Cut it down to 11 with 11 to play. The boys seem to have found that energy that disappeared halfway through the first half. Plenty of time to keep this going and gonna have to go full bore for the last 11 minutes.
We’re lost without Cacok. Cylla had a nice game, but a tough game by Fornes, Taylor, and Estime.
Cacok has to be smarter defensively; his first two fouls were just bad defense. Toews’ potential is obvious, but it’s a big jump to D1 and a PAC 12 team proved to be too much for him. Seemed like the length gave everyone on the perimeter trouble.
(11-09-2018 09:15 PM)70shawk Wrote: The mishmash of a team on the floor at the end of the first half really hurt. Put us into a hole we couldn't get out of..
I don’t quite get his lineup, same thing happened at Campbell. I understand it’s early and you are trying to figure things out but if something isn’t working, abort abort!
(11-09-2018 09:15 PM)70shawk Wrote: The mishmash of a team on the floor at the end of the first half really hurt. Put us into a hole we couldn't get out of..
I don’t quite get his lineup, same thing happened at Campbell. I understand it’s early and you are trying to figure things out but if something isn’t working, abort abort!
We had Fornes, Cacok, and Jacque with two fouls each. They had to sit and Taylor was 0-6 at that point so I think that also led to the line up being essentially without an offensive producer
(11-09-2018 10:13 PM)ml1323 Wrote: We had Fornes, Cacok, and Jacque with two fouls each. They had to sit and Taylor was 0-6 at that point so I think that also led to the line up being essentially without an offensive producer
I get it. So it was a question of choose your poison: use a lineup of players with fouls and hope they don't get more, or play the mishmash. We gambled with the mishmash, and we got into a hole we couldn't get out of. UNCW outscored Stanford in the second half. So it would have been better (in retrospect, and in my opinion) to have rolled the dice and kept the A Team in longer.
Well, it's a marathon and not a sprint so that's why he threw them in there. With that written, to me, you have to gamble on Cacok and also Fornes when you're winning the game by a decent amount at the time. Ty isn't going to have a night like that very often. We were fine when we could get stops and boards but losing Cacok hurt bad. They're bigs could put it on the deck and make plays and they were HUGE! I've never seen a team like that before. The game slowed down because we couldn't get stops and every pass was contested. Even Toews was on his heels offensively and rarely got downhill into the paint. That was the problem for me. We have to be able to drive it downhill to cause problems and that didn't happen.
The initial lead was due to UNCW playing CB ball and getting the the tempo up. This causes mismatches in transition and is what this team does best. When the game slowed down, it was very difficult to get shots tonight.
Overall, this was a good learning experience for the team. They have to meet passes, shot/pass fake and create havoc off of drives then dishes. When Cacok was in there, we won the game.
Looking ahead for the program a bit....PG play will get better as lessons were learned. You have to attack and if it's off a high ball screen, so be it. You have to attack the paint regardless of size. Ball movement will have to be better as well and they will learn. Getting a solid inbound play will now be a priority. And, they do have a big than can play like a guard coming and another good big coming too. The Cardinal played stellar defense tonight and should be credited. It was an absolute clinic. They knew what we were going to run and were all over it with aggressive length. The team will be fine in the end. It's year 2 of a rebuild and the Hawks played a solid team. This will get them better for conference. Cylla had a good game overall but missed that dunk which hurt but he played well. Estime defended well as did Toews. There were a few bright spots....
(This post was last modified: 11-09-2018 11:42 PM by billthebighawksfan.)