Wednesday, January 03, 2018

Comeback against Clemson comes up short

The good news is that Robinson's hot streak wasn't a one-time thing. He played out of his mind again in the second half against Clemson, including six 3s. The bad news is that the heroic performance was wasted in another close loss.

BC was really sloppy and ineffective in the first half and put themselves in a big hole (down 19 at one point). They got no movement towards the basket and were chucking bad perimeter shots. They were also turning the ball over.

In the second half, BC turned it on...but it wasn't enough. Aside from Robinson, the other big game came from Mitchell, who made smart plays all over the court.

Chatman was too quiet for such and important game and Robinson and Bowman have to be more careful with their passes against a good defense.

BC's overall D was good in the half court. If not of Clemson's transition off of our turnovers, BC would have won the game.

Like others I am sick of the close losses. If we just play a little smarter early in the game, we will start winning.

13 comments:

Bravesbill said...

BC really needs all three guards to play well. Bowman didn't play well against UVA and they lost. Chapman was terrible today and they lost.

Pearl Washington said...

No depth , that is on JC and Spinelli.

Too bad Teddy Hawkins got hurt.

They would be 13-2 and a top 15 ranked team.

mod34b said...

Do these moral victories mean Christian can recruit ACC caliber players and can coach at an ACC level?

Could be. Just needs more ACC caliber guys.

Something good is going on with Christian.

Deacon Drake said...

I'll admit, I turned it off somewhere around 35-16 to watch the freakshow that is Markus Howard... flipped back at a TV timeout and we had cut it to 4 and then tied it up. Very strange... BC does little on defense to make me believe they are elite, but they lure teams into rushing and taking poor shots. Just can't sleep on the Pitt, GT, NCST, Wake, Cuse, ND games... all winnable regardless of location. Even UL can be had.

JBQ said...

Clemson is pretty good. It looks like (Pearl Washington) is right in regard to depth.

John said...

I'm not picking on the individual, but just wondering how Chatman can score 30 one night and 0 another night. Even if they are guarding him extra tight. A couple of hoops and we win, so Clemson's strategy was good.

EL MIZ said...

the amount of transfers JC has lost is troubling. why did AJ turner leave? as is we have no bench and that's because JC and staff have lost over half their recruited players.

Heights said...

Let's go!!! Crush it!!!

Unknown said...

EL MIZ most of the players thought they were better than the amount of time they were getting. Or they weren't effective enough in the ACC to draw the attention they wanted. Neither one of those is necessarily Christians fault. He can't help it if a kid believes he is better than he actually is or a kid wants to score 20 a night but in the ACC can only get 8. This is only Christians fault if he is promising most of these kids starter minutes and then not delivering which I do not believe is the case.

EL MIZ said...

Jeremy - AJ Turner was a starter who played 31 mpg last year. he transferred to Northwestern, so i doubt he's going to get more than 8-10 fg per game (what he would have gotten here) in the Big 10. he doesn't fit either of your criteria.

losing guys like SBT and Millon to smaller schools hurts too, as we have walk-ons on the bench in their spot. i don't think people are appreciating how bad the bench is - we have the 5 starters, plus Reyes and Luka (who JC goes to very reluctantly), and Vin Baker JR (who doesnt play even when Mitchell yesterday is literally bending over at the waist and clearly exhausted when play would stop). it is basically a 6-man rotation. i get that a 5th year transfer got hurt, but this is not good roster building.

the one transfer that i'll give him a pass on is the PG who got outplayed by Bowman and then decided like 8 games in that he wanted to go somewhere else and start. that stuff happens, but you can't just forsake having a bench, especially at a school like BC where the road to success is having 8-10 competent players to make up for the fact that we aren't pulling in 1st round pick(s) on a yearly basis.

that said, the team looks a lot better, no doubt about it.

Lenny Sienko said...

Christian seems almost DAZ-like in his stubbornness.

Last night against Clemson, it was clear at the outset that we were "out-manned" by older, mature players, who had more strength and court presence. Christian stayed with the faltering man-to-man for the disastrous first half. He was well into the second half before he decided to switch to the half-court trap and a zone defense. The zone defense helped fuel the come back, along with Robinson's unconscious shooting. BC should have been in the zone earlier, to protect our more foul prone youngsters and to make Clemson work for scores.

On the offense, Virginia and now Clemson have figured out that jamming the middle and harassing/denying our three guards is the key to defending against BC. It didn't help that we couldn't buy a foul call on our penetrations. BC didn't get awarded a foul shot until well into the the second half. Jordan Chatman was consistently denied the ball. He forced up one shot and pretty much that was it.

What is our offense when the weaving at the top of the key is stymied? Clemson's BIGS clogged up that middle and took away the effectiveness of that setup. There ought to be something else BC can try when that happens.

I appreciate the effort that Christian has gotten from his players. They haven't given up, even when trailing by double digits. I just think that BC needs more than straight man-to-man and weaving.

John said...

Good post, Lenny.

Unknown said...

Turner fits into my criteria perfectly. He wasn't getting the attention he wanted because he wasn't a great player in the ACC so he went somewhere else. SBT hurts us the most as he seemed to have a lot of upside, but he wanted to be starter. Same with Milon.