Winning ones. And we were beating ND for the majority of the game so I think it's an gross oversimplification to say that our gameplan was to hope they ran out of gas.
Listen, I'm not rushing to be the [Redacted] defender, but we find ways to blame him for pretty much every loss and everything wrong with our basketball team. Fine, he deserves that and I hope he's gone next year. But when we do win, he should also share in the credit. And if he's a bad recruiter, bad leader, bad under pressure, and a bad motivator, then I'm deductively reasoning that what's left is his basketball knowledge.
I'm not talking about whether we won or not. I'm asking if you can ID the gameplan that we executed to win those games:
Calling the ND gameplan "hope they ran out of gas" is not an oversimplification. Watch the game and imagine that they didn't lose their best player and half of their bench.
We beat State on a last second shot after they shot 20 more FG than we did, but made just 41% FG.
We were in a one-possession game with ND even though they shot 39% FG and had 14 more FG.
We beat UNC after they attempted 20+ more shots than we did, but only made 38% of them.
And the best part about college basketball seasons is that we get large sample sizes. We know that it's not our 3FG D, especially after the way that we lost to Duke, GT, etc. Though Buzz gets credit for the Ws, he doesn't get credit for improvement.
The takeaway from our "big" wins this year
should be that we can beat below-average teams that play us either at 1/2 strength (Richmond, ND, VT, and USC), miserable teams well worse than we are (Colgate, VMI, Jacksonville, Citadel, Presbyterian, Tulane, UNCG and St Bonnie's), and teams that can't hit the broadside of a barn (UNC and NCState). We know that these are not exceptions, but rather the rule, in part because we have lost games where teams have either found their shooting touch (Syracuse, Duke, KU, UVA, Pitt, and Tennessee) or against teams of similar levels of suckitude (GT, Clemson, and Xavier).
I'll take a stab at answering my own question - Buzz's game plan is to collapse on an opponent's interior defense early and often, asking Codi, Madison, and Bill to drive and look for Devin and Cav inside while Travis holds down open "garbage" looks on the perimeter. As we saw vs. Duke, Pitt, and Syracuse, this can work for typically one half before the opposing coach is able to adjust accordingly. Either we respond by reverting to Buzz-ball, passing around the perimeter until we get a less contested look (usually most open are Travis, Bill, and Cav). We then rely on poor perimeter shooters making perimeter jumpers, or poor offensive rebounders getting looks inside.
IF all of that works and with a dab of clutch-luck (CMM's game-winner, for instance), then you get a W over an average team. If all of that doesn't work, then you get the "one half won" and/or "we played hard"-moral victories that we've become accustomed to in the Buzz-era.
How was that?