College Hoops Scouting Report #1 - Calling you out Roy!!!!!

Alright, so the betting profits have dwindled as of late. Some drastically unadvised bets were made, but some bets based on pre-season intel were made that were thrown back into my face. i.e. UNC and Michigan. This goes to show that the pre-season mags and web reports do help, but to get the straight ups on intel, one must head into the basement and check out some games.

Lets get to it. For us Canadians, we have to rely on online streaming to catch some games, but it was not that shabby with the 3 games on the screen at the same time. Talk about Tuesday night heaven tonight!!! These are more team recaps with some game recaps. Enjoy.

MICHIGAN 69 @ CLEMSON 61

MICHIGAN:
Michigan is one of those teams that all the previews pointed to them blowing this year. If you recall the prognostication blog of Syracuse easily covering over Michigan last week, Michigan lost their 2 ONLY scorers last year. The whole offense revolved around Manny Harris and Deshawn Sims. Now that those two left the program, the preview intel stated that the remaining players are tragic as far as taking the reins, and they're recruiting class are very low rated.

Well, from the half I saw of this game, their returning players are still pretty tragic. But the first-year players for the Wolverines are pretty good. This was displayed in Michigan's redshirt freshman, Jordan Morgan. He is a wide bodied 6-8 post who took over a portion of the game to get 4 easy buckets off garbage boards. I texted the Insanity Staff about this, but looking at the box score, this was a Morgan short-led flurry of 8 points, as it was the only 8 points he had for the whole night. But there are more teams that wish they got garbage hoops than those that actually get it, so this is a good sign for the Wolverines.

Michigan may surprise many people by stealing a few games in the Big Ten and perhaps finishing in the middle of the pack rather than the basement as many thought. They run an OK spread-out half court O, and we'll see if they can keep the disciplined shot selection that have helped them out so far this young season.

CLEMSON
Clemson have some solid returning talent, but there was little it-factor displayed from them in this game. They have a solid starting 5, but they just don't have the mojo despite the glue-type guy in SR. Guard, Demontez Stitt.

(14) GEORGETOWN 111 @ (8) MISSOURI 102

By far, the best game viewed so far this year. Some Madness involved with Georgetown executing a mini-comeback by chipping away in the last minute, down by 4 to tie the game at the buzzer. The comeback was sparked by some key mistakes by Mizzou as they held the 4 point lead in the last minute:

Down by four, G-Town were switching hoops to Mizzou's free throws as G-Town had to foul. Mizzou's Guard, Michael Dixon did fauz-pas #1 by fouling Georgetown with 14 seconds left, to stop the clock and allow Chris Wright to hit 2 free throws for the Hoyas. Mizzou's now back up 2 points. G-Town immediately fouled the Missou inbounds to stop the clock. Then as Mizzou only hit 1 of 2 throws to cut the lead to 3 points, rather then a 2-possesion 4 point lead, a Mizzou player performed faux pas #2: THE CARDINAL SIN of cardinal sins by saving the ball as it was going out of bounds UNDER HIS OWN HOOP!!!!! Georgetown's possession started with a missed 3 pointer, and as the rebound was bobbled by both sides, the ball was going out of bounds, when the Mizzou player committed his deadly sin. The ball obviously went into the hands of Georgetown's Jason Clark and he hit a wide open Chris Wright for the game tying 3 to send it into overtime!!!! Boom, I was texting the Insanity Report Staff immediately with a Madness-Alert!!!!!

OT was dominated by Georgetown as Mizzou's sail was deflated from the last minute choke job.

GEORGETOWN HOYAS
A definite All-Adolph Top 10 team!! They have adequate big men, who can jump up for some athletic O and D rebounds, but there is no wide bodies to command any low post presence. And if there is anything to display that Georgetown is guard orientated, just look at the box score from their 3 starting guards: Austin Freeman 31 pts, Jason Clark 26 pts and Chris Wright 21 pts! If I carry a couple of zero's, I do believe that is 78 of Georgetown's 111 points!!! Yamma hamma!!! And that's with the 3 of them going 12-26 from down town!!! Can you say Cait Haggarty/K-Smack Alert!?!?!?

A previous blog stated that Georgetown is making a complete 180 in style/philosophy by becoming a guard oriented team from their traditional Center/Low Post Identity of Ewing/Mourning/Mutombo/Hibbert/Monroe's Past. The Senior guard trio in Freeman, Wright and Clark are the real deal. They will be flat out assasin's from downtown and out on the break!!!!

This is contrary to teams who live and die by the sword of 3-point shots, like an over-rated Florida Gators. Those teams will shoot themselves outta games more than they shoot themselves into W's, but not the Trey-town Hoyas......all Austin Freeman does is hit treys!!!! Even during team slumps during his previous 3 years, the only thing that stopped Freeman from hittin 3's was an illness in mid-December last year that sidelined him for 3-4 weeks. Even on the rare night that Freeman is cold, odds are that Clark and Wright will pick up the slack.

How do you beat the Hoya's? Slow the effing game down and eat clock on your offensive possessions to take the ball out of The Hoya Assassins' hands. If this is done first of all, then second of all, that team will need the big men to command the slight weakness in the post that Georgetown has. Georgetown's big guys, however are a relative weakness compared to the huge guard strength they have in the 3 Trey-ateers; The Hoya posts are not as useless as a Tar Heel front court (stay tuned for that rant); They do get the necessary O and D boards to keep a possession going or start the break.

One game, I'm looking forward to seeing is Georgetown v. Marquette, as Marquette plays a methodical half-court style O, and will slow the game down to limit Georgetown's under-rated fast break lay-ups and stop-on-a-dime 3's. That game won't happen until Feb. 13th, so stay tuned for their next test v. Temple on Dec. 9th!!!

MISSOURI

Two words: SPEED KILLS!!!

Missouri gets out on the break and almost has no transition from the D-board to the blistering fast lay-up on the other end. It seems like there is no transition if you blink after the rebound, that is!!!! Their speed will kill many teams this year!!!

But by being a fast team, and utilizing that speed as a huge strength, it will expose Mizzouri relying on more instinct than what will be desired from Missouri Head Coach, Mike Anderson. That instinct killed Mizzou tonight with both faux pas' in the last 15 seconds.

If Mizzou can learn to play at different speeds and learn to change those gears at the right time of the game, they may compete towards the top of the Big 12, rather then having their own speed kill them late in a game like it did tonight.

NORTH CAROLINA 67 @ (21) ILLINOIS 79

No real news from this game. Illinois held a 12-15 point cushion the whole 2nd half.

ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI
No real news here either. Illinois have all 5 starters returning. 4 of those 5 are seniors.

They're best player in SR. PG Demetri McCamey can be their top scorer, but must be their top passer and hence he must be their leading assist player. This was his M.O last year, as he led the Sick Belly Buttons (Fighting Illini.....as in Ill Inn-ie's.....no? Mm-kay) in scoring at 15 ppg, and he led them in assists at a healthy 7 apg. But he shouldn't have been their top scorer. By McCamey taking both roles on, made him dribble waaaayy too much in the half-court. He'd over-dribble for close to the 5 second violation during so many possessions last year, that the oppsoing D could stand pat and cover passing lanes and set up good block-out positions off of McCamey misses.

McCamey is a talented All-Adolph Pre-Season Honorable Mention team member, but the Illini can't afford for McCamey to take on both scoring and dime roles like a black-hole player in a pick-up game. The Illini's big men in Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis are waaay too talented and dominating in the blocks to ignore. McCamey HAS to sacrifice J's for entry passes into the blocks. If this happens, then Illinois will be the Sweet 16 favorites many are picking them to be.

NORTH CAROLINA
(sigh)

(deep breath)...........(sigh).......(head shake)

No new news here either. If you had the misfortune of watching this game you'd see the same mess from last year.

UNC comes in with arguably the best recruiting class again this year, with arguably the best freshmen. Last year it was John Henson. This year it's Harrison Barnes. In watching my first UNC game this year, I was fooled by the previews and over-rated ranking of the Tar Heels, just as I was last year. Fool me once, shame on UNC. Fool me twice? Shame on me.

Shame on me?!?!?!?

Let's take a deeper look into UNC. Their whole team played last year with absolutely no basketball IQ WHATSOEVER!!!! They displayed zero transition defense. They couldn't execute a full court press if their lives depended on it. They're only rebounds were off big bounces or due to their McDonald All-American jumping ability, and not due to any toughness, desire or body positioning. Their shooting percentage (in all aspects from 2 pt, 3 pt, and free throws) and turnover stats rivaled that of a Dave Adolph stat sheet.....low, and very high!!!!

I talked to Insanity Report North Correspondant, Marc Paulsen, and he mentioned that last year's freshmen class-led Tar Heel's may have been a sour batch of recruits. I thought the same thing at times.

Now take a look at this year. The exact same weaknesses were exposed in tonight's game from last year. I mean, 7 of the 11 scholarship players were friggin' McDonald All-American's coming out of high school. That is, they have displayed talents at one point in time. But tonight, they could not display any of those talents due to their turning the ball over before they could develop any half-court rhythm. They went through the motions of trying a double team, but Illinois broke them as easily as a soggy saltine cracker in a bowl of soup!!!

Fool us twice? Not shame on us! Shame on you Roy!!! I hate to say this, but some Tar Heel Tough-Love must be shown here. You have 2 huge recruiting classes from the past 2 years. You have 7 McDonald's All-American's out of 11 players on your bench. Yes, the bulk of these players have not physically developed yet (John Henson), and all of your players (except for Tyler Zeller) have displayed toughness as strong as a wet spagetti-noodle. But it's your job to recognize the lack in the aforementioned qualities while you recruit these players, and it's your job to DEVELOP these players! They are indeed highly rated players, but they are still high school players. Motivate them enough to show some toughness, and gawd-damn-it, develop a basketball IQ above a grade 10 level out of your players!!!

Many coaches do more with less rated recruits year in and year out (i.e. Mark Few from Gonzaga). And I cringe to say this, but the few coaches who are blessed with getting top rated recruits year in and year out (.....(sigh).....Duke's Coach Krazak-zew-ski) develop their recruits.

Roy, step your coaching game up!!!! You're stuck with these players. You recruited them. Find a way!!!!

Yes, this is a frustrated CrazyDavo, so cue the frustrated quick exit ala an Arizona Cardinal QB, Derek Anderson post game interview.

"This is not funny!!! I pour my heart and soul every week to gloss the Tar Heels in many a blog!!!! I take this shitty UNC hoops serious!!!! I don't want to see them go out there in the hallowed Dean Dome and embarrass themsleves!!!! It's not funny, it's not funny........I'm Done!!!!!"

Frustrated CrazyDavo out!