The Ross-Man! wrote:

Perhaps I'm the only one here based on the comments, but I didn't think SC's zone d was especially effective.  From what I saw, GW got good looks, they just missed them.  

1.  Most of those good looks were from about NBA three point range.  Not a high percentage shot for most no matter how clean the look is.

2.  If all you are doing against a 1-3-1 is missing long shots, then you are normally playing into an opponent's hands.  They need the ball back quickly and short of turning the ball over, you are missing low percentage shots and giving the ball back to the other team.  This strategy would perhaps have been more palatable if GW had consistently drained the shot clock before shooting but this wasn't happening either.  Think about a high post man passing against the zone or being left alone for an open shot from the foul line.  Or, working the ball to the baseline where the final line of defense in the 1-3-1 is often practically defenseless.  Other than a few feeble attempts to find Hunter in the high post, I wasn't seeing anything that resembled our attacking the zone.

For various reasons I was unable to see the game or know the outcome until 5 minutes ago.Did you guys 
get together to gaslight me?Could all of you be in cohoots to concoct this “”Fake News”?After ruling this out all I can say is that I’m happy for our admittedly small fan base on this board-and excited that we appear 
to have a coach who may be able over time to turn around this program.

BM wrote:

You beat the 1-3-1 by dribbling hard to the elbow and throwing a diagonal pass to a teammate cutting to the basket on the weakside baseline for an easy layup/dunk.  Our otherwise very effective 1-3-1 during the ML years was dismantled repeatedly by other A-10 teams with this play (especially by St Louis).  

There are several ways to defeat that in a 1-3-1. The easy one is you need a guy up top who is long and that can pressure hard. If they go 2 up then your wings need to drop opposite early. You can also morph into a 2-3 on the first pass by having the baseline man on the ball side be one back wing dropping the middle and having the other wing who is already opposite stay back. You can morph into a 3-2. You can match up out of it. You can trap bottom corners or all corners. The thing is you can't just play a straight 1-3-1 possession after possession or decent to good teams will line you up. By changing the D within the 1-3-1 it becomes much more effective. If 1-3-1 is your thing and you want to run it multiple possessions you better have some variations.

Last edited by GWRising (12/01/2022 5:54 pm)

Wednesday was an incredible night at the Smith Center. Was pretty down about a 9 pm tipoff to start, but that quickly subsided. 

Trying not to be debbie downer, but SC was the worst basketball team I've seen in years. Couldn't shoot, couldn't play defense, couldn't rebound, lazy footwork, stood around, poorly coached. You name it, SC was bad at it.

Glad to see that we got a real coach who is already paying dividends. Hope to see the same tempo and skill level against A-10 schools as we did against SC, even though the Gamecocks will be lucky to win four conference games this season.

Last edited by Alum '04 (12/02/2022 12:58 pm)

Late to commenting on the game, but what a performance from the team! Definitely the best performance I've seen from the team in years.

GWMayhem, thanks for the correction. I 100% should have said Paris comes from the Bo Ryan coaching tree. On a side note, I can't believe Bo's son Will is struggling so much at UWGB. Linc Darner should have never been let go.

Shoutout to Ryan and George's Army for coming through again. That set the tone for the team's performance from the get-go and the guys never looked back afterwards.

I figured we would be amped up for this one, but the difference for me was what we did defensively. I can't remember the last time it was so hard for a team to score inside. We were consistently in front of GG Jackson and the rest of the Gamecocks. The times this year where we haven't performed to the level we hoped for was due to a lack of intensity defensively. I figured it was going to be a work in progress but the team has made some major strides since the UCSD game. We were swarming on defense, recovering along the perimeter quickly, and diving for loose balls. It was great to see. Offensively, the 21 assists total says it all. We were fantastic distributing the ball, and JB's play must be mentioned again. He got his shots (19 attempts) but still managed to play very unselfishly and get others involved. CC and staff have really helped JB's and BA's game this offseason.

The two "swing" factors that should have been mentioned more was the fact that this was the first true road game for South Carolina as FQ mentioned (really their first game away from their home state) and the fact that the start time of the game was later than usual for an East Coast contest. SC wasn't used to the road atmosphere. Recently, it's felt that GW doesn't perform well when a game is during the day or later than usual but we came ready to play. If anything, the late tip time hurt SC more.

I wanted to give the team credit first before I dismissed how bad South Carolina looked on Wednesday. My goodness they looked like a contender for worst power conference team in the country. Granted the Gamecocks have not been 100% healthy with Johnson and Carter coming back from ankle injuries and Paris needs time with a brand new roster but their shot selection was HIGHLY questionable all game. Their guards were launching ridiculously deep jumpers almost like they had given up trying to find a good shot. They made maybe 3 of those but I'm sure CC could live with them taking those shots especially with the game out of hand. Defensively, they lost BA and JB countless times leading to wide open shots. They're just not a good team. Hunter had another good game, but has more importantly made major strides defensively this year near the hoop.

Everyone on the bench played key roles. If we can get two baskets from Qwanzi a game moving forward that would be huge - he did a good job finishing around a SC defender in transition. He also had a nice intercepted pass in the lane too. Noel gave some good minutes as well. SC did an abysmal job boxing out, leaving Noel wide open for an offensive rebound and putback in the first half. EJ left his threes weirdly short but gave good energy as usual. He even picked the pocket of a SC guard driving to the hoop. Amir gave a good effort defensively, including one play trying to save a ball from going out of bounds although his offensive game is rough. Surprised Keegan didn't play more with the game out of hand, although this game overall felt more like a "Noel game" with the physicality SC had down low as CC mentioned postgame. Can I just reiterate again how informative those postgame pressers are after the game? Interesting that CC tried something on the fly defensively for the final possession of the first half.

GG Jackson is clearly a talent - he creates a lot of separation and can handle the ball like a guard despite his height. Thankfully he missed that one shot along the baseline when he crossed one of our guys over, otherwise that may have been all over SportsCenter. I just cannot understand why he wasn't more aggressive getting to the hoop. Whether that was SC's plan for him or not is unclear but the Gamecocks were basically playing him like a SG. In some ways, his most "impactful" play when the game was still close was a make off an offensive rebound. He needed to do more of that in this game for SC to have a chance. Credit to Ricky for a masterful defensive game - hopefully he can carry this offensive momentum forward.

Hayden Brown has some intriguing skills but just could not finish inside. I would like to credit out activity inside, but some were just missed opportunities for him. I think SC is personally better off playing him off the bench because he's not a starter on a SEC team.

I respect the hell out of the fact Bosmans-Verdonk took his law exam the day of the game and traveled separately to get to DC, but the guy didn't even get to take part properly in shootaround and Paris definitely shouldn't have started him. He was out of sorts, but in general the guy doesn't strike me as a high or even mid-major caliber big. Gray gave them good minutes off the bench, but didn't seem starter-caliber either.

Chico Carter is a good shooter, but physically may struggle in SEC play. Meechie Johnson did not look like a power conference player. He only launched threes from 40 feet away and was bad on defense. There was one play where JB got a clear path to the hoop and GG Jackson was yelling at him for giving up on defense halfway through. I thought their freshman Davis showed some potential but that's pretty much it.

Pretty much the only thing CC did wrong in the game as someone else mentioned was not taking a timeout to bring the end of the bench in the game. There was absolutely no need for the starters to be in the game with a minute to go (maybe even 2-3 minutes to go). It's not worth the injury risk. I felt the same way in the UNH game as well. We don't need to care about margin of victory in a year we're rebuilding. That's the only explanation I can come up for why the starters were still in at that point.