- Joined
- Jul 16, 2022
- Messages
- 4,143
- Reaction Score
- 31,064
3 Pros:
1. Adama Sanogo! He showed a great offensive game. UNCW decided to play him straight up and he punished them for it. 24pts on 8-12 shooting. Destroyed everyone 1v1, had a few plays in the high post to get a good shot, and even threw a beautiful pass to a cutting Alleyne for a backdoor dunk from the three point line. Looked comfortable shooting threes (even though they didn't go down) and shot great from the FT line. Hell, he even fought his way through double teams to get a few scores
2. Hawkins is money. He hit his shots and played great defense. He'll only get better as the year goes on (hopefully). The corner was money, the fast break pullup was money, I felt great every time he pulled up. Career high 20pts on 7-13 shooting, 5-8 from 3P. He's going to add an entirely new dimension to our offense. Play of the game is snapping a dude's ankles and then hitting a stepback 3. Great game, even if he missed that open dunk
3. It's been said before, but Alex Karaban has such great BBIQ. He seems to always know where to be and what to do, and he's just a freshman. His shot went down tonight, and he was a very dangerous player because of it. He'll be a great zone buster - I remember one specific play where he got the ball at the FT line vs. the zone and immediately found Sanogo for an and1 alley oop. No hesitation, just production.
HM. Andre Jackson. I've never seen a more impactful 2 points in my life. He completely controls tempo and energy for this team. Literally diving on people for loose balls while up 30 (plz don't re-injure yourself doing that)
3 Cons - btw, very hard to come up with 3 tonight.
1. We got outworked and outhustled for most of the first half. Sanogo and Clingan were somehow getting outrebounded and straight up bullied on the boards for a good 16 minutes, and UNCW seemingly got every loose ball. I'd say that single handedly kept them in the game in the first half. We tightened it up near the end of the half, and unsurprisingly went on a run to make it a double digit game when we did. Completely put the clamps on in the second half and destroyed them as a result (46-22 2nd half scoring)
2. They were bringing Sanogo onto the perimeter to guard P&R's early, and he did look pretty uncomfortable out there. They didn't punish us too much for it, but I can seeing that be a problem if we face a 5 that can shoot. For some reason they stopped doing this near the end of the first half. Really not sure why, it was the only thing working for them other than hero ball from #0, who hit some really tough shots tonight
3. 0 bench points until 12:55 in the 2nd half. 14 bench points in total, 4 of which came from Richie in like 2 minutes of garbage time. Doesn't really matter when your starters score 72, and should be fixed when we can bring Alleyne and Samson off the bench when we're healthy. Yes, I am officially Team Start Karaban
HM. Diarra was just....there. Dribbled a lot, ran a lot but didn't really feel like he impacted the game, even defensively. I feel like some games he'll be an offensive spark plug off the bench and some games he'll be completely invisible. Not ideal, and Calcaterra will be gunning for those minutes
Conclusion:
It's hard to say negative things after that game, but I'll try in the name of unbiasedness. We are a top 25 team and we should be running teams like UNC Wilmington out of the gym as soon as the game starts. The first half was VERY competitive up until the last few minutes, which wasn't great to see. Especially confusing to see Clingan play so sloppy after 3 very strong games. However.... Andre gives 110% every play, Hawkins was automatic, Sanogo was unstoppable, we shot great from three (10-22), and we tore them to shreds. This game was the first example of what this team should look like. Pick your poison - focus your defense on Sanogo and give up open shots, or let him roll you. We managed to do both this game while holding their 18PPG scorer to 2 points on 1-3 shooting. Our starting PG and #2 scorer was nearly invisible, and we won by 36. This was a 40 point game before last-minute garbage time shots against our walk ons. Go Huskies, 4-0!
1. Adama Sanogo! He showed a great offensive game. UNCW decided to play him straight up and he punished them for it. 24pts on 8-12 shooting. Destroyed everyone 1v1, had a few plays in the high post to get a good shot, and even threw a beautiful pass to a cutting Alleyne for a backdoor dunk from the three point line. Looked comfortable shooting threes (even though they didn't go down) and shot great from the FT line. Hell, he even fought his way through double teams to get a few scores
2. Hawkins is money. He hit his shots and played great defense. He'll only get better as the year goes on (hopefully). The corner was money, the fast break pullup was money, I felt great every time he pulled up. Career high 20pts on 7-13 shooting, 5-8 from 3P. He's going to add an entirely new dimension to our offense. Play of the game is snapping a dude's ankles and then hitting a stepback 3. Great game, even if he missed that open dunk
3. It's been said before, but Alex Karaban has such great BBIQ. He seems to always know where to be and what to do, and he's just a freshman. His shot went down tonight, and he was a very dangerous player because of it. He'll be a great zone buster - I remember one specific play where he got the ball at the FT line vs. the zone and immediately found Sanogo for an and1 alley oop. No hesitation, just production.
HM. Andre Jackson. I've never seen a more impactful 2 points in my life. He completely controls tempo and energy for this team. Literally diving on people for loose balls while up 30 (plz don't re-injure yourself doing that)
3 Cons - btw, very hard to come up with 3 tonight.
1. We got outworked and outhustled for most of the first half. Sanogo and Clingan were somehow getting outrebounded and straight up bullied on the boards for a good 16 minutes, and UNCW seemingly got every loose ball. I'd say that single handedly kept them in the game in the first half. We tightened it up near the end of the half, and unsurprisingly went on a run to make it a double digit game when we did. Completely put the clamps on in the second half and destroyed them as a result (46-22 2nd half scoring)
2. They were bringing Sanogo onto the perimeter to guard P&R's early, and he did look pretty uncomfortable out there. They didn't punish us too much for it, but I can seeing that be a problem if we face a 5 that can shoot. For some reason they stopped doing this near the end of the first half. Really not sure why, it was the only thing working for them other than hero ball from #0, who hit some really tough shots tonight
3. 0 bench points until 12:55 in the 2nd half. 14 bench points in total, 4 of which came from Richie in like 2 minutes of garbage time. Doesn't really matter when your starters score 72, and should be fixed when we can bring Alleyne and Samson off the bench when we're healthy. Yes, I am officially Team Start Karaban
HM. Diarra was just....there. Dribbled a lot, ran a lot but didn't really feel like he impacted the game, even defensively. I feel like some games he'll be an offensive spark plug off the bench and some games he'll be completely invisible. Not ideal, and Calcaterra will be gunning for those minutes
Conclusion:
It's hard to say negative things after that game, but I'll try in the name of unbiasedness. We are a top 25 team and we should be running teams like UNC Wilmington out of the gym as soon as the game starts. The first half was VERY competitive up until the last few minutes, which wasn't great to see. Especially confusing to see Clingan play so sloppy after 3 very strong games. However.... Andre gives 110% every play, Hawkins was automatic, Sanogo was unstoppable, we shot great from three (10-22), and we tore them to shreds. This game was the first example of what this team should look like. Pick your poison - focus your defense on Sanogo and give up open shots, or let him roll you. We managed to do both this game while holding their 18PPG scorer to 2 points on 1-3 shooting. Our starting PG and #2 scorer was nearly invisible, and we won by 36. This was a 40 point game before last-minute garbage time shots against our walk ons. Go Huskies, 4-0!
