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1st 5 Minutes Of The 2nd Half - Historical Perspective

I wasn't saying Danny is bad at telling them what he needs to tell them. what i saw was an Xavier team that started playing defense in the second half and our guys didn't know how to respond. I'm not saying a timeout would have solved the issue, but at least stop and get the guys refocused.

Gotcha. Wasn't necessarily directing that at you, just in general.
 
I wasn't saying Danny is bad at telling them what he needs to tell them. what i saw was an Xavier team that started playing defense in the second half and our guys didn't know how to respond. I'm not saying a timeout would have solved the issue, but at least stop and get the guys refocused.
I was there and I don't think there was much Manning could do. It looked to me like Manning wanted to go inside a lot more in the second half knowing we couldn't survive on hitting 3 pointers. Xavier's intensity went up and they hit a lot of difficult shots. Pretty predictable. We had very little size to counter their bigs.

Regardless, we were within a bucket late in the game and had grabbed momentum. The refs then screwed us repeatedly. Farr had 4 fouls with 10 minutes left and could do anything he wanted on either end. It looked like he knew he might be called for the 5th twice...and got away with it. The one criticism I had was, Dinos didn't budget on 3 easy key rebound opps, one offensive. I'm sure he got an earful today. Great game to watch.
 
Not too much to analyze. X came out of the half like their backs were against the wall. They had nothing to lose so they came out hyper aggressive and physical in every phase of the game. It worked. We simply failed to match their intensity until it was too late. They also slowed the game down ever so slightly. I think they opened the first half thinking they would run us out of the gym on the offensive end and that did not work.
 
If Danny is as bad at telling the team what he needs to tell them as some of you think he is, then a timeout isn't going to do all that much.

We were up by 15 points over the No. 6 team in the country. Yes we came out flat. Yes they came out more focused. Yes it's annoying and frustrating that we lost.

Once again, Xavier is a very good team and they demonstrated that in the second half.

They have the 21st best offense, and the 10th best defense in the nation. I'm happy we had a chance to win at the under-four timeout. We can play with anybody in the nation, we just have to do it for 40 minutes.

The bold is more than a bit of a strawman. When you don't call a timeout while your inexperienced team (or however the excuse goes) loses a 15-point lead amidst an 18-2 run, then you call a timeout. I don't care what happens in that timeout as long as the coach tells the team to relax and maybe draws up a play to get us back on the scoreboard. That's pretty basic coaching, I think. We definitely don't have Brad Stevens on the sideline, but we don't have Jeff [Redacted], either. There can be expectations in between the two.

Xavier played a great second half and they're a damn good team, but watching our guys float from slump to slump, hoping that we can have a "chance to win a the under-four timeout" - whether against the #6 Xavier or KenPom #285 UNCG - does not cut it, in my mind.

Coaches get paid a lot of money to recruit, strategize, and motivate. The last two, at least in-game, have been lacking at times this year. I hope Manning and his staff can change that or this next stretch is going to be brutal.
 
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So you're privy to our strategies and locker room speeches?
 
So you're privy to our strategies and locker room speeches?
Nope, but I've watched our games for the past two seasons and I'm still skeptical. A trend is a trend is a trend.
 
We have a good team.

Terrible shooting with guys going 0-7 and 1-7 etc.

The 0-7 guy needs to be replaced by Collins.

We come out flat in basketball and football because we are not UK or Michigan which means every single Wake fan must;
Hurry back to your seat and get loud to start the second half.

We don't have the numbers or volume to offset folks not returning - football or standing around at concessions or mingling - basketball.
 
We have a good team.

Terrible shooting with guys going 0-7 and 1-7 etc.

The 0-7 guy needs to be replaced by Collins.

We come out flat in basketball and football because we are not UK or Michigan which means every single Wake fan must;
Hurry back to your seat and get loud to start the second half.

We don't have the numbers or volume to offset folks not returning - football or standing around at concessions or mingling - basketball.

How about if you show up to buy tickets at the gate you don't automatically put
Me in the absolute last row in the joint, then I'll be louder
 
What I am seeing is a lack of killer instinct. We've all seen this lacking for many years in both major sports. We tend to come out flat to start 2nd halves and we are terrible when holding a lead. I think part of this as to do with our coaches' personalities, i.e. Grobe, Bz, Manning. Whenever we get a any sort of lead, we consistently slow it down and play conservatively. We rarely, if ever, try to bury teams. I think this is largely philosophical and personality traits of our head coaches. (I don't see this in Clawson. Once talent is there, I think he will try to pour it on).

We came out in the 2nd half against Xavier like we were trying to play relaxed instead of coming out with a chip on our shoulders with something to prove. Xavier came out swinging while we stumbled against the ropes and cowered in the corner. Aggressive teams tend to win. We were the aggressive team in the first half and it showed. In the second half, we weren't and well, we saw that disaster. I'm pro-Manning and he knows the game FAR better than I, but he is making a huge mistake not calling timeouts when other teams make huge runs. Even if he has nothing to say in the timeout, it gives our players a chance to regroup and can slow momentum. It can even give the crowd a chance to get more involved. To further the boxing analogy, sometimes when you are getting pummeled and you are stumbling, all you need is the bell. Survive the blows and regain composure.
 
If nothing else, call the timeout. Tell the players "We knew they would make a run. We are better than this. Focus on rebounding. I believe in you". Give them a little pep talk, let the other guys cool down. Hell, call two in a row if you have to. You have to break the momentum of the other team. These are kids that have never experienced a great deal of success. They need something from their coach at that point in time.
 
Not sure how we can put 'not blowing' teams out on DM as a coach. As a player and an assistant at Kansas he probably has a lot of personal experience with 'knocking' teams out. Maybe DM felt bad for all those teams KU crushed and now wants to give something back.

More likely, we have a team filled mostly with players that haven't had any success in the last 2-3 years, so when they get success they have trouble handling it.
 
How many times did we come out of a timeout and immediately make a boneheaded play? I rather play through than kick the ball out of bounds after a time out.
 
I have been watching and living and dying by Wake Forest basketball since Skip Brown and Rodney Griffin were our stars...

For as long as I have followed Wake, the first five minutes of the 2nd half never seem to be kind to the Deacons. Big leads vanish, close games become e blow outs.

We have different players, different coached, but the malady remains the same. We can't seem to score during those minutes nor prevent the other team from hitting everything they throw up.

Surely others have noticed this. Anybody have any idea why this transcends generations.

Who the fuck is Rodney Griffin?
 
How many times did we come out of a timeout and immediately make a boneheaded play? I rather play through than kick the ball out of bounds after a time out.

That's a separate problem if we come out of a TO and can't execute. Yay new router from Santa!
 
I was screaming for Danny to call a timeout after the lead was cut under 10. I know he was waiting for the tv timeout (I guess), but why wait. Our team was getting killed and they were shell shocked. Timeout and reorganize.

Definitely feels like the timeout rule change this year has severely affected coaches' willingness to burn a TO to try to stop a run.
 
Historical competitiveness.

What cost us last night was our second half effort on the boards and defense. That and Xavier's pack-line defense just abused us. So, pretty much everything.

I love Devin Thomas but second half was the rare occasion we needed a center, not a 6'7" power forward playing center.
Again, love the kid but we got abused on the glass. Mitoglu is not exactly a rebounder either.
 
I love Devin Thomas but second half was the rare occasion we needed a center, not a 6'7" power forward playing center.
Again, love the kid but we got abused on the glass. Mitoglu is not exactly a rebounder either.

I mean Thomas has been (nearly) a top 100 defensive rebounder in the country the past four years. He is the 18th best this year, and was the 17th best last year.
 
You can be the 17th/18th best rebounder in the country and still struggle to get boards against a big and active frontcourt.
 
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