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nol · 08-13-2014, 08:00 PM

Heading into January, still no news on the recruiting front. Gulp.

Let me list off some season stats, because we've got three consecutive road games (UConn, Providence, #4 Texas) before going through the ACC. Currently, the ACC's ranked teams are #7 Georgia Tech, #15 Virginia Tech, #18 Miami, and #22 NC State.

We're riding Duley as hard as we possibly can, and he's come through for us so far. He's putting up 16.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 5.2 APG (with a 4 A/TO ratio) He's only shooting 40.8% from the field, but that's a significant improvement over the past two seasons. Big John Kratzner's averaging 15 and 7 while also chipping in a steal and a block and a half per game. Lastly, Lindsey Jones is averaging 12, 5 and 5 in a hyper-efficient manner (45-88-47 shooting splits, 2.17 A/TO)

New Year's Day is our showdown at UConn. The RPI ratings likely have a lot of settling to do, but as of now the Huskies will be the 2nd top-100 team we've faced this season (Yale). 5 minutes in, we're ahead 15-7. Backup big Brent Alexander has taken a couple charges and gotten some hustle points off of offensive rebounds - that's what we're going to need to come out on top. After that, the talent gap begins to manifest itself. Again, we leave several points on the board from missed free throws (especially one-and-ones) and UConn heads into the half with an 11-point lead.

The 2nd half went on to show we can't hang with top-10 caliber teams unless we're at our absolute best, and we take a 75-54 beatdown. Frankly, Beau was the only player who looked as if he belonged on the court with those guys.

At Providence, we're hanging within 5 points of them for most of the half, but then a flurry of turnovers and 3-pointers puts them up 38-21 after 20. It's pretty disheartening to watch your team put up a 3-pointer and for the most part be able to immediately rule out the possibility of a make.

A mini-run by Duley cuts the lead to 11 and makes Providence call a timeout 3 minutes into the 2nd half. This settles them somewhat, allowing them to extend the lead back to 18, but we whittle it down to 8 heading into the 8 minute media timeout. We're shooting 50% to this point, but silly unforced turnovers are holding us back. Still down 8 with 4:20 left, we go 0-2 at the line and promptly give up a three-pointer. We actually make back-to-back threes to cut the lead down to five with just over a minute left, but a Providence offensive rebound on the ensuing possession seals our fate.

At #4 Texas, most of the team seems to be caught in the spotlight. Lindsey Jones was by the best player on the floor; his 16 first-half points kept the game from being a massacre but we head into the locker room down 43-30. We actually win the 2nd half to end up with a respectable 68-58 loss at a tough place to play. Jones was extremely passive after halftime and ended up with 19 on 8-14 shooting. Quesada killed us once again with 0 points, 3 turnovers, and 4 fouls on 0-5 shooting in 17 minutes. Still have no clue why he's starting over Doss or even Hintz.

We get North Carolina at home for our conference opener. The first half is an entertaining, back-and-forth contest. With 2:30 remaining, Beau ties the game up on a vicious and-one dunk but misses the free throw. UNC scores 2 buckets to end the half, and we're down 34-30. Duley has 13 and Doss has 8 off the bench.

UNC threatens to pull away in the 2nd half, but back-to-back threes from Jones trim our deficit to 49-44. With 8:55 remaining, Jones draws the 4th foul on the Tar Heels' leading scorer Richard Lehr and knocks down the foul shots to bring us within 4. We grab our first lead of the 2nd half with 4:20 remaining but fail to create separation thanks to a couple missed layups and free throws. Lehr re-enters the game and promptly buries a corner 3 to put them up 2, and Kratzer ties it at 64 on the next possession with a huge putback slam. We trade stops until there's less than a minute remaining, when Quesada picks off an errant UNC pass. Going the other way, we run our secondary fast break to perfection and get Duley a corner three, which he hits. We switch to man and get another steal. It's Kratzer who comes up with it, and he hits both ends of a 1-and-1 to put us up 5 with 18 seconds left. We're not out of the woods yet as Lehr makes a three with 4 seconds remaining, but we safely inbound the ball to Lindsey Jones and the 87% foul shooter hits both to ice it. 71-67, good guys.

Our conference road opener is against the well-balanced attack of #11 Miami; their top 5 scorers average between 10.7 and 13.1 PPG. The game starts out a slugfest with us leading Miami 7-5 after the 2nd media timeout. Both teams warm up from there, and we get enough stops by switching between 1-3-1 and man to prevent a bit of a scoring drought from sinking our hopes. We trail 29-28 heading into halftime - Duley leads us with 11 and 4 assists.

Miami scores the first 8 points in the 2nd half, aided by Kratzer's rare feat of pulling off consecutive traveling violations. We surge back, but the Hurricanes are able to use depth and superior rebounding to keep us at bay. We fall 81-60. Duley had 21 and 9 (with a career-high 5 turnovers), and our starting PF and C managed 6 rebounds in combined minutes.

Wake Forest at home is a must-win for us if we are to keep up with the pack in the conference race. Their SG and SF are sharp-shooters extraordinaire and average a combined 36 PPG; I stress in pregame walkthrough to not get caught overhelping in the lane. As a result, Wake Forest's center is having a big game inside, but we stick to the plan and lead 40-32 at the half.

Duley picks up an obnoxious charge call a minute into the second half, but we slide Jones to PG and don't miss a beat. Doss is all over the place and helps us push the lead out to 17. With a couple minutes left, they uncork a barrage of threes but it's too little, too late. We hold on, 72-61, and move to 10-6 (2-1). We've already matched last season's win total!

#9 Virginia Tech is the new 'it' program in the ACC. They've made 12 straight NCAA tournaments and have advanced out of the first weekend 7 of the past 9 seasons. 6 former top-25 recruits currently suit up for them, so this is quite possibly our toughest game of the season. Despite 6 early turnovers, we are still in a dogfight with them and trail 8-7 at the 2nd media timeout. Both teams remain cold until VaTech hits a couple threes late in the first half, and we head into the break trailing 23-18.

The Hokies make it clear that they can tighten their defense up even more the 2nd half. Our first points come via technical foul free throws 5 minutes in, and we trail 22-33. Their 3-2 defense suffocates our perimeter-oriented attack, and Kratzer can't score inside on the 5th-best shotblocking team in the country. 19 turnovers. 28.6% from the field. 8.3% from 3. That adds up to a 56-39 loss.

Our unbeaten home conference record is on the line against #16 Georgia Tech. Their SG Lon Stout is putting up 20 PPG, and I suggest doubling him from the start since he has limited vision as a passer. Despite the attention we're paying him, Stout still bombs his way to 13 in the first half. We trail by 9. Doss, Duley, and Jones have 27 of our 28 points.

With our three scorers on the court together, we close the gap to 40-36 with 17:38 remaining and force a timeout. Down just 2 with 7 minutes remaining, we proceed to turn it over on three consecutive possessions as Tech reels off 8 straight. The backbreaker comes when Georgia Tech gets an offensive rebound and caps a 1 minute, 6 second possession with a three from Stout to go up 12. They hit 11 threes to our 3 and won the head-to-head center matchup 15-2.

08-13-2014, 08:00 PM	#10
nol Banned Join Date: Oct 2003	Heading into January, still no news on the recruiting front. Gulp. Let me list off some season stats, because we've got three consecutive road games (UConn, Providence, #4 Texas) before going through the ACC. Currently, the ACC's ranked teams are #7 Georgia Tech, #15 Virginia Tech, #18 Miami, and #22 NC State. We're riding Duley as hard as we possibly can, and he's come through for us so far. He's putting up 16.7 PPG, 5.6 RPG, and 5.2 APG (with a 4 A/TO ratio) He's only shooting 40.8% from the field, but that's a significant improvement over the past two seasons. Big John Kratzner's averaging 15 and 7 while also chipping in a steal and a block and a half per game. Lastly, Lindsey Jones is averaging 12, 5 and 5 in a hyper-efficient manner (45-88-47 shooting splits, 2.17 A/TO) New Year's Day is our showdown at UConn. The RPI ratings likely have a lot of settling to do, but as of now the Huskies will be the 2nd top-100 team we've faced this season (Yale). 5 minutes in, we're ahead 15-7. Backup big Brent Alexander has taken a couple charges and gotten some hustle points off of offensive rebounds - that's what we're going to need to come out on top. After that, the talent gap begins to manifest itself. Again, we leave several points on the board from missed free throws (especially one-and-ones) and UConn heads into the half with an 11-point lead. The 2nd half went on to show we can't hang with top-10 caliber teams unless we're at our absolute best, and we take a 75-54 beatdown. Frankly, Beau was the only player who looked as if he belonged on the court with those guys. At Providence, we're hanging within 5 points of them for most of the half, but then a flurry of turnovers and 3-pointers puts them up 38-21 after 20. It's pretty disheartening to watch your team put up a 3-pointer and for the most part be able to immediately rule out the possibility of a make. A mini-run by Duley cuts the lead to 11 and makes Providence call a timeout 3 minutes into the 2nd half. This settles them somewhat, allowing them to extend the lead back to 18, but we whittle it down to 8 heading into the 8 minute media timeout. We're shooting 50% to this point, but silly unforced turnovers are holding us back. Still down 8 with 4:20 left, we go 0-2 at the line and promptly give up a three-pointer. We actually make back-to-back threes to cut the lead down to five with just over a minute left, but a Providence offensive rebound on the ensuing possession seals our fate. At #4 Texas, most of the team seems to be caught in the spotlight. Lindsey Jones was by the best player on the floor; his 16 first-half points kept the game from being a massacre but we head into the locker room down 43-30. We actually win the 2nd half to end up with a respectable 68-58 loss at a tough place to play. Jones was extremely passive after halftime and ended up with 19 on 8-14 shooting. Quesada killed us once again with 0 points, 3 turnovers, and 4 fouls on 0-5 shooting in 17 minutes. Still have no clue why he's starting over Doss or even Hintz. We get North Carolina at home for our conference opener. The first half is an entertaining, back-and-forth contest. With 2:30 remaining, Beau ties the game up on a vicious and-one dunk but misses the free throw. UNC scores 2 buckets to end the half, and we're down 34-30. Duley has 13 and Doss has 8 off the bench. UNC threatens to pull away in the 2nd half, but back-to-back threes from Jones trim our deficit to 49-44. With 8:55 remaining, Jones draws the 4th foul on the Tar Heels' leading scorer Richard Lehr and knocks down the foul shots to bring us within 4. We grab our first lead of the 2nd half with 4:20 remaining but fail to create separation thanks to a couple missed layups and free throws. Lehr re-enters the game and promptly buries a corner 3 to put them up 2, and Kratzer ties it at 64 on the next possession with a huge putback slam. We trade stops until there's less than a minute remaining, when Quesada picks off an errant UNC pass. Going the other way, we run our secondary fast break to perfection and get Duley a corner three, which he hits. We switch to man and get another steal. It's Kratzer who comes up with it, and he hits both ends of a 1-and-1 to put us up 5 with 18 seconds left. We're not out of the woods yet as Lehr makes a three with 4 seconds remaining, but we safely inbound the ball to Lindsey Jones and the 87% foul shooter hits both to ice it. 71-67, good guys. Our conference road opener is against the well-balanced attack of #11 Miami; their top 5 scorers average between 10.7 and 13.1 PPG. The game starts out a slugfest with us leading Miami 7-5 after the 2nd media timeout. Both teams warm up from there, and we get enough stops by switching between 1-3-1 and man to prevent a bit of a scoring drought from sinking our hopes. We trail 29-28 heading into halftime - Duley leads us with 11 and 4 assists. Miami scores the first 8 points in the 2nd half, aided by Kratzer's rare feat of pulling off consecutive traveling violations. We surge back, but the Hurricanes are able to use depth and superior rebounding to keep us at bay. We fall 81-60. Duley had 21 and 9 (with a career-high 5 turnovers), and our starting PF and C managed 6 rebounds in combined minutes. Wake Forest at home is a must-win for us if we are to keep up with the pack in the conference race. Their SG and SF are sharp-shooters extraordinaire and average a combined 36 PPG; I stress in pregame walkthrough to not get caught overhelping in the lane. As a result, Wake Forest's center is having a big game inside, but we stick to the plan and lead 40-32 at the half. Duley picks up an obnoxious charge call a minute into the second half, but we slide Jones to PG and don't miss a beat. Doss is all over the place and helps us push the lead out to 17. With a couple minutes left, they uncork a barrage of threes but it's too little, too late. We hold on, 72-61, and move to 10-6 (2-1). We've already matched last season's win total! #9 Virginia Tech is the new 'it' program in the ACC. They've made 12 straight NCAA tournaments and have advanced out of the first weekend 7 of the past 9 seasons. 6 former top-25 recruits currently suit up for them, so this is quite possibly our toughest game of the season. Despite 6 early turnovers, we are still in a dogfight with them and trail 8-7 at the 2nd media timeout. Both teams remain cold until VaTech hits a couple threes late in the first half, and we head into the break trailing 23-18. The Hokies make it clear that they can tighten their defense up even more the 2nd half. Our first points come via technical foul free throws 5 minutes in, and we trail 22-33. Their 3-2 defense suffocates our perimeter-oriented attack, and Kratzer can't score inside on the 5th-best shotblocking team in the country. 19 turnovers. 28.6% from the field. 8.3% from 3. That adds up to a 56-39 loss. Our unbeaten home conference record is on the line against #16 Georgia Tech. Their SG Lon Stout is putting up 20 PPG, and I suggest doubling him from the start since he has limited vision as a passer. Despite the attention we're paying him, Stout still bombs his way to 13 in the first half. We trail by 9. Doss, Duley, and Jones have 27 of our 28 points. With our three scorers on the court together, we close the gap to 40-36 with 17:38 remaining and force a timeout. Down just 2 with 7 minutes remaining, we proceed to turn it over on three consecutive possessions as Tech reels off 8 straight. The backbreaker comes when Georgia Tech gets an offensive rebound and caps a 1 minute, 6 second possession with a three from Stout to go up 12. They hit 11 threes to our 3 and won the head-to-head center matchup 15-2.