The first thing for me in this game... is in the past... there were times when it was almost as if Dixon and company... didn't really show up.
Almost as if he didn't put much emphasis on the game because it was very difficult place to get a win and, preferring to put more emphasis on other games.
But, with the things the way they are right now... IMO you should go for it.
After this game on Thursday we got the worst team in the ACC by far in BC two days later, at home, and then we get NCS three days after that, also at home.
So, you should really go for this one. Even if you come up short, you at least know where you are at.
As far as Ville is concerned, I watched the first half of the replay of their game against Clemson, and they had a bad shooting game and I don't expect that to happen again.
There is the Pitino press... but against Clemson they pressured the ball coming out of bounds and usually, but not always, backed off after that. This is something you have to deal with when playing Pitino. It was strange some games in the past where he did NOT press us but... I expect his press in this one. So, gotta be prepared for it.
Then, they are playing tight in-your-face D. Usually teams only do this when they have a big shot blocker inside but Ville does not have one. But, this type of D has given us problems in the past (Purdue) so we will have to see. We like to pass the ball around a lot and this type of defense makes that difficult.
In the game against Clemson, they had major foul trouble with 2 guys fouling out and another 3 having four fouls. That sometimes happens when you play the tight D with no shot blocker.
So, against them, take it to the hoop and draw the fouls and keep doing that over and over.
We have our grad transfers and they have theirs. The difference is, our grad transfers are playing more of a support role with the core of the team remaining intact from last year, while with them their top two scorers are grad transfers. So, we will see if this makes much of a difference. Against Clemson, Ville looked kinda ragged at times and it is hard to have good team chemistry without a core of returning players.
Their C (Onuaku) is athletic and pretty good. More a player you would want Nelson-Ododa or Young to cover rather than Maia. We will see but I would not be surprised to see Young play a lot of minutes at C getting Jeter a lot of minutes at PF.
WOW! We really came out with a lot of energy to start the game against ND, so I can only wonder if we can come out with anything approaching that against Ville. They will be smarting after their loss to Clemson.
Almost as if he didn't put much emphasis on the game because it was very difficult place to get a win and, preferring to put more emphasis on other games.
But, with the things the way they are right now... IMO you should go for it.
After this game on Thursday we got the worst team in the ACC by far in BC two days later, at home, and then we get NCS three days after that, also at home.
So, you should really go for this one. Even if you come up short, you at least know where you are at.
As far as Ville is concerned, I watched the first half of the replay of their game against Clemson, and they had a bad shooting game and I don't expect that to happen again.
There is the Pitino press... but against Clemson they pressured the ball coming out of bounds and usually, but not always, backed off after that. This is something you have to deal with when playing Pitino. It was strange some games in the past where he did NOT press us but... I expect his press in this one. So, gotta be prepared for it.
Then, they are playing tight in-your-face D. Usually teams only do this when they have a big shot blocker inside but Ville does not have one. But, this type of D has given us problems in the past (Purdue) so we will have to see. We like to pass the ball around a lot and this type of defense makes that difficult.
In the game against Clemson, they had major foul trouble with 2 guys fouling out and another 3 having four fouls. That sometimes happens when you play the tight D with no shot blocker.
So, against them, take it to the hoop and draw the fouls and keep doing that over and over.
We have our grad transfers and they have theirs. The difference is, our grad transfers are playing more of a support role with the core of the team remaining intact from last year, while with them their top two scorers are grad transfers. So, we will see if this makes much of a difference. Against Clemson, Ville looked kinda ragged at times and it is hard to have good team chemistry without a core of returning players.
Their C (Onuaku) is athletic and pretty good. More a player you would want Nelson-Ododa or Young to cover rather than Maia. We will see but I would not be surprised to see Young play a lot of minutes at C getting Jeter a lot of minutes at PF.
WOW! We really came out with a lot of energy to start the game against ND, so I can only wonder if we can come out with anything approaching that against Ville. They will be smarting after their loss to Clemson.
