Put your post-game thoughts here.
Put your post-game thoughts here.
JBDuke
Andre Dawkins: “People ask me if I can still shoot, and I ask them if they can still breathe. That’s kind of the same thing.”
Great game by miles and Kelly. I thought K made some mistakes tonight with his lineup at times.
I was probably most impressed with Kelly taking the ball inside. We need more of that.
Couple of rebounds and then throwing it back up when clock was the issue. Curry and Ryan were the culprits. Just not thinking.
Glad for the 8-0 on the road, but sloppy end.
On to Saturday and the ACC regular season championship on the line.
GTHC!
Congrats on an undefeated ACC road season! I've come to expect games like this, so whatever. Surprised and a little disappointed Gbinije didn't get a little more burn; really, he would have been the perfect guy to guard their undersized, mobile, hot-shooting PF who was abusing Mase and Ryan early. But Gbinije left him to help on a fast break early on and gave up a 3, and never saw the court again. I suppose K's going to run with the horses he has at this point, and just wants to get the most reps with them as possible at this point.
Re: Andre - the only thing that drives me crazy about him is his defensive slides. A shooter is going to be streaky, so that doesn't bother me, but he seems to completely forget this extremely fundamental aspect of basketball at times. There was one time in particular today where he was iso'd 30 feet from the basket, D'ing up McKie (I think), and instead of sliding laterally when McKie made his move, he just turned and stood up straight. We do this too often anyway, which I generally excuse as necessary turning-and-chasing due to lack of lateral quickness. However, McKie hadn't turned the corner on Dre when he stood up, and he didn't even try to stay in front of him. Not one slide. Love the kid, but I wonder what he's thinking sometimes...
Anyway, I thought our defense continued to look much better for the first 28 minutes tonight. Wake may have helped us a bit in that respect, but it was our third game in six days. W's a W.
Hope Curry's knee and Kelly's ankle are alright, as they both tweaked them in the 2nd half. I was surprised Curry came back.
We were sloppy down the stretch but the guys hung on to finish 8-0 in ACC road games. That is an awesome accomplishment. Congratulations to the players!!!
Bob Green
How we got the W left quite a few things to be desired. But we go the W and that's the important thing. 8-0 on the road in the ACC with this crew is quite an accomplishment. Though it is essentially meaningless, if K doesn't get ACC coach of the year for this team's accomplishments then it will be a real head-scratcher.
I thought we were very fortunate on the block call that gave Mason an and-1 in those closing minutes to end Wake's spurt. I totally thought he charged in that one, and if the charge was called we could very well be looking at a different result.
Our offense was really bad those final 10 minutes. We seemed mentally checked out of the game. Nobody valued the ball, I think we had 3 or 4 straight possessions with turnovers. The defense was ok overall, on some sequences we looked impressive, on others we looked same 'ol - same 'ol for this season.
Our big guys got excellent looks underneath but once again, Mason specifically, had trouble finishing around the basket. This again creates the illusion that we rely on the perimeter too heavily. It almost looks like Mason's hurt because it doesn't even appear to be getting any lift. Whatever it is, it needs to be gone by Saturday.
Curry looked great tonight, especially driving the ball. Kelly was terrific on offense, I love those curls on the elbow. Miles' defense was terrific. If we advance deep in March, it's probably going to be because of him.
"Just be you. You is Enough."
Jipops, would you mind elaborating a bit here? I could not watch the game (don't get ESPNU) but from the box score it looks like Miles and Mason only attempted 7 shots combined. Were some of Mason's attempts discounted because he was fouled in the act of shooting?
While trying not to harp too much after a win, I will say that I really hope we're not abandoning the balanced inside-outside approach we took earlier in the year. We beat some very good teams early in the season this way, and it seems like a game against Wake would have been a perfect opportunity to get our bigs a tuneup before facing a much better frontline on Saturday. Again though, I could be totally off on our actual strategy, since all I could do was follow gametracker and read the box score.
Ummm, glad we won. Nice starting 10 minutes of the 2nd half - locked in, playing well. Then our guys fell asleep. I actually thought I saw a couple of them wearing jammies on court. I'm sure Coach K will use the last 10 minutes to teach/motivate. As a fan, I'm going to politely ignore it and look forward to Saturday.
Amazing what this team has accomplished with all of the perceived faults and weaknesses it has. They've been alot of fun to watch and taken us for a heck of a ride.
And yes it looks like Tony swung at Mason in that video. Frustration I'd guess, but still no excuse.
good enough to win. not sure that's a good thing.
Miles continues to rebound at an awesome rate. And Mason is way above 50% FTs for the year!!! Another disappearing act from Dawkins, but very solid contributions from everybody else.
Good game for Seth, Miles and Ryan. I love Miles' intensity. He got two big rebounds late in the game. Seth got us going with 3 big 3s and Ryan led us in scoring. Some things for Coach K to get upset with so the guys do get complacent. GoDuke!
Well, it's pretty hard not to disappear when you aren't on the court. He hit one of three shots in 11 minutes and seemed to be moving on offense. He had two rebounds. He seemed to be working hard, if not always effectively, on defense. He had a few fouls, though at least one seemed like a pretty ticky tack call to me. Maybe we can't call this a stellar performance, but I don't see how he can be expected to make an impact, or criticized for "disappearing," when he has so little opportunity to get into a rhythm.
Did I miss something? Andre barely saw the court in the second half, even when the personnel on the court were generating no offense and letting Wake go on a huge run. Granted, Andre did not do anything outstanding when he was in the game, but I didn't see him make major mistakes, either. He seems to be back on Coach K's quick hook. Given it was only 2 games ago he scored 22 points and was crucial in the FSU game (before riding the pine in much of the second half of that one, as well), what has he done to see his role so diminished?
Congrats to the team for going undefeated on the road in the ACC!
Congrats to Mason for 8-9 from the free throw line!
Congrats to Ryan!!!
GTHC GTH!!!
Wonder what greybeard would have to say about Mason's tension/core tightness issues, or whatever complicated mechanisms he was explaining re: Miles. It seems Mason has recently inherited this tendency to tense every muscle in his body and rock his weight back on his heels whenever he prepares to go up around the basket, which has seemed to really limit his fluidity and explosiveness recently. Maybe Mason can awaken a little bit of his freshman year self, who would just try to dunk everything, without a care in the world...