Georgia Aftermath

We were awful today. Just awful. Consider the result, and then look at Georgia’s stats. They turned the ball over 26 times. They shot 53% from the field, which is good (I know we’d take it in a heartbeat) but certainly not amazing. They made 80% of their freethrows, which is what scholarship basketball players are supposed to do. They even allowed us 19 offensive rebounds, which isn’t good either. And what do we have to show for all of UGA’s shortcomings? A 22 point loss. The bottom line is that Georgia is not a great basketball team. Even our performance today couldn’t make them look like a great basketball team.They may have won by 22, but I guarantee no one left that arena today saying that Georgia looked like a great basketball team. Both teams were bad, Wake was just much much worse. That says a lot.

If possible I’d like to start with some positives…19 offensive rebounds…13 steals…I think I’m done. I don’t feel like we played terrible defense, at least when we got set. In fact, we started the game playing pretty dang good defense. When thing got even worse offensively everything else followed, and so I’m not going to worry too much about the way our D looked in the last 10 minutes of the game (although that indicates we don't ever really seem to give it everything we've got for 40 minutes, so that's not good). Even before that, though, there were some pretty major question marks in transition defense and double teams that left people incredibly wide open. But considering everything else, the defense doesn’t need to take up too much of the criticism.

What in the world are we doing on offense? I certainly can’t figure it out, and so far I haven’t heard anyone with a good explanation. I hope I can find Dino’s post game press conference audio somewhere, maybe he has an explanation. 65 total shots, 20 of them went in the basket. We were 4-22 from beyond the arc – 19% Seriously? What happened? This was not the team we saw play at Vanderbilt earlier in the week. I could have gone over to Reynolds Gym on a Friday afternoon and picked up 4 guys to play with me that could have stayed with the team today. We could just jack up threes and probably make enough to stay close as long as they shot those percentages. Many people are questioning if there is an offensive strategy/plays/anything for the Deacs, and to be honest I’m starting to question it myself. We don’t have great ball movement from anywhere on the floor, I see very few screens off the ball, and I hardly see anyone making cuts to get open. These are things my dad taught me when I was seven or eight years old! Isn’t this simple basketball knowledge? Beyond lacking a strategy, we have no one who can shoot consistently, and when we don't shoot well we have no confidence. From all reports coming out of practice, everyone shoots lights out both from the field and at the line. Then we get in a game and no one can shoot. After 10 minutes of making one in every 5 shots the team's confidence is entirely gone and we're trying to figure out how to climb out of a hole without the confidence that we can do it. Ain't gonna happen.

I don’t think its time to start blaming Dino, but I would like to know exactly what it is the team is working on offensively. It’s clear we’ve come a long way defensively, but that doesn’t matter if you only score 21 points in a half. You can only keep them from scoring so much. Dino clearly has a lot of basketball knowledge, a strong desire to win, and a great relationship with his players. I’m confident he can get this job done and that we need to give him some time, but as a fan its impossible not to be upset about our current offensive output. Clearly there are some personnel issues, but they may not be the ones we thought they were. The middle is still somewhat of an issue (no points for Chas, 6 for Skeen today), but we don't have anyone who can shoot consistently at the 2, and neither Ish nor Teague are currently playing well at the point. We need them to develop there quickly, because we won’t have anyone coming in that plays those positions until at least 2009. The job is theirs; it’s up to them to make something of it.

I’m not claiming the impending doom of this team. I’m not ready to give up on this season. We have the ability to play like we did against Vanderbilt the other night, but then we also play like this today. I hope we can play the way we did against Vandy more often, or at least find a happy medium, but we may not. Most likely this won’t be the last time this season we play like this, but I think we’ll also see several more games like we played against Vanderbilt and maybe surprise some people for victories. I still don’t think we’ll be 11th or 12th in the ACC; we will win some games and surprise some people, even if we lose a couple games we probably shouldn't. I don’t think it’s time to panic. By all means please be frustrated. I hope you’re frustrated. I hope the team is frustrated. I hope Coach is frustrated. But at this point panicking and giving up is not the answer for any of us. The season is young and we have 6 games until we really get into the conference schedule. We’re still young and inexperienced, and for all their mistakes there is clearly some great talent on the team. After today I don’t think it can go any way but up, and knowing our players and coaches they will make sure it does.

Disagree with me? Let me know by leaving a message in the comments below. We’ll talk about it.