My report from ATL

[NUCat320]

I attended with my 8-year-old and 6-year-old sons. It was their first hoops game of any sort. I've gotta be around 150, and I can't recall ever seeing a true buzzer beater. So, that's something.

My thoughts on the performance:
- Law really is a tremendous on-ball defender. He smothered Alvarado on a switch early, and made a great defensive play late. He definitely influences the game even when he's not scoring.
- That said, Law left his man on the game-winner. He should've stayed with him.
- That said, I'm not sure Falzon should be on the court for a final defensive sequence, but, of course, Skelly shouldn't be either. Maybe it should've been Lindsey out there.
- The dirty secret about last year's team is that it was pretty poor offensively. There's so little purposeful ball movement. Your most effective play should *not* be a bail-out floater from your point guard.
- Then again, NU made its move when the floaters fell late.
- Every Falzon miss felt like a Falzon make out of his hand. Argh.
- That was *not* the case for Lindsey, who truly was out of step all game. His shots all looked ugly.
- It's to CCC's credit that he sat Lindsey late.
- I think Pardon's gotta get the ball in the lane more. He's got good hands. He's a good athlete. I know inside-out hoops is out of step with the times, but NU's got one guy who drives the lane, and he rarely drives and dishes. Inside-out is the way you get guys to step into their threes.
- Ash was good. He did his job on the final play, halting Alvarado's advance. Still, except for the one three he took off the inbound with three seconds on the shot clock, he was a virtual non-entity in the offense.
- Come to think of it, he's a lot like Lumpkin.

My thoughts on the atmosphere:
- I was disappointed in the crowd size. I guess Ga Tech's history is actually thin except for a six or eight year stretch under Cremins, but I don't think the arena was half-full.
- The arena is great. Compact, got *very* loud, even with a sparse crowd.
- The students get bleachers (everyone else gets chairbacks). They bang like crazy on the bleachers in the second half, when Ga Tech is defending that bucket.
- The only drawback about the arena is that the concourse doesn't circle the entirety of the court. There is no concourse on the sideline opposite the team benches, because it's entirely blocked by a club lounge. Turns out, the majority of seats opposite the benches are extra cushy, with full-game club lounge access.
- Not important to me, but concessions options seemed pretty limited. Hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, popcorn.
- The purple mafia showed up.


My oldest son was pretty distraught afterwards. "From one of the best moments of my life to emotionally dead." It was a long walk to the car.

 

[Wrestlerneverdiesasacatfan]

I attended with my 8-year-old and 6-year-old sons. It was their first hoops game of any sort. I've gotta be around 150, and I can't recall ever seeing a true buzzer beater. So, that's something.

My thoughts on the performance:
- Law really is a tremendous on-ball defender. He smothered Alvarado on a switch early, and made a great defensive play late. He definitely influences the game even when he's not scoring.
- That said, Law left his man on the game-winner. He should've stayed with him.
- That said, I'm not sure Falzon should be on the court for a final defensive sequence, but, of course, Skelly shouldn't be either. Maybe it should've been Lindsey out there.
- The dirty secret about last year's team is that it was pretty poor offensively. There's so little purposeful ball movement. Your most effective play should *not* be a bail-out floater from your point guard.
- Then again, NU made its move when the floaters fell late.
- Every Falzon miss felt like a Falzon make out of his hand. Argh.
- That was *not* the case for Lindsey, who truly was out of step all game. His shots all looked ugly.
- It's to CCC's credit that he sat Lindsey late.
- I think Pardon's gotta get the ball in the lane more. He's got good hands. He's a good athlete. I know inside-out hoops is out of step with the times, but NU's got one guy who drives the lane, and he rarely drives and dishes. Inside-out is the way you get guys to step into their threes.
- Ash was good. He did his job on the final play, halting Alvarado's advance. Still, except for the one three he took off the inbound with three seconds on the shot clock, he was a virtual non-entity in the offense.
- Come to think of it, he's a lot like Lumpkin.

My thoughts on the atmosphere:
- I was disappointed in the crowd size. I guess Ga Tech's history is actually thin except for a six or eight year stretch under Cremins, but I don't think the arena was half-full.
- The arena is great. Compact, got *very* loud, even with a sparse crowd.
- The students get bleachers (everyone else gets chairbacks). They bang like crazy on the bleachers in the second half, when Ga Tech is defending that bucket.
- The only drawback about the arena is that the concourse doesn't circle the entirety of the court. There is no concourse on the sideline opposite the team benches, because it's entirely blocked by a club lounge. Turns out, the majority of seats opposite the benches are extra cushy, with full-game club lounge access.
- Not important to me, but concessions options seemed pretty limited. Hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, popcorn.
- The purple mafia showed up.


My oldest son was pretty distraught afterwards. "From one of the best moments of my life to emotionally dead." It was a long walk to the car.

Great summary. We don’t have an offense when Scottie is in there! He is too darn slow. Just look at the video when Ash comes in in first half, and second half. He is a game changer! He electrified the team on both ends of the court.

 

[DaCat]

Great summary. We don’t have an offense when Scottie is in there! He is too darn slow. Just look at the video when Ash comes in in first half, and second half. He is a game changer! He electrified the team on both ends of the court.

Your narrative is getting old. Lindsey is our best offensive player. He just needs to get untracked. And lay off Ash, he doesn't need your circus sideshow.

 

[Fitz51]

Your narrative is getting old. Lindsey is our best offensive player. He just needs to get untracked. And lay off Ash, he doesn't need your circus sideshow.

It's not like Ash knows about the sideshow, so it really doesn't matter.

 

[ricko654321]

I attended with my 8-year-old and 6-year-old sons. It was their first hoops game of any sort. I've gotta be around 150, and I can't recall ever seeing a true buzzer beater. So, that's something.

My thoughts on the performance:
- Law really is a tremendous on-ball defender. He smothered Alvarado on a switch early, and made a great defensive play late. He definitely influences the game even when he's not scoring.
- That said, Law left his man on the game-winner. He should've stayed with him.
- That said, I'm not sure Falzon should be on the court for a final defensive sequence, but, of course, Skelly shouldn't be either. Maybe it should've been Lindsey out there.
- The dirty secret about last year's team is that it was pretty poor offensively. There's so little purposeful ball movement. Your most effective play should *not* be a bail-out floater from your point guard.
- Then again, NU made its move when the floaters fell late.
- Every Falzon miss felt like a Falzon make out of his hand. Argh.
- That was *not* the case for Lindsey, who truly was out of step all game. His shots all looked ugly.
- It's to CCC's credit that he sat Lindsey late.
- I think Pardon's gotta get the ball in the lane more. He's got good hands. He's a good athlete. I know inside-out hoops is out of step with the times, but NU's got one guy who drives the lane, and he rarely drives and dishes. Inside-out is the way you get guys to step into their threes.
- Ash was good. He did his job on the final play, halting Alvarado's advance. Still, except for the one three he took off the inbound with three seconds on the shot clock, he was a virtual non-entity in the offense.
- Come to think of it, he's a lot like Lumpkin.

My thoughts on the atmosphere:
- I was disappointed in the crowd size. I guess Ga Tech's history is actually thin except for a six or eight year stretch under Cremins, but I don't think the arena was half-full.
- The arena is great. Compact, got *very* loud, even with a sparse crowd.
- The students get bleachers (everyone else gets chairbacks). They bang like crazy on the bleachers in the second half, when Ga Tech is defending that bucket.
- The only drawback about the arena is that the concourse doesn't circle the entirety of the court. There is no concourse on the sideline opposite the team benches, because it's entirely blocked by a club lounge. Turns out, the majority of seats opposite the benches are extra cushy, with full-game club lounge access.
- Not important to me, but concessions options seemed pretty limited. Hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, popcorn.
- The purple mafia showed up.


My oldest son was pretty distraught afterwards. "From one of the best moments of my life to emotionally dead." It was a long walk to the car.

Thanks for the comments.

my thoughts:
- agree Falzon should not be out there on D on a deciding defensive possession. I would have played Skelly.
- also agree with Coach going away from Scottie, he just didn't have it tonight.
- not sure if we explicitly miss Sanjay on D, but the communication just seems much worse this year
- also we were not fighting for the rebounds all night, they got the majority of the loose balls
- 100% agree with you that Law is a tremendous on-ball defender. he is the only one on our team who seems fully engaged on D right now. hard to pinpoint what the issue was. i think the mistake on the game winner was much more on Falzon than Vic.
- think the lack of energy on D translated into us playing their pace in the game. we should have gotten into transition more, and our best players almost never did. when we pushed the ball it seemed to be Brown or Gaines, not Mac and Vic.
- BMac had a mixed game offensively - made plenty of good plays (especially those late passes to Dererk) but also forced shots and made a few too many bad plays.

I hate to complain about refs, but I think GTech definitely got the edge in that regard for this game. Nothing individually glaring, but a lot of small things that added up and tilted the outcome slightly. Alas, I guess we were on the road.

Lastly- I have long despised Tom Crean, but I thought he actually was quite good as an analyst on the broadcast. I'm sure it helped that he coached directly against most of these players, but he said some insightful things that revealed a high level of knowledge of the players and systems, which is almost never the case for ESPN announcer. He had done his research on GTech too, and commented on their back cuts, and when / where we would have defensive lapses. Also was accurately observing how Scottie's struggles on offense were spilling over into other parts of the game. And unlike Dakich and Calhoun and some others, he didn't interrupt too much, was pretty clear, and didn't say incomprehensible things. Don't like him as a coach, but I appreciated him as an analyst this game.

 

[DaCat]

It's not like Ash knows about the sideshow, so it really doesn't matter.

I'm talking about the good folks here at this WR basketball forum. At least for me, this constant Ash propaganda and hyperbole is actually turning Ash into a laughingstock. It's having the opposite desired effect of the clumsy and transparent efforts to boost his worth. But what's worse is wrassler disparaging other players to achieve his dubious goal, whatever that is. Very annoying and downright nasty. I have no recourse but to put the wrassler on ignore. Again.

 

[willycat]

Your narrative is getting old. Lindsey is our best offensive player. He just needs to get untracked. And lay off Ash, he doesn't need your circus sideshow.

I agree with just about all of what NUcat320 typed, including the fact when your leading scorer gets 0 points. Having said that I also think that either Lindsey or maybe Gaines should have been on the floor for those final seconds, not Falzon. Ash probably will never be more then a 5 minute contributor, still he's a better all around player then Brown right now. Also agree that Law is a baller and also hate those last second floaters. Take the dam ball to the hoop and use the backboard to score or gee maybe get fouled.