** There was a post on during this loss tonight that I found interesting. The poster suggested that Capel was being “outcoached” by Josh Pastner.
** When it comes to basketball, I always wonder about the term “outcoached.” Basketball generally isn’t a game where the coach who makes the better decisions during the game is the winner. So in that sense, I don’t think there was anything about Capel’s in game decisions that were in any way inferior to that of his counterpart.
** But to the other extreme, the Head Coach is the CEO for everything about the team, which includes recruiting the talent, to motivation, to preparation. So in the most general sense, the winning coach always “outcoaches” the losing coach one could suggest, yes?
** I might go even further to suggest that there was nothing necessarily substandard in Coach Capel’s preparation today. Our guys seemed to know what G-tech was going to throw at them today. They even executed some decent offense at times. As many have said, coaches can’t make the shots for their players.
** Accordingly, coaches can yell and scream all they want for their players to hustle back and not get beaten down the court on defense. But they can’t do it for them.
** So in that sense, the Panthers didn’t look like a “poorly coached” team today. But they were certainly the second best team on the court today. And knowing we were playing a 4-11 conference team at home tonight, that in itself a fairly damming statement about our coach one could think.
** What we learned against North Carolina is that we have a decent starting five, who have enough ability to win a game at Chapel Hill when all five are playing well.
** What we learned tonight (if we didn’t already know), is that we will lose to a bottom ACC team when our starting pair of guards combine for 7 points and 7 turnovers.
** We learned a long time ago that we can’t win games when we don’t grind the game down and defend with a vengeance. That wasn’t how we defended today, especially in the first half. And as mentioned previously, the number of times the Yellow Jackets simply outran the Panthers down the court for easy layups was beyond troubling.
** I’m not a fan of most sports clichés, but one I completely agree with is “your record says what you are.” And even though CEO Capel succeeded in keeping the complete bottom from falling out of this season as it appeared it might in November, we are still an 11-17 Basketball team. We are still a team who will likely finish almost certainly no better than 7-13 in the ACC if that.
** And regardless of any other opinion one might have about Coach Capel, he’s still the CEO with a .295 league winning percentage in four years.
** It’s pretty pointless for me or any other message board poster to offer up a diatribe as to whether we think Capel should stay or go. I appreciate all of the nuances that go into such a decision that go beyond a .295 league win percentage over four years. It’s someone else’s job to make that decision.
** This much I will say. I expect that Jeff Capel will be our Coach next year. And because of this, I can only hope that he can somehow, somewhere he will find some players in April and May to offer any real hope that year five will in any way be any different than the first four.
** Maybe job number one is trying to find some way, somehow to get another year for Mo Gueye. For the most part, this season has not offered much to fans other than avoiding the bottom falling out. The only exception has been Mr. Mo, who has been more fun to watch than any Panther player since Mr. Patterson demonstrated his Winston Wolf-like ways on the hardwood.
** So this fan will be there on Tuesday to watch our Panthers in hopes that we can secure a 7th ACC win. And I’ll be there next year too, regardless of who holds the job of CEO. That’s the best I can do. I just hope our Coach can do better.
** When it comes to basketball, I always wonder about the term “outcoached.” Basketball generally isn’t a game where the coach who makes the better decisions during the game is the winner. So in that sense, I don’t think there was anything about Capel’s in game decisions that were in any way inferior to that of his counterpart.
** But to the other extreme, the Head Coach is the CEO for everything about the team, which includes recruiting the talent, to motivation, to preparation. So in the most general sense, the winning coach always “outcoaches” the losing coach one could suggest, yes?
** I might go even further to suggest that there was nothing necessarily substandard in Coach Capel’s preparation today. Our guys seemed to know what G-tech was going to throw at them today. They even executed some decent offense at times. As many have said, coaches can’t make the shots for their players.
** Accordingly, coaches can yell and scream all they want for their players to hustle back and not get beaten down the court on defense. But they can’t do it for them.
** So in that sense, the Panthers didn’t look like a “poorly coached” team today. But they were certainly the second best team on the court today. And knowing we were playing a 4-11 conference team at home tonight, that in itself a fairly damming statement about our coach one could think.
** What we learned against North Carolina is that we have a decent starting five, who have enough ability to win a game at Chapel Hill when all five are playing well.
** What we learned tonight (if we didn’t already know), is that we will lose to a bottom ACC team when our starting pair of guards combine for 7 points and 7 turnovers.
** We learned a long time ago that we can’t win games when we don’t grind the game down and defend with a vengeance. That wasn’t how we defended today, especially in the first half. And as mentioned previously, the number of times the Yellow Jackets simply outran the Panthers down the court for easy layups was beyond troubling.
** I’m not a fan of most sports clichés, but one I completely agree with is “your record says what you are.” And even though CEO Capel succeeded in keeping the complete bottom from falling out of this season as it appeared it might in November, we are still an 11-17 Basketball team. We are still a team who will likely finish almost certainly no better than 7-13 in the ACC if that.
** And regardless of any other opinion one might have about Coach Capel, he’s still the CEO with a .295 league winning percentage in four years.
** It’s pretty pointless for me or any other message board poster to offer up a diatribe as to whether we think Capel should stay or go. I appreciate all of the nuances that go into such a decision that go beyond a .295 league win percentage over four years. It’s someone else’s job to make that decision.
** This much I will say. I expect that Jeff Capel will be our Coach next year. And because of this, I can only hope that he can somehow, somewhere he will find some players in April and May to offer any real hope that year five will in any way be any different than the first four.
** Maybe job number one is trying to find some way, somehow to get another year for Mo Gueye. For the most part, this season has not offered much to fans other than avoiding the bottom falling out. The only exception has been Mr. Mo, who has been more fun to watch than any Panther player since Mr. Patterson demonstrated his Winston Wolf-like ways on the hardwood.
** So this fan will be there on Tuesday to watch our Panthers in hopes that we can secure a 7th ACC win. And I’ll be there next year too, regardless of who holds the job of CEO. That’s the best I can do. I just hope our Coach can do better.
