Hot Stove: UNC Basketball

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Parting ways with EC and supposedly advising Seth that he would likely only be a rotational player either demonstrates extreme confidence in our abilities in the portal (do we have players lined up?) or extreme arrogance. Time will tell.
 
UNCatTech said:
In my opinion we can't place blame on any one person for this season. Everyone contributed to where the team ended up.
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Certainly not. And the only reason it looks like Cadeau is getting so much blame is because expectations for his growth and performance far exceeded his actual growth and performance. With the rest of the guys (minus Tyson who wildly underperformed in a smaller role), we got more or less what we were expecting to get.
 
Been a huge supporter of EC and said people were crazy to want him gone. With that said, not a surprising move and probably the best outcome for both parties

I think several things are true regarding Cadeau. Overrated coming out of HS considering the offensive limitations, and that the staff did a poor job utilizing his talent. His struggles went beyond roster construction and offensive schemes though and it was going to be a gamble that he makes the leaps needed as a junior

From a roster construction perspective, I do think it makes things easier, even if it means bringing in 1 more player. If you might be returning some combination of Powell, Trimble, VAL, and bringing in Wilson, another non-shooter in that mix made things difficult
 
duluoz said:
Certainly not. And the only reason it looks like Cadeau is getting so much blame is because expectations for his growth and performance far exceeded his actual growth and performance. With the rest of the guys (minus Tyson who wildly underperformed in a smaller role), we got more or less what we were expecting to get.
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And mostly at the lower end of those expectations.
 
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.
 
UNCatTech said:
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.
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Like almost any time RJ & EC were on the floor together and the ball was in RJ's hands...

We watched 4 guards play for half the season with none of the advantages of playing 4 guards
 
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.
 
The problem with saying Cadeau shooting 33% from 3 is that most of those were wide ass open because teams chose to stay back and not guard his outside shot. Teams knew he could make a few here and there but absolutely no team in the country was worried about EC beating them with his outside shot.
 
finesse said:
I also understand that we don't have quite the same supporting cast or stability in the program to gamble that will happen next year. I do wonder how unequivocal this portal entrance is. Trimble changed his mind last year and it seems like he made the complete buy in.
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Which leads me to another question: What percentage of players who enter the portal return to their teams? I presume it's rare, as both parties (the player and the team) would have to agree to the reunion.
 
UNCatTech said:
That last statement is tough. No comparing the supporting cast. No one on this years team compares to Zeller, Barnes, or Henson. Maybe EC did make his teammates better, i don't believe we can really tell. But I would imagine that had he had the same supporting cast as KM, his numbers would have been better. Also, if I recall correctly, KM was an average outside shooter, but his passing and floor vision were outstanding.
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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.
 
People get hyper-fixated on the turnovers when EC improved every other aspect of his game

Not crazy to believe with a proper roster the turnovers also improve. I mean, look at the numbers over the last month when they started playing traditional lineups

Braden Smith, Zakai Zeiglar, Jeremy Fears, Ryan Nembhard. That is pretty much the list of high major guards with a higher assist %
 
mpaer said:
So should have Davis and Cadeau. Maybe it's Coaching-maybe Davis "hard to pair with" ?
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Both backcourts were small so there was always a size mismatch to exploit. Davis and Love sometimes also got into the Gaston/Alphonse routine, "You shoot. No, you shoot" thing until we ended up with one of them taking a bad shot.
 
Heelsandeers said:
People get hyper-fixated on the turnovers when EC improved every other aspect of his game

Not crazy to believe with a proper roster the turnovers also improve. I mean, look at the numbers over the last month when they started playing traditional lineups

Braden Smith, Zakai Zeiglar, Jeremy Fears, Ryan Nembhard. That is pretty much the list of high major guards with a higher assist %
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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.
 
Another thing that hurt us in particular this year was how contact driving the lane was called. It seemed like there were a lot of cases in the game in general where the player was knocked away from the ball instead of the ball from the player where nothing was called. I took it as a different emphasis on a rules interpretation but it sure hurts the smaller faster team. A whole lot of RJs and Cadeau's turnovers came off that. It cost more than a few trips to the line as well.
 
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