I try to never be reactionary. My concerns are not related to “a game or two”. At the time… Golden was 2-19 versus Q1 competition. He is now 4-19. I still have concerns about his inexperience and bench coaching. And some of that has manifested. But again… if we win, those concerns become moot. Not wrong; not invalid. Moot.
I hear you. Personally, I don’t have any concerns besides we need better inbounds plays. I like his pacing, roster construction, and attitude. Cool dude in person as well.
I agree - his approach and enthusiasm is refreshing. And I’m guessing more and more top level guys will be drawn to it.
I think we were spoiled by MW inbound plays. Say what you want, but it was like a given we were getting an easy bucket on an inbound under the basket. Haha
CTG is almost going against the new idea of conventional wisdom, which is smaller and faster. After years of being undersized, we've gotten bigger while other programs are getting smaller, and now we're reaping the benefits. And we still have a talented backcourt to go with it. I love the direction I'm seeing. But we may just be lucky, because our bigs can really run the floor, much like Joakim and Al did.
Said the same when UGA was setting up and in-bounds play yesterday. To be clear, I thought MW was a good coach, but in critical situations, he wilted.
I told some friends early this season (after Pullin debuted) that I liked the looks of our team this season primarily because we had 4 bigs that all "get after it" - particularly the 2 freshmen. They almost remind me of Dan Roundfield (who was never hesitant to challenge an opponent's shot in the paint) from back in the day. . Those two freshman may get to that point before they're done with college. Hope it's with us.
It actually feels like the tide is turning that way throughout the college game, really starting with Gonzaga. But more and more coaches are realizing that shooting at this level can be very unpredictable, but offensive rebounding can overcome it. Golden’s theory of “a bad shot is better than no shot” just plain works if you have the size to get offensive boards. It does compromise you a little defensively, but the extra possessions make up for it.
Also playing aggressive offensively, beating your rivals and winning at home something that imo, White and Napier suck at.
As Ive said b4, Golden is 2-0 vs fsu. That's a good start for me. I liked MW, but losing to fsu got old pretty quickly.
I’ve been a TG fan since we hired him. But the cautionary tale is that in year 2 MW was in the elite 8 and it looked like we had the right guy then too, it’s a marathon not a sprint. But to my eye TG has already shown a potential ceiling that MW just didn’t have.
Golden does the best interviews of any coach we’ve ever had other than Spurrier. He’s engaging, entertaining and knows his stuff.
White also had the benefit of a pretty stacked roster: Hill, Chiozza, Allen, Robinson. Barry and Leon were the only kids he brought in. But Golden isn’t playing a single kid he didn’t identify, recruit, and sign. White also basically adopted Donovan’s spread ball screen offense, so it wasn’t like he went all in with his own stuff like Golden has. I don’t really hate White. Good recruiter, great person, decent coach, just never exceptional in any respect. But, you’re exactly right, Golden’s ceiling is much higher. Better evaluator, better conceptually, better idea what he wants for his program.
They got at least one against us. It was a great play w triple motion and the third guy was alone at the hoop.