The team is definitely responding to the coaching and are rapidly improving. I cannot wait for Wednesday night. Let's fill Freedom Hall and go Bucs!

Really a solid win overall, to state the obvious. Any intel on whether or not the staff trucked their bottling plant over to the visitors' locker room for this game? Would be great if that happened.

That said...........................ECU didn't rise to our challenge, with a couple of exceptions. They shot 5/30 outside. Gah. That'll lose a lot of ball games. Did ETSU's D cause some of that? Sure, but far from all of it.
We committed 25 fouls - or to be more specific................25 fouls were *called* on the Bucs. *That'll* lose a lot of ball games. (And true, the officiating in Logan was much worse. I'll agree with others that that was one of the worst-officiated games I've seen in a very long time.)

As I theorized as a possibility, Sisk is being allowed to 'grow' into the role Justice Smith had his name on, but fumbled. Love his court sense, savvy, and overall intelligent play. If we can get him to stick around, he has a good chance to be all-conference by his junior year. IF.

We turned it over TEN times in the first 10 minutes, then only 7 more the rest of the way. Savage commented on that post-game. Yeah, but those TEN turnovers would have had us in a deep hole had ECU been shooting well, and taking advantage of it.

This is a nuanced, sort of circumspect observation, but Seymour, I think, has "sensed" the moment, and his capabilities, AND, importantly.........to know when to put the hammer down. Time will tell if my comment here is valid, but his "in-game maturity", if I may put an appellation on it, is coalescing nicely. We'll see how he responds to the inevitable frustration points during some conference games that's sure to happen.

Jaydn Parker played "within himself" perhaps better than any game this year. He didn't try to overplay the hands he was dealt. Thus his trys were profitable: 3/4.

Maki Johnson, though having great defensive hands and sense, is indeed hobbled somewhat by less-than-elite foot speed, shall we say. He's gonna be effective - or not - depending on match-ups. However, if his shooting confidence returns, that'll help tremendously. A solution to that, maybe - which is not gonna happen, tho - is to have him start a game. He's better suited to that; seems to struggle coming in cold. But...........that's just the way things are. He'll need to be that spark to keep getting PT.

The Rice/Peterson duo has now been completely solidified, barring injury, as the point tandem. (Rice's handle is a tad too high, but he (mostly) gets away with it. We'll see if that changes once "the book" on him is better known.) Feel bad for Strothers, but he's odd man out on that. Hope he gets some more time, but I don't see it for when it matters.

*Really* nice game for Karon Boyd, too. Solid in all phases. If he can continue that solidity, he'll be a true asset. Up to now he's been sort of a 'spotty' contributor.

Our FT shooting was, again, shockingly great. *That'll* win some games, if it was bottled somehow.

And...............I do believe this win has revived our hope for a 15 seed.

(12-30-2023 10:28 AM)Buc66 Wrote:  GO BUCS! As a NC native - this win was special with relation to some grudge stuff from the old days. Just saying, Coach Savage seems to be accomplishing more than Forbes did so far in their first seasons, given what Savage inherited and had to build from.

Forbes struggled a bit early in his first season but got the team to buy-in and play better during this part of the year, which is really the time when the most improvement always came with his teams. The challenges of building a roster have changed dramatically since that time, making a direct comparison between the first seasons difficult. Having said that, the level of emphasis placed on defense certainly reminds me of the Forbes era.

It is clear that Savage is the right coach to lead this team, unlike Shay or Oliver. My hope is that we step up and give him a raise before he leaves. Remember, we are paying Savage much less than what both Shay and Oliver received.