A lot of the issues with our bigs came from that huge USF center, Reynolds. 275 pounds and can shoot. He got away with the thing that irks me most about college officiating. Big guys get to muscle their way to the hoop with no charging call, but if you stand your ground you get whistled. I thought this was supposed to be a stand-your-ground state. Although he only had 2 points in 30 minutes, Haugh looked good on both ends. The 2 points were both free throws, and all net, so that's a good sign, but he needs to put the ball in the hole more. Condo looked good but fouls limited his minutes. I love his aggressive, relentless play. I was really happy with the low-post moves by Alexis. He scored from either hand down low. He had trouble keeping Reynolds away but that's to be expected. Chinyelu looked unpolished, but I'll give him a pass on opening night. He did show some great rim protection on a couple of plays and grabbed 4 rebounds in just 15 minutes. I wasn't happy when he got a rebound right under the hoop and then decided to put it on the floor. Got it stripped of course. Dude. You're huge. Just go back up and slam it home. Also made a terrible pass into lane traffic late in the 2nd half.
Ugh, yes. The ole big bully getting away with murder. I sure did miss SEC officiating these past 8 months.
On Chin's defense: I hear you, but I don't think Reynolds is a unicorn or anything. There were some questionable fundamentals on display... Anyway, it was one game, and the first one at that. I'm not going to draw any conclusions just yet.
Yeah, there was one play on defense where Chin vacated the lane and left a USFer all alone for the easy layup. I'm not the coach (obviously), but I assume Chin was the guy that was out of position.
I love this team! Watched every minute of last night's game and I was impressed! Now I just have to find out where SEC+ is in my shady cable situation so I can watch all of the other games!
Oh, I'm not confusing Reynolds with a unicorn or any other mystical creature that sh!ts rainbows and skittles. He's just a monster and our monster, Chinyelu, didn't play him correctly on too many occasions. Alexis wasn't big enough to stop him. But Reynolds is going to cause problems for most opponents, so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Yet.
I disagree. He is a good ball handler when he is looking to score, not when he is initiating the offense and looking to pass. He let his defender force him up against the half court line way too much imo. It was the first game, so maybe we will improve. But I think teams that press us even in half court are going to give us fits like USF did. Most of the run outs they were getting in the first half was because of their ball pressure forcing bad passes. A good PG will penetrate and initiate the offense when teams are doing this and easily get into the lane. Walter can easily get into the lane, but only to score. Which he is phenomenal at doing.
Well if you can blow by your guy that’s like 75% of the battle, the big key is making the right play and ESPECIALLY not turn the ball over. I think we can assume the assists/ turnovers will be down vs Pullin, but that can be ok so long as the turnovers are kept relatively low overall. Can’t ask for better than 8 team turnovers! Esp at the pace Golden likes his team to play.
This team is fun to watch and exciting although I am still concerned that our defense is not going to be strong enough. USF scored over 40 points in both halves. It feels similar to last year where we are playing to outscore teams...I hope we can see improvement on defense if we ever hope to contend for any championships.
If we score 98 points when we're getting given fits, then fits away! I hear your point, kinda, but I think our inability to generate great half court sets was as much on us as their D. It was game one. In the end we're gonna need more data (games) to really know everyone's stengths, weaknesses, and tendancies. Until then it's just speculation.
I agree 100% and I don't know why he just doesn't seem as comfortable being aggressive with the ball when starting the offense as he is when looking to score. The only thing that I can think of, is that when he drives the lane to score, he is driving down the side of the lane and his defender is towards the middle of the lane, and any help defense is coming from the same side. When you penetrate the lane to generate the offense you sometimes get in the center of the lane and have traffic on both sides to deal with. Also I don't know why he is so timid sometimes when starting the offense that he lets his defender keep him near half court. It's like he is trying to eat some clock, which may be a good thing as much as we score, we go up and down the court a bunch of times and it can wear you down if you play too many minutes. Anyway, even though I have beaten the PG thing to death I am hopeful that it is going to improve as the season goes on and try and zip it and focus on all the good things we are doing like shooting 81.8 % from the line and winning the turnover battle.
I didn't start watching until the under 12 yesterday, but I did not see many bad passes by Clayton. I saw him being overly cautious with a few post entries in our ball continuity action. Other point guards may have pulled off those passes. But generally I did not have many concerns with how Clayton ran the show in the half court. He probably could have initiated the offense a little sooner in the first half. That's about it. I personally don't see the problem with him driving to score, especially if he is doing it at a 80% clip, like he did last night. Not every effective offense requires a point guard whose primary responsibility is facilitation. That wasn't Roberson in 2003-04 or 04-05, or Wilbekin in 2013-14. And it was certainly never Dupay, when he ran him at the point (admittedly not a high volume of his minutes). And the opposite is almost a pattern in the NBA (Brunson, Shai, Curry, Murray, Fox, Maxey--you name it). As long as Clayton is efficient (takes good shots, doesn't turn the ball over, gets us into transition/early offense), our ball movement and our continuity screen actions will create offense across the half court, and our early offense will get us easy baskets. And he was spectacularly efficient last night: 33 PER, 73# efg, 27 usage, 9.8 TO rate. He will never be a primary facilitator, but that's not the metric the staff is using to assess his performance at the one.
The USF big forced Chin away from the basket. Chin got caught up in no mans land. Give USF credit, they had a plan and played well.
My thoughts: - That USF team was very fired up to play for their coach. They also are talented and present some mismatches with a 4 guard lineup that can all shoot. Finally, they were lights out shooting. - We still do not play tight on the perimeter. Perhaps part of that is their guards were quicker (smaller too). I'd like to see us a little closer to each man looking to catch and shoot. - Really pleased with alexis low post offense. Chen was pretty bad with his positioning on defense a few times. Our length down low is gonna give teams fits on D and our guards are obviously nasty both driving and spotting up (off shooting night from the arc considered). Love to see more inside out passing but not sure our bigs can create that. - Gonna be hard to keep denzel off the court. Kid is damn good and playing smart ball. Hoops is a long season where teams change radically. I loved when Donovan, like phil jackson, would leave his team in uncomfortable (even losing) situations in season to make them learn to deal with different looks (zone, personnel, etc). Plenty to work on but a lot to like.
I was wondering how we would look with Clayton at PG this year. Not wondering any more. He is a fearless player with a great jumper and uses his athleticism to drive it to the basket. When hitting, he is a dominant offensive force. It looks like we have other options at PG as needed. We can sure score when we get rolling. Just need to be active on defense, hit FT’s, and aggressively rebound. We have a chance to be a very good team this year. I’m excited!
