Zags vs NC Post Game thoughts.

[Zagceo]

Good teams can have bad games. Looking for deep causes in a bad game is a fools errand.

[Mantua]

I am done posting until.we can keep a team.under their season high from 3pt.

Last 4 teams have had their most 3s made and/or highest % from deep.

Dumb.

Inexcusable.

Flawed.

Terrible defense.

I get it. Until I see the rotation stretched a little more and much more effort on defense, I have nothing to say in public. This is a familiar fan frustration for me.

[Alum08]

Good teams can have bad games. Looking for deep causes in a bad game is a fools errand.

Normally I agree, but failing to rebound whatsoever is indicative of a deep sickness. Poor rebounding is due to lack of discipline, energy, and desire.

Luke Maye got 16 boards against one of the most athletic frontcourts in the nation. I cannot stress enough how ridiculously bad that is.

[FuManShoes]

I'm less concerned about the loss than the manner of it. Zags got throttled on the boards - when's the last time they got outrebounded and outscored like that on 2nd chance points? - and let an opponent get hot and stay hot from deep. And the latter keeps happening. The Zags will not make it to the second weekend with a defense this porous and I think we're kidding ourselves if we think Geno and Tillie can fix it. Even playing shorthanded the Zags need to bring more fight. That means you, Rui. You've got it in you.


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[Hoopaholic]

Normally I agree, but failing to rebound whatsoever is indicative of a deep sickness. Poor rebounding is due to lack of discipline, energy, and desire.

Luke Maye got 16 boards against one of the most athletic frontcourts in the nation. I cannot stress enough how ridiculously bad that is.

Or

Due to trying to play first half to get to second half out of foul trouble?

[thespywhozaggedme]

Team looks exhausted. Brutal schedule, thin bench, and jet lag from covering what, 8 time zones in 3-4 weeks?

These are human beings, not perfect basketball automatons. I had this one penciled in as a likely loss, which became near certain w/ Tillie/Crandall both down. Tenn was the one the Zags needed to get, given the location that slightly favored the Zags.

Agree with all of this post

[thespywhozaggedme]

Normally I agree, but failing to rebound whatsoever is indicative of a deep sickness. Poor rebounding is due to lack of discipline, energy, and desire.

Luke Maye got 16 boards against one of the most athletic frontcourts in the nation. I cannot stress enough how ridiculously bad that is.

Free Petrusev

[zagfan1]

No excuses. We sucked and looked awful. It’s up to them going forward. Play soft or get tough on defense. Lost a good opportunity today.

[Alum08]

Or

Due to trying to play first half to get to second half out of foul trouble?

We were terrible at rebounding the entire game and never really in any bad foul trouble. And players are rarely called for fouls when blocking out. In fact, I'd argue that playing soft on the drive to avoid fouls should allow you to block out better. We would sag off and no one would block out.

0-27 second chance points. That's beyond absurd. That's a total team failure to rebound the ball for an entire game. No shift in focus. No hustle. No one blocked out.

[Pargo the Destroyer]

Perks: 20 points, 8 assists, 5 rebs, 4 steals and 6 t.o.s
White: 15 points, 6 assists, 1 reb, 0 steals, 5 t.o.'s

But don't let a thing like facts get in the way of a good argument.

Who made plays when it counted. Which team had end of bench guys in at the end. Yep. Them darn pesky facts.

[thespywhozaggedme]

Who made plays when it counted. Which team had end of bench guys in at the end. Yep. Them darn pesky facts.

This is your exact quote: Josh was thoroughly outplayed by white.....a freshman.....thoroughly.

Unless you're under the impression that the word "thoroughly" means worse than you were wrong. Just admit that you wrote that out of emotion and made a mistake instead of trying to defend it. I'm the king of making absurd, emotional posts, I know from whence I speak.

[zagamatic]

This team has looked exhausted since the 2nd half of the Duke game, which was the 3rd game in 3 days going from 2 night games to an afternoon game.
We're short on 2 very good players which means that defense and rebounding HAVE TO BE more conservative than normal.
Add in the traveling this team has been through and I'm pretty darn ok with ONLY having 2 losses.
How's this for perspective? .......what if the national title runner up Zags team lost either Karnowski or JWIII in the post to start the season and then lost either NWG or Perkins right after thanksgiving and had to play the same schedule?
Personally, I think that team wouldn't be faring much better. So let's not give up hope just yet, ok?

[GonzagasaurusFlex]

I love this Zags team. Hoping these 2 losses will keep them good and pissed off, focused and determined to improve every day leading up to the time when they get a shot at the big boy teams again: NCAA tourney.

Everyone seems to take Tillie returning as a given. Screws in foot for stress fracture is pretty iffy recovery time I think. Agree w Walton who said during Maui, take your time coming back Killian. Didn’t stress fracture in foot cause Embid to sit out an entire season? I hope to goodness Tillie gets back to 100% this season but won’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t play at all. Free Petrusev

[Zagger]

Sorry, didn't read everyone's post first so likely duplicating a few things.

On the good side .... scored 90 with 4 Zags at 15 or more points, shot over 50% for the game, had a better 2nd half than UNC, and .... scraping the barrel a bit ....
On the not-so-good side .... sure didn't play like we did against Duke. 103 points scored on us so D couldn't be that good.

With Snax not shooting the 3 well and Kispert having more fouls than points .... there's 13 points. We were also slim on getting a good roll on the rim and shooting looked .... uncomfortable, hesitant and a bit off balance. The 'fire' in the team sure didn't seem very bright. Though schedule this Fall - which is good. I'm sure the Zags learned a bit about how things have gone and how things may be when all players are available. Now that the Zags are better known (each player's strengths/weaknesses, etc.) the Zags are easier to plan for.

All in all .... to do really well in March Zag defense will have to be quite a bit more formidable. Even with Tillie and Crandall Zag firepower, IMHO, will not be enough to go past the Sweet 16.

[MDABE80]

This is your exact quote: Josh was thoroughly outplayed by white.....a freshman.....thoroughly.

Unless you're under the impression that the word "thoroughly" means worse than you were wrong. Just admit that you wrote that out of emotion and made a mistake instead of trying to defend it. I'm the king of making absurd, emotional posts, I know from whence I speak.

Yes to the later part! There is no question! Lol we don’t only use statistics Spy. The manner of play matters . The problem overlooked is that White played much better because he had an aggressive willing team to work with. Josh didn’t !

[thespywhozaggedme]

Yes to the later part! There is no question! Lol we don’t only use statistics Spy. The manner of play matters . The problem overlooked is that White played much better because he had an aggressive willing team to work with. Josh didn’t !

That has absolutely nothing to do with what he wrote. He wrote that Josh was out played thoroughly by White. That is factually incorrect. I don't know how else to put that. Josh was the best player tonight on our team and he thoroughly outplayed white, not the other way around. There's no such thing as "our" truth, there is the truth and our opinion. The truth is that White did not thoroughly out play Josh, the facts and statistics belie that.

[ZagzKrak]

Not that we can do anything about it at this point but games like this show me that we could still really use a big body 5 guy....rebound, box out, rim protector. I think we have missed not having one.

[MDABE80]

Spy:
Your stats don't tell the tale. Did you WATCH? White looked much better but he had a team around him that wanted to win.. Zags didn't look like they seriously wanted a victory. It's no big deal. You pick and pick. You have a valued opinion but you try to force it on others who may not quite agree. I wouldn't attack them because your thoughts aren't theirs. You do that. Everyone looks at these games a bit differently. That's fine. Emotional attacks put in bold don't help things.

[Outraged]

Looks like we're plum out of kool-aide.

[thespywhozaggedme]

Spy:
Your stats don't tell the tale. Did you WATCH? White looked much better but he had a team around him that wanted to win.. Zags didn't look like they seriously wanted a victory. It's no big deal. You pick and pick. You have a valued opinion but you try to force it on others who may not quite agree. I wouldn't attack them because your thoughts aren't theirs. You do that. Everyone looks at these games a bit differently. That's fine. Emotional attacks put in bold don't help things.

The stats are the only thing that matters here. Coby White did not "thoroughly" outplay Josh. I posted both of their lines. I'm done repeating myself.

[thespywhozaggedme]

Not that we can do anything about it at this point but games like this show me that we could still really use a big body 5 guy....rebound, box out, rim protector. I think we have missed not having one.

Free Petrusev

[krozman]

I'm not a guru, obviously, but when the entire team shows what we've seen over the last 4 games, it's the Coach and not the players. I can honestly say that every single player had cringe moments. We had point guards missing layups and dribbling the basketball off their foot, LITERALLY. I don't remember a "good" Gonzaga team in recent history where everyone has been bad at the same time as it has been this season. I'm laying this on the coaches.

[MDABE80]

Runnin on empty anyway! Adjustments will be made. Without further injuries, we'll be there n the end but Coach has eyes too. He likely is going nuts post He'll fix it. If you would take this game and isolated it, you would not think we have a single NBA candidate of this team. That'll change. The result was obviously bad but not THAT bad (pretty close though). First time in years where it looked like our guys were poisoned with sedatives or something. It was pretty much across the board....worst efforts in a long time.
I think we hit the wall. We'll win the rest of Decembers games but come January, we need to Filip grow and surely Tillie ( if he can play) and Crandall back. Both will help quite a bit. Our bigs just don't look like bigs as of today. Our guards just didn't do much.

[MDABE80]

I'm not a guru, obviously, but when the entire team shows what we've seen over the last 4 games, it's the Coach and not the players. I can honestly say that every single player had cringe moments. We had point guards missing layups and dribbling the basketball off their foot, LITERALLY. I don't remember a "good" Gonzaga team in recent history where everyone has been bad at the same time as it has been this season. I'm laying this on the coaches.

I think you said it better tan I did in the above post. It was diffusely awful today. All players not just one or two. Coaches? I don't know. I didn't think they showed up either. We looked like crap on national TV. Doesn't help with such a big audience. Oh well, we move on.

[zagsfanforlife]

Just pretty confused. Didn’t think UNC looked good, but our defensive intensity and rotation and energy was just pathetic. PATHETIC. Kispert was awful, Rui got outclassed in every sense by Maye, Clark looked nothing like the lottery pick you guys have proclaimed him to be, and not sure we should ever play zone again.