Monday, February 22, 2016

The Pursuit Begins Tuesday Night

Six guys teams from the Big East and four gals teams hit the court Tuesday  in the first round of the state  3A basketball playoffs.  Only one school Rocky Mount have both of their teams at home and the Gryphon Girls begin play at 6pm against Lee County.  They will be followed by the Gryphon boys hosting Cedar Ridge.

The other Big East teams will all begin play at 7pm and for the Northern Nash girls they are home to Swansboro.  Nash Central girls host West Brunswick.  The last of the four Big East teams Fike will be traveling to Northern Guilford.  Southern Nash boys as Big Champs are home with guest from Western Alamance.  All four remaining Big East boys  teams are on the road.  Northern Nash visiting Jacksonville, Nash Central pounding the pavement to Southern Lee.  Both Wilson County schools Fike at Asheboro and Hunt at Southern Durham.

This Thursday the Conference USA South men's tournament will start in Everett Gym at North Carolina Wesleyan.  The games will be at 1-3-5 and 7 and the 7 pm game will feature the conference champions  Battling Bishops.  The women's tournament will also start Thursday but it will be without  the Lady Battling Bishops who found themselves in a three way tie for the last spot in the tournament  and they lose out on a bid finishing 9th.  The girls tournament is being played at Maryville.

Ever since the Carolina Duke game there has been tons of Carolina fans pressure on Roy Williams for not calling a time out and not getting much of a shot off  to try to win the game.  There are all types of coaches and I think Roy falls under the run and gun type.  Let's go as fast as possible and get off as many shots as possible.  The more shots the more chances for points.  Mike Gainey falls under this category in my opinion.  It has worked pretty good for both as Roy Williams has two national
championships and Mike Gainey has two state 3-A titles.

The next type of coach is the one that loves to run down the time clock and keep the game in the 50's and that kind of coach is coach Bennett at Virginia.  Most coaches regardless of their style because they like one way they have a hard time changing to conform to the talent they have.

There is of course one coach who because of injuries changed his entire plan mid season twice and the changes led his team to National titles.  We are of course talking about coach K winning the title in 2010 and 2015.  There are not that many coaches who know Several ways to win.  One of the biggest issues in college coaching is recruiting players that fit your coaching style.  Roy has run and gun players when forced to play half court by the other team play soft.  K beat Roy because K kept the game to where Carolina played soft when they should have been pounding the ball inside.  Teams play about 35 games a year one loss is not dropping any team out of the playoffs so people need not get suicidal over one game.  At least not until the playoffs and one loss sends you home.