Canegrad89
Recruit
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2017
- Messages
- 1,149
Huge win for Canes Basketball today against Pitt. Congrats on an awesome Regular Season & being ACC Regular Season Co-Champs (Champs in my book). It's been a fantastic season so far. Let's keep it rolling.
As much as today was a great culmination to a very strong regular season, some observations re simple areas for improvement as we move into tournament play:
1) Pitt's press worked today due to poor off-the-ball offensive movement by most of our players in the last ten minutes. The ball was thrown to one of our players who then felt intense pressure from a Pitt player (or two) and literally had nowhere to go to escape the pressure & get the ball out. The Answer: better off-the-ball movement on offense by our players. If someone is trapped in a press, the other players have got to move fast & bail out the trapped player. I didn't see much of that down the stretch and it left the ball handler stranded with no bail-out options and almost cost us the game.
2) Offensive turnovers in the last 10 minutes: we lost control of the ball, did not looked poised handling the ball, and ran out-of-bounds all in the last 10 minutes. Pitt's press was effective and they were physical & hustled for sure, but we lost composure & rushed the ball up-court when we didn't need to. Dribble the ball securely & milk the clock when up by 6-8 points, we could have been a lot slower & more controlled with the ball towards the end of the game. Our best ball handlers should play a bigger role in games where we're leading by a fair margin & don't want to give the game away down the stretch.
3) Poor selection on in-bounds passes: We should practice in-bounding the ball heavily in our next few practices. Have to avoid throwing into the coffin corner & other bad spots and maybe mix up the player(s) making the inbound pass.
All of the above is imminently fixable (and quickly). This is a talented bunch & they can make the adjustments. They will need to in order to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. I'll be rooting hard for this team. They've been a pleasure to watch so far this yr. Congrats on a great achievement in ACC play. Go Canes!!
As much as today was a great culmination to a very strong regular season, some observations re simple areas for improvement as we move into tournament play:
1) Pitt's press worked today due to poor off-the-ball offensive movement by most of our players in the last ten minutes. The ball was thrown to one of our players who then felt intense pressure from a Pitt player (or two) and literally had nowhere to go to escape the pressure & get the ball out. The Answer: better off-the-ball movement on offense by our players. If someone is trapped in a press, the other players have got to move fast & bail out the trapped player. I didn't see much of that down the stretch and it left the ball handler stranded with no bail-out options and almost cost us the game.
2) Offensive turnovers in the last 10 minutes: we lost control of the ball, did not looked poised handling the ball, and ran out-of-bounds all in the last 10 minutes. Pitt's press was effective and they were physical & hustled for sure, but we lost composure & rushed the ball up-court when we didn't need to. Dribble the ball securely & milk the clock when up by 6-8 points, we could have been a lot slower & more controlled with the ball towards the end of the game. Our best ball handlers should play a bigger role in games where we're leading by a fair margin & don't want to give the game away down the stretch.
3) Poor selection on in-bounds passes: We should practice in-bounding the ball heavily in our next few practices. Have to avoid throwing into the coffin corner & other bad spots and maybe mix up the player(s) making the inbound pass.
All of the above is imminently fixable (and quickly). This is a talented bunch & they can make the adjustments. They will need to in order to go deep in the NCAA Tournament. I'll be rooting hard for this team. They've been a pleasure to watch so far this yr. Congrats on a great achievement in ACC play. Go Canes!!
soon to follow.
