Effort similar to the high effort of the Duke game -----particularily on defense-----doubling Gray-----hustling out taking away treys. DJ was outstanding (10 assists with better shot selection)------ditto for Mathews and Cubilan. Great move by TC to insert Kinsella (always felt he could be our answer at #4 this year, but his injury slowed down his development)-----when you think about it the unusual nature of hs 2 treys were the margin of victory.
A key element in the first 3 quarters was forcing Gray out away from the hoop on defense------he started out on Haywood with Kendall on Barro-----the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half Gray was on Barro-----Barro goes out to the arc to set picks and Gray follows -----puts a "hedge" on Mathews driving off Barro's screen and picks up a foul-----a few miutes later puts a "hedge" on DJ driving offf a Barro screen and picks up another foul-----"hedging" with Gray is the dumbest thing I've seen in a long time in Div 1 BB-----I thought we could have taken more advantage of the Gray "hedge" in a couple of different ways-----but that's a mute point as things turned out alright.
The smartest thing Dizon did was go to a 2-3 zone down 17 points with 10 minutes to go-----had he done that at halftime, they may have won. We just don't play as well against zones as against man defenses generally as we don't get inside as easily-----they force us into a perimeter game (treys). We need "points in the paint" to win in most cases.
Pitt trys to work and inside/outside passing game off Gray against our zone
but most of the time he wasn't in position to get the ball (either high or low)-----and when he did get the ball his kickouts were very weak giving our guys time to cover the trey-----contrast that with DJ's strong/crisp passes for the catch & shoot trey!
