• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Richmond @ Wake Forest - 7pm - ESPN3 - Prediction/Game Thread

Deacsfan27 said:
He somehow failed to live up to expectations and when we heard that he committed we could not find him anywhere on the Internet (seriously). That's impressive.
Click to expand...

Shocking to many of us.
 
DeacsATS said:
I don't have a problem w/ much that Manning said in that press conference. He's definitely cagey with some answers, but I'd prefer he deal with a lot of this stuff internally.

Yeah, Collins should play more. Those minutes should come directly from O'Brien. I'm not as down on Dinos as most here seem to be. When he's hot, I like that he can pretty much get his 3 up at will. The fadeaway 3 out of the timeout was a bad shot, but I didn't like Crawford's 24 footer, either (it just happened to go in). The whole team fell apart at the end... Not just Dinos.
Click to expand...

Agree with this. All this bashing of Dinos is uncalled for. Part of the reason his defense is getting exposed so much in the first three games is because our guards cannot stay in front of their man. Once Codi and Crab return, I think it'll be pretty east to hide Dinos' defensive weaknesses. He's fully capable of guarding post players' but when Wilbekin and Crawford (and TVH) consistently get beat off the dribble, forcing our defense to rotate all over the place, we are fucked. Dinos is not nearly quick enough. With that being said, Dinos' D on the high ball screen last night was pretty pathetic. He would half-ass his hedge and then kinda hesitate in between his man and the PG before recovering. This lead to a couple wide open 3s for Cline (think he made 2).

People really need to step with the "Collins is better than Dinos already" garbage. They are completely different players. I'm as bullish on JC as anyone here except for 22, and there are plenty of minutes to go around. Devin and Dinos can play 30 a game, JC 20, and Moore stepping in when anyone gets in foul trouble, which will happen a lot given the new officiating rules.
 
I'm not hating on Dinos, I'm merely pointing out that he is very bad on defense. Yes he brings rebounding and a three point threat, but if the shots aren't taken in the flow of the offense it is hurting us too. I think 30 minutes is too many for a player who is a big defensive liability.
 
One thing this game showed me is that I think Bryant can play off the ball some once Codi gets back. I wouldn't be surprised to see those two start and then when MW comes in just put the whoever is in at the point. Crawford is going to be really good once he learns through his mistakes. That's a positive to getting 30 minutes a game to start your collegiate career-you grow up fast.
 
Crawford has that killer mentality that very few have. He's exceeded my expectations offensively so far.
 
Dinos, Collins, Devin, and Doral got 79 of the 80 minutes available last night at the 4 and 5 spots.

You only have two options - play someone out of position or shuffle minutes. Not sure how you take away minutes from Devin who is an automatic double-double, and Doral only played 6. So that leaves taking minutes from Dinos and giving them to Collins. I'm not opposed to that, except that moving forward Dinos is one of (if not our best) outside threat and is shooting 85% from the line, whereas Collins is basically a younger Devin with a higher ceiling. If you say this year's goal is the NCAA tournament, Dinos is a key starter on a team that has that kind of success. Collins is probably not. So I can't fault the effort to get him going early.

The other option would put Dinos or Collins out on the perimeter handling the ball and defending shooting guards, running guard rotations on offense, etc. This early in the season you'd probably have to go 2-3 zone on defense and hope you don't turn it over 30 times having to play a Crawford/VahHorn/3 big men offense at times.

Missing two starters is a big deal. The freshmen had played 2 whole games prior to last night. It's easy as a fan to just say give player X's minutes to someone else, but there are real tradeoffs when guys are just starting to learn their position in Manning's offense.
 
I think the fans need a pass. We're enduring our 7th straight non winning season in FB and headed to the 7th season in a row w/o a post season invite in BB. Has any other ACC program suffered through anything like this in recent memory? At this point the only way to win the fans back is to at least have a product on the floor that offers hope.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
On Collins: "The guy he is playing behind got a double-double, and the two guys in front of him are playing very well....Devin and Dinos both had double-doubles tonight, so it's not like the guys playing now aren't efficient or effective"

Listening to it now for more.
Click to expand...

That's the kind of shit you say that makes players want to transfer.
 
I didn't read through this thread last night and don't have time to today, but as discouraging as it is to lose a key, early, non-conference game, there are a lot of positive takeaways from the game. From an individual player standpoint, we have 2 Freshman that are ACC ready players, IMO(Craw, Collins). Once this team gets Codi back, and hopefully Crab, we will not be an easy team for anyone in our league to play. I can see us feasibly finishing .500 or a game above .500 in league play this year.

I bet we don't have 20 TO's in any other game after Maui, and probably not in Maui either. I know a bold prediction, but I'm going to bank it.
 
TownieDeac said:
That's the kind of shit you say that makes players want to transfer.
Click to expand...

Not when one of the players is a senior and the other may not return.
 
Yeah, I think it is way too early to speculate about a Collins transfer due to lack of minutes, but I did notice he didn't react very well to something Manning said in the huddle in the 2nd half. At least that is what it looked like to me. Anyone else notice this?

I'm still in the camp that there are enough minutes for the Dinos/DT/Collins at the 4/5... 30/30/20, with Collins stealing few minutes at the 3 and Doral getting a few at the 5.
 
PhDeac said:
Not when one of the players is a senior and the other may not return.
Click to expand...

It's not a motivating statement, it's not a helpful statement of any kind. It's not saying "he needs to work on xyz." It's saying "these minutes are not available now because players putting up middling double-double efforts are out there. Maybe next year, kid."
 
Winnable game. No veteran presence on the perimeter really hurt us in two aspects: (i) Really terrible perimeter defense the entire game and (ii) no veteran ballhandler to select the right shots in crunch time.

Dinos will help this team, but he is really a one trick pony and is going to get exposed if not used properly. Even though he is a stretch 4, he cannot guard a stretch 3/4 on the other end. Crab would have really helped last night.
 
TownieDeac said:
It's not a motivating statement, it's not a helpful statement of any kind. It's not saying "he needs to work on xyz." It's saying "these minutes are not available now because players putting up middling double-double efforts are out there. Maybe next year, kid."
Click to expand...

True. And Collins can make a strong case that he would put up those numbers too if given the minutes.
 
We've played 3 games. Collins is going to be our starting 4 very soon. Manning is just making him earn it. He's probably harder on the big men, but that is what we are paying him to do, coach up the big men.

CMM, Crawford, Crab, Collins and DT are our 5 best at this point and should start, with MW, Dinos, McC and Doral coming off the bench in that order.

That's a more talented lineup than we've had in a looong time. It may take a few more bad games before they gel but I like the potential based on the talent alone.
 
TheTwinAndreBen said:
Winnable game. No veteran presence on the perimeter really hurt us in two aspects: (i) Really terrible perimeter defense the entire game and (ii) no veteran ballhandler to select the right shots in crunch time.

Dinos will help this team, but he is really a one trick pony and is going to get exposed if not used properly. Even though he is a stretch 4, he cannot guard a stretch 3/4 on the other end. Crab would have really helped last night.
Click to expand...

His threes are nice, but you can't hide him on defense. Not only does his man score but often other players do when teammates have to switch when he is beaten.

Have no earthly idea what he was thinking when he switched off Kline the last time leaving him to drain a wide open three when we had cut the lead to around 5 point. Killer.
 
If we really are a bubble team this year, and I'm not convinced we are, it seems like a game like last night would certainly help our chances, especially with the ridiculously tough schedule we have this year. I like our squad going forward too, but sacrificing wins for teaching moments doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Seems like you can have it both ways, and plenty of good coaches do.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
This is basically where I'm at.

At the risk of this further becoming an echo chamber, here are my thoughts on last night:

1.) Why is O'Brien on the floor at all? I understand TVH (and I actually disagree with FckVwls that TVH should be limited to 10 minutes in that rotation... Maybe now with Hudson back, but not last night), but O'Brien has to the worst player we've had on the floor in meaningful minutes in years. He is a complete nonfactor on both sides of the floor. I remember thinking when he put him in with ~6 minutes left in 1H that it was just Manning trying to get McClinton some rest going into the under 4 timeout, and then he stayed in past that. Makes no sense.

2.) I don't really have a problem with Dinos playing over Collins. I do have a problem with Collins not eating up every one of those 19 minutes without Dinos or DT. I think some here are ignoring some of Collins flaws, mainly that he is more of a flashy defender than a good one (those fouls came pretty damn fast). I mean, yeah, he's still streets ahead of Dinos on that end of the floor, but it's not like he's going to solve our defensive woes, either. And he's a pretty bad FT shooter so far (SSS, I know). If you want to take 3-5 minutes from Dinos and give them to Collins, fine, but I don't think it's necessary to give JC the bulk of Dinos' PT.

3.) That zone. After being stubbornly adamant that you're not going to run a zone for the first, what, ~35 appearances here, you run a 2-3 zone for the first time against a team that, at that point in the game, was shooting 80%+ from deep? What? Look, I'm firmly of the belief that we should be running situational matchup zones at the very least, but not then. Not there. Especially not when it's as raw and lazy as whatever the hell that was. Hell, we were having trouble keeping up with screen rotations in M2M. Why let Richmond exploit that even more? It made no damn sense. I couldn't believe he stuck with it through two possessions, and he ended up sticking with it for a solid five minutes. Brutal.

All of this being said, I generally like Manning as a game coach. His mistakes this season, IMO, come down to that one persistent sub pattern (O'Brien over McClinton/JC, TVH over McClinton in crunchtime), which should be mostly fixed for Maui when Hudson gets back, and that zone, which I assume/hope was a one-time screwup, or at least something that will get better over time with practice.

I don't really care about his postgame comments, for the same reasons as ATS. I prefer he handles most of that stuff internally, and I'm willing to give him enough credit to assume he knows about things like Dinos' defensive woes and what Collins is capable of. As others have said, he took friggin' Tulsa to a top 30 defensive team in a year. That doesn't happen on accident.

(The turnovers, on the other hand, well... IIRC, that was an issue with his Tulsa teams, too, and I assume that's a product of pushing the tempo like his teams have tended to do.)
Click to expand...

Good post. GDO had his flaws, but he was a good defensive coach and could mix/match different zones with man to man. I recall him using a 3-2 and 1-3-1 at times against good shooting teams with success.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top