If we don’t hit that cold stretch from 3 midway through the second half, we probably win by a dozen. Eventually UNC would’ve started fouling to extend the game and the free throws would’ve evened up a bit.
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Just from my laymans eyes, we have A LOT more talent on this years team than we have had in a long time. Maybe its just a better bench than a better team?

Its maddening that KJ is out there playing and then I see this guys come off the bench and score, play defense etc.
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More Bidunga. Less KJ and Dickinson.

Less Coit and more Mayo and Griffen.

Passmore's an afterthought right now, but he might be the best pro prospect on the team. I think he'll have a bigger role by the end of the year.

Interested to see what Moore brings to the table.
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I want to see more 4 guard lineups with Dickinson and Bidunga rotating at the 5.

KJ can come in for energy spurts. His lack of rebounding completely negates one of the benefits of having a second big on the floor.
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I want to see us play a game without Harris, Dickinson and KJ. Just to see how it would look. Bidunga has been better than Dickinson so far this year...yes in limited minutes and there is no way he's actually better than Hunter yet except maybe on defense.

A lineup of Coit, Mayo, Griffen, Storr, Bidunga would be FUN to watch.
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If nothing else, we ran Dickinson and Harris into the ground last year.

Need to load manage with all this depth.
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No.
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Through 2 games, Dickinson ranks 6th in KenPom POY standings. He’s doing a ton offensively out there. Benching him for a freshman is not it, limiting his minutes so he can actually play some level of defense is where it’s at.
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That's why I said defensively and I am not saying to do that. Would like to see him get more minutes though.
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Bidunga looks exciting but he looks like he would be a big liability at the end of games shooting FTs.
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So, how bad does a take have to be for me to agree with you? Saying any big on the team has been better than Hunter is just stupid.
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Dickenson is an all america. Lol
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I re-watched the second half and just focused on the defensive end for the most part, and I actually came away a bit more optimistic than I was watching it live. I know people were pretty down on Dickenson due to the last 5 minutes or so, but he is far from the sole reason UNC made it a game like they did. Here are some things I saw:

-First, some things should be easily correctable. I counted 4(!) possessions where we gave up points simply because we couldn't figure out who was guarding who, and to be clear I'm talking about basic half court defense not transition baskets. I assume this will get better as guys get more experience playing together, but it was frustrating to watch someone draw a foul or get an easy basket because two people ran to guard one guy and left someone else open.

-KJ's impact on our defense is even more impactful than what it may seem because of his impact on the offense. We gave up multiple run outs early in the second half because of where KJ has to be when they want to isolate Hunter down low. If Hunter is on one block looking for the ball, KJ is almost always standing in the opposite corner doing nothing, and I mean this literally. He's not cutting or screening or anything. The issue is what happens when Hunter doesn't get the ball and someone else shoots. For example, early in the second half Storr gets the ball on the wing and drives and doesn't get the call on the shot at the rim, and UNC rebounds. Now you have Storr, Hunter, and KJ all basically standing at the end line as far from our basket as possible. A quick outlet pass to a guard kills us because Harris is so small and can easily be bullied by a guard in the open court, which leads to easy baskets and fouls. This didn't hurt us in the first half when we were shooting well, but it becomes more of a problem when we go cold.

-The game plan was kind of weird. We would randomly put guys in the center of the lane because they assumed some of their guys couldn't shoot. Well, they made some, but what made this worse is, going back to my first point, they don't understand rotations yet and who guards who in a scramble situation. This means we gave up multiple easy baskets off of this and I'm surprised Self kept doing it. Coit in particular had one of the worst possessions you will see all year where he didn't really guard anyone and just blindly ran around and gave up an open 3. Not surprisingly he didn't enter the game after that. I'll be interested to see if they try it against Michigan State, but I'm not worried about this long term.

-I do think fatigue played a part for Hunter, and certainly nobody is confusing him for an elite defender out on the perimeter, but I think it's interesting that he's getting all the blame in pick and roll situations when teams also pick on someone else in this situation: Harris. Almost every single pick and roll down the stretch was Hunter and Harris, and this isn't an accident. Hunter accentuates all of Harris' weaknesses: he's small, not fast enough against elite guards, and he isnt physically capable of blocking guys from getting to the rim on a roll situation. Not every pick and roll was hunter's fault. I think we are going to keep seeing more of this and I wonder how self is going to counter it, because simply being less fatigued won't cure it.
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Tldr

Rock chalk
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Withers couldn't shoot last year (4/20 from three in total), so that strategy of protecting the lane from his perspective at least had some reason behind it. He's now 5/8 so far this year (including three 3s against KU).

I also don't think Harris to blame for their weakness on defense at all (in fact, he's probably the only guard we have right now who even plays a passable level of defense not counting the injured Moore). Dickinson has been a problem in that regard for his entire college career and teams know to target him due to his lateral movement. It's especially an issue when the other team has a big that can shoot (as we saw last year).
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