Hot Stove: UNC Basketball

[Mundial]

KM's passing was the best I've ever seen. Those 3/4 court passes that hit a breaking teammate in stride were a thing of beauty. And he would launch those passes MULTIPLE times in a game. Like I said ... BEST PASSER EVER ... at least on the college level.

Bobby Hurley was better and Cota was better as well. KM was good at the LONG passes and you could say he was one of the best at those...

 

[Batt Boy]

Bobby Hurley was better and Cota was better as well. KM was good at the LONG passes and you could say he was one of the best at those...

Agreed. KM's long passes put a halo around him overall because they were so sublime, but the best all around passers I've seen are Cota and I hate to say it, Hurley,.

 

[farce©]

This is the most IC-like thread we've had here since this board was birthed.

 

[Carolina Fever]

To me, the expectations were set before the season that this would be a fast running transition team. That's not what I watched most of the time. I feel like I saw a lot of standing at the top of the key with little movement by the other players. It also felt like Washington was penciled in as the starting center at the end of 2024 season, which may have contributed to the way the portal went and to why it was late in the season before the rotation seamed to settle in.

Ultimately from my eye test, I didn't see a consistent cohesive team.

I have been saying this for the past four years.

 

[Huh?]

Cadeau always reminded me of a shorter version of Craig Neal. One moment, jaw dropping dime. The next, WTF turnover...

 

[SnoopRob]

3)RJ Davis and Caleb Love should have been a killer backcourt...we certainly saw glimpses of it. Always felt that HD's inexperience as a head coach led to never reigning in the bad shots those two years. Iron 5 my ass...if you keep jacking up bad shots, come sit on the bench for a while. Do it early in the season to set accountability.

I'd be curious to hear more about why you think they'd work well together.

My take is that they are far too similar to play well together, especially since neither is anything like a natural PG and neither is big enough to play the 3.

How do you see them working well together, what positions do you think they each play, and how do you see the rest of the team working around them?

 

[Geisterfahrer]

I think what Elliot excels at is different from HD's style and general approach to offense

Seems like he's better off with two combo guards than a true point

It looked to me like Hubert wanted Elliott to play faster in the first half of the season and then eventually just gave up about it. Contrast that with Roy who would perform the same sideline gyrations but never give up about it.

That doesn't make me think 2 combo guards are better, but Elliott decided he wasn't going to be Ty Lawson.

 

[Centerpiece]

A couple of comments:

1) EC shooting 33.7% from 3 is a fine number. He shot like crap from the outside his first year (the scouting reports literally said to play off him). His shot was improved this second season; he made some big 3s in that winning stretch.

2)I still think the big problem this year was committing to a 3 guard lineup early on. I suspect HD made promises to Trimble in particular that he would either start or get a fair shot at starting. Trimble worked his ass off last summer and came in looking great, basically forcing HD to start him. Being undersized at 3 positions is tough (heck I worried that we were starting two undersized guards), but then add in unproven/undersized players at the 4/5 made it all that more challenging. It took the staff way too long to figure out the best lineup...going to a more standard lineup with Withers starting at the 4.

3)RJ Davis and Caleb Love should have been a killer backcourt...we certainly saw glimpses of it. Always felt that HD's inexperience as a head coach led to never reigning in the bad shots those two years. Iron 5 my ass...if you keep jacking up bad shots, come sit on the bench for a while. Do it early in the season to set accountability.

"if you keep jacking up bad shots, come sit on the bench for a while"

This^^^
This is the ONE thing where I know Hubert should have known better having played for Dean and Coached under Roy. He should have done it with Caleb 2 years ago, and he should have done this year with all 5 starters. All those games we came out flat, played like crap and fell behind early (and dug ourselves a hole to deep to climb out of in the 2nd half), Hubert should have jerked out the starters and put in the 2nd unit if not the walk-ons to send a message! He should have done it the very first game that crap happened. Dean would have done it. Roy would have done it. Doing that on the very first game it was needed, and we may not have seen that pattern repeated again and again... and again in the final game of our season.

Say what you will about Hubert and his coaching abilities, offense, line ups, etc. etc. - That is the ONE thing that gets my goat about his coaching decisions.

 

[superrific]

"if you keep jacking up bad shots, come sit on the bench for a while"

This^^^
This is the ONE thing where I know Hubert should have known better having played for Dean and Coached under Roy. He should have done it with Caleb 2 years ago, and he should have done this year with all 5 starters. All those games we came out flat, played like crap and fell behind early (and dug ourselves a hole to deep to climb out of in the 2nd half), Hubert should have jerked out the starters and put in the 2nd unit if not the walk-ons to send a message! He should have done it the very first game that crap happened. Dean would have done it. Roy would have done it. Doing that on the very first game it was needed, and we may not have seen that pattern repeated again and again... and again in the final game of our season.

Say what you will about Hubert and his coaching abilities, offense, line ups, etc. etc. - That is the ONE thing that gets my goat about his coaching decisions.

Didn't Roy coach Caleb as a freshman? He didn't sit his ass when he took bad shots. Some players just aren't fixable.

I don't know why the team constantly came out flat, but it did not appear that substitution patterns solved the problem. The allocation of minutes and starting spots actually fluctuated quite a bit. If someone wanted to be motivated and get PT, the opportunity was right there for the taking. It was not seized.

Maybe HD is to blame for all the slow starts. I wouldn't know. But I don't think it's because he refused to bench players. Everyone on the team this year, save RJ, got benched or less PT at some points in the season.

 

[Heelsandeers]

Honest question since I see you were a big EC guy — how did you feel about his cheap little dookie maneuvers where he’d flail his arms toward a guy’s head area, hook and pull offensive players down on top of him to dry to draw a foul, dive into a player’s legs to grab a loose ball… what seemed to me to be a regular pattern of cheap tactics lacking integrity… what are your thoughts on that?

And “he’s young” doesn’t mean much to me on this — lots of players are young and are still able to keep composure, to where they don’t lash out emotionally or in sneaky ways that would make Grayson Allen, Singler, and Filipowski proud.

Because for me, that kind of thing makes it nearly impossible to root for a kid like that. Yet nearly everyone here seems to be glossing over, minimizing, or condoning that side of him.

To me those were the biggest red flags, and why I said it would be a gamble to bring him back

There's no excusing it and it's stuff that have should been out of his system long ago. It was lack of composure leading to awful turnovers and fouls, as much as it was the other factors, and it became a self-fulfilling cycle

I was optimistic he'd grow as needed as a player and individual. But I don't know these players personally, or keep up with them off the court. No idea how realistic of an expectation that was

 

[superrific]

I'd be curious to hear more about why you think they'd work well together.

This is the problem with combo guards, and it's why combo guards basically fell out of the NBA for a while. Steph Curry brought them back, but that was its own dynamic.

Combo guards are combo guards because they lack important abilities. Usually a combo guard is smaller than a SG and shoots worse than a SG. He has a better handle and better playmaking instincts, but not as good as a PG.

25 years ago, the combo guard made sense as a complementary piece. Roy used to love combo guards at Kansas. That's because the strengths of flexibility outweighed the weaknesses.

But that's not true as much these days. Now that 3 point shooting is so good, turnovers are even more of a problem than in the past, as they set up open in-rhythm 3s, the best shots in the game. So you definitely don't want your SG to be playing PG. Also, vision is more at a premium because the "dump down into the post" play is no longer a staple action. In order to get your shooters the ball, you need a PG. But then your combo guard has to play SG, and that's a problem because he isn't a great shooter usually. And again, with 3 point shooting being so good, perimeter height is important -- both for effective challenges on jumpers, and also for dealing with penetration, since help is less available in today's game.

So to me, if a player is described as a "combo guard" that's a pretty negative feature for me. Not saying the player couldn't still be good, but it's a strike against him.

And RJ is hard to pair, because he's a ball dominant shooting guard who is very short. You need a tall PG to pair with him, and tall PGs also tend to be ball dominant.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Honest question since I see you were a big EC guy — how did you feel about his cheap little dookie maneuvers where he’d flail his arms toward a guy’s head area, hook and pull offensive players down on top of him to dry to draw a foul, dive into a player’s legs to grab a loose ball… what seemed to me to be a regular pattern of cheap tactics lacking integrity… what are your thoughts on that?

And “he’s young” doesn’t mean much to me on this — lots of players are young and are still able to keep composure, to where they don’t lash out emotionally or in sneaky ways that would make Grayson Allen, Singler, and Filipowski proud.

Because for me, that kind of thing makes it nearly impossible to root for a kid like that. Yet nearly everyone here seems to be glossing over, minimizing, or condoning that side of him.

It's what I like to call "Pete Rose Syndrome." If he's on your team, you love him. If he's on the other team, you hate him.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

This is the most IC-like thread we've had here since this board was birthed.

Is that a compliment or a condemnation? Or a little of both?

 

[finesse]

Damned with faint praise sounds about right.

 

[Heelsandeers]

It looked to me like Hubert wanted Elliott to play faster in the first half of the season and then eventually just gave up about it. Contrast that with Roy who would perform the same sideline gyrations but never give up about it.

That doesn't make me think 2 combo guards are better, but Elliott decided he wasn't going to be Ty Lawson.

Idk, I just think HD's offense is too highly structured, which make a true point less valuable. Predictably of HD's offense has been one of my main criticisms. After the first and second option break down, guys are just standing around

Roy incorporated much more freelance. There's really not much scheming for it and giving guys the freedom to just make plays. Elliot would excel in a fast paced offense with lots of quick passes and player movement

 

[duluoz]

It's what I like to call "Pete Rose Syndrome." If he's on your team, you love him. If he's on the other team, you hate him.

Ha maybe. But as a Warriors fan I’ve had a decade+ of having to put up with Draymond’s crap, so maybe it’s gotten tougher over the years for me to excuse any hint of that style, regardless of the overall output.

Especially the way we all loathe dook for those very reasons.

 

[Carolina Fever]

Idk, I just think HD's offense is too highly structured, which make a true point less valuable. Predictably of HD's offense has been one of my main criticisms. After the first and second option break down, guys are just standing around

Roy incorporated much more freelance. There's really not much scheming for it and giving guys the freedom to just make plays. Elliot would excel in a fast paced offense with lots of quick passes and player movement

I thought Hubert once described his offense as a freelance offense like the NBA. However, it's more 1 on 1 based after the high screen for the pick and roll with hardly any movement without the ball like you said. You don't have to use set plays but you can use a freelance offense where the players move more without the ball and make cuts and set screens off the ball to get players open.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Ha maybe. But as a Warriors fan I’ve had a decade+ of having to put up with Draymond’s crap, so maybe it’s gotten tougher over the years for me to excuse any hint of that style, regardless of the overall output.

Especially the way we all loathe dook for those very reasons.

I guess Draymond's reputation needs the proper framing, like the 2009 NCAA Championship game against a team from the East Coast.

 

[heelinhell]

EC as a SO did not shoot the same percentages as KM. Over 36/37 games, they weren’t that close.

EC didn’t touch or compare to KM in assists or turnovers.

KM swung for the fences on many assists. The thing is, he hit the HR again and again. KM made Zeller and Barnes and Henson and others look better.

Yes, KM played with a better supporting cast than EC did; KM made his supporting cast look much better than EC made his look.

I'm late to the party but is someone actually making a favorable comparison of Cadeau to Kendall Marshall ? Seriously ?

 

[Centerpiece]

Didn't Roy coach Caleb as a freshman? He didn't sit his ass when he took bad shots. Some players just aren't fixable.

I don't know why the team constantly came out flat, but it did not appear that substitution patterns solved the problem. The allocation of minutes and starting spots actually fluctuated quite a bit. If someone wanted to be motivated and get PT, the opportunity was right there for the taking. It was not seized.

Maybe HD is to blame for all the slow starts. I wouldn't know. But I don't think it's because he refused to bench players. Everyone on the team this year, save RJ, got benched or less PT at some points in the season.

Yes, of course Roy coached him his freshman year, but I think you're wrong. I don't think Roy let Caleb shoot us out of games the way Hubert did - Roy never allowed Caleb to jack like that. Caleb attempted 11 shots per game under Roy playing 27mpg. Under Hubert (35mpg) he jacked up about 15 attempts per game with 7 of those attempts 3's.

But now that you mention it, I think Roy did sit Caleb for a bit after a couple or 3 ill-advised shots. Matter of fact I'm sure he did. But, as you say, some just aren't fixable. And Caleb is one of those. He continued his ways for 2 more years at Zona.

But, my real point is not about Caleb... Roy used to jerk out all 5 starters if he didn't like the effort he saw. Especially at the beginning of games. So did Dean. Hubert never did.

You may not think Hubert's refusal to bench players - in the same manner Dean and Roy did - could have helped out with some of those slow starts. I think otherwise.