Sometimes, rarely, but sometimes during the time I’ve been writing about the team, there’s been a loss that’s felt so uninformative and so just… everything fell apart… that it just hasn’t seemed productive to write about it. The game in Blacksburg two years ago, for example. This game, on the other hand, almost feels like flipping the script.
What can you possibly learn from a game where you went up 42-9, led by almost 40, and then basically played on cruise control for the last 15 minutes? This was one of our more dominant victories in recent memory despite the fact that we didn’t retain our focus down the stretch. It says that we’re really good when it clicks… and that GT also isn’t very good. But what else?
I was trying to figure out the best way to capture this; which felt like a classic “get right” game. Virtually everyone who had been a little off in recent contests played quite well… in what should ideally build some confidence for the beginning of a tougher schedule and important stretch run. So, here’s what I decided – I’m ignoring the final 15 minutes of the game. There’s really almost nothing to learn there other than it’s hard to keep going to the well and doing the stuff that’s working when you’re killing a team. That we subbed more liberally, and for players who had just done something well while leaving on guys who were making mistakes, ostensibly to help them play through it. What I’m going to do is pick just two clips from each of our 9 core rotational players – 3 from the two who I thought had the best games – and just highlight some things that I was glad to see them doing well. This will be a purely positive piece because the game was so overwhelmingly dominant.
What this piece isn’t is a guarantee that all of these things, below will translate against better competition. But it will be things that I was encouraged to see from these guys and that I thought highlighted something that popped most from them. So, without further ado, I’ll start out with the two brightest stars, IMO, and then go through everyone else.
Dallin Hall
This is not an exaggeration. Dallin Hall had 10 assists to 1 turnover on Wednesday. He notched his first career double-double with 12-points, and shot 63% from the field including 2-3 from three (although one was a bank, that didn’t deter him from knocking down the next confidently).
This felt like such a welcomed and needed game for Dallin. He’s been quietly solid for a while now; leading the ACC in assist-to-turnover ratio, playing tough defense normally on the opposition’s best scoring guard (and sometimes struggling with that, too), and making the occasional opportunistic drive – but he wasn’t shooting well and really wasn’t being very aggressive in looking for his own shot or with the same level of defensive anticipation he was playing with not many games ago. Here, it felt like he was constantly putting pressure on the ball and was certainly more willing as a scorer. He even got a dunk in this game!
Some of it was because of his own defense leading to his offense. There were actually multiple clips like this but this was my favorite. On this defensive possession, the ball goes to the opposite wing with Jacari White defending. Check out the nice depth that Hall gets from his man, pushing down until he’s about even with the nail but above the free throw line. As White gets run off of a ball screen coming back, he’s able to get over, but then his cover attempts to go left and spin back right. Hall’s anticipation on this spin move is spot on, using his depth to collapse on the drive and strip the ball. No wasted motion, he’s immediately out running ahead and even takes a short pass from Ugo, but is able to finish strongly through the contact anyway.
This is one of the big things we haven’t seen much from Hall lately; the aggression and proactivity trying to make something happen while he’s off the ball. Perhaps so much energy has been used up with his defensive assignments… but this was very nice to see and he turned it into a couple of easy buckets.
The other thing we haven’t seen much from Hall lately is quality outside shooting. He was better at it earlier in the season, but has fallen into a drought and is now just shooting 32% from deep on the year. And yet, after making one earlier, this is the look we got at the end of the half where he took the ball despite Thomas being on the floor and just stepped into the three when Devin Tillis’s man played deep off of the ball screen.
Granted, this was some pretty egregious shot disrespect from the Yellow Jackets… but it got me thinking. Ever since I first scouted Dallin at BYU, and he’s also said this in interviews it was clear that he was more comfortable shooting from three while pulling up off of the bounce as opposed to spotting up. And yet, virtually all of his three-point attempts during this preceding mini-slump have been spot up looks. In fact, I can’t remember the last time he took a pull up three prior to this one (I know he has). Maybe that’s because we’re striving for shot quality and he’s primarily been a facilitator… and the offense really prefers to try to get guys open, clean, looks, which are typically them already open and set when they receive the ball. Whatever the reason, this was a bit of an “aha” moment for me in that I’d love to see Dallin take a couple of these kinds of looks, in-game, not just at the end of the half, when teams sag off of ball screens on him. Not only should it get defenses to play more honestly, but I think it should serve to get him a little more in rhythm offensively throughout a contest. Because, Hall is one of those players that if you’re starting to get some efficient points from him as opposed to just being a set up guy, now you’re offense is very likely firing a lot better.
And then, this is what he has been doing quite well throughout the season. He’s been a very good floor general; often seeing the correct pass and just keeping everyone connected as that glue guy. This is a great example of one of his 10 assists. Thomas leads the break with Hall trailing. As he takes the kick out, he could probably shoot this one, but I wouldn’t want him to normally. Instead, he keeps his eyes on the floor and whips a nice and quick pass into Grünloh for the easy lay in.
It wasn’t the most challenging pass you’ll ever see – but it was settling down off of the move, over a defender, into the lane, with pace, placing it away from other defenders. It’s the kind of pass that some of our guys have been hesitant to throw this season when we’ve had open bigs near the basket.
Maybe it’s because Mallory is having such a good season as well, but that doesn’t make a ton of sense either because they play together effectively, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of our PGs lead our entire conference in a relevant stat, like assist to turnover ratio, and be so slept on. On a team like this one, with a ton of willing shooters and we did see some of the careless turnovers later on, having such a steady hand who is also contributing in all of these other ways is quite valuable.
Thijs De Ridder
De Ridder has been playing superb defense for quite a while now and has really done a nice job of reducing the silly fouls recently as well. He had ZERO fouls in this game which would have been unheard of as recently as a few weeks ago. It’s also unheard of considering how much he was harassing GT throughout the game. Specifically, Baye Ndongo, Tech’s best player who has given us a hard time in season’s past, De Ridder absolutely dominated. Thijs got him in foul trouble by being aggressive driving the paint early on, and created so much pressure on him defensively, as well. Ndongo finished with 13 points in the game… he had zero in the first half on 11 minutes and his second half points were pretty much exclusively in garbage time and without much TDR overlap.
It was cool to see our best guy dominate their best guy like that. De Ridder literally had three breakaway dunks in this game from three steals – all just playing high-pressure defense. This one was the first and most demoralizing, I thought, and it was really cool because it came from our systemic pressure. In order to break our press, which so often gets advertised as we’re “not trying to steal”… we’re absolutely trying to steal the ball… it’s just not the purpose of the press, it’s a secondary benefit. Anyway, GT uses Ndongo here to break the pressure as they often did going to their bigs to avoid our guards. De Ridder allows Ndongo to cross half court, but is very alert the moment Baye gets just a little distracted by setting up the play. He lunges, picks it clean, and runs out the other way with the thunder!
That was dynamite, as Coach Odom loves to say.
This next one came earlier, and once again showcases his defensive alertness and activity. Here, he peels off of his man in the corner and inhales the shot on the drive, starting the run out to Sam Lewis the other way, as well, drawing a foul.
When I saw Dallin, Johann, and Thijs all swarm the ball like that to protect the paint, I had a feeling we were in for a treat of a defensive performance. They were all just so active and assertive throughout the evening.
And then, this next one I picked because I liked that he was being aggressive looking for his offense early and that he was doing it off of the drive as opposed to just the slower back downs. Here he actually goes coast-to-coast after collecting a defensive board; so even more aggressive and with a neat finish as well requiring some touch to finish through uncalled contact.
I think my favorite part about that one is that it’s not like he’s running ahead or it’s obvious that he should do this – he just reads that they aren’t stopping the ball early enough and decides to go and make a play.
One clip that I didn’t include but is worth mentioning – Thijs hit a three and broke his drought! It was wide-open and he had all night to size it up… but still, here’s hoping that ends the dry spell from outside. When De Ridder is hitting threes, that opens up our offense about as much as any other thing.
It was good to get a dominant TDR performance on both ends. True, GT did not do a good job of denying him and scheming to stop him as recent defenses have done – but he also just played better with the ball in his hands tonight than he has been so here’s hoping we go through a stretch of this quality in the games to come.
Malik Thomas
Okay, down to two clips now, and some quicker thoughts, where appropriate. What I was most encouraged by with Thomas in this game was his outside shooting. The man was 5-8 from three and got his season average back up to 35% despite having been through his own relative drought in the games prior (nothing like what Hall and De Ridder were working through). I mostly liked how much he hunted his shot and how comfortably he looked stepping into it while on the move. He was also a big, but nowhere near the only, reason that we got more quality looks in transition from three in this one.
Here, below, for example, Chance Mallory gets an outlet and dribbles the ball ahead. He makes the defense react to his drive by pressing in on the baseline. Watch how Thomas hunts this shot, actually crossing in front of Ugo… because he should, to take the return pass and then stops on a dime with a quick and fluid release.
I should have known when he made the first shot of the game which was a crazy and contested three with no time on the shot clock that we might be in for a treat; but he hadn’t been so consistent recently, so this was nice.
Here’s one more, this time not in transition after a rebound, but in breaking the press. To do so, we use Grünloh which is uncommon… and we can see why with that terrible pass he throws to Dallin Hall with 6 seconds left to cross half court. Dallin does well to scramble to get to the ball, but I love Thomas’s opportunism here. He circles behind Hall, takes the hand off, and dribbles right into a pull up three.
That shot put us up 67-29!!! Absolutely devastating for a team trying to press to make the game respectable to get hit with that – but I want that kind of confidence from Malik Thomas. I want him hunting his three when he can get a clean look at the rim… and he was clearly feeling like he was going to make just about anything he put up.
I’ve talked recently about how we’ve been winning games without TDR nor Thomas having some of their better offensive games. If this is a sign that’s about to change… look out.
Sam Lewis
Of all of our core rotational guys, I thought Sam Lewis had the quietest game. Not really a huge problem, if you ask me, because he tends to come and go game-by-game and had been playing very well recently. His 2-9 shooting left something to be desired, but I did think that this bucket, below, was a good sign of his hustle regardless and was probably the first sign that we were going to find some success just out-efforting GT.
Lewis grabs the offensive board after the open Grünloh miss (have I mentioned lately how much I love our offensive rebounding?). The cheekiness that I am here for because he’s made several shots like this in recent games is that he races the ball back behind the three-point line and fires his own look. That one misses pretty badly… but he stays alert again, hones in on the deflection from yet another offensive board, and then slashes the rest of the way in to finish the shot around the hoop.
So, even though this wasn’t his shooting night, I liked that Lewis made the awareness and hustle plays.
The other clip I’ll show is in that same spirit, but on the defensive end. It’s kind of funny to me now that before the season I was legitimately concerned about Lewis’s defense – primarily away from the ball. He so often lost concentration at his previous stop – but that also shows the power of good coaching. Now, and especially recently, Sam Lewis has been doing an excellent job of defending opponent’s wings. So well, that I even recently wrote about how I’d like to see us use him as an on ball defensive stopper against different kinds of players when our other guards don’t have the answers.
This clip, below, is just him making the effort to deny the ball to his man. He gets switched onto a different guard, shadows him for most of the possession, but when his man passes it to a big and attempts to take the DHO, Lewis jumps the read and gets his hand in there to disrupt the action. The ball eventually goes to Grünloh who gives and outlet pass and the Yellow Jackets should feel ashamed of their transition defense as that’s far too easy for Thomas… but the turnover itself was caused by Lewis reading what was happening and sticking his nose in there/not being content to let his man get the ball back.
There aren’t many guys on this roster eligible to return who I wouldn’t be happy if they did. Chance Mallory seems pretty darn likely to be a top priority and to return. Both Euros are still on the table, or so I’m told, and we’ll see where that goes. But Sam Lewis is right there in that discussion, to me, as every bit as exciting if he’s back, and probably the second most likely, I’d imagine. But, geez, not to get hopes going but can you imagine if we got all four of those guys to return and then were able to build around them?
Okay, let’s not jump ahead of ourselves, there’s still an awesome remainder of this season to look forward to. Gosh, you guys! Troublemakers.
Chance Mallory
Speaking of a player who I’d love to watch for four+ years… this guy. This wasn’t Mallory’s best scoring performance; but he was also excellent. He had 5 assists to just the 1 turnover, as well, and he also knocked down a couple of open opportunities when given the clean look:
But what I most wanted to highlight from Mallory in this game was his exceptional rebounding. He finished with SEVEN boards; behind only Ugo and ahead of the rest of our frontcourt (and everyone else, for that matter).
This play, below, is such a good representation of Chance’s contributions on the glass and the toughness that he brings to the table. First, on the defensive rebound, Ugo is on drop coverage and gets washed under the basket while defending the drive. It’s Chance who, from behind, keeps this ball alive to begin with – which is kind of amazing – and then actually ends up securing the board. Off to the races, he fires a nice outlet pass ahead to Devin Tillis. I thought we made some really nice outlets in this game that covered a lot of ground. Tillis drives and leaves for Lewis who now hits a trailing Mallory. I probably would have liked to see Chance shoot that three, but he ends up getting a really good look for Lewis by driving the gap left by Tillis and then kicking the ball out to the corner. Lewis misses, it wasn’t his night, but Mallory then collects another rebound and this time gets fouled while ripping the ball.
That play is remarkable to me. And here are the remarks: how does this guy have such a nose for the ball and the ability to get his hands on it around so many taller players??? It’s, frankly, awesome and I’ll never get tired of watching him make these kinds of plays.
It’s always good to know that Chance is there like a little bottle of electricity to open about 4-minutes into the game. He’s been fantastic all season at making something happen when needed – but it’s also nice to have some games where he isn’t needed to lift so hard as a Freshman and can play this spark plug, get the ball up the floor in a hurry, scrappy, secondary assist man type role, too!
Jacari White
Jacari feels like that guy who captures the magic when the rest of the team really needs it, so, not really in this game. His shooting numbers were like Sam’s, yet he still looked more like himself than he did when he was first back. Some of that was… it was his first game without the brace!!! Big news, and we actually got to see it on display with, for my money, actually the dirtiest play of the game. This look below was gorgeous. First he helps break the press with a nice outlet to Chance, then resets the offense. It’s a set that uses Ugo as the hub, but Jacari’s man over-extends trying to deny the pass back. Watch how Jacari exploits that – with this insane jab step that looks like he’s about to drive to punish the overplay. You’ll notice both defenders, including Ndongo (#11) bite on that fake – he’s going down to help position, but Jacari pulls it back like he’s going to pull up. The extremity of this move lulls both players to sleep and then he hits the blowby and the finish with the left hand!
Hooray for ambidextrousness! But, yeah, that was such a sick initial drive fake he basically tricked their entire defense.
Jacari did pretty well on defense and in transition, too (he got sloppy toward the end of the game when we lost our collective concentration and started experimenting). I mentioned it earlier, but I really thought we went back to our earlier season roots in this game trying to get the ball up the floor faster with aggressive outlet passes. Here, after some decent defense from Tillis, White gets a good contest without fouling and then runs ahead to the near corner. Ugo has to search at first to give the ball to Hall, but his nice outlet to Chance gets the ball up the floor in a hurry and then Mallory does a nice job of threatening a driving angle to challenge that nearest defender and then pushing a pass to White in the corner.
Jacari’s release point is a thing of beauty and is a great reason why he often shoots it so well. He doesn’t shoot it on the way up, he jumps, squares up while doing so, and then releases at his apex. It also allows him to get over more contests. Pretty!
Devin Tillis
Here’s hoping that Tillis’s knee situation (that guy can’t catch a break with his knees!) is minor. It’s hard to say for sure, because the injury kept him out of the back half of the game, but I think we’re really starting to get the hang of this Devin Tillis use. One thing is that we have gotten away from using him at SF almost completely – and I’m here for that. Lewis is just a better option if you want to go big there. I suppose in a world where you always want to be big, you could use Tillis to spell Lewis, but those games aren’t that common and more time for the five guards is preferable.
That being said, Tillis was really getting the ball up the floor in this one, usually with outlets but sometimes himself. It was a positive trend across the game… and the number of possessions went up as a result. But here, he leaves the ball behind for Hall and then moves right into a nice pick and pop:
This next one, below, was really nice and gives an opportunity to talk about something I’ve noticed recently which is our baseline out of bounds defense. We’re using our inbound defender to help deny passes and then either they’ll come back to guard the ball at the end of the play or we’ll actually rotate off so that they’ll take someone else and that player’s man will come back and contest the inbound pass. It was nice and effective all evening. In this one, Chance shuts down two passing opportunities and they just lob it over. Tillis plays nice help defense on a first drive attempt, pinching in from the wing, but when Ndogo attempts to take Ugo off of the bounce, Tillis fully leaves his and chases the play from behind. The team makes really nice recovery rotations to account for this, and then Tillis plays some nice, physical, defense on the ball prior to Ugo helping contest the shot and secure the rebound. Not done, Ugo outlets to Jacari, who fires it ahead to Chance. I’m going to pause here for a second because I don’t have a full section on this but if I wasn’t going player-by-player this is something I’d have highlighted as a standalone. Great outlet by Jacari. If you pause at 27 seconds into the clip, you’ll see that Chance has the ball basically with a one-on-one opportunity with a defender and no one else back yet. He passes on the opportunity, but the defense settling back in because we probed so hard has them on their back foot – so when White reverses the ball back to Devin, he just launches a three confidently over a late contest.
That was easily my favorite Tillis sequence of the night, but so many good systemic things going on both ends of the floor to help support that success… and shout out to Jacari White again for being an aggressive outlet hub moving the ball.
Johann Grünloh
Johann had a game! Grünloh reminds me a little of Hall in that you forget what a positive effect they can have on the game when they’re playing well. The difference is that Johann’s lows are typically lower and worse for our defense. But in this one, he finished with 11-points on 4-6 shooting, hit one of his three attempts from deep, and tied Ugo with four blocks!
It’s been building for a few games now, but I was really pleased with his activity on the defensive side of the ball. This clip best illustrates that. It starts with him hedging and double teaming the corner after GT reverses a ball screen that direction. TDR does a nice job of rotating help over, but he and Grünloh communicate well on the recovery. Johann settles into a nice spot in the lane and is right there to just send a Ndongo shot. Fantastic positioning so far. GT gets the ball back, but check out how alert Johann is – he identifies the wing right away as a threat and then does a really nice job closing with his contest. Hard to make those with 7-footers flying at you! Hall and Lewis do well enough to pinch the abandoned man on the rebound and secure possession.
The Grünloh of just a week or two ago felt almost paralyzed in there. Now he’s back to moving around, being alert, making smart rotations… and contributing double digits on the offensive end. That’s very encouraging because when there isn’t much drop off between our Centers we are a very hard team to score on.
Okay, this last one from him, ties back to the activity and the hustle. He simply runs the floor behind Thomas on the fast break and is rewarded with a clean-up put back.
That’s an easy bucket for him – but he got five offensive rebounds in this game and that’s big.
Ugonna Onyenso
Oh, Ugo, how you’ve won our heart this season between your stingy rim protection, under-estimated offensive presence, and charming press conferences! We’ve talked a ton about what he brings to the table recently, so I won’t belabor the point here, but we’ll take a look at his dominating presence under the basket on both ends.
First, I’ve got to show the double block! The authority of these rejections is cool to watch, but it serves a practical purpose of being disheartening in the game. Players aren’t permanently resilient most of the time; if they get sent like this repeatedly, they’re less likely to try it in the future or, when they do, they’re often prone to tensing up or flinching when the contest comes. All of this does works together to make interior buckets tough sledding, and GT shot just 37% from the floor (I’m rounding down because they deserve it). But this clip is bonkers. Onyenso effectively defends four players from the Yellow Jackets in this one. First, he plays really nice drop coverage to help Tillis recover and, to his credit, Tillis gets back to Ndongo just enough to let Ugo loom large. That’s two. Mallory comes over to try to help steal, but Ndongo spots it and fires a pass to his man. Ugo just turns and erases that shot on the back board. That’s three. Meanwhile, Jacari White has gotten caught watching the play, and his man sneaks inside of him to collect the block… but his put back attempt is mauled… I mean just viciously (and cleanly).
That was four guys that Onyenso basically rendered inadequate at the rim.
Last look – and poor Ndongo man as he was basically charged with holding down their frontcourt and he was dealing with three different dudes who were longer and/or more athletic than he is… it as a nightmare for him. But watch the underrated power from Onyenso on this offensive rebound. We start yet another break, TDR drives and kicks to Mallory who shoots. Ugo actually boxes out Ndongo for the rebound, not the other way around… and he completely displaces him from inside to outside of the restricted area before grabbing the board. Ndongo has no prayer, is overpowered, and it’s all he can do to foul Onyenso on the put back to give him a free throw attempt as well.
The Yellow Jackets struggled everywhere on the floor Wednesday night… but I thought they got completely outclassed in the frontcourt which gave them very little hope of competing, especially because they’re not a good three-point shooting team.
If Ugo sustains the level of play he’s had for a while now into the post season… that’s going to be a lot of fun to watch. And if Johann gets back to his earlier season form to match… the mind reels. Mostly, I think it’s because having such an advantage at protecting the rim and cleaning up missed shots goes a long way to equalizing a game and allowing you to play with anyone.
In Conclusion
Don’t fall into the trap of lamenting why lineups with our 10th and 11th men had some sloppy moments; or why a team up almost 40 started making more dangerous passes or wasn’t quite as locked in defensively. Odom was not pleased with that, as we saw and as no coach should be… but that’s also as natural as any phenomenon across competitive basketball.
If you still find yourself thinking, “you know Cuts, I AM going to worry about that… and you can’t make me stop!” Fine, insistent worrier, but I would challenge you with this when thinking about whether or not we lose concentration throughout a game – what’s been our trademark in all of these recent close games? It’s been locking in, wearing the other team down, and closing strong.
Is this game informative of how we’ll match up with, say, Duke in a few games? No, not really, other than it’s clear that we are a very good team with a high ceiling. They will certainly defend us better than GT did. But, it’s still a very encouraging glimpse into a bunch of our guys looking more like they’ve looked when they’ve been playing well and what those lessons and vibes can hopefully do for our play with this hard stretch upcoming.
We start with Miami on Saturday as we dedicate the court to CTB… let’s see it!
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