Sure, you’d love to have a big like Wiley, and a banger like Purifoy to help us against teams like UGA who can really own the paint and cause you problems.
But I suspect if Wiley is in the lineup last night, Bruce is far less likely to go with that second half “20 minutes of hell” that clearly tired, intimidated, and panicked UGA (especially as evidenced by their turnovers) as we ran the Dawgs out of our Arena.
I’d instead imagine that Bruce (as most coaches would) would see it as a game you gotta keep close, feed Wiley, see if you can get UGA in foul trouble. And win a close one. Which would be fine.
But he wouldn’t have discovered the edge we have trapping, pressuring, and stealing that sets up clean looks, layups and dunks.
So what Bruce & Co have done is turn an apparent weakness into a big advantage most nights. He commented that they saw several UGA players with “heavy minutes”, so he knew we could force those bigs to do what they’re not built to do playing such a frenetic pace. Maybe Gus was watching #HUNH.
And to the subject line point, it seems you NEVER see any of our guys asking for a blow, a break from the game. Superior conditioning, agility and strength. Props to Ryan Russell and the S&C staff, and to Bruce’s recruiting of elite athletes.
It even started to show in our guys’ rebounding, as our shorter guys just got to the ball quicker, tipped it away, or swarmed the UGA rebounder. Looked like we were playing 6-7 guys at times.
Damn fun to watch, that’s for sure.
But I suspect if Wiley is in the lineup last night, Bruce is far less likely to go with that second half “20 minutes of hell” that clearly tired, intimidated, and panicked UGA (especially as evidenced by their turnovers) as we ran the Dawgs out of our Arena.
I’d instead imagine that Bruce (as most coaches would) would see it as a game you gotta keep close, feed Wiley, see if you can get UGA in foul trouble. And win a close one. Which would be fine.
But he wouldn’t have discovered the edge we have trapping, pressuring, and stealing that sets up clean looks, layups and dunks.
So what Bruce & Co have done is turn an apparent weakness into a big advantage most nights. He commented that they saw several UGA players with “heavy minutes”, so he knew we could force those bigs to do what they’re not built to do playing such a frenetic pace. Maybe Gus was watching #HUNH.
And to the subject line point, it seems you NEVER see any of our guys asking for a blow, a break from the game. Superior conditioning, agility and strength. Props to Ryan Russell and the S&C staff, and to Bruce’s recruiting of elite athletes.
It even started to show in our guys’ rebounding, as our shorter guys just got to the ball quicker, tipped it away, or swarmed the UGA rebounder. Looked like we were playing 6-7 guys at times.
Damn fun to watch, that’s for sure.
