Wake Forest vs. Pitt Game Thread - We Are Such Losers

[DCDeac]

So if coaching has nothing to do with blocking out, effort on the boards, making poor decisions on inbound passes, taking bad shots, making too many turnovers, and using timeouts in key situations, what are paying a coach for?

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that other than it's not a game-by-game thing. I mean, look at our horrible free throw shooting. Wilbekin, Dinos, Collins are the only regulars shooting over 70%. All Manning guys. Codi, Devin, Mclinton - all under 60%. Guess who they belong to. That's a season-by-season improvement stat, and while the coach is absolutely responsible for it, the truth is some guys can improve, some guys can't - mostly it's recruiting the right players.

I think that was our first look at the matchup zone last night as well. It actually worked pretty damn well if only we could have rebounded out of it (and if Wilbekin could challenge a shooter). It's effort, sure - but rebounding out of a zone takes repetition and practice, so it's not that surprising that we struggled. At one point in the game though they had like 15 offensive boards but only 10 points off them, so the net benefit was there - just hit a few damn free throws.

Timeouts are fair game - that's bothered me as well although our fast break is probably our best weapon so I'm not as critical as some (but there have certainly been some extremely questionable timeout usage).

 

[DCDeac]

Moore even giving up those 3 point plays was by far one of our 5 best players last night. Dinos got 27 of the 80 post minutes last night and collected zero rebounds and got constantly abused inside for points.

Dinos also sent it to OT with that clutch 3. I would have played Moore with Devin in OT as well, I'm just saying that considering Moore scored 6 in 13 minutes and gave up 6 in 20 seconds on defense, I don't think it's unjustifiable. Plus Collins got a lot of his minutes down the stretch and in the OT's at Dinos' expense. The funny thing is on the game-tying 3 he gave up, Dinos actually closed out well, didn't go the fake, then contested the shot perfectly - kid threw up a moonball that somehow dropped. Typical for Wake Forest this year.

 

[ChrisL68]

Dinos also sent it to OT with that clutch 3. I would have played Moore with Devin in OT as well, I'm just saying that considering Moore scored 6 in 13 minutes and gave up 6 in 20 seconds on defense, I don't think it's unjustifiable. Plus Collins got a lot of his minutes down the stretch and in the OT's at Dinos' expense. The funny thing is on the game-tying 3 he gave up, Dinos actually closed out well, didn't go the fake, then contested the shot perfectly - kid threw up a moonball that somehow dropped. Typical for Wake Forest this year.

You are picking and choosing Moore's plays to support your conclusion. How about the last play where he was in in the 2nd half where he disrupted a shot, corralled the rebound and outlet the ball that led to an easy layup? He altered other shots in addition to his 2 blocks.

At the end of the day, Moore was in 13 minutes and we were +5 and Dino was in 27 minutes and we were -13.

 

[liveanddiedeac]

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that other than it's not a game-by-game thing. I mean, look at our horrible free throw shooting. Wilbekin, Dinos, Collins are the only regulars shooting over 70%. All Manning guys. Codi, Devin, Mclinton - all under 60%. Guess who they belong to. That's a season-by-season improvement stat, and while the coach is absolutely responsible for it, the truth is some guys can improve, some guys can't - mostly it's recruiting the right players.

I think that was our first look at the matchup zone last night as well. It actually worked pretty damn well if only we could have rebounded out of it (and if Wilbekin could challenge a shooter). It's effort, sure - but rebounding out of a zone takes repetition and practice, so it's not that surprising that we struggled. At one point in the game though they had like 15 offensive boards but only 10 points off them, so the net benefit was there - just hit a few damn free throws.

Timeouts are fair game - that's bothered me as well although our fast break is probably our best weapon so I'm not as critical as some (but there have certainly been some extremely questionable timeout usage).

I get what you're saying, but I think it is troubling that we're not seeing improvement as the season has gone on in those areas. A coach can't solve all the woes of his team in a week, but in a season you hope to to incremental improvement, not back tracking.

 

[Azdeac]

I agree with everything you have said. Obviously, Skip was a far better coach than Buzz or Manning.....but that's not setting the bar very high. I guess that I just get frustrated by the fact that so many posters cannot separate Skip the Man from Skip the Coach. As a person, Skip Prosser may well be the most admirable person who ever represented WF. They just don't come any better than Skip. As a coach, he was average to slightly above average, in my opinion. He attracted good talent because of the kind of person he was...so that would ensure that we would always be competitive. As a bench coach, though, he was only average...and that is what would have always kept us from deep advancements into the NCAA Tournament. Skip could beat the teams he was supposed to beat, but he almost never won games when he had to outcoach the other team. His post-season record is evidence of this. However, there can be no question that his integrity was such that you couldn't find a better person to represent the University.

This ^^^^ is correct. And I would take that again in a heartbeat - what we have now is downright disgusting.

 

[wfu22fan]

You are picking and choosing Moore's plays to support your conclusion. How about the last play where he was in in the 2nd half where he disrupted a shot, corralled the rebound and outlet the ball that led to an easy layup? He altered other shots in addition to his 2 blocks.

At the end of the day, Moore was in 13 minutes and we were +5 and Dino was in 27 minutes and we were -13.

This is spot on

 

[DCDeac]

You are picking and choosing Moore's plays to support your conclusion. How about the last play where he was in in the 2nd half where he disrupted a shot, corralled the rebound and outlet the ball that led to an easy layup? He altered other shots in addition to his 2 blocks.

At the end of the day, Moore was in 13 minutes and we were +5 and Dino was in 27 minutes and we were -13.

I mean, I wanted him to play so no disagreement. I'm just saying if you're not staring down the +/- numbers, he scored 6 points in 13 minutes but looked outmatched against Young giving up 6 points on consecutive possessions. Dinos scored our first 7 points of the game and hit a huge 3 off a broken play that almost won the game. Collins and Moore were also 1 for 7 from the free throw line. Then again zero rebounds might be just as painful a number as 14% from the line. But that's the problem with this team - one player giveth, another taketh away. Lost in this is just another no-show by Wilbekin - made an open three 5 minutes in, nothing for the entire rest of the game. Meanwhile Chris Jones with 23 for, let's repeat it again, a career high.

 

[Pilchard]

In late game situations when WF is tied or behind, Mitogulo has got to sit when there is a dead ball and WF is on defense. WF just gets killed on the boards in the final minutes of close games and Mitogulo seems prone to foul in those situations (fwiw, Thomas doesn't seem to get many boards in those situations either; Hudson actually got two key defensive rebounds).

This team hasn't won in more than a month, and the season is a disaster. So, any defense of Manning is hard to accept. This truly is a team that is less than the sum of its parts as there have been points this season when 7 or 8 different players on this team have looked dominant or close to it. The failure to get more out of this group with some talent falls squarely on the coaches. The most talented players on the roster are freshman; so, there is some hope. It's just soul-crushing to watch the games knowing that the Deacs will implode in the final minutes, while momentarily convincing yourself that this game will be different, only to suffer through another collapse. It's Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown every game.

It's not worth much, but: a) the team has played better the past 3 road games (but still lost), b) the team still tries hard (but not giving up is not really that much of a bench-mark); c) Hudson turned the corner last night. even with his key mistakes (WF got hosed on the out of bounds call), he showed the talent that could make him a very good 3; d) by the end of next year, Moore and Collins could be ridiculously good front-court; e) after going through a stretch when he was a net negative, Crawford demonstrated that he can takeover games at key points (he also showed an inability to maximize the possibility of victory with the ball in his hands at key moments). In sum a lot of bad, which makes it hard to see the good, but there was some good, just not enough.

 

[DCDeac]

Was a bummer that Crawford had two good chances to win the game, settled for a 3 and missed, then started to drive but looked like he was indecisive and tried a weird baseline runner/jumper type thing that never had a chance. Bet he learns from those for the next close one.

 

[Dkin]

Nothing more frustrating for me as when we're tied in the endgame and our PG doesn't try to get in the lane where there are options.

 

[ericstratton]

I'm finding it increasingly implausible that we have people who continue to be so invested in the team that they devote so much time to analyzing the coaching, defense, substitution patterns, etc.

Give it up folks. Check back in say, in 2022. At that point Wellman should be gone and maybe we'll have some remote chance of being relevant. The next few years will be like the last 6, though. Laughingstock. Save your energy for something that has some hope attached to it. The Wake basketball program does not.

 

[Deac65]

Your obsession is flattering.

From day 1 I said this team's expectation should be the NIT. I've called this year a failure of coaching a dozen times over the course of the season. With Codi's injury and then playing like ass I think our ceiling was more like VaTech/NC State, pardon me if I could give a shit if we win 1 or 3 or 5 ACC games on the way to missing another postseason.

The problem is that if you think coaching lost the game last night then you're an idiot. We missed half our free throws and gave up a million offensive boards, including an offensive rebound that gave up the 3 to send it to overtime. You don't hear a word about how productive our offense must have been to send the game to double OT on the road to a likely NCAA team with those free throw and rebounding stats - just how Manning's an idiot for not playing Moore in OT. The same posters who blasted Manning for not putting Wilbekin on the floor in a free throw situation are blasting him for running an ISO for him this time with a timeout available. Wilbekin gets stuck in quicksand, Codi panics and doesn't call a timeout and throws a horrible pass. UVA runs the exact same split all the time with Brogdon when he gets single coverage. We scored on like our first 3 consecutive set inbounds plays as well but who cares, coach is a moron.

Manning may fail or succeed at Wake, but all these armchair coaches calling him an idiot or that he knows nothing about coaching - it's just laughable. Is it reasonable to disagree on Moore not playing in OT? Sure. Did Moore give up rally-killing consecutive 3 point plays earlier in the game? Yes. Everyone kicked and screamed about Trent VanHorn's PT early in the season even when we were winning - later Manning tightens the rotation like most wanted and we start losing. 10 different posters throw 20 different lineups out - Dinos at the 3, Codi on the bench, bring back McClinton, etc - when Manning plays with odd lineups he gets torched as if there's some magic winning lineup he's not using.

Another routine comment - Manning never plays zone. Actually we've broken out a zone for multiple possessions in just about every game sine Indiana, and against Pitt we ran a 2-3 and a matchup zone at them for much of the game. We struggled to rebound out of that zone which is the usual trade off - and now Manning can't coach effort.

This year has been a pick-your-poison experience, cemented in horrid free throw shooting and inconsistent play from everyone not named Devin Thomas we just a very flawed team. There is a ton of fair criticism for lineups, minutes, energy, etc - and there's no arguing the aggregate is a truly horrid, epically bad season. In my opinion, Manning looks like a coach that has a very, very difficult time straying from his plan. Moore is a project, develop him in practice, play him 4 minutes a game, plan for the future. When he proved himself early there was no adjustment to the plan. Same with the starting lineup, with Codi, with switching defenses, etc. Same with Dinos, although he has drastically reduced his minutes - it just took forever. I've heard Manning believes in earning change in practice, not in games - and all fans see is games. Until we actual win there will always be a disconnect there.

I think there's still hope that he can build a good program on the backs of guys like Crawford, Moore, and Collins. Everyone keeps talking Tony Bennett - but he lost over 30 games in his first two years and didn't win a real ACC tournament game or an NCAA tournament game until year 5 - and he had legit talent in Mike Scott and Joe Harris among others.

Is my belief that he's going to be successful diminished after this year? Sure. But the sky-is-falling internet warriors that think the majority of the basketball world is simply wrong about Manning and that he's spent almost 15 years coaching only to become a bumbling moron of a coach is just as ridiculous as second guessing every coaching move in a game we that we should have coasted to an easy win.

So yeah, I guess DCDeac defends. But if you know the first thing about basketball it's virtually impossible not to given how hypocritical so many of the criticisms are.

A welcome voice of reason. I've said it before, the problem is really a lack of talent, How many of our guys would be playing significant minutes for an upper-echelon ACC team?

 

[Lohengrin]

I'm finding it increasingly implausible that we have people who continue to be so invested in the team that they devote so much time to analyzing the coaching, defense, substitution patterns, etc.

Give it up folks. Check back in say, in 2022. At that point Wellman should be gone and maybe we'll have some remote chance of being relevant. The next few years will be like the last 6, though. Laughingstock. Save your energy for something that has some hope attached to it. The Wake basketball program does not.

I know, right? What's. The. Point?

 

[ChrisL68]

Was a bummer that Crawford had two good chances to win the game, settled for a 3 and missed, then started to drive but looked like he was indecisive and tried a weird baseline runner/jumper type thing that never had a chance. Bet he learns from those for the next close one.

Is this surprising? Crawford has made bad late game choice since 2016 began.

 

[wfu22fan]

Your obsession is flattering.

From day 1 I said this team's expectation should be the NIT. I've called this year a failure of coaching a dozen times over the course of the season. With Codi's injury and then playing like ass I think our ceiling was more like VaTech/NC State, pardon me if I could give a shit if we win 1 or 3 or 5 ACC games on the way to missing another postseason.

The problem is that if you think coaching lost the game last night then you're an idiot. We missed half our free throws and gave up a million offensive boards, including an offensive rebound that gave up the 3 to send it to overtime. You don't hear a word about how productive our offense must have been to send the game to double OT on the road to a likely NCAA team with those free throw and rebounding stats - just how Manning's an idiot for not playing Moore in OT. The same posters who blasted Manning for not putting Wilbekin on the floor in a free throw situation are blasting him for running an ISO for him this time with a timeout available. Wilbekin gets stuck in quicksand, Codi panics and doesn't call a timeout and throws a horrible pass. UVA runs the exact same split all the time with Brogdon when he gets single coverage. We scored on like our first 3 consecutive set inbounds plays as well but who cares, coach is a moron.

Manning may fail or succeed at Wake, but all these armchair coaches calling him an idiot or that he knows nothing about coaching - it's just laughable. Is it reasonable to disagree on Moore not playing in OT? Sure. Did Moore give up rally-killing consecutive 3 point plays earlier in the game? Yes. Everyone kicked and screamed about Trent VanHorn's PT early in the season even when we were winning - later Manning tightens the rotation like most wanted and we start losing. 10 different posters throw 20 different lineups out - Dinos at the 3, Codi on the bench, bring back McClinton, etc - when Manning plays with odd lineups he gets torched as if there's some magic winning lineup he's not using.

Another routine comment - Manning never plays zone. Actually we've broken out a zone for multiple possessions in just about every game sine Indiana, and against Pitt we ran a 2-3 and a matchup zone at them for much of the game. We struggled to rebound out of that zone which is the usual trade off - and now Manning can't coach effort.

This year has been a pick-your-poison experience, cemented in horrid free throw shooting and inconsistent play from everyone not named Devin Thomas we just a very flawed team. There is a ton of fair criticism for lineups, minutes, energy, etc - and there's no arguing the aggregate is a truly horrid, epically bad season. In my opinion, Manning looks like a coach that has a very, very difficult time straying from his plan. Moore is a project, develop him in practice, play him 4 minutes a game, plan for the future. When he proved himself early there was no adjustment to the plan. Same with the starting lineup, with Codi, with switching defenses, etc. Same with Dinos, although he has drastically reduced his minutes - it just took forever. I've heard Manning believes in earning change in practice, not in games - and all fans see is games. Until we actual win there will always be a disconnect there.

I think there's still hope that he can build a good program on the backs of guys like Crawford, Moore, and Collins. Everyone keeps talking Tony Bennett - but he lost over 30 games in his first two years and didn't win a real ACC tournament game or an NCAA tournament game until year 5 - and he had legit talent in Mike Scott and Joe Harris among others.

Is my belief that he's going to be successful diminished after this year? Sure. But the sky-is-falling internet warriors that think the majority of the basketball world is simply wrong about Manning and that he's spent almost 15 years coaching only to become a bumbling moron of a coach is just as ridiculous as second guessing every coaching move in a game we that we should have coasted to an easy win.

So yeah, I guess DCDeac defends. But if you know the first thing about basketball it's virtually impossible not to given how hypocritical so many of the criticisms are.

You make some good points but you are wrong if you are contending that DM has proven to be a good game coach, particularly in end of game situations. But maybe you are right and everyone who I have talked to this year about WF hoops is wrong.

 

[Bluegrass Deac]

Is this surprising? Crawford has made bad late game choice since 2016 began.

Given how clutch he was in the end against Indiana, with two huge drives, one from each side of the basket, made last night's step back three attempt even more frustrating. That and the score being tied.

 

[Strattocaster]

I know Coach K, Bennett, Dean Smith, and other good coaches struggled their first few years. Does anyone remember if they had the same issues that we are seeing from Manning or if they just didn't have the talent to compete? My concern with Manning is the pattern of total lack of effort, fundamentals, sub patterns, timeouts, etc.

 

[RacerDeac]

DCDeac just enjoys arguing against the obvious, I assume, in some hope to be7 able to say "told you so" later. He did the same thing with [Redacted].

 

[DCDeac]

DCDeac just enjoys arguing against the obvious, I assume, in some hope to be7 able to say "told you so" later. He did the same thing with [Redacted].

I love this myth that I defended [Redacted]. I have absolutely zero interest in "told you so" nonsense on an internet message board with strangers. I do love the game of basketball and enjoy discussing it, even when we suck balls.

I hated the [Redacted] hire and said so. I liked the Manning hire and said so. We'll see how it goes next year. [Redacted] was essentially skipping a recruiting class while Manning was bringing in the Collins/Crawford/Moore class if you line up year 1, so some level of optimism is not as ridiculous as those that enjoy wallowing in our failures would lead us to believe.

These simpleton arguments where posters try to paint everyone into some extreme corner are exactly like the worst parts of the politics board. I'm sure it makes you feel better about trashing the program to paint posters as moron [Redacted] supporters or Manning as being "clueless" about basketball - which he's devoted his entire life to. You and 22fan can just keep up the vitriol if it makes your days brighter.

 

[Shake]

Just because DM has devoted his life to basketball doesn't make him a good coach or the right person to make Wake relevant. He knew what he was getting into and makes a lot of money. I'm also not seeing any effort with the fan base. He's very stubborn and if you're going to lose like this at least work the fans and give us some hope. VT's ceiling is not as high as ours but Buzz has done much more in his second year than DM by a long shot.