are now. Poorly coached? I think not.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 26, 2010 10:46 AM EST up reply actions
Come on, you're kidding, right?
They may not be poorly-coached but they sure as hell looked it last night. Scoring 25 points in the second half (with about 10 of those in the last 2:00) against a run-of-the-mill 2-3 zone is not reflective of a well-prepared team. Especially when we have the SEC pre-season Player of the Year.
It would be kind of like being unable to pass the ball against a zone defense when you have AJ Green on your team.
No, I'm not kidding.
Fox has gotten this team good enough when an effort last night (rightfully) qualifies as looking poorly coached. We play like this two years ago and it’s the best Georgia basketball I’ve seen in years.
He’s risen our expectations. Be pissed about the loss, but happy about that.
I mean no offense to a lot of y’all, but it doesn’t seem like many have actually been watching Georgia basketball much since the SEC tournament run. You wanna know why Trey’s the SEC preseason POY? Why Travis Leslie is considered a lock for the NBA? Look to his coach. He’s gotten them there. Trey was a underachieving malcontent and Leslie could barely scratch the starting lineup before Fox showed up.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 26, 2010 11:06 AM EST up reply actions
And I would like to point out
that they did all the wrong things against the zone, which is why I make my comment about the coaching: they stood on the perimeter and passed the ball around without moving. They made no effort to dribble into the seams of the zone until late in the game. They made no effort to flash into the middle with the SEC POY Excellent Mid-Range Jumper Biggest Guy On The Court. Even in the first half ND’s brief use of the zone resulted in perimeter passes and attempts to shoot over the defense without properly attacking the seams.
The only time they broke the zone down was when Robinson used dribble-penetration. But it happened way too late, after ND had taken a six-point lead.
It is UNFATHOMABLE that THIS team could have been stymied by a zone by THAT team. UNFATHOMABLE. I cannot overstate this: they got stopped because of a 10-minute stretch of being unwilling to use the advantages they had right there on the court!
Good coaching will be shown if they correct this (though I submit that this was basketball 101 and they should have known better, especially having all played together last year). We’ll find out more today.
Trey Thompkins
was just coming off an injury, was gentle on his ankle, and was afraid at the onset to park his ass in the lane. He got better as the game progressed, and we were able to take down ND’s zone better.
But whatever, Fire Fox!
by D.N. Nation on Nov 26, 2010 11:08 AM EST up reply actions
Yeah, THAT'S it.
I am not debating player development. Fox has a track record there. I am also not stating unequivocally that Fox is any kind of coach at all, strategy-wise. Fox is a MASSIVE improvement over Felton.
I am saying that, as someone who watched basketball quite a lot (yes, I do, DNN) and knows what they are looking at (yes, again), LAST NIGHT this did not look like a well-coached team. You can make all the excuses you want, but last night was a DISASTER.
If this team plays like that all year it will not be a good year. That is all.
A disaster?
Jeebus.
We lost in double OT to a team that could make a run for the NCAAs.
Florida got wiped out at home to Ohio State. Kentucky looked like a joke against an unranked UCONN team. Bama with a pro prospect and supposed genius coach couldn’t crack 50 against a lousy Iowa team. Tennessee at full strength has almost lost to a whole slew of mid-majors. Ditto Miss. State. Auburn’s lost to damn near everyone.
If we’re a disaster, then everyone else in this conference is.
The outrage. Park it a little. It’s a long season. This ain’t football. Basketball Fox would coach circles around the football one.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 26, 2010 11:16 AM EST up reply actions
You think Notre Dame is going to make the NCAAs???
They aren’t any good, man. That’s why I am troubled.
All of those points about how bad the SEC is just illustrate how this team has the potential to do something.
Yes, everyone else in the conference is a disaster. This year’s SEC could well look like two or three years ago or whenever it was that there were no teams in the top 25 late in the year.
UConn, by the way, has been significantly underrated because no one expected Walker to turn into such a beast. They’ll be top 10 all year because he’s nearly unguardable.
Please do not make assumptions about what I am saying.
That goes for how much basketball I know as well.
Also
National Champion Duke, whose gameplan at the end of the year was simple enough (on offensive boards, automatically kick out for 3s, perfect spacing) to be winning genius, got their @$$es handed to them mid-season by a lousy NC State team. Kentucky, with Wall and Cousins and a host of NBA-worthy players coached by John Calipari, were entirely flummoxed by a 1-3-1 zone against West Virginia in the NCAAs and went home. Billy Donovan, who has won two titles at Florida, still employs a largely ineffective full-court press after three years of little success (it particularly killed them against us two years ago). Roy Williams, who has all the talent in the world at North Carolina, couldn’t get them to beat Minnesota or Vanderbilt, who we beat last year.
So when you say this:
“And why was this new "phenom" Coach Fox allowing it to happen?”
Because everyone loses, and everyone has bad games, and even the smart ones can’t automatically transfer that smarts to their players.
This newfound rage we have over Mark Fox’ lifelong inability to adjust in games is quite interesting, seeing how he’s actually one of the best adjusters I’ve seen in a long while. The experts agree with me on that one.
by D.N. Nation on Nov 26, 2010 10:53 AM EST up reply actions
Don't feel too badly.
Auburn lost its first three games in its new $100,000,000 “arena” (they decided the old coliseum looked like too much of a dump – not too much better than that rickety old Stegeman number in Athens). They did bounce back against Murfreesboro, however, and are now enjoying a one game “winning streak”! Hope you “dawgs” had a nice Thanksgiving! I just got back to Auburn from my Thanksgiving in Atlanta. I’m fond of my relatives, but the only time I ever crave a drink is after a visit with them.
Looks like we get a ranked Temple squad at 7:30 on ESPNU
Time to bounce back.
"I want anything wearing red and black to tear the head off anything that isn't." - Lewis Grizzard
by RedCrake on Nov 26, 2010 1:37 AM EST via mobile reply actions
Good job, RedCrake.
I was about to note that very thing. Thanks for beating me to the punch.
There will be a comment thread this evening.
Go 'Dawgs!
Free throw shooting
was absolutely terrible, as noted above. I agree with TKK that there really is no excuse for college basketball players (or NBA players for that matter, do you hear me Shaq? Do you hear me Dwight Howard?) to be missing free throws. There are MANY tools out there to help with just those issues and I’ve found that after a week or two of working with the tools, at about 15 minutes 3 times per week, free throw shooting improves dramatically.
That however was really about the third thing on my list of need to improve, and do so quickly. First, when we are down and having trouble scoring, where is our pressure on the D side? When we got close we attacked defensively and got back into the game and sent it to overtime. Then we stopped. ND absolutely HATED our pressure D most of the time. I don’t know why we didn’t employ it more often and earlier in the contest. We could have used that pressure to get T. Leslie open for some additional highlight footage.
Second, and it’s already been mentioned, was our lack of attack against the zone. All we did was pass around the top, have two guys make a flash cut to the lane, and continue to pass. When we did penetrate, we found open guys and even scored on the penetration. I can’t say it was coaching that hurt us, I know how it is to coach a group of kids who just won’t do what you coach them to do. College kids are no different. Sometimes it’s just a confidence issue, other times it is more of an “I watch the NBA and I can play like that” attitude. I think it’s more of a confidence issue with these Dawgs. And, as we like to say around my teams, confidence comes from demonstrated ability.
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