This has to be done to be fair to Sidney Lowe.

1/16/2024 11:38:31 PM

Whether it was a function of him coaching or just confirmation bias. I can say that we ran the most structured playsets I have seen in a while during that second half. There was very little freelancing and dumb shots.

+10 Credibility

[Edited on January 17, 2024 at 1:26 PM. Reason : d]

1/17/2024 1:26:14 PM

LMAO we were literally running the exact same offense we have all year. Nothing changed. We shot less threes because WF plays defense to limit 3PA by going over top every screen which leads to open driving lanes for the ball handler. Horne in particular took advantage of this. This time instead of shooting like 10% like he did against UNC, Horne made most of his floaters. Obviously better in-game coaching!!!

1/17/2024 2:30:34 PM

Hey I'm willing to admit it could be my own confirmation bias because I'm over Keatts. But the fact that we weren't jacking up early 3s certainly helped my perception as well.

Our offense, when we run it, is fine. Plenty of screen and roll action and ball movement. It just seemed to me that we ran it more consistently during the second half. The frustration always comes when our fast break gets slowed down and we start freestyling into some dumbass shots. Now, it's possible Wake handled our break better and forced us into half-court offense and it's also possible that them denying us 3s actually inadvertently helped our shot selection as well.

But i'm gonna stubbornly stick to Kareem Richardson is a better in-game coach than Keatts.

For real though, I did notice it was nice I didn't have to hear his shrieking voice over the crowd every time our guys had the ball.

1/17/2024 2:52:53 PM

Do we think that Keatts tells the team “run the offense” and they ignore him and then Kareem tells them “hey really guys, we should run the offense” and they do it?

1/17/2024 3:06:52 PM

Well it's that or Richardson installed a completely new offense on the fly during the game. No other explanations.

1/17/2024 3:18:00 PM

I have absolutely no evidence to go by here, but here is a more plausible scenario from a good in-game coach (ie, not Keatts).

In the huddle during a timeout: Hey DJ, they are giving you that free floater in the lane after overpursuing the three every single time down the court. Keep slowing it down and starting the set until they decide to stop it.

In other words, it's not "run the offense harder", it's "here is a way to exploit their defense, let's run X set to do it". Is that actually what happened? Who knows? Did we run more effective offense in the second half of that otherwise ugly game despite not hitting a single 3-pointer? Seems to me to be the case.

1/17/2024 3:20:01 PM

Keatts in timeouts (according to jocristian):

Hey guys they are running you off the three point line, so you should shoot more threes. If not that, just wildly jack up shots.

1/17/2024 3:26:24 PM

I'm not saying that. But our players are

...with what they do.

So either Keatts doesn't offer good in-game help, or he does and they don't listen. Either way, it's a problem.

What are we even talking about here? I know neither of you fuckers are even big Keatts fans.

Are we just trying to be the voice of reason or what? This is the last remaining forum that I feel comfortable talking shit about our forever mediocre basketball team that I am somehow still hopelessly a fan of for some reason.

[Edited on January 17, 2024 at 3:31 PM. Reason : dddd]

1/17/2024 3:31:02 PM

We made open shots against wake. We missed open shots against UNC. That is the difference in the games. Not some magical assistant coach fixing the team.

I assume Richardson also told them to start hitting free throws

1/17/2024 3:35:26 PM

Uh... what? We shot 0% from 3 against wake? The difference is that we took less than half as many against wake as we did against UNC. I don't have a shot chart for the wake game, but I see we had 50 points in the paint... compared to 24 against UNC.


We quite literally shot ourselves out of the game against UNC despite having pretty damn good defense and energy.

[Edited on January 17, 2024 at 3:45 PM. Reason : our FT% was basically indentical for both games btw]

1/17/2024 3:42:53 PM

Anyone else heard the conspiracy theories that Keatts was just really ill (hence the mask for what seems to be the first time all season) and just wanted to get off the floor and save face ASAP?

Not the dumbest conspiracy I've heard at the water cooler.

1/17/2024 3:50:03 PM

I'm talking about how we started the game like sub 50% from the line against wake. And then ended shooting well. Clearly Richardson made us start hitting free throws in this game after Keatts told then to miss.

But yeah UNC allowed us to shoot 3s. We missed open shots. We are going to take open threes no matter the opponent. Wake did not allow open threes, hence we did not attempt many. UNC is a big team with very good interior defensive players. We did not score in the paint as much against them because of this as well as their defensive game plan whiich did not include denying every 3 attempt.

Honestly given our relatively shitty shooting numbers on the year, this is much more of an indictment of Forbes than it says anything about any member of our coaching staff. But then again, it's hard to tell a team not to do the primary thing you do as a defensive unit. You just kinda have to live and die with your identity, much like Syracuse did under Boeheim.

Also, if Richardson was such a great coach, he would have been saying these things in every game. Coaching is not done sort of dictatorship where only the head coach is allowed to tell players what they see happening on the court.

1/17/2024 4:04:15 PM

Wow this is the dumbest Sports Talk thread I’ve seen in years

Congratulations

1/17/2024 4:15:09 PM

Quote :

"Anyone else heard the conspiracy theories that Keatts was just really ill (hence the mask for what seems to be the first time all season) and just wanted to get off the floor and save face ASAP?"

The announcers said at the beginning of the game that Keatts was ill, and he said he was wearing the mask to try to keep his players from catching it.

1/17/2024 5:41:31 PM

Gotta give KK credit for hiring KR in the first place.

1/17/2024 6:16:41 PM

^^ Well that 'splains the mask half of it. Still doesn't debunk the saving face part

1/17/2024 11:09:53 PM

Quote :

"but I see we had 50 points in the paint... compared to 24 against UNC. "

Sorry to bring this up again, but look at that shot chart you posted from the unc game and the complaints about too many midrange shots. DJH was feasting on midrange paints shots vs Wake, we also took a ton of those vs UNC we just missed them all.

[Edited on January 19, 2024 at 1:04 PM. Reason : I also couldn't find a wake shot chart]

[Edited on January 19, 2024 at 1:04 PM. Reason : E]

1/19/2024 1:03:46 PM

My first post in the thread was a tongue-in-cheek compliment of Richardson while also being a backhanded dig at Keatts' awful in-game coaching which I thought was a pretty universal opinion.

Then I got sucked into what I agree is a pretty insane and idiotic defense of Kareem Richardson who I had barely heard of before the Wake game because apparently justin wants to defend Keatts' in-game coaching (or just argue with me, either way I'm here for it).

Yes, I realize the games and teams were different.

The women's team shooting 28% against Miami the other night is an aberration. It's just one of those nights. It happens and the body of work that Wes has amassed makes up for it.

The men's team shooting piss-poor against UNC was not "just one of those nights". Keatts is 3-26 in Q1 games. We don't always shoot terribly, but we nearly always lose against good teams for one reason or another. Poor shot selection and long stretches without running a structured offense are nearly always at least part of the equation.

For what it's worth, although I still want Keatts out of here, I like this team and stand by most of my impressions from early in the season. Taylor, Horne and MOC are my favs of the group and you can't help but love Burns.

To more specifically respond to your point, my complaint is about long 2s (specifically those outside of our offense) which were plentiful in the UNC game, not so much in the wake game. DJ taking a controlled 12 footer as he backs down a defender is the not the same as Jayden fuckin Taylor cranking up a 20 footer with 27s on the shot clock because he is feeling himself.

[Edited on January 19, 2024 at 3:17 PM. Reason : ds]

1/19/2024 3:13:42 PM

I think the "Keatts hasn't really been good enough" is prob universal just some go more negative then that.

He also seems to run an isolation style offense that really needs shot makers, prob most would agree on that too.

This year we don't quite have those shot makers, but we have some guys who can turn it on every now and then. Also agree that this style is worse against better teams that can go toe to toe even when we do have top level shot makers.

I think we're prob mostly in agreement about some of Keatts drawbacks, just don't think the Wake game is a big systemic difference.

I just think if we re-watch the unc and wake games, the main diff will be shots going in or not (and foul calls or not). We actually had fewer assists on more made shots against wake, so we were still playing isolation.

[Edited on January 19, 2024 at 3:47 PM. Reason : We've also been unusually decent on D this year, despite Burns limitations ]

1/19/2024 3:43:56 PM

I mean the biggest difference in the wake and unc games (besides actually making shots) is the way both teams played defense. Wake allowed drives into the paint at the expense of denying open 3s. UNC played more to deny those drives and daring us to hit those 3s.

1/19/2024 4:03:58 PM

Quote :

" Keatts is 3-26 in Q1 games."

I don’t think this is accurate. I would guess we’ve played maybe 8-10 Q1 games/year. Only 29 in KK’s 6.5 seasons feels low.

1/19/2024 5:33:29 PM

Maybe last 3-4 years?

In 2020 we were 4-6 vs q1

1/19/2024 6:09:52 PM

That makes sense. Not surprised if his Q1 record is pretty awful. But figured it’d be 50+ Q1 games at this point.

1/19/2024 8:27:40 PM

gn...sp

1/19/2024 8:42:30 PM

Yeah, I was going from this post https://packinsider.com/2024/01/13/kevin-keatts-needs-to-prove-he-can-win-quad-1-games/

It's the last 4 seasons.

1/20/2024 5:20:18 PM

Richardson would never have drawn up so many dumb turnovers.

1/20/2024 11:47:31 PM