Other random thoughts from listening...
-- Love that we only turned the ball over five times. That's really impressive given our passing and that we don't have a bunch of great ball handlers.
-- Even on his good nights, Trapani is not particularly efficient. He missed half his shots and all his 3s.
-- Someone who was at the game is going to have to explain UVA's shots late. Did we have defensive breakdowns?
-- I know he's made some big shots, but I would like to see Raji closer to the basket.
-- I wonder what is going on with the rotation. Donahue seems to be getting tighter with his roster and minutes. Moton, Rubin, and Southern's minutes are down. And Dunn can't seem to get back into the fold. I have no problem with a short bench. It was one of Skinner's hallmarks. I am just curious why Donahue is shifting from one of his tenants (especially when Southern and Moton have been good lately).
I actually think UVA might be a glimpse into Donahue Year 2. The Cavaliers have a "system" and a rising coach in Bennett. They are in Year 2 and patching a roster together with young players. So for now Bennett's vaunted defense is not looking so hot. But things should improve next year. Let's hope our offense still hum in Donahue's second year. Of course we will have Reggie.
Posts
21 comments:
UVA got hot from 3 in the second half. Their offense was essentially using their seven foot center to set screens on both blocks and have their shooters run around like crazy to both wing positions at the three point line. If we switched off the screens, a big man ended up covering their shooters (which is what we did a lot in the first half). In the second half, we tried to fight through more screens, and we actually (in my opinion) contested some shots, but UVA knocked a bunch down.
UVA doubled the post on defense almost every single time. We had to kick it out, which we did decently well, but I thought that UVA rotated well. UVA had a ton of fouls so that hurt them down the stretch.
And Southern couldn't do too much with a seven footer guarding him although he passed pretty well.
Nice win, however, the next three games really set up the possibility of the NCAA's.
Don't know about that roster rotation point. True that certain guys have played less the last couple of games, but you would have said that about Cahill before last night, and he a got a lot of run last night. I think it might be more of a pure matchup assessment by Donahue on a night by night basis.
Agree with your assessment of Trapani from the outside, but have to give him credit for three different And 1s last night. Whenever the 7 footer wasn't in the game he bullied his way to the basket and made things happen. I was fairly impressed with this considering that Southern never does anything of the sort.
I listened to the game last night. Big win. Gives BC some cushion heading into @FSU, @Duke, UNC, VTech. A brutal stretch, even in a down ACC.
The FSU match-up seems like a bad one to me. I think Singleton will guard Reggie, forcing our other guys to lead and finish. Plus they have good size and play well at home.
I heard on the radio that UVA was doubling Reggie most of the night when he got the ball. Was that true? If so, it makes his 16, 7, 7 with zero turnovers more impressive. I think we should also expect teams to focus on stopping Reggie from here on out in conference play.
What they don't know and we do: Reggie cannot be stopped!!
I didn't notice any big change in rotation. Dunn got some minutes in the first half, and I agree with Leather D. The rotations are constantly changing, which I think we handle well and keeps opponents off guard. Disappointing student turnout, as usual, but those in attendance were into it. I would hope that the students would get behind this overacheiving and more uptempo team. The way they finished the game was clutch. Donohue called aq key timeout at 1:30 when we were down by 1. Set up a great play that got Biko driving to the hoop. He got fouled and calmly sank both. From there, UVA was forced to foul and we converted to ice the game.
Have to love the free throw shooting down the stretch. That sealed the game for us. Great job by Biko, Raji, and Jackson to ice it. Our three point defense in the second half was not great. We had two or three breakdowns on the defensive rebounding, which led to second chance three pointers for UVA.
You are nitpicking on Trap. He played a great game. I am one of his biggest critics, and he was aggressive towards the hole, especially in the first half.
Our offense sputtered somewhat in the second half, and we took some questionable threes.
I am worried about FSU. They are big, aggressive, and strong on the defensive end. They snuck by Miami last night, so maybe we can get them on a down night.
SERIOUS COMMENT: Our next four opponents are all Top-15 in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency in the KenPom rankings: http://www.kenpom.com/index.php?s=RankAdjDE
Yuck. Our Adjusted DE is ranked #215, ahem. Of course, we did win @ Maryland, which is #1 in that rating. Still, this underlines what a tough stretch we're facing. As efficient as we are on Offense (#2 Adjusted OE), perhaps we can trade 3's for 2's and get a couple of these.
I do fear the Duke game will be ugly.
Will we have Reggie? i don't know if we can count on that.
With the departure or Southern, Biko, Raji and Trapani we will have a bunch of undersized and inexperienced shooters. Does Reggie want to come back and possibly have his draft stock take a hit, with a sub par team?
we'll see
Raj: Not sure where you get the undersized idea from next years class, Caudill, Clifford, and Anderson are all pretty big.
I'd love to see Reggie stay for a year and impart his enthusiasm and work ethic into the new crew. Think it would be the exact opposite of Tyrese Rice who never really seemed like a leader.
If Reggie doesn't stay, the PG position next year could be a really big issue. I don't like the idea of putting Mouton out there as our starting PG. Big miss by Donahue so far in recruiting. ESPN seems to have us casting around for some lower tier PGs, perhaps Don realizes that Jackson may be off to the NBA and knows he needs some help there.
ATL: Cahill played most of the final 5 minutes last night, Don's still using the bench.
Rob and Raj and anybody else: What are Reggie's 2011 draft prospects? I haven't seen him on ESPN's top 100, either because he isn't projected to declare or because he isn't highly regarded at the next level.
I'm a huge NBA fan, but a bigger BC fan - hopefully the labor issues will prevent him from even thinking about it.
Although Donahue is tightening his rotation in some areas, he also gave walk-on John Cahill important minutes at the end of the game. Not sure what that means besides the fact that Donahue is still tinkering with ideal lineups (or that he'll just keep switching people in and out until he feels good about the production on the floor).
Along the lines of what Nick said, I think this is a good for the team in a big picture way. Donohue's ongoing tinkering and his willingness to put just about anyone with a jersey into any game or situation keeps every last player on the team involved--working hard for improvement and recognition in the hopes of some or more playing time.
Under Skinner, the rotation became so rigid that I suspect half the team was in the process of losing interest or heart at any given time, and that contributed to a lot of the attrition we saw each year.
I'm assuming Rubin's minutes were down last night because every time he was on the floor, he tended to drift to a corner. He doesn't look too confident with the ball in his hands, but I still feel like he is a good shooter who needs someone like Reggie to draw an extra defender and then kick to him.
I hope that, in the future, Rubin becomes the type of shooter who can quickly roll off a screen and pop a three.
Also, Reggie seemed to try to post up more this game (which I like), but UVA doubled him every time in the post. With on the ball screens, UVA's big men would always jump out to try to cut Reggie off from driving. It worked pretty well.
The win against UVA was even bigger because top recruits Alex Murphy and Kaleb Tarczewski were in attendance.
Women's hoops beat NC State to improve to 15-4.
Sometimes the angles on the BC video from Conte is not the best; but it was clear that Reggie faced a doubling in each instance when he attempted to cut off the post the UVA defense switched and sloughed off on him very well. He did a good job of looking for others open. We just weren't hitting our three's.
Coach D. made an adjustment in the last 2-3 minutes of the games; i.e., he had Biko bring the ball up the floor and Reggie shifted to the wing to try to get him the ball away form the post and the double team. It worked fairly well.
Bill you were correct about the rotation tightening up--until last night's game, when Cahill saw five minutes at the end of the game for his tight, high energy defense.
Rubin seems unwilling to keep taking his three, even when he is open. It looks as though he has missed a few and developed a confidence problem. However, his help defense was much improved last night, with his new trick of doubling and blocking the shooter from the rear. He did this at least three times, leading to turnovers.
Southern hurt his knee early on and Dunn got substantial minutes. He played well; i.e., better than he has since the suspension.
Moten has been improving; i.e., handling the ball more securely and looking for opportunities to slash to the basket. He is more under control and I think he will continue to improve.
Sorry about my miserable typos above...its getting late.
We have a very tough stretch coming up with FSU, Duke, and UNC--all away. Go you Eagles!!
lenny...UNC is a home game
you could have watched the game on
acc.com
Have you seen Conte lately? It might as well be an away game. [grin]
Sorry, but as a fully-paid up member of "THE ZOO" from Roberts Center and my days on campus, I can't imagine why BC students are not supporting this team and coach. What are they doing? Studying? What a waste of time?
Post a Comment