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Something has to change. What is it?

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I'd tinker here:
-start Divine. Slide Pack back to true 2. Jalen can be on the floor in a small ball lineup or come in as a 6th man. I'm skeptical L would go that route with Pack, so at least get him back where he plays more comfortably
-speaking of small ball, go with it more often. I think Divine, Pack, Jalen, Matt (or Staton-McCray) and Johnson might be a viable situational alternative. Get Matt and Johnson driving to the hoop more often when they're on the court
-coach up Jalil. He's too talented to be relegated to rolling his eyes on the court
-get these guys to buy into the system. At this point, they're not buying in. I'll leave that one up to the staff as they get paid to do just that
 
casualcane said:
I'd tinker here:
-start Divine. Slide Pack back to true 2. Jalen can be on the floor in a small ball lineup or come in as a 6th man. I'm skeptical L would go that route with Pack, so at least get him back where he plays more comfortably
-speaking of small ball, go with it more often. I think Divine, Pack, Jalen, Matt (or Staton-McCray) and Johnson might be a viable situational alternative. Get Matt and Johnson driving to the hoop more often when they're on the court
-coach up Jalil. He's too talented to be relegated to rolling his eyes on the court
-get these guys to buy into the system. At this point, they're not buying in. I'll leave that one up to the staff as they get paid to do just that
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I agree with almost all of this.


We need a PG who can attack the defense and get the ball to the ready good shooters in some space. I know it’s a small line up but we have to play to our strengths. I would also run some full or half court pressure on defense. With a small line up that is not rebounding well, just sitting back in man to man is just a slow death. Maybe with some pressure you can upset the opponents timing.
 
Coach L needs to retire. Rename the court after him, and he can still have an active role around the program.

We need some fresh new ideas and new voice to lead the program. We have now lost 12 Power 4 games in a row. That is mind boggling. That is one of the worst stretches in school history.
 
The starting 5 started out both halves 1 for 8. Maybe that suggests a different starting 5; they certainly arent excelling in areas besides shooting. As the disaster years before final 4/8, the 3's and perimeter shots dont fall (far too often) and so we get behind and we are not a comeback type of bench right now, in fact I doubt the talented frosh like much sitting there watching it and then being said ok get us back in it. And we are back to barely trying for rebounds on these errant perimeter shots, which is OK if they drop but disaster when they often dont.
 
gacaneaddict said:
Coach L needs to retire. Rename the court after him, and he can still have an active role around the program.

We need some fresh new ideas and new voice to lead the program. We have now lost 12 Power 4 games in a row. That is mind boggling. That is one of the worst stretches in school history.
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Thank you for providing how many games in a row it is. I thought we were over 10.


Absolutely mind blowing
 
casualcane said:
I'd tinker here:
-start Divine. Slide Pack back to true 2. Jalen can be on the floor in a small ball lineup or come in as a 6th man. I'm skeptical L would go that route with Pack, so at least get him back where he plays more comfortably
-speaking of small ball, go with it more often. I think Divine, Pack, Jalen, Matt (or Staton-McCray) and Johnson might be a viable situational alternative. Get Matt and Johnson driving to the hoop more often when they're on the court
-coach up Jalil. He's too talented to be relegated to rolling his eyes on the court
-get these guys to buy into the system. At this point, they're not buying in. I'll leave that one up to the staff as they get paid to do just that
Click to expand...

Yep. Good analysis. Divine needs start at point NOW. He's the only freshman making a real impact. We need a true point guard on the floor that can penetrate. We need to see if he can dish after drawing a double team. Move Pack to his natural 2 so he can catch and pop. Have Jalil as the rotational guard. He needs at least 18 minutes a game.

Cleveland has been a huge disappointment. He needs to stop gunning threes and go to the basket. Same with Johnson. Kidd looked like he woke up at the end of the game but it was garbage time.

Bottom line is we have zero physicality up front without Omier. I'm afraid we are going to be pounded all year on the boards

And for gosh sakes, our guards play horrific defense. It doesn't seem they can get off screens or switch well at all. I don't know if its communication or laziness. We just won't win allowing 15 wide open threes every game. Our 3's are always contested. Not so for our opponents.

This roster has lots of problems. Guards are too small, front line isn't physical. Every offensive series seems like we get no good looks.
 
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A creator/conductor that bites into the teeth of a defense and makes multiple defenders pay attention and sag a little at all times. That was Wong. He went scoreless at duke yet still had enough of an impact to keep things at bay.

We lack any semblance of that and it’s glaring. Defenders are sticking to us 3 point line extended and we lack a threat to back them off.

So for now, time. It takes time to mesh in basketball. Not offseason reps in the gym. They need a few weeks of live bullets to figure where they have advantages. This is a group of accomplished players that didn’t all of a sudden become bad individually. They’re just making each other look worse than they really are right now.
 
Turns out it's not a well built team. No coaching job will make this a good team this year.

Blackmon and Pack are not a good fit on the court, offensively and defensively.

Cleveland is never going to live up to his hype. He's athletic, but has no fire in him. If he played with desperation like Udonis Haslem would play with, Cleveland could be a weapon. But he's not talented enough offensively to rely on athleticism only. He needs to be a scrapper, which he is not.

Kidd is the biggest disappointment. Unless he gets shot up with 800g of testosterone a week starting rn, that guy will be abused downlow all year long. He's incredibly weak for his size. Were gonna get eaten up on the glass all year. Maybe that injured big can help, but doubt it.

#99 needs to start. He looks to have the most juice on the team rn.

Divine
Pack
Stanton Mcray
Johnson
Kidd

Is the lineup I would go with. As weak as Kidd is, when you reach the thought part of the ACC schedule, you need height.
 
Miami04 said:
Since moving Pack full time to PG the team has lost its ability to play.
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It was said a zillion times last year and agreed we badly needed an adequate point guard to prosper offensively against non-cupcakes. Seems clear Pack is not that guy, nor did we pick up a seasoned PG in the portal. Personally I hope Divine or Bethea can grow (soon!) into that role, otherwise, we aint breakin .500 much less dancing.
 
Disappointing start to the season, to say the least. Coming into it, many (me included) thought this was a deep team with plenty of depth and firepower. However, after watching the last 2 games, it looks like this team only has two for sure starters in Pack & Kidd. Other than those two and possibly Cleveland, no one else has really set themselves apart from the rest and claim starting spots. Blackmon had a terrible shooting night against OK St. We're going to need more from him. Brandon Johnson has been okay, but he's very limited. Same can be said for Djobet and AJ. Not sure what's going on with the freshmen, but Bethae needs to do some growing up. Don't have to watch the games in person to see his huffs and facial expressions. One can clearly see it on tv. I think the staff will give him every opportunity to earn it, but at some point if Divine is getting it done then staff may need to go in that direction.

This team clearly isn't good enough right now to walk the ball up the court on every possession and get baskets. Gotta defend and rebound better. Getting stops should allow us to get out into transition for some easy baskets. We can't solely depend on half court sets, especially when we're struggling putting the ball in the hoop.

I think it's way too early to hit the panic button. Have to win on Sunday and get out of Charleston 4-2. Coach L and staff have earned the benefit of the doubt that they'll get things turned around. GO CANES!!!
 
gordonsolie said:
Bottom line is we have zero physicality up front without Omier. I'm afraid we are going to be pounded all year on the boards

This roster has lots of problems. Guards are too small, front line isn't physical. Every offensive series seems like we get no good looks.
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Good analysis. Appreciate your thoughts, esp the ones I excerpted.

L might wanna rethink that "white out" thing for Arkansas. Might not be the time or game to go that route.

There are 5 star HS recruits built on potential, and 5 star recruits who get that rating for their readiness to become a star from the get-go (far more rare). Bethea, like Walker, looks like the former. He's shaky on the court at this point -- in his confidence, and pretty much all aspects of his floor game.

As for defense, we've never been known for that, even with our best teams. Mediocre outside shooting teams have always feasted when they played us. We countered with great offense to win as we have. Right now, we all are asking, where is that offense? Even a semblance of it.
 
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King of Allapattah said:
Disappointing start to the season, to say the least. Coming into it, many (me included) thought this was a deep team with plenty of depth and firepower. However, after watching the last 2 games, it looks like this team only has two for sure starters in Pack & Kidd. Other than those two and possibly Cleveland, no one else has really set themselves apart from the rest and claim starting spots. Blackmon had a terrible shooting night against OK St. We're going to need more from him. Brandon Johnson has been okay, but he's very limited. Same can be said for Djobet and AJ. Not sure what's going on with the freshmen, but Bethae needs to do some growing up. Don't have to watch the games in person to see his huffs and facial expressions. One can clearly see it on tv. I think the staff will give him every opportunity to earn it, but at some point if Divine is getting it done then staff may need to go in that direction.

This team clearly isn't good enough right now to walk the ball up the court on every possession and get baskets. Gotta defend and rebound better. Getting stops should allow us to get out into transition for some easy baskets. We can't solely depend on half court sets, especially when we're struggling putting the ball in the hoop.

I think it's way too early to hit the panic button. Have to win on Sunday and get out of Charleston 4-2. Coach L and staff have earned the benefit of the doubt that they'll get things turned around. GO CANES!!!
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Did you mean Johnson when you said Kidd and vice versa?

Kidd has been pretty terrible. Johnson needs to do better but has at least had stretches where he competed.

Kidd hasn’t gotten more than 3 rebounds in either game this tournament. Brandon has 17 rebounds in the two games.
 
Shocking is that the team looked clueless blocking out and defending the paint... letting your man freewheel in and around the blocks on both sides just makes you wonder whether they understand basic basketball defense. Add to the fact that these weren't exactly big physical teams like Kansas
 
There's been some good analysis in this thread, besides the tired and honestly stupid "Fire L" nonsense we hear after every bad stretch. I would tinker first, see if #99 can give a boost, he seems to be the one guy on the roster that is fearless. I think that Pack isn't a PG and we all need to admit it. Playing Pack at PG has been a disaster and is hurting the program. I get rewarding Nijel for being a quality player and a great lockerroom guy, but this isn't it.

I'm not sounding alarms right now, but I'm not going to pretend that this tournament hasn't been anything other than a complete disaster. It's been exactly that. I'm disappointed mostly in the terrible body language, the guys like Bethea who are on the court thinking they are above being coached. Maybe that lack of maturity Jalil showed in high school wasn't a one time issue. Coach L has always been more of a player's coach, but when some of the young guys aren't able to buy in, it's a problem.
 
I will say this though in regards to Coach L, I do think that after this season, Rad needs to have a legit talk about his future. If he is slowing down, if he's fed up with everything(Sometimes, he looks like he's over dealing with some of this stuff), then Rad needs to act accordingly. L deserves to go out on top, and I hope this team figures it out and shows more than they have thus far.
 
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