Austin & The Moose Talk Gross Offenses

The Weather Moose:

JUST GET THE FUCKING BALL INBOUNDS. WHY IS THIS SIMPLE BASKETBALL MANEUVER SO DIFFICULT FOR YOU GUYS TO EXECUTE? SOMETIMES, WE DON'T NEED THE AWESOME PLAY. WE JUST NEED THE RIGHT PLAY. AND YOU GUYS CONTINUOUSLY FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT.

I'm not even going to talk about the Miami game because I'll just get too frustrated. But last night, blowing an 18-point lead aside, what in the crap was that end game execution? Get it in bounds and go to the foul line. Don't try this home run crap.

And then, don't let Notre Dame get 5468191 offensive rebounds with less than 10 seconds to go to force overtime.

Today, I just can't even.

Austin Johnson:

Well, I was ..... incorrect with my optimism. That was a brutal week - the sort of week that means we'll be talking about the NCAA bubble for the next five weeks. Which I'm sure is everyone's favorite thing to discuss. I'm not going to dwell on the smoldering fire behind us, though, because its disgusting and terrifying.

Instead let's focus on the week ahead, which features two absolute must win games against Clemson and Georgia Tech. Neither team has anything even remotely resembling a functional offense so if State can't beat this pair of teams we might as well just burn the whole thing down this year.

Clemson as might expect cannot shoot and plays at a snail's pace - broadcasts of their games should come with a warning. They've cracked the 60 point barrier in two of their seven ACC games. Yet they've won at Pitt and against Syracuse this year by dragging them down into the vortex of suck with them. They contest shots really well (teams are shooting just 43 percent inside the arc against them) and don't foul very often. You can almost hear the clanks now even though the game hasn't started. Brownell is a really good coach and really bad recruiter who will continually win 6-9 ACC games through sheer force of will while trotting out Southern conference rosters.

But if you thought that was ugly, just wait until you meet Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are shooting, I kid you not, 25 percent from beyond the arc this year. Doesn't even seems possible that an ACC school could be that bad, but here we are. They don't even defend shots particularly well either, with teams hitting nearly 50 percent of their interior looks against the Jackets. All they are good at, like literally the only thing that are above 'crappy' at is rebounding. And they are damn good at rebounding - ranking in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage - the only team in the country to do so. This strategy is not working, unless your goal is to get fired and score 28 points in A COLLEGE BASKETBALL GAME, as the Jackets are 0-7 in league play and likely to be 0-8 by the time the Pack come to Atlanta. But you do you, Brian Gregory.

So in summary, the wins might be easier but this week is going to feature basketball that will make you want to vomit.

The Moose:

Oh god. That's gross. So gross.

I have to tell you that I'm a little worried about Clemson. The only good part about that game is that it's at home. If it were at Clemson, I'd go ahead and put this losing streak at 3 games. State needs to figure out a way to bury teams, and Clemson and Georgia Tech provide just that opportunity because they're averse to scoring.

Are these the games where we see State get their back court back on track? I think the next two opponents should allow them to dominate, but what do you think?

One thing I can guarantee when I look at the Clemson game is Rod Hall being a super aggravation. I have nothing to base that on other than intuition. Judging by your previous email, you see both games are wins, right? I'm still running the numbers, so I'll let you give your predictions first.

Austin

I'm not sure, just because this is two fairly good defenses - actually both defenses are better than what Miami and Notre Dame threw at the Pack last week. The difference is that they can't answer anything on the other end, so I don't think the back court is going to look better so much as its going to significantly outperform the back court of Clemson and Georgia Tech (the Jackets haven't had a point guard in several years now, so this is the equivalent of overpowering a toddler).

The Clemson game I have penciled in as a win, an ugly win but a win. I have no data to back this up but I feel real bad about that Georgia Tech game.

So win, yeah back on track guys.

Then this happens

The Moose:

I want so bad to pick both of these games as losses. They've hurt me this bad.

But I just can't do it. I think State will beat Clemson and cover.

Georgia Tech is awful. If State loses that game, then I want no part of the rest of this season. They'll win ugly.

State this week is the boy in the truck. Clemson and GT are the two girls: