They shot the “threes” lights out (Gravett, Booker, Menaiya). Silva blocking shots, and tight defense. I see a game much different from BWA. I hope we show up with the right attitude.
I was kind of hoping for the rebellious ones. This is going to be a war. They will be ready for us and as The Ange Kennedy pointed out, they will begin the game with familiarity of the rims and shooting background of the Scottrade Center. Late in the game leg fatigue could be a factor. Can’t afford to fall too far behind early.
Ole Miss has a short and pitiful front line. All the sagging Ole Miss had to do led to lots of three attempts, which Booker, Minya and Miles made in bunches, and a whole lot of fouling Silva. Ole Miss also had to play zone quite a bit, and they are not quite long enough to bother the three point shooters when they play zone.
All that being said, South Carolina got pushed to the limit by a bad Ole Miss team. South Carolina went 12-21 shooting threes and won the game by one point. Silva played 38 minutes, Booker, Gravett and Kotsar played over 30 minutes, and Minya played 27 minutes. Their guards continue to be vulnerable to turning the ball over.
I think South Carolina will need a substantial lead at half time to win the game. They will probably come out and play well and make some shots in the first half, but that’s okay as long as we get into their legs by halftime. I suspect that they will really concentrate on Macon and Bradford, who killed them in the game at Fayetteville, so going inside out with Gafford and looking for Gafford and the other front line guys off of drives will be important.
South Carolina did not play very good defense last night and let Ole Miss drive to the basket easily. After the game, Frank Martin said something to the extent of, “If we do that tomorrow night, those two (Macon and Barford) will score 65.”
I am in favor of coach using it at the correct times. In this case, there best player Silva played 38 minutes last night, so we need to trap and press for the first 10 minutes. If CJ and Darius are shooting good enough that they can play a lot of minutes, then we can press and trap more with barford, macon and beard. If CJ isn’t shooting good we are in bad shape and need to limit our trapping and pressing.
Do you think they can shoot 57% from 3 for a second game in a row? I don’t think they can if our pressure defense gets into their legs early. I think we can wear them down after they played a lot mins last night to a point that we could probably switch to zone in the 2nd half.
I think you bring pressure, and you run off missed shots. We want to speed this game up. I will gladly trade some raggedy play with a few turnovers and easy looks for South Carolina in the first half for a tired South Carolina team that does not have the legs to make jump shots with twelve minutes to go in the game. As long as we keep it close until that time I feel like we will win the game.
We’ve used the zone successfully several times this season against teams with tired legs or questionable outside shooting, and I think that will probably happen again today once we’ve gotten into their legs a bit. How much we use a zone may be dictated in part by our foul situation. Gafford and the other front court guys will have to be mindful that with Silva sometimes its better to let him shoot than to contest his shot. Silva will miss some short shots whether you foul him or not, and he seeks out contact every time he goes up.