The bottom-line results say differently, though, as the defense yielded 111 and 113 offensive efficiencies to UVA in two games while against UNC, we held them to 101 and 103 offensive efficiencies despite missing Zion both games. (Although, I would still switch against UVA because -- at least through two matchups -- they've turned the ball over against us, which helps our offense.) The defense has been great against UNC, especially once you adjust for how good UNC's offense typically is and for Zion being out, even though yes, sometimes a mismatch gets scored on.
In basketball, you have to choose what you want to give up, as you guys know. It's not a shutout sport as opposed to baseball, soccer, football, what-have-you. I'm okay with occasional mismatches on certain possessions if the bottom line is great overall defensive efficiency. Switching gives, but it also takes away -- it makes it hard for opponents to run their regular stuff.
I mean, I'd have to go back and look to log the percentages, but we switched a heck of a lot out there.
Plus, you seem to imply differently in the below criticism. Can you reconcile the two posts into an overall statement about how you would defend UNC in the halfcourt that outperforms what Duke actually did? Thanks in advance.
I didn't think our defense was too bad, other than getting beat in transition. We shot 34% from the floor and 25% from beyond the arc. Tough to win with those kinds of percentages. Kenny Williams hit 3's he normally doesn't hit and we took shots we shouldn't have taken. Simple as that. We're going to need someone from the bench to step up in Bolden's absence. Hopefully, we get some good news today that the sprain is minor.
One big plus to Bolden is his free throw shooting...one of the better free throw shooters for his height...DeLaurier brings a lot of energy and athleticism, but is a brick layer from the line...hope Bolden gets better soon...its nice to have a big body down low and the poor kid has had his share of injuries.
That was a hypothetical. I don’t remember many instances of that happening. Also, I wasn’t suggesting we should do something different than what we did against UNC. I am in fact on record as saying our defense did a great job against them. I just don’t think we switched everything like we did against UVa in game 1.
He's also our second most efficient player on offense after Zion. I think K was going to use him as a matchup problem against UNC because Bolden would have been the tallest player on the floor. After he went down, we had zero post presence on offense.
I think we'll be fine if he returns for the EE. That would give him about a three week recovery time.
Sorry - I may have been guilty of not reading the entire conversation and just the last post. Well, definitely guilty of that, but that may have resulted in my misinterpreting the thread. I had thought it was discussing the possibility of switching back to the "switch everything" approach in the absence of Bolden. So I was just commenting on that. Sorry for causing the confusion.
One of my biggest concerns is Bolden's confidence. We've seen him grow into the player that he is capable of being, and he's had some very good games without Zion in the lineup, although he has the occasional off game. His ability was evident on his injury play- recovering for a clean block (despite the foul call).
His little injuries held him back for a few years, and now I fear that a big injury is going to shake that confidence again. A refrain from our players has always been that their teammates trust them, so I hope that that trust over the course of a breakout year is manifested in confidence when he returns.
While he's out, I hope we can feed him a constant stream of his own highlights.
As they were showing that replay time and time again as Bolden was gathering himself after the injury, I'm sure you guys noticed what I noticed: clean block no foul, bad call. Would have been nice for that to be called out by someone on the broadcast. Frankly, even though Bolden was on defense, I'm shocked they didn't call a charge on him.
So if it does turn out that Bolden is lost for the season (and I'm still really hoping that is not the case), do you think K will actually announce this? Or will he list it as another day-to-day thing until after Selection Sunday, so that the committee won't ding us for not having him moving forward? K is definitely not above playing games with the selection committee. He's played up the fact that Zion will return, and I also remember in 2011 when he had Kyrie come out during the ACC tournament and do some sprints on the sidelines just to put out the message that his return was imminent.
There's been some discussion that we will soon be getting back a guy who has been on the bench since the beginning of the 1st Carolina game.
I'd love to see Bolden get back into the rotation before the end of the season, if only because it would mean that we made it to the NCAA's 2nd weekend.