ACC Tournament Takeaways, March 14-15th, 2024

There’s a lot to process after the ACC Tournament, some best left for later so that we can focus on the now. I wasn’t planning on doing a recap of these games because of the crushing nature of the N.C. State loss and, to be honest, once the season is over extensive game break downs aren’t as relevant moving forward as next year’s roster will be dramatically different (although hopefully will retain a good deal of continuity). That being said, our teams hopes have been restored and so, we press forward!

Still, turning around two full game reviews before Tuesday is not going to be realistic. But, of course, I have watched the games in detail. So, instead, I’ve decided to do something different where I list 10 key things on my mind after the ACC Tournament end headed into the Play-In game, and illustrate each with no more than three clips, usually two. The goal here to capture the vibe of the moment and to highlight things that seem especially relevant regarding the form of the team. This isn’t going to be your standard deep dive on most of these… consider this a light, feather-touch, spread over both games. We’ll start with the most unfortunate and build some positive momentum toward the end!

Situational Basketball

If our season had ended after Sunday’s selection, I would have likely dedicated my first offseason piece to this topic. I still might… but instead I’d rather write about a hopeful second-chance redemption story; and I’m very hopeful for that (knocks on wood)! But we do need to discuss how we absolutely got destroyed in situational basketball over the weekend and I really hope that’s something we clean up/shift our approach around. Specifically, around defense at end-of-game or end-of-half situations.

I first noticed it at the end of the B.C. game. Near the end of the second half, down 53-51, Ryan Dunn came out of the game at the 6:17 mark with his 4th foul. He didn’t return until OT and the team outscored B.C. by two points over that stretch to force a tie. Now, the team played great defense over that stretch, buoyed by Jordan Minor clamping down on Quintin Post, which we’ll talk about later. But, after taking the lead by two on Jake Groves free throws with just over 29 seconds, you’ve got to assume that B.C. is going to attempt to score with as little time remaining for us to return the favor. We had two timeouts left, on the make it’s a great opportunity to call one and sub in your defense. Specifically, and most importantly, you want Ryan Dunn on the floor whether it’s for Groves, Rohde, or McKneely whose ankle wasn’t right all game (but was warmer by this point). My personal preference would have been for it to be for McKneely here given his ankle and have a much bigger lineup on the floor with Rohde at the 2 and Dunn and Groves; but if you really want McKneely for the potential that you’re shooting free throws again (and Groves just hit you two) then Rohde is also a good option to pull. Instead, this is the play we got, below, where Claudell Harris Jr. attempted a long three over Rohde, Jaeden Zackery beat Reece to the rebound, kicked it out to Mason Madsen, who shot a long two over the top of Jake Groves to send the game into OT.

Now, Dunn had been locking up Madsen and giving him fits for the better part of this game and also at B.C. just three games before this; at the very least, it’s unlikely he gets this shot off over Dunn here; but certainly it would have been good/relevant to have our best or second-best defender in on such a crucial defensive play.

So why didn’t we? Neither explanation that I can come up with is a good answer. It’s plausible that we thought we could defend well enough with Groves on the floor and wanted the extra free throw shooting… but, for that to matter, we would have had to both secure the ball with time to spare (a positive), and Dunn would have had to be the person who had the ball when the foul came. If you can improve your odds of getting a stop, you take your chances. It’s why offense/defense is a strategy to begin with in games and it’s also why Minor was on the floor. You’re in the double bonus. Even if Dunn IS the player who gets the ball AND is fouled, he’s still got a 50% chance of hitting one or two and B.C. has to bring the ball up the floor with whatever time they have left and are still in the same position they were in now.

The second potential and, IMO, most likely, is that CTB liked the way that the group was playing and just didn’t want to mess with their flow… but that’s borderline superstitious, to me, and really isn’t a good reason to play a lineup. If it’s the offense that’s clicking and you need a bucket, sure, keep running that – but there’s really no world in which a healthy Ryan Dunn isn’t going to be a better defensive option than at least one of those three guys (McKneely, Rohde, or Groves) on the floor at that moment, no matter how well they’ve been playing. If we’re being completely blunt, we could probably afford to go incredibly defensively heavy on this possession and play a lineup like, say, Beekman, Gertrude, Bond, Dunn, Minor on a final possession like this where you need a stop. But, even if we’re not comfortable playing guys who are cold like Gertrude and Bond (which I’d agree is probably a good idea IF they aren’t in your rotation, which is a whole different argument that we won’t tackle today), you’ve still got to have possibly the best or second best defensive player in the entire country on the floor during the most important defensive possession of the game!

The decision was poor and the outcome was poor and it would have been magnified likely to the same extent of the end of the N.C. State game if we hadn’t pulled this one out in OT.

Now, let’s look at the end of the first half against N.C. State, both because it’s a similar concept, IMO, but also because I think it informs the end-game decision making a little as well. We’re up two with two fouls to give and N.C. State is holding for the last shot prior to halftime. Our lineup is McKneely on the point, Rohde, Beekman, Dunn, and Minor. First, McKneely intentionally fouls with a little more than 10 seconds left. Then, N.C. State inbounds again and Michael O’Connell just takes McKneely off of the dribble for the easy score. We can see that McKneely’s lateral movement was impacted by his ankle still (as it was during the entire B.C. game defensively), as he just can’t stay with the dribble.

Now, there’s a lot here. Firstly, CTB is clearly upset with McKneely’s decision to foul when he does and he’s spot on. There was no advantage created by it; still way too much time on the clock. In a situation like this, you wait until the offensive player gets into their set and starts to make a move and then you foul to disrupt and momentum and make them restart without much time to get into an action. Here, this message was lost somewhere and it was like we’d been told to use a foul but McKneely did so just to do it, not fully understanding the context. We see CTB gesture in general and to the clock basically like, “what’re you doing there’s still so much time left?” (my interpretation of the context of what he was saying there). So, between this and Dunn fouling the three-point shooter at the end of the game, I can see CTB not having the most confidence in our contextual fouling. He said in his postgame interview that they didn’t want to foul during a shooting motion during their last shot, and we’ll get to all that’s baked into that logic later.

But here’s the thing; N.C. State had just called a 30 second time out prior to this sequence. Your stated reason for playing Dante Harris is most commonly his on-ball defense. Isaac McKneely is playing on a bad ankle and we know that we’re going to be intentionally giving a foul on this play, which you’d much rather have on Harris than on him anyway. Why not put Harris in the game for IMK here (and, again, if we’re going extreme, you could put either Gertrude or Bond or both on the floor, as well… this possession even more so because it’s the final one before the half and we’re not going to be intentionally fouled if we get the ball)? I never advocate for playing Reece and Dante together… but here’s the exception to the rule because you’re not playing offense in most scenarios and, if you do get the ball early, you have timeouts AND that would be one of your better groups to push the ball the other way anyway. He would have been more effective at stopping the dribble and pressuring the ball in this situation.

We’re just not thinking in this way tactically, play-by-play, and we should be/need to be pressing all of our advantages the best we can if we’re going to eek out tight margins in future games.

Okay, and now we all cringe together at the final play of regulation against N.C. State. Remember, we do this for love. So we’ve got three fouls to give here with a 1-and-1 with McKneely at the line. We send everyone back. He misses the front end, N.C. State rebounds the ball, outlets, and banks a miracle three in above the outstretched hand of McKneely. How unlucky, right! Sure… but also avoidable.

The first thing I’d say about the above is that you should call a timeout before the shot and set up your defense/strategy on misses and makes. CTB may not have wanted to “ice” McKneely (as he said in his more recent press conference which I’ll mention soon)… but I’d argue that the team has already been iced at the FT line and if you’re worried about icing your best free throw shooter, there’s a decent chance he’d going to miss anyway and you need to have a contingency plan in place.

With so many fouls to give, you put your best rebounders on the line – likely Minor and Dunn, you could even bring Buchanan in the game for this to add more height and protect Minor’s fouls. You instruct them to crash as hard as they possibly can, who cares about fouling, if the first shot comes off of the rim. Try as hard as you can to get the offensive rebound, make the ref call the foul. If you can’t get the board, you can afford to foul the person who does right away to kill even more time, prior to setting up another opportunity to foul again as they try to get the ball up the floor. Doing that enough will drain the clock and make the 5.3 seconds significantly fewer and/or force a long pass to get the ball across half-court. Now, there is some debate on whether you intentionally foul when you don’t have fouls to give, up 3, and I think the merit of that depends on how much time is left and then is debatable. CTB errs on the side of forcing a stop. I don’t think we need to get into that debate here but rather can just tunnel in on the point that you absolutely SHOULD foul when you have three to give, though. Milk the time, make the rebound hard, make getting the ball up the court hard!

Let’s first look at CTB’s immediate postgame quote about the decision not to foul. He said,

“We couldn’t foul him in the backcourt. They got momentum because we missed the free throw and they were coming down, and once they got down we did not want to foul in the act of shooting. We just were worried about that. We were worried about maybe if they make a free throw and then a miss with Burns and those guys on the free throw rebounding. But we just decided let’s make them earn on that stuff. Again, we fouled a three-point shooter before, and that hurt in a couple of those live ball turnovers. Again, we were in that spot. We didn’t have to be. Obviously we had some chances to win it, but that was the thought process. We were going to stop them with their defense, we’re going to get it done, we’re going to knock them down at the line and make it a two-possession game.” 

If you go through this, these thoughts don’t really stand up. You couldn’t foul in the backcourt because you didn’t put players up there to rebound. We didn’t want to foul in the act of shooting because we did earlier… entirely different situation where we overly aggressively contested a three vs. intentionally fouling a player well-away from the hoop before getting into his shot motion. Yes, plan A is always to make the free throws… but you need a good plan for when you don’t, preferring to make the free throws isn’t the strategy. They were worried about what if they make a free throw and miss with Burns and others rebounding… not very relevant because you have so many fouls to give so unless you do foul in the act of shooting (which you shouldn’t if you do all of the things) this isn’t going to come up.

Now, the good news is that, to his credit, in his most recent interview, CTB owned this. He basically alluded to what I outlined above having had time to think it over. And that’s great! He fully stood up for both iMac and Reece saying they both played great (which they did). You want your coach reflecting on what they can do better as well as their players, taking lessons learned from that, and communicating that publicly so that they’re taking ownership and some of that pressure is off of the mistakes the players made (like missed FTs and fouling a three-point shooter). It goes back to my general premise that everyone (including a HoF head coach) is going to make mistakes and the most important thing is what you learn from it/apply moving forward.

But, in a way, having gone through that and still gotten in, the players having that let down, the coach admitting fault and all feeling that relief; I think that could be a good thing for the way we play moving forward. I think we’ll be a little looser; a little more dialed-in when closing games all around. Hopefully that will translate to some more offense/defense, as well!

Free Throws

Speaking of feeling looser – here’s hoping that translates to the charity stripe! There’s not much more to say here and I wouldn’t normally even bother writing about this under a normal game review but this is about some things on my mind heading into the NCAA Tournament. Shooting is variance which spikes in more pressure situations. Hopefully that ACC Tournament not having ended the season will have provided a little cathartic release… they really have nothing to lose from here!

In Game Defensive Adjustments

One thing I’ve written a lot about this year is that we’ve been very slow to adjust our core defensive strategies this season, if at all, and when we do so it’s normally during a longer break, like halftime. It’s cropped up to burn us quite a few times this year, like when defending Pitt’s high ball screen, or double-teaming DJ Burns at the three-point line, or getting away from playing a Center (more on that to come). In this tournament it came up in a few ways, but the most notably actually being NOT doubling DJ Burns deep in the post late in the N.C. State game.

Here he is helping them mount their comeback when we got out to a bigger lead late in the game.

And here he is for the third consecutive time scoring in OT (after they did this when cutting our lead in regulation).

Now, I prefer the “make him beat you in the post” strategy to the “double team him at the three-point line and leave shooters open” strategy that we employed at N.C. State. But these are not the only two options! You can also mix up your coverages rather than doing the same thing every single play. By this point in the game, it was clear that Burns was allowed to displace his defender enough that Minor really wasn’t having success on him as a solo on-ball defender (they were still +10 with him in the game and the next closest player was Rohde’s +1). We needed to start sending guys more frequently and at varying times (not out at the three-point line, though!), and from varying spots on the floor. Rather than just having McKneely peck at the ball in the first clip, maybe have him do that and then Reece leave to crash down once he touched the paint. In the second clip, maybe sneak Dunn in from the back side to try to get a steal and cement the double, and have the guards sink deeper to the baseline. It might not all work, but we needed to try some options and surprises because playing straight up definitely wasn’t working.

After the game CTB said there was some confusion about when to do and when to not and often we’d not go when we should or we went when we shouldn’t… so it does sound like this was something on the table that we just didn’t do. But, we still had two timeouts left with 2 minutes to go in OT… at some point over the span of this game; either late or during a TV Timeout, we needed to make this clear to our guys/to insert some varying options of what to do.

But, more generally speaking, when one strategy clearly isn’t working, be willing to cycle through other strategies that may also not work until you find one that does (or at least works better). It’s possible (though unlikely) that you may never find anything that works better… but when the baseline is what it was, it’s definitely necessary to try.

Limiting Small Ball

Blake Buchanan only played 21 minutes across the 65 available on Thursday and Friday and, candidly, he did not play his best basketball. In fact, he’s probably our rotational player who struggled the most during this tournament. However, our foray into Small Ball was punishing, especially when trying to play Jake Groves at the five against a pretty non-threatening offensive option like N.C. State’s Ben Middlebrooks.

Here we see Groves (paired with Murray defending the pick and roll, a challenging duo) just not really having the great ability to both stop the drive and get back to the rolling Center; fouling in the process.

And here, this is just too easy as he seals Groves behind him, catches the ball and goes right up for the hoop with no threat of a contest from behind.

Not to disparage him, but this is far too easy for a player like Middlebrooks and you can see even earlier in the clip, N.C. State trying to play through him in the post.

The reason we got away from this lineup is because of how soft it was defensively on the interior (and how much less effective Groves was offensively playing out of it as well). It’s possible we’ll be able to get away with it some against CSU as they’re a smaller team themselves – but it’s not something we should be looking to as a primary option. We can’t afford to concede points this easily given our offensive challenges this season. Speaking of…

Playing Minor

Okay, now we start getting into the positive trends/things about which I’m excited. I actually think, and this will apply to some of the sections below, that how we’re using our bench (generally, not situationally) and how those players are playing is in about as good of a place as it’s been all season (caveat: of the players we’re opting to use; I still think we’d be better if Eli and Leon were at least in the rotation – but at this point we can only analyze what we’re seeing).

The team was quietly (or not so, considering the end of the B.C. game) +24 with him on the floor over the span of the two games. The second closest was Rohde at +14 and the next was Taine at +1. General caveats around +/- as a standalone stat aside (for example, Reece was -2 across the games and was still certainly our best player); it does pass the eyeball test of the team’s defense being bolstered against the formidable bigs on either team. Most concretely, Minor locked up Quintin Post, who had been dominating most of the game against B.C. to close the game and in OT.

He was strong with his lower body and then disruptive with his hands, here with strong defense down low and then a block in the corner that reminded me of Braxton Key’s block on Jarrett Culver in the 2019 Championship Game (with obviously lower stakes).

And he continued to be generally disruptive, not just forcing misses, but forcing steals through quick hands…

And through good positioning…

In fact, his minutes increased from 18 in the B.C. game to 32 against N.C. State as a result of his defensive impact (and some ancillary scoring around the bucket, especially cleaning up offensive rebounding opportunities).

Over the season a big story has been his lack of minutes entirely early, followed by his insertion in the starting lineup after the first N.C. State game, to him bolstering our mid-season winning streak, to us straying away from his minutes during our rough stretch to close the season. This is ideally a great sign that we’re leaning back into him being the fortifying defensive presence that we need as we get into elimination games.

Taine… O’Clock

The other most signature aspect of our winning streak and our best basketball was that Taine Murray’s minutes were at their highest for the season at the most meaningful times. What we’ve seen is that, given sustained time, Murray has been able to help elevate the offense and give it a pop. In the ACC Tournament, he was fully committed to in the playing time mix, playing 22 minutes against B.C., contributing 11 points on 5-6 from the field, and then becoming a starter en route to playing 29 minutes against NC State.

When I say offensive pop, I mean his ability and improved confidence to get right into his three-point shot, like he did in transition here:

But also his increasing confidence and ability to get into the lane and finish around the rim or in the midrange, like he did right here with this neat little push shot:

There was even a stretch at one point where Dante Harris, Andrew Rohde, Taine, Ryan Dunn, and Blake Buchanan were all playing together. A natural question might be, “where do we get offense?” from that lineup. And to that question, Taine was the primary answer and the group, during its short stint, held its own.

Watching CTB increasingly trust and turn to Taine has opened the floor up in other areas and, IMO, has been a big help at both elevating the offensive games of other players and limiting the total number of minutes we have to endure with bad offensive teams, especially when McKneely is sitting.

Rohde’s Open

Andrew Rohde still averaged 22 mpg across the two ACC Tournament games, but he played probably his best basketball of the season against B.C. in a game where we needed him to step up for the hurt McKneely. He’s no longer been tabbed as the starter, but he seemed to respond very well to not getting any time against GT. Against B.C. he was able to convert both of these opportunities, in this first one taking a pass in the mid-post out of Inside Triangle and then re-locating for the return pass to the three-point line:

And here you can see his struggles getting away from his man dribbling, but he keeps the ball moving with several good passes, including one that leads Reece to a spot really well, and then keeps moving off of the ball to give himself space to knock down the shot.

Both of these looks were a quick catch and release. Now, he was 0-5 from three against N.C. State; but the good news is that we scaled his time down to 19 minutes (and that game had OT) in that one while ramping him up to 25 against B.C. And we did just fine against N.C. State when he was on the floor despite his shooting woes because he was playing good defense and keeping the offense moving. It finally appears as though his utilization is more accurately scaling to the quality of his play; likely in no small part because CTB is embracing the use of Taine more. In this way, it feels as though our hands are less tied to doing one specific thing even when it’s not working, and that we finally have options to turn to the hot hand more often.

Dunn In The Post

In this tournament, Ryan Dunn was as assertive when getting a mismatch in the post as I’ve seen him all season. I used to always harp on his decision making when given these opportunities; either just passing the ball out without attempting to make anything happen, or by taking opportunities weakly fading away from his opponent. Across several occasions in the ACCT, he’d find himself in these situations and was far more aggressive at creating an opportunity moving toward the basket.

Here’s one where he draws a hard foul after spinning off of a B.C. guard in the post. Notice how his fake leaves the smaller defender lunging into air as he’d attempted to lean his weight as resistance. He gets right around his man for a wide-open dunk after the one-on-one move if not for the hard foul from the help side.

And here, below, he does it again, this time backing his man down and forcing the foul on the shot during the spin into the lane.

There were actually quite a few more of these and I’ve been clamoring for them all year. Dunn often has favorable matchups based on how opposing defenses play him. I love him being aggressive when he has one, and it appears that his confidence when navigating this part of the floor with the ball is at the highest it’s been this season.

McKneely Flamethrower

I am fired up for what I think Isaac McKneely might do this tournament. He made a post on social media grateful for the chance to play in these games, and you know he’s taken it to heart after that missed free throw…. But, after limping around against B.C. and not having his offense, McKneely was absolutely lethal against NC State. He was 8-15 from the floor and 5-9 from three and many of these shots were just straight up heat-checks in big moments. Like here, after a broken play, just turning it loose:

Or here, below, one-on-one against a great defender in Casey Morsell and hitting him with the step-back bomb to kick off OT!

I just have a really good feeling that iMac is motivated, a little bit relieved, and very confident – playing with a chip on his shoulder and nothing to lose.

And the final thing on my mind heading into tonight’s game with CSU….

Beekman The Butcher

I absolutely loved how Beekman played in this tournament. He didn’t shoot very well against B.C., but still hit a huge shot in OT to push the lead out to 6. He didn’t hit his free throws against NC State but he did about everything else you could want and he played with a competitive fire/chippiness that I feel like we haven’t seen since the championship team.

This sequence best epitomizes what I loved about how he played. NC State had cut the lead that we’d pushed out to 7 down to 3 with just under 1:30 left in the game. After running Sides, McKneely got stuck with the ball near the block. Beekman came down to relieve him and, rather than backing the ball out, he turned the corner, exploded baseline, and just dunked it on the Wolfpack; driving past Taylor and dunking over the recovering Burns. It was authoritative and decisive. Then, on the way back down the floor, Burns absolutely lays him out with one of his patented illegal football-style screens, but rather than letting himself get taken out of the play, Beekman claws back to his feet just in time to intercept the pass back to Burns, who then intentionally fouls him with the flagrant. Even at the end, when Burns keeps his hands on him for too long, I LOVE the fire with which Beekman yanks his arm away and yells at him to get off!

Yes, again, hitting the free throws here could have likely iced the game – but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a killer instinct, it’s our best player taking over the game, and it’s him not backing down from a player who was trying to provoke him through (illegal) physicality.

If this is the Reece Beekman who shows up to Dayton, I like our chances of travelling to Charlotte!

In Conclusion

CTB is a master of overcoming adversity. The best win in the history of our program came the season after the worst. The game against N.C. State feels like an incredibly hard lesson learned; not just for our players, but also for him! The thing is, we’ve been granted another chance, and I don’t get the impression that any of our guys, but especially our best players and our coach, are taking it for granted. If anything, I think it has the opportunity to be the catalyst to help us break some of the funk that we were in; the hesitancy, the timid play at times, the caution.

Losing in such a way that you think your season is over, only to have it restored in such a way has to be reinvigorating; and I think we’re about to see what that looks like. Go Hoos! Beat CSU!