They were never that good to start with. Early results were misleading as CMY's style took teams by surprise. The last 6-7 games or so are pretty much what everyone expected going into the season.
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I'm not sure I buy this. I think the team has plenty of talent, and we saw that earlier in the year. We didn't beat the likes of Michigan St by just having a wonky scheme. We beat them because we worked our asses off on both ends of the court, and punished them from 3.
Comparing the team then to the team now is a night and day difference. All the motion, the constant off the ball movement, the cutting to the basket, all of that now is gone. Our offense has devolved to a bunch of guys standing around the perimeter, and hoping Bede or Nolley can do something to create points. And on top of this, our percentage from 3 when we do get an open shot has fallen off a cliff. And then, defensively, we just don't have the same intensity we had earlier. Massive uptick in reach in fouls, a step slow on rotations, an inability to fight through screens, slow to close out open shooters, etc.
These are all signs of a team that has tired legs. The warning shot that this was coming was when we went cold for that stretch against NCSU about a month ago. Our ability to gut out the win against UNC probably says more about how bad they are than anything about us, really, but yeah... Going to 2OT against that team probably sucked all the energy reserves we had left. We've just been flat bad since then.
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I'm not sure we can point to one thing, honestly. When things come off the rails like this it's usually a bunch of little things adding up with a little bit of bad luck to boot (ahem: good shots going in, and then rattling back out).
I will say this though, it seems like early on when some of our players were in cold spells other players stepped up. Or if we went cold from the 3 point line we found ways to drive or get points at the foul line. That's not been happening lately from what I've seen.
We absolutely need to find other ways to create scoring. When the whole team is cold at threes we cant keep shooting from deep expecting someone to warm up. That's how we get run out of the barn.
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It's not a reason to be down 30 against GT, but I think some of the recent struggles have been an inability to create energy in low energy environments. Yes we lost to FSU at home, but we played much better than we did the likes of BC, Miami, and now GT on the road. A lot of the issue is youth and an inability to hit shots, but I think energy has been a problem as of late.
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Nope. My take is that you need more size and talent to compete in the ACC than we have right now. I like Coach Young, but when Catoor and Alleyne hit the rookie wall, he had no other options. VT can't win when we can't hit a bunch of 3's... like Wofford and other mid majors, when Young has good shooters and old guys, we can be a top 5-6 ACC squad.
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We keep recruiting guys like Ojiako, we'll be absolutely fine in the long run.
But the fact of the matter is, when Buzz left, his team disintegrated. CMY had to literally rebuild everything that wasn't Bede, Horne, Nolley, and Wilkins and he did a real good job of it. We recruited shooters, we recruited size. In the end, we'll be fine, but its going to take a little while to get there. The good news is,, we looked damn good to start the year and that's a glimpse of what we will be when these guys are better conditioned and have a little more experience.
With all due respect, you're seriously underselling the potential this program has right now.
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5 out of the last 13 years we were Top 6
9 out of the last 13 years we were a game or two back of Top 6
We've been right there for a long time, and if not for the disaster of the James Johnson years, we probably would have established ourselves towards the top of the 'not elite' pack in ACC play since we joined.
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Ok, I think my point stands. 5 out of 13 is not consistent, it's not even half of the time. I love Young, and if he has us in the top 6 50% of the time, that's a hell of a job.
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Ojiako will be a solid contributor by the end of his time at VT. The guy is currently taking a crash course in the technical components of the game. He absolutely has the athleticism to play at this level, the rest just needs to catch up.
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Always enjoy his minutes, I think he could be a really exciting player to watch. In my little time watching hokie basketball we've never had a traditional big man.
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Teams know they can crowd the 3pt line on defense and punish us in the paint on the other end.
It sucks because the start of the year was so great but let's not forget we have two guys that reclassified, and besides Bede and Horne everyone this is their first year. I just hope they can find some fire and be competitive down the stretch
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Yep. We do not have a player who can put the ball on the floor and create his own shot. We were a great 3-pt shooting team but now teams are playing us tight on the line because they know we can't dribble drive to make them pay. Sucks, but outside of Jalen Cone developing into that player, I'm not sure we have that person on the current roster.
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Bede is great at getting to the hoop, unfortunately he seems like he isn't willing to take a chance and be a finisher. He gets in position to do a reverse and dishes it someone for a 3 point shot.
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That's been a common theme with this team. They don't do a great job of getting to the rim already and then when they actually do, they haven't been great from the free throw line. That's not ideal for a team that is built around guards. Getting to the free throw line was especially pivotal against FSU and they attempted just six. That's not good.
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Yes but the height differential this year is much more exaggerated. And these guys don't have the conditioning yet to sustain that effort for a full season, or the mental toughness
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Honestly I think it's this. We have some very young guys. Including guys who should be in high school, not playing against power 5 college players multiple times a week.
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As the announcer said tonight (and as I posted in the other thread)..."the season exposes your weaknesses". We have gaping holes in the roster and teams have figured to how to handle what we do have.
On the perimeter, defenses are playing off Bede and Radford and they aren't double teaming them much if at all when they get inside. Likewise they are overplaying Nolley, Alleyne, Cone, and Cattoor. They are also overplaying the passing lanes. Wilkins and Horne get the best looks but are very inconsistent. Ojiako (who would have played a lot tonight but for the flu) is a year away. None of the shooters are attacking to draw double teams, no one consistently attacks the rim (Radford gets most of his on garbage plays and defensive breakdowns), and no one but Ojiako can play with their back to the basket in the low post.
We have to make a good percentage of 3 pointers to be competitive and that hasn't happened lately. Kids are just going to have to fight thru the wall. At one point late we had Cone, Alleyne, Cattoor, and Ojiako on the floor with Wilkins. IIRC, Bede wasn't on the floor much at all in the last several minutes of the game but everyone was still playing hard. That's all you can ask.
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It is simply lack of scoring. And the reason we cannot score is we are one dimensional. We cannot score by driving off of the dribble. We cannot score by posting up low. There is only one way to score and that's perimeter threes. And every ACC team now knows this.
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Freshmen
Short
The other team doesn't have to defend inside the 3 point line, which seems important
In all seriousness, this team has overachieved and it's a testament to CMY that you're posting this in February and not December. . We're hitting a wall right now and fighting some lazy play (ahem Nolley) and ridiculously cold shooting that makes 2019 NC State look like the Warriors.
Addendum: Don't be surprised if this team turns a corner mentally and catches a body in Cassell before the end of the month though. If all of our shooters are hitting we are going to blow someone out in hilarious fashion (pls be uva).
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This is a young team in a first year of a new coach in a rebuild it was bound to get ugly at some point but I have faith there will be better results as the season goes. Road games are never great for such a young squad as well. Really need some size to be added this off-season.
I would be surprised if we don't dip into the transfer world to try and get a big after this season and a more offensive pg to help
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We are what we thought we were. Coming in we new there were going to be some growing pains and had major holes. It was fun to see these kids go out and start swinging but we were punching above our weight. We've been scouted, we are tired, and we are very one dimensional. These games down the stretch are going to be a struggle, but I think this will all turn out to be a good learning experience for such a young team
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These are just my assessments from watching all but one game. I'm not an expert by any means, but feel like I know basketball better than most (I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one time). These are just random thoughts coming into my head and in no particular order as I thumb these keys:
1. Radford's playing time has increased a ton (as it should). The issue with this is that Bede's playing time should significantly go down in this scenario, but hasn't. When these two are on the floor together the defense literally just drops off both of these guys and dares them to shoot, and neither one will do it and probably for good reason. This leaves us with three other players (one likely being Horne who isn't a real threat either) to take a three.....and these guys are all covered like crazy as there is no post threat to score (Horne) and only two shooters to worry about.
In my opinion, the time Bede and Radford share the floor together should be minimal, and definitely not substantial as it has been. The defense with them on the floor together hasn't been great and the offense gets totally stagnant unless Radford gets a slice to the basket. Again, I haven't done research, but I bet our 3pt % with those two in the court together is way less than when they aren't.
2. As others have alluded to, we've been scouted. Stay on Nolley and make him drive. He will turn it over a lot in that scenario. His handles need major work. Check out that fast break in the first half at the 14:20 mark, it's pitiful. His handles in any type of traffic kills us.
3. Along with the above, teams are finally starting to pound us inside. I thought at the first of the year we were just great on defense eliminating this competitive advantage teams had, but the last few weeks showed us that teams are being more diligent in making this happen and it's been effective.
4. The always reliable process of dudes just going off on us to have career days has happened. Boeheim unloaded and a lot of his shots were contested, Vassell going 7 for 7 from three, Alvardo on fire with Bede all over him.....I hate to say it, but we do seem to get a plethora of guys just killing us even when they are highly guarded. It seems to be a curse with VT basketball.
I have more thoughts but I'm sure no one made it this far....I still Love this team.....Go Hokies!
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Point number 1 nails it. When you rely so heavily on the 3, you can't have 2 complete non-shooters on the floor because it destroys the spacing.
Unfortunately, Bede is the only guy that can initiate the offense at this point and Radford is our best player, so there is no clear answer as to how to overcome this.
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Completely agree with your first point. Even with Radford's recent progression on the offensive end, his ability to get to the rim is the main strength of his game. As you said, on a team with so many shooters, having him and Bede both on the court is a disaster and gives the opposing defense such an advantage in terms of what they can do. I have a great appreciation for what Bede means to this program and, specifically, this year's team. With that being said, I think Jalen Cone has to start seeing more minutes. His ability to hit from three-point range alone is a huge upgrade offensively.
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GT coach shouting "Drive the ball" all night sums it up. They are a group of young players who lack size and can be taken advantage of physically. Especially if you contest the 3 all night
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The inability to drive the ball inside the 3 point line was glaringly apparent last night. GT was defending 21+ feet from the basket, and all we could do was pass it around 25 feet away, and then launch a desperation shot as the clock expired. What happened to the screen and movement game from earlier in the year? We set a ton of screens around the foul line to free up guys to drive and draw the defense. Dribbling and passing around the perimeter isn't getting us anywhere.
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When you're not sinking the three....which we couldn't do last night, you've got to be able to drive to the bucket. Agreed NY Hokie. I only had the heart to watch the first half, but there were at least 3 shot clock violations - we just couldn't find a way to drive the ball. We've been fortunate the first half of the season with a few hot hands on the 3 pointers. When the hands are cold...you gotta have plan B.
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teams, including GT are switching on the screens and generally overplaying the perimeter to avoid giving up open 3pt looks. Then they are able to recover and defend most drives to the lane.
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In addition to the lack of height, freshman wall, etc., I think a big part of it too is just a lack of confidence from the youngsters. With all the freshman, who are used to being the best guy on the court, having a couple games in a row of abysmal shooting, and taking loss after loss is bound to get into their head.
If you'd told me pre-season that we'd be getting run off the court by GT, I'd have said "yeah, probably so", cause we all knew that this year was going to have it struggles. Then we beat Clemson, then we beat MSU, and as recently as two weeks ago, they were talking about us being a tourney team. That's why it sucks so bad now, we punched above our weight for a good while, but now we're playing as most of us expected us to
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I think I would have them shooting a lot more practice free throws. Their conditioning is crumbling a bit. Confidence is dwindling from 3. We are being exposed now that most teams know what to do and we need to step up and counter that.
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I didn't see the game, but I saw the box score and said "WTF?"
All I can assume is 1) we're young, 2) we're tired (e.g., haven't had a full 2 years of conditioning), 3) we've been scouted well, and 4) this is still the ACC and nothing comes easy
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Kerry Blackshear, or lack of Kerry Blackshear is the problem with this team. I could go into every single way that he could help fix the problems, but I think it's so obvious it's unnecessary.
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Do we think this recent slump has changed the prospect of Nolley leaving at the end of this year? While i hate the struggles we're going through, if it means he stays, I think that's a pretty solid silver lining.
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Every kid that plays serious hoops wants to play in the NBA. 100% of them. If Nolley gets a first round projection, he is on the first plane out of Roanoke.
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Oh i mean i get that and don't blame him. It was more of a "has the recent slump and his play during it hurt his draft stock enough to make him leaving less of a likelihood?" kind of question.
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I definitely think his recent play has to have hurt his recent draft stock a bit. Don't see any other scenario where it has benefited him at all. I always thought he needed another year anyways and the past few weeks may have made that possible, whether he wanted it or not.
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I don't think we have to worry about him going pro after this year unless he just hates school. Not a lot of room in the league for guys shooting 27% from three in conference play with limited defense and not much shot creation. I could maybe see him going next year but I could honestly see him being 2-3 more years
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Pretty sure the fuck buzz mentality wore off and everyone realized we are back to being a mediocre program in the best conference so we can probably expect similar results for the foreseeable future unfortunately...
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It really hurts that we launch the most threes in the conference (48% of our shots) and have only hit 31% of them in conference play. We also don't get to the line and don't crash the glass (13th and 15th in the league respectively). I get thats CMY's thing, but either need to shake it up this year or just keep running it and admit we're gonna get our doors blown off down the stretch. Defense has actually been okay-ish in league play, we get killed in the lane but force more threes than average and despite what it feels like watching the team, teams are around average against us there. Get a little more size and a few more decent athletes on the wing and we're golden.
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Lunardi announcing all we had to do was beat BC and we are in. Played extremely tight since then. Not nearly the same team that acted like they had nothing to lose.
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Comments
They were never that good to start with. Early results were misleading as CMY's style took teams by surprise. The last 6-7 games or so are pretty much what everyone expected going into the season.
And we're done here. Nailed it.
I'm not sure I buy this. I think the team has plenty of talent, and we saw that earlier in the year. We didn't beat the likes of Michigan St by just having a wonky scheme. We beat them because we worked our asses off on both ends of the court, and punished them from 3.
Comparing the team then to the team now is a night and day difference. All the motion, the constant off the ball movement, the cutting to the basket, all of that now is gone. Our offense has devolved to a bunch of guys standing around the perimeter, and hoping Bede or Nolley can do something to create points. And on top of this, our percentage from 3 when we do get an open shot has fallen off a cliff. And then, defensively, we just don't have the same intensity we had earlier. Massive uptick in reach in fouls, a step slow on rotations, an inability to fight through screens, slow to close out open shooters, etc.
These are all signs of a team that has tired legs. The warning shot that this was coming was when we went cold for that stretch against NCSU about a month ago. Our ability to gut out the win against UNC probably says more about how bad they are than anything about us, really, but yeah... Going to 2OT against that team probably sucked all the energy reserves we had left. We've just been flat bad since then.
This is partly true. Mich. St played absolutely horrible defense that game - extremely poor rotation and slow to close. We benefited from that.
Ok now THAT ^^^ pretty much nails it.
I'm not sure we can point to one thing, honestly. When things come off the rails like this it's usually a bunch of little things adding up with a little bit of bad luck to boot (ahem: good shots going in, and then rattling back out).
I will say this though, it seems like early on when some of our players were in cold spells other players stepped up. Or if we went cold from the 3 point line we found ways to drive or get points at the foul line. That's not been happening lately from what I've seen.
We absolutely need to find other ways to create scoring. When the whole team is cold at threes we cant keep shooting from deep expecting someone to warm up. That's how we get run out of the barn.
And that's how you threaten to go listen to skrillex and watch tentacle porn to soothe your weeping soul. Not a good look all around 🤔
Either I'm not TKPlaying hard enough, or
Actually, fuck it. I'm going to bed.
It's not a reason to be down 30 against GT, but I think some of the recent struggles have been an inability to create energy in low energy environments. Yes we lost to FSU at home, but we played much better than we did the likes of BC, Miami, and now GT on the road. A lot of the issue is youth and an inability to hit shots, but I think energy has been a problem as of late.
DC is that you?
Nope. My take is that you need more size and talent to compete in the ACC than we have right now. I like Coach Young, but when Catoor and Alleyne hit the rookie wall, he had no other options. VT can't win when we can't hit a bunch of 3's... like Wofford and other mid majors, when Young has good shooters and old guys, we can be a top 5-6 ACC squad.
We keep recruiting guys like Ojiako, we'll be absolutely fine in the long run.
But the fact of the matter is, when Buzz left, his team disintegrated. CMY had to literally rebuild everything that wasn't Bede, Horne, Nolley, and Wilkins and he did a real good job of it. We recruited shooters, we recruited size. In the end, we'll be fine, but its going to take a little while to get there. The good news is,, we looked damn good to start the year and that's a glimpse of what we will be when these guys are better conditioned and have a little more experience.
With all due respect, you're seriously underselling the potential this program has right now.
Ojiako had a nice post move catch and shoot last night that coaches have clearly been working on.
I disagree that I'm underselling. When has VT hoops ever been a consistent top 6 ACC team? I'm giving Young a ton of credit, which he deserves.
2006-07 - 4th
2007-08 - 4th
2008-09 - 8th
2009-10 - 4th
2010-11 - 6th
2011-12 - 9th
2012-13 - 12th
2013-14 - 15th
2014-15 - 14th
2015-16 - 7th
2016-17 - 7th
2017-18 - 7th
2018-19 - 5th
5 out of the last 13 years we were Top 6
9 out of the last 13 years we were a game or two back of Top 6
We've been right there for a long time, and if not for the disaster of the James Johnson years, we probably would have established ourselves towards the top of the 'not elite' pack in ACC play since we joined.
Ok, I think my point stands. 5 out of 13 is not consistent, it's not even half of the time. I love Young, and if he has us in the top 6 50% of the time, that's a hell of a job.
Ojiako will be a solid contributor by the end of his time at VT. The guy is currently taking a crash course in the technical components of the game. He absolutely has the athleticism to play at this level, the rest just needs to catch up.
Always enjoy his minutes, I think he could be a really exciting player to watch. In my little time watching hokie basketball we've never had a traditional big man.
Teams know they can crowd the 3pt line on defense and punish us in the paint on the other end.
It sucks because the start of the year was so great but let's not forget we have two guys that reclassified, and besides Bede and Horne everyone this is their first year. I just hope they can find some fire and be competitive down the stretch
Yep. We do not have a player who can put the ball on the floor and create his own shot. We were a great 3-pt shooting team but now teams are playing us tight on the line because they know we can't dribble drive to make them pay. Sucks, but outside of Jalen Cone developing into that player, I'm not sure we have that person on the current roster.
Bede is great at getting to the hoop, unfortunately he seems like he isn't willing to take a chance and be a finisher. He gets in position to do a reverse and dishes it someone for a 3 point shot.
He bails on wide open layups often. When he rarely does take one and gets fouled he misses his free throws.
That's been a common theme with this team. They don't do a great job of getting to the rim already and then when they actually do, they haven't been great from the free throw line. That's not ideal for a team that is built around guards. Getting to the free throw line was especially pivotal against FSU and they attempted just six. That's not good.
Lack of height and no inside presence. Getting tired after constantly playing taller teams
Outside of Blackshear, this has been true for years now. Unfortunately.
Yes but the height differential this year is much more exaggerated. And these guys don't have the conditioning yet to sustain that effort for a full season, or the mental toughness
Freshmen wall
They have no legs anymore. You can see it on both ends of the court. Too much standing around.
They'll be better in the future
Honestly I think it's this. We have some very young guys. Including guys who should be in high school, not playing against power 5 college players multiple times a week.
This. Came here to post exactly this.
This^^^ Nailed it.
I can't stop watching this.
That is one of the sickest gifs I have seen.
The hat helps this gifs awesomeness
I also think we been scouted a 100% now teams know if we ain't making threes. We're going to lose the game
As the announcer said tonight (and as I posted in the other thread)..."the season exposes your weaknesses". We have gaping holes in the roster and teams have figured to how to handle what we do have.
On the perimeter, defenses are playing off Bede and Radford and they aren't double teaming them much if at all when they get inside. Likewise they are overplaying Nolley, Alleyne, Cone, and Cattoor. They are also overplaying the passing lanes. Wilkins and Horne get the best looks but are very inconsistent. Ojiako (who would have played a lot tonight but for the flu) is a year away. None of the shooters are attacking to draw double teams, no one consistently attacks the rim (Radford gets most of his on garbage plays and defensive breakdowns), and no one but Ojiako can play with their back to the basket in the low post.
We have to make a good percentage of 3 pointers to be competitive and that hasn't happened lately. Kids are just going to have to fight thru the wall. At one point late we had Cone, Alleyne, Cattoor, and Ojiako on the floor with Wilkins. IIRC, Bede wasn't on the floor much at all in the last several minutes of the game but everyone was still playing hard. That's all you can ask.
It is simply lack of scoring. And the reason we cannot score is we are one dimensional. We cannot score by driving off of the dribble. We cannot score by posting up low. There is only one way to score and that's perimeter threes. And every ACC team now knows this.
Freshmen
Short
The other team doesn't have to defend inside the 3 point line, which seems important
In all seriousness, this team has overachieved and it's a testament to CMY that you're posting this in February and not December. . We're hitting a wall right now and fighting some lazy play (ahem Nolley) and ridiculously cold shooting that makes 2019 NC State look like the Warriors.
Addendum: Don't be surprised if this team turns a corner mentally and catches a body in Cassell before the end of the month though. If all of our shooters are hitting we are going to blow someone out in hilarious fashion (pls be uva).
This is a young team in a first year of a new coach in a rebuild it was bound to get ugly at some point but I have faith there will be better results as the season goes. Road games are never great for such a young squad as well. Really need some size to be added this off-season.
I would be surprised if we don't dip into the transfer world to try and get a big after this season and a more offensive pg to help
We are what we thought we were. Coming in we new there were going to be some growing pains and had major holes. It was fun to see these kids go out and start swinging but we were punching above our weight. We've been scouted, we are tired, and we are very one dimensional. These games down the stretch are going to be a struggle, but I think this will all turn out to be a good learning experience for such a young team
Specific to GT, APFOW tuned in to the game.
I'd rather hear this from Ms. Brie above. She's a bit more qualified.
Let's get someone to give a motivational speech to get them pepped
what is Sam Rogers doing this weekend?
I'm always for a Sam Rogers intervention Riff!
These are just my assessments from watching all but one game. I'm not an expert by any means, but feel like I know basketball better than most (I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one time). These are just random thoughts coming into my head and in no particular order as I thumb these keys:
1. Radford's playing time has increased a ton (as it should). The issue with this is that Bede's playing time should significantly go down in this scenario, but hasn't. When these two are on the floor together the defense literally just drops off both of these guys and dares them to shoot, and neither one will do it and probably for good reason. This leaves us with three other players (one likely being Horne who isn't a real threat either) to take a three.....and these guys are all covered like crazy as there is no post threat to score (Horne) and only two shooters to worry about.
In my opinion, the time Bede and Radford share the floor together should be minimal, and definitely not substantial as it has been. The defense with them on the floor together hasn't been great and the offense gets totally stagnant unless Radford gets a slice to the basket. Again, I haven't done research, but I bet our 3pt % with those two in the court together is way less than when they aren't.
2. As others have alluded to, we've been scouted. Stay on Nolley and make him drive. He will turn it over a lot in that scenario. His handles need major work. Check out that fast break in the first half at the 14:20 mark, it's pitiful. His handles in any type of traffic kills us.
3. Along with the above, teams are finally starting to pound us inside. I thought at the first of the year we were just great on defense eliminating this competitive advantage teams had, but the last few weeks showed us that teams are being more diligent in making this happen and it's been effective.
4. The always reliable process of dudes just going off on us to have career days has happened. Boeheim unloaded and a lot of his shots were contested, Vassell going 7 for 7 from three, Alvardo on fire with Bede all over him.....I hate to say it, but we do seem to get a plethora of guys just killing us even when they are highly guarded. It seems to be a curse with VT basketball.
I have more thoughts but I'm sure no one made it this far....I still Love this team.....Go Hokies!
Point number 1 nails it. When you rely so heavily on the 3, you can't have 2 complete non-shooters on the floor because it destroys the spacing.
Unfortunately, Bede is the only guy that can initiate the offense at this point and Radford is our best player, so there is no clear answer as to how to overcome this.
Completely agree with your first point. Even with Radford's recent progression on the offensive end, his ability to get to the rim is the main strength of his game. As you said, on a team with so many shooters, having him and Bede both on the court is a disaster and gives the opposing defense such an advantage in terms of what they can do. I have a great appreciation for what Bede means to this program and, specifically, this year's team. With that being said, I think Jalen Cone has to start seeing more minutes. His ability to hit from three-point range alone is a huge upgrade offensively.
GT coach shouting "Drive the ball" all night sums it up. They are a group of young players who lack size and can be taken advantage of physically. Especially if you contest the 3 all night
The inability to drive the ball inside the 3 point line was glaringly apparent last night. GT was defending 21+ feet from the basket, and all we could do was pass it around 25 feet away, and then launch a desperation shot as the clock expired. What happened to the screen and movement game from earlier in the year? We set a ton of screens around the foul line to free up guys to drive and draw the defense. Dribbling and passing around the perimeter isn't getting us anywhere.
When you're not sinking the three....which we couldn't do last night, you've got to be able to drive to the bucket. Agreed NY Hokie. I only had the heart to watch the first half, but there were at least 3 shot clock violations - we just couldn't find a way to drive the ball. We've been fortunate the first half of the season with a few hot hands on the 3 pointers. When the hands are cold...you gotta have plan B.
teams, including GT are switching on the screens and generally overplaying the perimeter to avoid giving up open 3pt looks. Then they are able to recover and defend most drives to the lane.
Not enough tools in the tool belt. If a screwdriver gets the job done, we look good, but of we need a wrench or two, it ain't happening.
Bravo. This is the best way to describe it.
CMY lost the locker room...this is 100% /s
In addition to the lack of height, freshman wall, etc., I think a big part of it too is just a lack of confidence from the youngsters. With all the freshman, who are used to being the best guy on the court, having a couple games in a row of abysmal shooting, and taking loss after loss is bound to get into their head.
If you'd told me pre-season that we'd be getting run off the court by GT, I'd have said "yeah, probably so", cause we all knew that this year was going to have it struggles. Then we beat Clemson, then we beat MSU, and as recently as two weeks ago, they were talking about us being a tourney team. That's why it sucks so bad now, we punched above our weight for a good while, but now we're playing as most of us expected us to
We're not very good.
I think I would have them shooting a lot more practice free throws. Their conditioning is crumbling a bit. Confidence is dwindling from 3. We are being exposed now that most teams know what to do and we need to step up and counter that.
I didn't see the game, but I saw the box score and said "WTF?"
All I can assume is 1) we're young, 2) we're tired (e.g., haven't had a full 2 years of conditioning), 3) we've been scouted well, and 4) this is still the ACC and nothing comes easy
CMY doesn't want to put much on tape for the UVa game, where he will unleash his super secret planet killer weapon on the Hoos.
Kerry Blackshear, or lack of Kerry Blackshear is the problem with this team. I could go into every single way that he could help fix the problems, but I think it's so obvious it's unnecessary.
Do we think this recent slump has changed the prospect of Nolley leaving at the end of this year? While i hate the struggles we're going through, if it means he stays, I think that's a pretty solid silver lining.
Every kid that plays serious hoops wants to play in the NBA. 100% of them. If Nolley gets a first round projection, he is on the first plane out of Roanoke.
Oh i mean i get that and don't blame him. It was more of a "has the recent slump and his play during it hurt his draft stock enough to make him leaving less of a likelihood?" kind of question.
I definitely think his recent play has to have hurt his recent draft stock a bit. Don't see any other scenario where it has benefited him at all. I always thought he needed another year anyways and the past few weeks may have made that possible, whether he wanted it or not.
I don't think we have to worry about him going pro after this year unless he just hates school. Not a lot of room in the league for guys shooting 27% from three in conference play with limited defense and not much shot creation. I could maybe see him going next year but I could honestly see him being 2-3 more years
Pretty sure the fuck buzz mentality wore off and everyone realized we are back to being a mediocre program in the best conference so we can probably expect similar results for the foreseeable future unfortunately...
Best conference last year*^
3 point shots that drop 3/4 of the way through the rim and then pop back out. How the hell did that Cone 3 pointer not drop?
It really hurts that we launch the most threes in the conference (48% of our shots) and have only hit 31% of them in conference play. We also don't get to the line and don't crash the glass (13th and 15th in the league respectively). I get thats CMY's thing, but either need to shake it up this year or just keep running it and admit we're gonna get our doors blown off down the stretch. Defense has actually been okay-ish in league play, we get killed in the lane but force more threes than average and despite what it feels like watching the team, teams are around average against us there. Get a little more size and a few more decent athletes on the wing and we're golden.
Lunardi announcing all we had to do was beat BC and we are in. Played extremely tight since then. Not nearly the same team that acted like they had nothing to lose.
First there is now tape on the scheme and most were in HS last year and are now burnt out.