This was a heck of a game. A deceptive Q2 victory against the #35 ranked team in the NET at home… I’ll be surprised if that doesn’t upgrade before season’s end. There are close games against teams, like Notre Dame and B.C., where it’s clear that we should be doing better. That wasn’t the case here. This Miami team was athletic, strong, talented, and played incredibly well. Without having watched all of their games, I’d wager this was one of their best if not their best game of the season. I say that because they far surpassed their shooting splits – going 50% from three and 94% from the free throw line on 17 attempts, despite shooting 34% from outside on the season and 68% from the free throw line.
This wasn’t a situation where they just got a ton of easy looks, either. They got a few clean ones, as most teams do throughout a game, but many of these were tough shots with good contests. They finished well in the lane and, for really the first time all year, they killed us on the glass with 12 offensive rebounds to our only FOUR in the game. That’s unheard of from our team. Miami came to play – but so did we.
We also shot 50% from three, on 6 more attempts, and 89% from the free throw line on 18 attempts. We scored over 1.4 points per possession; shattering some of our earlier quality marks in the 1.2 range! Quite simply put, this was a battle between two talented teams that were both playing very good offensive basketball. Ignore Miami’s resume – they would have beaten a lot of teams around us in the rankings with that game.
It was awesome to see us rise to the occasion and pull out the win, and it appeared that the “get right” game vs. GT may have been timely as just about everyone was playing with confidence in this one, certainly on the offensive side. I couldn’t even be that mad at the defense for giving up almost 1.3ppp, though. There were some pretty nice individual performances, I thought we made some decent adjustments, and I can’t stress enough that Miami just played really well and made some difficult baskets/also created some nice looks for themselves. This was a quality game of basketball!
In games like this, I always struggle to edit myself (when don’t I?) because there’s so much I could show. For this one, I’m going to focus primarily on four players – Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grünloh, Jacari White, and Chance Mallory; but I also want to introduce a couple of quick themes up front so that you’ll see those things in the Cuts from those players.
Defensive Strategy
This was a tricky one. Due to Miami being one of the better two-point scoring teams in the country and not relying too heavily on threes, we started off by playing under ball screens – not our standard. It didn’t go well. Miami took the opportunity to dive their big when we went under, full-on dislodging Hall in this example below, but were comfortable just shooting the open look:
I didn’t mind the initial strategy, though, to try to cut off their strength first… but we ended up going back to chasing over later in the game.
The other thing we did, not always, sometimes we let TDR play straight up, as we’ll see, was to send double teams on the post on Miami’s Malik Reneau, the 6’9″ 240lb PF who averages 20ppg on the season and who had 16 on 7-10 shooting in this one. He was very good. We did this, for one, to help keep De Ridder out of foul trouble. With Devin Tillis out for injury, De Ridder ended up playing 36 minutes so this could have been taxing for him… but he was able to only pick up one foul! It does seem that he’s adjusting to how he needs to play in college as he’s been very good at limiting the foul situation for a while now. We also still allowed him to switch ball screens on the perimeter, though, which was quite effective at times, which had us send double teams to help guards on Reneau, too. Reneau was efficient scoring the ball, but this strategy forced him into a whopping 6 turnovers… which was great for us.
Here’s a look, and this happened a few times, where TDR and Hall switch, with Hall guarding Reneau. But watch Sam Lewis and Grünloh as soon as he gets the ball. Sam sinks in lower, and kind of pinches and then eventually fronts Ernest Udeh Jr. (#8), Miami’s 6’11’ 265lb Center. Grünloh then fires over for the double team and when Reneau attempts to split and fire a pass to the corner, Lewis’s length allows him to deflect the pass and Thomas closes on the ball well for the steal.
And here’s a rare look at them with TDR on the bench. This lineup has Mallory, Hall, White, and Thomas alongside of Grünloh – so, really interesting that they don’t even have Sam Lewis around the Center. It was only for 40+ seconds, though (Thomas and Grünloh came in for Lewis and Onyenso) and it was timed at the same moment Udeh subbed out of the game. Sneaky. Anyway, Mallory actually starts this possession off on Reneau due to the transition defense, crazy, and also crazy that Miami let us off the hook with this ball screen that let us switch White onto him. Still a mismatch, though, Grünloh comes over to support White, Hall fronts the 6’10” Sam Altuntas (#11), his only minute on the floor, and Thomas does a nice job rotating down behind to help secure the missed pass/loose ball and force it out of bounds on Miami.
So, when you’re watching some of our defensive clips, pay attention to how we’re playing the ball handler and then how we’re supporting behind the play.
Offensive Transition
There are a lot of reasons that our offense has been improving again: Jacari White is back to being healthy and adds an additional threat into the mix, guys are giving fewer shot fakes and being more willing to take open looks, but the most important reason, by far in my opinion, is that we’ve been doing a much better job of pushing the ball in transition aggressively again. This is what we were doing toward the beginning to middle part of the season and, for whatever reason, had gotten away from it more recently.
No longer, we’ve gotten a ton of points in transition the past two games and are making a much more focused attempt to get the ball up the floor as quickly as possible and converting those opportunities. Many of the clips in future sections will show some of the run outs, but here, below, is a great look. We contest a shot at the rim, and then quickly get the ball ahead. The sprint out and passing leaves Udeh on Sam Lewis when they match up, which allows Lewis to isolate him and take him to the basket.
Great job attacking the mismatch. Sam was really nice off of the bounce in this one and had some nifty/smooth finishes in general. This advantage was created by getting the ball up the floor quickly, though, and when their rim protection has to come out to contest on the perimeter, it limits their ability to help, as well.
This next one is pretty cool firstly because it’s pretty smothering defense by White, and he uses his wrapped hand for the second strip. Jacari had a game or two with the brace – but he’s looked so much more comfortable without it. Anyway, De Ridder has been much more assertive with the ball in transition lately. Some of that had to do with the number of pick-6s he created in Atlanta… but here you just see the open floor speed and finish.
“The Tank” nick name comes from him getting a head of steam in the open floor… so this is good to see again.
And then, finally, still want to showcase some of our really nice, probing and long, outlet passes in transition. This one from Mallory to Thomas was great and got him a very clean look:
There’s going to be a lot of opportunity to look at us in transition, but wanted to call out its importance as a standalone first.
Offensive Adjustment
Miami ran small doses of man-to-man early but mostly relied on a 3-2 zone to try to slow us down. At first, we struggled to adjust, and our initial approach was to play three around the arc, flash TDR to the high post, and keep Johann low. This resulted in some turnovers as we tried to get the ball into the high post and weren’t always on the same page as to the timing of that:
A notable change that we made was to basically play either five out or four around one, to force their two low players to either extend out to the corners to cover the shooters, or to widen the responsibility of their top three defenders – and then to weave/reverse the ball through the top and set screens on their wings as we would in a man-to-man/dive the screener. This served to put tension on the back side of their defense.
You’re going to see this in many of the clips, but here’s a look, below, with Mallory and TDR in the corners. Hall and Thomas dribble exchange up top with Grünloh looking to screen Hall’s nearest defender once he gets the ball away from the other two high defenders. Hall doesn’t use the screen, but Grünloh diving to the lane occupies both back end defenders, requiring their third high defender to flatten out so as to be able to recover to Mallory in the corner. Pause at 8 seconds into the clip. Hall gets a second Grünloh screen and this time uses it, prison dribbling Donaldson (#3) and, in doing so, occupying the attention of Henderson (#7) as well. The action basically commits two Miami perimeter defenders to the ball, and with Washington (#10) stretched so flat to cover Mallory due to the Grünloh actions, Thomas ends up with a wide open three-pointer.
This was an awesome adjustment which we’ll see more of, but it helped to solve the zone riddle that initially swung the momentum to the Canes (to the tune of an 11-point early lead).
Johann Grünloh
I’m kicking off the player lenses with Grünloh because I’ve spent a lot of time covering his recent struggles. This was the kind of game from him that reminded you of what he was doing earlier in the year. He was ultra-efficient offensively, scoring 12 points on 4-5 shooting and 2-2 from outside; but his defense was back to being a force to be reckoned with. He had 5 blocks in the game, rotated well and, as a result of his efforts, picked up a whopping 27 minutes – his highest total in a non-OT game on the season.
Let’s first start with his shooting. He’s been heating up recently and more inclined to look for his shot. With his recent relative hot streak, he’s up to 35% shooting from deep on the year, which is better than TDR now, although on significantly lower volume. His ability to pop out to the three-point line credibly, though, allows these TDR isolations, below, more room to breathe. During some of our recent offensive struggles, teams were sending double teams at Thijs, many off of Ugo, because they were already in close proximity. Note here how Johann starts in the lane, but then clears out once De Ridder starts to drive on his defender. It’s not just a ploy to draw the defense, TDR is actually able to kick it out to him here and Grünloh doesn’t hesitate – with a pretty quick and high release as well!
It was easy to forget this element to Johann’s game when he wasn’t shooting well and was reluctant to do so… but he’s found his confidence again which is a significant factor in the shape of our overall offense – especially because Ugo’s early season outside shooting on occasion hasn’t shown up as much recently.
Here’s another that was probably my favorite overall play from him in the game and it combines almost everything we’ve already talked about. First, TDR and White switch men, triggering Miami to get the ball to Reneau. Grünloh does a nice job of doubling, with Lewis, again, fronting Udeh. I already regret not spotlighting Sam Lewis from this game… I’ll have to get him soon because he’s really been good. Anyway, Reneau passes out of the double team to Henderson, who drives the hoop past the Lewis recovery and around Udeh sealing Mallory. Here’s the power of great rim protection, though, Grünloh simply steps back across the lane and meets the drive head on, blocking the shot (and Lewis actually gets it from behind, too). Awesome defense, but the play isn’t over. Sam runs with TDR and Chance but doesn’t have the numbers so he kicks it back out. Grünloh is trailing the play, but we pass it into TDR in the post. As he starts to make his move, Johann comes back into the court, spotting up so that when Miami does send the double team, the kick out hits the trailer and the shot is pure.
Gratuity clip, and I’m sorry sound went out on some of these there was a glitch in the recording, of CTB’s reaction with the “oh, that was sweet” expression and the look up at the scoreboard.
That was sweet, though. On the same play Johann got the ball out of the hands of Miami’s best offensive player, blocked the shot they thought was the opportunity created by that double team at the rim, then hit a three trailing the transition play.
Speaking of his defense, let’s showcase a few more of these blocks! Here’s a really nice one in transition where he starts in front of the ball handler, then exchanges with Hall and blocks the layup attempt, forcing a jump ball. I love how fired up he is too!
Here’s the most impressive block to me, below. TDR doesn’t execute the lob pass very well while trying to keep the break momentum alive, resulting in a pass placed too high and a turnover. Grünloh’s hustle back down the court to stay in the play and block the shot at the rim is, frankly, awesome. I was really impressed by his speed and determination here:
And here’s just a really nice sequence from him as well. This time the double team comes to support Hall as Henderson, who runs 6’6″ 240 and seemed to be running through guys all game, attempts to post him up. We mess up our rotation out of this as both Lewis and Thomas recover on the swing pass to Dante Allen (#35), but Grünloh does a very nice job of stepping up and forcing Reneau to take a push shot quickly, forcing a miss. Now, I’d have wanted him to get a box here, and Thomas not to have drifted as far under the hoop, because that allowed Reneau to keep the play alive by deflecting the ball to Udeh, who had Hall on him prior. Buuuuuuut.. the exclamation mark on the play comes when Udeh shovels it back out to Henderson, who then drives in, only to be sent by Grünloh at the rim.
I’ve talked a lot about the design of this team over the year and the elite rim protection – having to of the best shot blockers nationally – is a huge part of that. Onyenso has very much been that force recently… he really wasn’t in this game… so how awesome was it for Johann to have worked his way back into form at this exact moment. He was very bothersome around the rim, as you’ve seen, and his renewed confidence in his shot… whew!
This is why I wrote earlier that I didn’t think it would have been productive to bench him when he was struggling, though. Impossible to say he wouldn’t have been in the same place, although I think it unlikely, but it didn’t cost us anything and we also didn’t have to go through any kind of benching/promoting him cycle. Less for him to think about/ponder on his journey to getting back into form. I liked the approach and, while it’s impossible to say he’ll stay in form, I love him playing this confidently right now and we needed him to win this game!
Thijs De Ridder
De Ridder put on a really nice all-around performance, especially on the defensive end. It wasn’t his most efficient game on offense with 14-points on 6 of 14 shooting, but he had some very timely buckets that came in a variety of ways.
This one, below, I thought was the most timely. It actually came right after he’d turned it over, and the momentum was squarely in Miami’s court, up three with under 5 minutes left in the game. It was basically just an explosion from the wing, with a nice finish drawing a foul… but it helped keep momentum from getting out of control.
This next one was actually a deviation from what we’d been doing. I showed earlier how we stopped sending guys to the high post as often to play through the perimeter weave, screens, and reversing court. Here, though, TDR goes ahead and flashes to the high post just as an idea when our original screen action didn’t work. You can see that this wasn’t really planned because Jacari started out heading in the same direction. We’d gone away from it for so long, though, that Miami was not alert and this was an easy jumper:
This is that interplay with Grünloh that we saw earlier where Johann’s ability to float outside gave him more room to operate one-on-one inside, but this time he’s able to convert the lefty layup after going through the spin cycle:
He also did some good work in transition. The area I want to focus on the most with TDR is his defense, though. We used him to defend Reneau, for sure, but we also, especially as the game progressed and late, had him switch on to the primary ball handler to defend multiple successful possessions. Let’s look at both.
Here is the first possession of the game. We allow TDR to defend Reneau on a designed play to the post without sending help. I love the physicality without fouling. As Reneau starts to dribble into the lane, TDR presses up, initiating body contact and actually entangling his left arm with Reneau’s right. It’s not enough to get called, but it is enough to pull on him a little bet and let him know that TDR is there. He then withstands the shoulder and gets a good contest on the baby hook, forcing a miss.
A great start when our goals were both not to foul and not give up anything easy.
Here’s another good defensive possession on Reneau one-on-one. This is the kind of basketball turnover that strong guys force sometimes. Their brick wall presence sometimes surprises and jars the ball away from the person trying to back them down. Reneau really does this to himself by under-estimating the amount of resistance TDR would be able to provide on the bounce. Then, those fast break points, Jacari touches the paint, smartly ducks under a shot block, and finds a trailing Lewis for three:
Now we’re starting to get into some more good stuff. Check out this next one below, this time Miami gets the switch onto Donaldson. He motions for his teammates to clear out, thinking he has a mismatch but quickly thinks better of it after he actually tries to initiate a move. Instead, he passes over to Washington (#10) but goes ahead and sets another screen… allowing TDR to stay home on the ball. De Ridder does a nice job, once again, of being physical with his body on the ball but letting up before committing a foul. This forces a difficult runner over a very nice help contest from Grünloh. Not satisfied, though… this is very good transition basketball from here. De Ridder grabs the board and is immediately off to the races, finding Sam Lewis ahead who makes a nice move to take the ball all the way to the rim.
That was basically a 2-on-3 fast break, but because he left so immediately and aggressively, he was able to draw two to himself and create the one-on-one for Sam.
It’s especially impressive how active he was getting up and down in this game considering his 36 minutes played are the most non-OT he’s run this year by a considerable amount. Usually, he’s under 30.
I mean this next one’s just awesome. How can you not love the way this guy defends? Watch him switch onto Donaldson (#3) initially. He’s there swiping at the dribble with his right hand and then, after a spin move, he’s still there in great position swiping at the ball with his right hand again. Then they switch back to Washington again and watch this disaster of a shot he ends up forcing up against Thijs’s defense:
I just can’t get enough of teams continuing to run these ball screens to force us to switch our PF onto a guard, expecting it to be an advantage and then realizing… it’s not that. Except they didn’t realize in this one.
Okay, some quick hitters to close because a lot of them are similar… but I also want to show them for the appreciation and to illuminate the number of these. Here he is stonewalling and forcing a turnover on Henderson:
Here he is shutting down another drive to the baseline, they scored later on a crazy shot but he was right there to block this if the shot went up:
And this next one, this was one of the plays of the game with us defending a one-point lead with about a buck thirty to go… and we just straight up play him at the point to take the opposing ball handler. He starts on Henderson and then stays home on Donaldson and, even though he goes for the shot fake, he’s so looming that the can block the shot from behind without fouling. This play also turned into Jacari’s big three to end the game:
I just love this so much, for so many reasons, but having TDR as someone you trust just to put the lock down on basically any talented and athletic guard the opposition is throwing at you… and going to that in crunch time… I mean, some of that speaks to the fact that we don’t really have a guard who does that regularly… but it mostly just speaks to being willing to fully take advantage of his talents. He just moves his feet really well, keeps very good spacing, is quick with his hands, and uses his strength to throw his man off their rhythm. It all works together really well.
Then, icing on the cake clip, who better to read and steal the final pass to a would-be shooter hoping to tie the game?
For what it’s worth – people say this was open… I thought Chance wasn’t screened off and would have been right there on the catch… but I’m still grateful that we didn’t need to find out.
Speaking of Chance….
Chance Mallory
Six rebounds, six assists, 12 points, and 7-7 from the FT line including the three game winners. Chance was awesome and really only limited by his foul trouble. Some of that did come from the fact that he had to reach some trying to hold up in one-on-one defense… but fortunately he was able to get to the end without fouling out… because he won the game!
The first thing I want to take a look at is how well he did to set up his teammates. This was an early moment in the game before the ‘Canes switched to zone. This was actually one of the plays that made them do it, with a pretty sick pick and roll to Ugo.
Two things I liked about that one – that he set his man up by using the screen twice, but also that he had the control to deliver a dart despite the fact that the defender got his hand on the ball on the way up and Mallory had to double clutch it before sending the pass. Poise and accuracy there.
This next one came much later in the game because he had to sit a good portion of the first and only played 9 minutes. This is his move that he loves to go to, though, where he gets into the lane and then looks like he’s going to pull the ball back out because of the length of the players around him. Instead, he spins back toward the baseline and then leaves the ball behind for Grünloh who shows great touch on this little push shot:
They have another replay and the angle where he had to leave this ball was actually really nice and anticipatory. He put it where Johann needed to be, not where he was. This is the kind of thing that Mallory brings to the table that our other guards really don’t, though. When they get into the lane, there’s often a little more panic or rush. Thomas gets himself stuck a lot, Jacari doesn’t usually maintain control like this and passes earlier, Sam picks up his dribble if his initial drive is stopped. Dallin can maintain his dribble longer, but isn’t quite as crafty. Chance has this ability to dupe and to make you feel like you can rest for a split second before striking.
His confidence was clearly on a high… because this was his one of two threes made from the game, and it comes from basically the logo when Miami doesn’t come out to him. First, admire his tough rebound and then, again, on trend from above, how quickly we get the ball up the floor – sparked by Chance. I love the speed with which he’s doing this right now, which we’ll also see in the next clip. Anyway, as we pull the ball back out, he simply spots up from well beyond the arc and drains the shot.
We haven’t seen this a ton from Chance this year. If someone is going to be shooting from this range it’s usually Thomas or White, but when I covered him after his initial commitment, one thing that really stood out to me is how he used this deep range intentionally as a weapon. Teams wouldn’t respect this depth of range, he’d burn them and force them to come out and guard him deeper, and then he’d use the fact that they were pressed out 30+ feet away from the basket to get behind them and open the court up for runners or passes. That he did this in a close game against a quality team shows me that he’s starting to feel confident enough and appreciate his place on the team enough to be able to. That’s exciting and something to look forward to… because it really is a weapon in how he uses it, not just flash.
Okay, this is him being shot out of a cannon in a coast-to-coast sense. This feels straight-forward and in many ways it is – but worth calling out that it’s great when Mallory actually grabs a defensive rebound himself because he’s so quick to turn up the floor and we don’t have to waste time making the initial pass to him. Secondly, that TDR slowing down running to screen off the only plausible defender was also appreciated. Great effort on the break, though.
Lastly, let’s go ahead and show the play that ended up being the game-winner. Firstly, this was after a made basket but was also after yet another opportunity where he comes screaming up the floor with the ball. Secondly, the savvy to feel the defender’s hand on his shooting arm, as he mentioned in the post-game, to be able to realize he was getting called for this, and then to pull up to draw the foul – that’s upper classman game awareness. Not even to mention the clutch factor of knocking down all three so that Miami can only tie you (barring something crazy).
Before the season started, I never would have thought that Chance would be one of the five guys we almost always have on the floor to close out a tight game. It just would have seemed unfathomable given our other options and their experience. The fact that he brings this much juice has been the special sauce that’s blown out our guard depth and that has given us so much versatility in how we are able to play offensively.
Jacari White
If Chance is the special sauce, Jacari is like when you cook with alcohol and the fire shoots up to the sky while it all burns off. It’s dramatic and it’s explosive. It was kind of easy to forget, because we played well at times without him and because he was very much not himself when he first returned from injury, how potent he was before his injury and what he’s become recently. Not only is he a weapon with no conscience who is capable of lighting up the score board the most quickly of anyone on the team, but his presence as a scoring option and as depth on the roster does so much to ensure that some of these shooting and scoring droughts we had been dealing with are mitigated. For example, after announcing his fully-fledged return by going off for 19 against FSU, he scored 3 against OSU and 5 against GT. He distinctly was one of the few not to be going off in that “get right” game. It didn’t matter, because sometimes he’s just gasoline. But now, you’re not just relying on one of Thomas or Lewis to be on in that scoring/shooting guard or small forward kind of hybrid role. The odds of a decent number of those guys being “on” increases significantly… and they all were in double figures in this one – but Jacari had 17 on 5-8 shooting from deep, 6-9 from the floor!
First, let’s just appreciate for a minute what having access to his left hand is doing for his game off of the bounce and his finishing around the rim. One neat thing about this play is that it was one of the few times a guard flashed to the high post. Taking the pass there forced Reneau to cover him, and he stayed on Jacari due to the match up nature of the zone and the spacing of the rest of our guys. This gave White the opportunity to just completely lose the bigger PF off of a sick spin move and then he uses the left hand to finish over Udeh at the rim.
Awesome use of the zone’s concepts against itself and great individual ability.
He also ran a really nice pick and roll with Onyenso during a short stretch in the second half where Miami attempted to run man. The timing and accuracy of the pass to hit him in stride were spot on and neutralized the recovery defense.
More often, though, he was playing that zone buster. This clip, below, is the best look so far at this weave we were running to mess with Miami’s zone. Watch as Chance dribble exchanges with Lewis, while exchanging with TDR after, and then Lewis exchanges with Jacari. As Jacari drives, he pulls the point with him, but interchanges back with Chance… and this time, Ugo is up and setting a ball screen on the point as Chance is racing back in that direction. Freeze at nine seconds into the clip. Look at what’s happened as Ugo starts to dive – Miami has two guys defending three as Donaldson (#3) tags Ugo on his dive and the bigs low are occupied passing TDR off as he moves to the opposite corner. All of this sets up a nice pass back against the grain to White that Donaldson is in no position to contest because of tagging Ugo.
Great shot by Jacari whose release always makes me smile, but cool design to get the zone moving one way and then go back against the grain.
Okay, here’s just a crazy microwave moment. Chance drives the zone and gets stuck. The interesting part is that White dives to the corner to offer an outlet, but Mallory doesn’t see it at first because he’s turning back toward the hoop. Undeterred, White fakes cutting back up, and then steps back into the corner for an even harder catch and shoot over Udeh.
That’s really hard to defend… especially for a Center who was drawn out that far because it was his responsibility in the zone with Jacari staying so flat and the action primarily starting on the opposite side.
This next one shows the weave again, and you can see how the constant motion and cutting, sometimes through the lane as you see from Lewis, causes the calculous to change for the Hurricanes. What ends up happening, though is that when the ball gets back to Jacari and Grünloh sets a ball screen for him toward the corner, it’s really effectively an extreme drop coverage look from Miami. And, if they were playing man defense, I’m sure they’d rarely opt to play extreme drop coverage against White. This ends up being a pretty difficult shot because he doesn’t actually use the screen and shoots it over the contest – but he does so in rhythm and with confidence and buries it.
Great shot-making above all else, but still a neat look at the offensive adjustment and the questions it asked of their defense.
One more look below that results in a White three, this time from the corner, but with a different offensive action. This involves both bigs with White in the far corner and Thomas on the wing, Hall sets up Donaldson to have to deal with screens from either TDR or Johann. De Ridder slips into the post and takes the pass, with Grünloh still screening Donaldson. We don’t use this screen, but he then dives into the lane, pulling Donaldson with him because Udeh is on TDR’s post up and Reneau has to be mindful of Jacari in the corner. Donaldson passes off Grünloh to Reneau (#5) but that pulls him off of White. Now with Donaldson out of position, too deep in the paint, when Hall swings the ball to Thomas, he can swing it down to White before Donaldson realizes that’s where he needs to recover (or switch with (Allen, #35).
This really was some master zone manipulation on display after we got the feel of it. The different ways in which we kept them guessing as to their correct responsibilities and rotations, while sneakily creating numbers mismatches and getting open looks for our shooters was really, really good coaching (and shooting).
We can’t close without showing THE shot, which is really just having all of the feel and confidence in the world now after all of these other shots. It also is that nice outlet pass from Mallory again, though, which gets the ball in position to Jacari where Udeh is the one who has to step out on him. I’m sure that cover was a big reason Jacari felt like it was a good time to exploit the mismatch and take the shot – but man the guts!
The way this was going and how effective we were at getting the ball up the floor, along with how the fatigue factor had to be much worse on them than on us with the played depth (62 bench minutes for us vs. 40 for them)… it all adds up. The fact that the two biggest shots of the game were this one and Chance pulling up and getting fouled… and both of those came from a guy just making a play in transition… that’s awesome from both of those players but it’s also really plugged in coaching to see who it is taking those opportunities, knowing that we should have more juice, and trusting the shots.
Sometimes not calling the time out is more strategic than calling it… and this was one of those times… well, twice!
In Conclusion
I’m pretty fired up about that game as I think most should be. That being said, there’s a massive trap game incoming against N.C. State who has had a week to prepare for us with a game against #1 Duke in Durham looming on Saturday.
N.C. State weirdly just got absolutely throttled against Louisville but then played Miami to a one-point loss and then dismantled a UNC team that just clubbed that same Louisville team! You’ve got to love college basketball! All of that being said, I really like the matchup against the Wolfpack due to our size advantage and TDR being able to guard either Darrion Williams or Quadir Copeland. We should have some success on the interior and the glass if we play with the same physicality and effort that we have been. I also like the form we’ve been in of late, so hopefully the guys aren’t already looking ahead to the weekend.
Still… 24-3 is pretty remarkable considering where we were last year and that this was a full… literally full except for one scholarship player who isn’t playing… rebuild. These last few games, the depth, the experience, the clutch play at the end, the in-game adjustments, the substitution patterns altering dramatically depending on who was playing well – not trending over multiple games, within that game. I’ve been really pleased to this point. Let’s keep it going.
Go Hoos!
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