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Is Tonight A Referendum On Jeff's Culture?

The thought process that leads to a question like this is one of the reasons this boards so crazily swings from one extreme of emotion to another. I understand that the tendency to place WAY too much importance on every single game is rampant among sports fans in general, but, man do we take it to a new level.

We beat TxTech and win at Neb and everyone is over the moon, our players are playing so hard and Buzz can coach after all! We lose at home to Richmond, barely beat High Point and lose at Seton Hall and it is the end of the world. Squeak one out against a decent Yale team - all is well. Lose to Wofford at home, OMG! the sky is falling, Wake should NEVER lose to Wofford, etc. Beat VaTech - we're AWESOME! Lose at Md (good come back, we're OK) then embarass ourselves at home against NCSU and it is ALL OVER... Freakin' turn out the lights, fire Buzz, cancel the season! Only partially get embarassed at Duke and then win on the road against a crappy BC team and we are AWESOME again...

I know it is hard but it would be nice if we could just even thing out a bit on the reaction side. No one game is a referendum on anything! We need to be looking at trends and tendencies over the long haul...
 
TBR said:
I see the difference as far as the team goes (though I don't think it's due to "culture change"*); I don't see the difference as far as those three players go. Those three guys have very strong intangibles and have from day one. You'd have to have been blind to have missed them last year.

*I see the improvement as a result of a year of experience, the leadership of CJ and McKie not wanting to let last year happen again, and the players being happy to be at Wake Forest (not necessarily attributable to culture change).
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Which three players are you referring to? CJ's leadership has grown exponentially. He wasn't this player last year, and as we've talked about at length elsewhere, his learning curve is abnormally good to say the least. Looked very deferential to a lot of guys last year both on the floor and in the huddle. Doesn't seem to be the case this year.

TC wasn't this player last year, either. I think he's a mediocre PG, but there's no denying how bad he wants it... A year of experience, sure, but this is more than that, in my opinion.

We agree on Ty, but that's already three players who have really thrived with this new group.

So, Travis and Nikita had it to begin with... Not sure that really changes the conversation that we're trying to have here.

Even considering the new guys on our team. They don't play a lot and have been inconsistent, but I've seen nothing to suggest attitude issues or questionable intangibles from Chase, Daniel, or Anthony.

If we can't come to agreement, then I think it's helpful that we talk about your meaning of culture. Not to sound like an Anthropology syllabus, but I think that designation is important, too.

For me, culture in sports is directly related to intangibles (leadership, drive/effort, basketball IQ, etc.)
 
In a way, every basketball game is a referendum on [Redacted]'s coaching abilities.
 
Not as concerned about the final score as I am about how we play overall. If we keep it under 10 points for 35 minutes and fade down the stretch to lose by 15 or so, that is ok. It is better than losing by only 10 but trailing the entire game by 20+ points. A run against their scrubs to make it close does not equal a solid performance.
 
Bzd's gonna be measured by seasons and half seasons. Not games. That's true for every Div 1 basketball coach.

Football is a little different. If Mark Richt loses 10 straight years to Georgia Tech, he could could lose his job. But basketball - no, there is never a one game referendum.

Dino didn't lose his job because we lost to Kentucky or even Cleveland State.
 
MBDeac08 said:
Not as concerned about the final score as I am about how we play overall. If we keep it under 10 points for 35 minutes and fade down the stretch to lose by 15 or so, that is ok. It is better than losing by only 10 but trailing the entire game by 20+ points. A run against their scrubs to make it close does not equal a solid performance.
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If each team plays to its abilities, we will lose by over 20.
 
not a referendum, however, every game is magnified at this point since there is very little tangible evidence pointing towards anything good. best we can do so far is say we "see" some improvement or some other subjective wording.

some of cj's improved play this year is directly related to playing pg last year. he certainly was not much more than serviceable there last year but it really helped him to become a better player this year. glad bzz has been able to keep him at his more natural position.
 
TexasDeac10 said:
Let's pump the breaks here. We're only 9 point dogs.
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seriously. FSU isn't exactly a juggernaut. Beating the spread will be a MINOR moral victory. Winning the game is a victory. Being competitive is a moral victory and a move in the right direction.
 
Buzz walked into the food court today, walked a lap around and left. It was like he couldn't find a friend to sit with.
 
deaconson said:
not a referendum, however, every game is magnified at this point since there is very little tangible evidence pointing towards anything good. best we can do so far is say we "see" some improvement or some other subjective wording.

some of cj's improved play this year is directly related to playing pg last year. he certainly was not much more than serviceable there last year but it really helped him to become a better player this year. glad bzz has been able to keep him at his more natural position.
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You're a goof. Tangible evidence:

* We just won a road conference game against a team that had won their first two home conference games

* We won our conference opener despite not playing great against what I think is a pretty good team, and we helped propel them into a 4-game funk

* We've won 2/3 of our games decided by under 8 points.

* The bulk of our scoring is coming from a junior, and two sophmores

* We've already won nearly 50% more games than last year

Coaching wise, here is what I've noticed:

* Bzd has slowed the offense after a fast break to reduce the number of possessions in a game, but when the score is close, with about 4 minutes left, he moves CJ to point, Tony to the wing (or on the bench), and has CJ attack early in the shot clock from the top of the key. Since we haven't attacked from the top of the key for the first 35 minutes pr early in the shot clock, it puts the defense off guard and CJ has been very successful getting to the rim and or getting fouled. This is not all CJ, it is also coaching. Now that I've pointed this out to you doof - you watch next close game (hopefully it is tonight)

* Bzd has got Nikita to play inside more and take 5 foot hook shots rather than crazy driving layups. Nikita still takes too many 3s, but 3s are hard to break

* Walker is playing the most productive minutes of his career

* We are using Fischer better and better each game.

* Tony is playing better to his skill set

I don't think Bzd is a world beater by any stretch of the imagination. Again, I do worry that his ceiling as the head of a college basketball program is lower than we need. His weakness is likely in motivating, reaching the heart of his players, but for fuck sake, little tangible evidence? We won 8 games all last year, lost two four star players in Ari and JT and replaced them two 3stars and a 2star. Come on
 
Culture change will come over a 2 or 3 year period as we get better players to go along with a more team based system. It is hard to have that much change with only CJ & Travis. Next year we add at least 3 more ACC starter types with some more bench
 
Wrong on a few different levels.

Culture change is a back end change. Has dick to the do with on court success.
 
Just saw Bzz running on the track in his jumpsuit.. Socks looked good, must be a sign that we will win.

Oh wait we suck.
 
Culture change is just a fancy way of saying you are going to weed out the players who are a cancer.

Bzz has already been successful in this regard.

Bone is 100% right about it being a back end process.
 
MACdeac said:
Just saw Bzz running on the track in his jumpsuit.
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t0803.gif



/dv7
 
My belief is that cultural change starts slowly and then begins to manifest itself at an increasing rate of speed. It seems that Jeff and the team have been building toward something this year. Tonight's match-up is a perfect chance to see if actual change is taking hold, as opposed to cosmetic changes. Florida State, as mentioned elsewhere, is big and deep with highly distributed scoring. For Wake to win it will require a deep commitment of the players and coaching staff to Jeff's system. If we see that commitment, I believe it will show that the cultural change has taken hold. If it is a thirty point blow out loss, then there has not been nearly the progress that I have hoped for at this point in time.
 
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