** There’s not much of a storyline to be had this afternoon. We weren’t bad. But Clemson is better.
** I liked the battle in our Panthers in this one. And we never really played poorly as a team. Sure, we had a near fatal offensive lapse early in the second half letting the Tigers stretch their lead to 15. But otherwise, we were getting shots.
** Defensively, we weren’t a mess either. In fact, we executed OK on the other end, save a poor defensive decision by Bub around the 7 minute mark to leave Girard on the perimeter for a wide open three after a Blake three cut the lead to 6 points.
** Beyond that, Clemson’s offensive execution was commendable, and was certainly enough to keep the Panthers at arms length.
** Still, there are a good handful of teams in the ACC we can beat playing the way we played today. Certainly playing as hard as we did today. Especially how hard we played to cut the Clemson lead from 15 to 2.
** Yet the question remains for our Panthers after this one is how we can truly get better.
** For better or worse, Blake really can’t get any better. For two straight games, he’s tried to carry the Panthers to a win down the stretch. He almost did so.
** On his three that cut the Clemson lead to four, he was right in our direct sight line when he fired his second straight three from the corner. He was so deep, it didn’t look like it was even possible to get the ball to the basket I yelled: “you can’t be serious!” But Blake sure was. He was every bit of 27 points of serious this day.
** Ish was pretty equally serious, and it’s hard to ask much more from him either. His best play was the perfect drive to the hoop to cut the lead to 2. He gave up some looks to Girard but a couple of those shots were so tough it was more of a situation where maybe it was just better to tip your cap and move on.
** But most of our early season hype was built around Bub, and there’s certainly some room for him to look a little better.
** Maybe it’s more fair to say there’s room for Bub to shoot better. I can’t say that Bub played poorly, He hasn’t really ever played poorly in the last four games. But he’s taking lots of shots, and missing more that the Panthers can afford.
** In his last four games, he’s 16-50 from the floor. That’s 32% if you don’t like to do math. In the same stretch, he’s 4-22 from three. If my math is correct, that’s a lot less than 32%.
** I should also add that I don’t see Bub taking bad ones. In fact, he does a pretty good job getting himself pretty good shots. Just not enough are going.
** A really nice one was a pretty and strong drive to the basket that just didn’t go down around the 9 minute mark. It resulted in a foul by Ish and the lead that could have been cut to 8 slid back to 11 on the other end.
** The problem with Bub’s shooting maybe isn’t just with Bub though, It seems that beyond the big three, no one else is showing themselves as either ready, willing or able to make shots.
** Fede showed a little bit of nice offensive spark early in the game, but struggled to find any offensive success down the stretch when scoring points was at a premium.
** His drive to the basket at the 3 minute mark wasn’t unwelcome, but since he’s not a good finisher a foul was the best one could hope for and his pitches from the foul line looked poor to say the least.
** And if even you don’t think Fede was that good today, he was clearly the better option this day than GDiaz, who really struggled on both ends of the court.
** I’ve never been one who’s been a card carrying member of the Twins Talent Fan Club, but I do believe that for this team to reach their potential, Diaz the center needs to bring more than the 3-11 from the floor and the 1-8 from three that he’s produced over the last four games.
** Additionally, he’s struggled defensively, both with physicality and staying with his man off the dribble, and his screen setting has been largely ineffectual.
** We already know that Will doesn’t have it in him to contribute offensively so I’ll leave him out of the getting better equation.
** I don’t know if JDiaz deserves a little bit of a look, nor do I know why Coach Capel is reluctant to do so.
** After the second game of the season, I expressed some hope that Jaland woujd emerge as our sixth man. But since his 12 point burst against FGC, he’s 4-17 from the floor and 1-5 from three. This team needs more from him. It remains to be seen if it's even in him this year.
** All told, our bench played 32 ineffective minutes, and came up with a goose egg on the score sheet. For the Panthers to be better, they need to be better. Maybe something closer to 50 decent minutes tossing in around 10 points per game.
** Today, obviously 10 more points would be been enough to win.
** I came into this game thinking that Clemson was likely better than our Panthers, and they proved it. I don’t believe WVU is better than our Panthers. I see the game in Morgantown is a great opportunity for parts of this team to begin bringing more production to the table.
** It’s too early to proclaim this team can’t end up getting into the tournament. But at the moment they look like they are short on the needed execution and firepower to get there. It’s time for this whole team to truly begin the journey to being the best team they can be.
** I liked the battle in our Panthers in this one. And we never really played poorly as a team. Sure, we had a near fatal offensive lapse early in the second half letting the Tigers stretch their lead to 15. But otherwise, we were getting shots.
** Defensively, we weren’t a mess either. In fact, we executed OK on the other end, save a poor defensive decision by Bub around the 7 minute mark to leave Girard on the perimeter for a wide open three after a Blake three cut the lead to 6 points.
** Beyond that, Clemson’s offensive execution was commendable, and was certainly enough to keep the Panthers at arms length.
** Still, there are a good handful of teams in the ACC we can beat playing the way we played today. Certainly playing as hard as we did today. Especially how hard we played to cut the Clemson lead from 15 to 2.
** Yet the question remains for our Panthers after this one is how we can truly get better.
** For better or worse, Blake really can’t get any better. For two straight games, he’s tried to carry the Panthers to a win down the stretch. He almost did so.
** On his three that cut the Clemson lead to four, he was right in our direct sight line when he fired his second straight three from the corner. He was so deep, it didn’t look like it was even possible to get the ball to the basket I yelled: “you can’t be serious!” But Blake sure was. He was every bit of 27 points of serious this day.
** Ish was pretty equally serious, and it’s hard to ask much more from him either. His best play was the perfect drive to the hoop to cut the lead to 2. He gave up some looks to Girard but a couple of those shots were so tough it was more of a situation where maybe it was just better to tip your cap and move on.
** But most of our early season hype was built around Bub, and there’s certainly some room for him to look a little better.
** Maybe it’s more fair to say there’s room for Bub to shoot better. I can’t say that Bub played poorly, He hasn’t really ever played poorly in the last four games. But he’s taking lots of shots, and missing more that the Panthers can afford.
** In his last four games, he’s 16-50 from the floor. That’s 32% if you don’t like to do math. In the same stretch, he’s 4-22 from three. If my math is correct, that’s a lot less than 32%.
** I should also add that I don’t see Bub taking bad ones. In fact, he does a pretty good job getting himself pretty good shots. Just not enough are going.
** A really nice one was a pretty and strong drive to the basket that just didn’t go down around the 9 minute mark. It resulted in a foul by Ish and the lead that could have been cut to 8 slid back to 11 on the other end.
** The problem with Bub’s shooting maybe isn’t just with Bub though, It seems that beyond the big three, no one else is showing themselves as either ready, willing or able to make shots.
** Fede showed a little bit of nice offensive spark early in the game, but struggled to find any offensive success down the stretch when scoring points was at a premium.
** His drive to the basket at the 3 minute mark wasn’t unwelcome, but since he’s not a good finisher a foul was the best one could hope for and his pitches from the foul line looked poor to say the least.
** And if even you don’t think Fede was that good today, he was clearly the better option this day than GDiaz, who really struggled on both ends of the court.
** I’ve never been one who’s been a card carrying member of the Twins Talent Fan Club, but I do believe that for this team to reach their potential, Diaz the center needs to bring more than the 3-11 from the floor and the 1-8 from three that he’s produced over the last four games.
** Additionally, he’s struggled defensively, both with physicality and staying with his man off the dribble, and his screen setting has been largely ineffectual.
** We already know that Will doesn’t have it in him to contribute offensively so I’ll leave him out of the getting better equation.
** I don’t know if JDiaz deserves a little bit of a look, nor do I know why Coach Capel is reluctant to do so.
** After the second game of the season, I expressed some hope that Jaland woujd emerge as our sixth man. But since his 12 point burst against FGC, he’s 4-17 from the floor and 1-5 from three. This team needs more from him. It remains to be seen if it's even in him this year.
** All told, our bench played 32 ineffective minutes, and came up with a goose egg on the score sheet. For the Panthers to be better, they need to be better. Maybe something closer to 50 decent minutes tossing in around 10 points per game.
** Today, obviously 10 more points would be been enough to win.
** I came into this game thinking that Clemson was likely better than our Panthers, and they proved it. I don’t believe WVU is better than our Panthers. I see the game in Morgantown is a great opportunity for parts of this team to begin bringing more production to the table.
** It’s too early to proclaim this team can’t end up getting into the tournament. But at the moment they look like they are short on the needed execution and firepower to get there. It’s time for this whole team to truly begin the journey to being the best team they can be.
