Image: georgiadogs.com
Monday night the US Air Force registered their biggest blowout victory since the 2003 bombings in Iraq. They clobbered Georgia by a score of 83-52. We don't do well against a team that back screens us to death. That's Air Force's entire deal. To quote the Athens Banner:
Air Force frazzled Georgia's defense, slashing the Bulldogs with quick cuts through the lane and burning them with 3-pointers. Defensively, the Bulldogs chased Air Force's collection of quick, disciplined players like they were playing duck-duck goose. Georgia was the goose.Although none of that really explains why we played like ass on offense. But again...that's another topic entirely.
"The things that they do just really showed our weakness," senior Levi Stukes said. "They moved without the ball and back cut us and softened us up. Once you get a team rolling like that, it's hard to slow them down."
If there's any solace in such a thrashing (and there isn't), we weren't the only team that had this happen to them vs. Air Force. They also beat Stanford (road), Colorado (road), and Wake Forest (home) by 30-40 points each. They also beat Texas Tech.
Anyway. The season's over. It was a brutal draw facing the exact type of team that would beat us getting off the bus with our systemic defensive incompatability vs. them. That isn't an excuse or an attempt at placing blame. It just is what it is. 19-14 and finishing tied for 5th in the SEC is improvement vs. last year. More on that later.
See Also:
-- Air Force Schedule - KenPom.com
-- Georgia loses to USAF - ABH
-- Ground Brown - ABH
PWD
5 comments:
Dead on, pwd. A heck of a lousy way to end the year, but you could see it coming a mile off. Playing an NCAA-quality team whose strengths perfectly exploit your weaknesses in their loony bin bandbox of an arena at high altitude isn't much of a recipe for success. Very, very disappointing, but that's just the way the cards fell this time. Sometimes nothing isn't a real cool hand.
There was progress, and I look forward to more next year with more talent inside.
the one silver lining that would come from this is an opening of the eyes by those in a role to do something about it on just how far off this program really is when they play teams that are disciplined, and good fundamental basketball teams. Those types make it perfectly apparent that we are undisciplined on the floor, and have horrible fundamentals.
And the reason our offense sucked and theirs didn't, we do the exact opposite of them. Levi said it like this was some novel idea that Air Force actually moves without the ball, you know back door cuts, off the ball screens, things that most every basketball teams knows a good bit about because they do it. We don't do it, we don't have fundamentals nor know how to play sound disciplined basketball, and that is why it is such a shock to the system when ever we face a team that does.
Sooner or later, we need to correct some very large problems on the basketball court. Off the court there is no complaint, but our "master strategist" in Pete Hermann ain't getting it done, and the man in charge isn't either. Not on the floor at least, and last night made that obvious to anyone with eyes.
well, that would be the silver lining, if it hadn't already happened countless times in the last four years, except our staff seems to remain oblivious thanks to their head being placed squarely up their own rectum.
Also, I do not understand why this staff doesn't use early timeouts.
We start the game by standing and watching two uncontested jams, one where they walked up and took it out of our hands.
Yet, neither play was worthy of an a$$ chewing timeout.
With all the timeouts that come with a TV game, why we do not use them is beyond my understanding.
We did the same thing in the SEC tournament.
In no way was this group ready to play or coach last night.
the last time we put in a desultory effort like this in an NIT game, Ron Jirsa was presiding over a laydown job against Clempson. Coach Dooley and Czar Mike were so impressed by the total team effort, they fired Jirsa.
I'm not suggesting Coach Felton get fired or anything, but if that game was a fight, it was George Foreman v. Joe Frazer. Or maybe Mike Tyson v. Mike Spinks. It was over so fast and so conclusively, you wonder why anyone bothered showing up.
Not exactly the kind of effort you're looking for in a team. I know Mercer's hurt, everyone's tired, high altitude, blah blah blah, but there's no reason another school in the NI freakin' T should almost double our score.
For Felton fans, this should be a blessing in disguise from the standpoint that a peek at that game tape probably wont make Michigan think CDF is the man to lead them back to glory. To be honest, however, I'm not sure that anyone besides Coach Felton thinks he'd be the man for the job. Maybe he can pull a Bill Campbell and take his name out of the running for a big job he was never going to be offered.
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