Why Robert Brown thought it would be a good idea for him to take a contested floater when we were down 3 and you have a shooter like Erick Green on your squad is beyond me. And we will not win another game against a decent opponent as long as we stick in that stupid 2-3 zone. The final score may look like we're in some games but we're really not. UNC and tonight have been the exceptions but even then we lost because we were in a zone. We are already small so playing zone kills us even more on the boards, we don't force turnovers like we do when we play man so we can't run the break which was what made us successful earlier in the year, and we just flat out suck at running it. Every team can come down and get a wide open 3 any time they want to. I wish Johnson would sometimes just throw the ball out there and tell these guys to run because that is what can make us successful again.
Tech-Maryland
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We can't run man consistently, not enough bodies. Zone is the only way to go right now, there's nothing JJ can do about that. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that we literally have 2 plays on offensive. Run a guy across the base line with layered screens, or Erick Green Iso. Everything else is street ball. JJ isn't a very good X's and O's coach, you can tell the players are going all out for him, but he just doesn't seem like a good coach for running actual sets.
Man
I get you can't run man an entire game like earlier in the year but we could still run it for a majority of the game and then use the zone as a change of pace. And I wouldn't mind seeing us go down in the post more. Raines has a really good low post game, and I wouldn't mind seeing Barksdale get a little more touches on the block too
It's not like Tech gave up 80 points or anything.
The (lack of) offense was a problem. If Brown/Eddie could hit even 20 percent of their open 3's, the pick and roll would be twice as effective. Nowadays, defenses have no fear leaving them open on the perimeter to defend Eric's drives.
The sad thing is that Robert Brown wasn't even the worst one on the floor tonight. Eddie had more fouls than points, and was a complete liability on both sides of the floor. That being said, I expected better out of Robert Brown, especially in crunch time. Even though he hasn't shot well lately, I would've expected him to have enough basketball IQ to know to dump it to Erick in that instance.
Shout out to Cadarian for a great game tonight. (I'll take double digits from anyone not named Erick whenever I can get it)
I just don't get it. When we beat OK State, our rotation consisted of Erick Green, Robert Brown, Jarell Eddie, C.J. Barksdale, Cadarian Raines, Joey Van Zegren, Marquis Rankin, Marshall Wood, and Will Johnston occasionally. Since then, Johnston has played near to nothing (I'll touch up on that later), and Christian Beyer has proved to be a reliable player, giving us one more to add to the rotation. We also ran man-to-man defense nearly the entire game, enabling us to get pit and run and find open shooters. Now, Beyer and Johnston hardly play and we run that 2-3 zone that helps us in no way, except our players don't get tired, but from what I heard of the workouts in practice, players should not be getting tired. We don't rebound or defend the three, allowing the opposing team to find a groove. Then, we are forced to slow down our offense instead of running, where we are successful. Will Johnston is not effective in a slow tempo offense. In a run and gun offense, though, he is very productive, as we found out at the beginning of the year. Beyer is an excellent defender, something we are in need of. We MUST get back to man-to-man defense, go back to the original rotation, plus Beyer, and WIN. Players like Robert Brown and Jarell Eddie were also much more effective in this offense, and it really doesn't matter what offense Erick Green is in. He will score. We are a much better team when we run man-to-man defense and run like hell. Don't know why we've gotten away from it.
I apologize for any typos. Typed all of that on my phone.
Beyer is an excellent defender? Who would he have guarded on Maryland??
The tall white guy who lit us up at the beginning of the game
mismatch
Beyer on Layman would be a mismatch. Beyer on any of Maryland's bigs would be a big mismatch. We play zone when Johnston and Beyer are in because JJ knows that neither of them can match up with ACC players.
How's that a mismatch
How's putting Beyer on Layman a mismatch? All he did was a sit on the perimeter and shoot 3's. He was a spot up shooter that's it. He was a poor ball handler and clearly didn't play well down low it would have been a perfect matchup
Layman is way quicker and much more athletic than Beyer. Did you see his dunk? He also has a couple inches on him so could post him up and score that way. He could also drive by him with ease.
Rotation
Robert brown isn't making shots, C.J. has been up and down because of hustle, Cadarian and Joey are in at the same time which forces C.J. to play center at times, Marquis had been doing better, but has a stomach virus, Marshall still hasn't found himself since hurting his foot and Will can't really dribble, can't really guard and can really only hit wide open shots. Not sure why Beyer isn't in a little more recently because he does get the rebounds, but it is fairly easy for other teams PF/C to shoot over him.
Really all that sounds like is they are lacking confidence and need to refocus themselves. Quick turnaround with GT at 1 on saturday, hopefully they can get off this loosing streak.
This is when we find out how good of a leader Green is and how good of a coach JJ is. The team just played unbelievably hard in 3 straight games against top half ACC teams, now we find out what they have. Are they going to crumble? Because if we can play like that against some other teams (like GT this Saturday) then a win is almost a guarantee. They can't let this get them down.
ITT
People who don't know basketball complaining about coaching decisions.
JJ
I thought JJ out coached Turgeon by leaps and bounds last night FWIW.