Small thing but one thing I love about the way this team plays is that they're so confident in each other and what we do that when games get tight we don't change things up and start trying to iso our "best" players.

Game gets to two points in the second half and we don't try to draw one up for Dominguez or Griffen, Lane hits a three and then Dibba of all people makes three of our next five buckets.

That's a small thing that I imagine makes it really hard to scheme for us. Everyone is a scoring threat, and they're a threat all the time. It also has to give everyone on the team confidence every game that that game could be their game. It's been Isaacs, it's been Clemence, it's been Dibba and those dudes all come off the bench.

Well probably have more talented teams in the future, but it's been awesome to see this group with absolutely no continuity (other than I guess Griffin and Clemence a little bit and Hill and Agee a couple years ago) come together as the season goes. Special chemistry right now.

Well said! With this depth and quality all across the team. We will survive nights when people don't have their shot falling. We've won games when Dominguez isn't knocking them down, we've won games with a careless Pop, with a quiet Griffen. Each night somebody can step up and give you double digit points. Like you said, how do you game plan for that!

This is a tough team to figure out for opponents.

Nobody expected Dibba to go off today.

Hill had a great game too.

Any given night someone goes off.... Clemence, Griffin, Pops, etc...

I noticed something in our game today to go along with this. Dibba and Ruben both had WIDE open 3s at the end of the game. 3s that you would get in an open shoot around in practice every day. They both chose to go the unselfish route and made passes to burn the clock. They played for the team there.

Made me remember Bucky's "selfless" comment when he first got here

Mike White made several remarks regarding this teams connectedness. That may be the best single adjective to describe this group the way they are playing now.

I know many coaches emphasize this descriptor, but our team embodies it.

Dude, yes. We just keep playing our system no matter the score, and they play hard. Rarely seen any panic. So ****ing refreshing.

The un-measureable part of what Bob is saying is........ practice.


If a player is only going to get a token few minutes in the game, he will check out on the game-plan. But if everyone has a role, buys into it, and knows they may legitimately be "the guy" they are more likely to pay attention, lock in, and practice harder. It makes the whole team better.

It's one thing to say everyone has a role. Its another thing to see different guys actually getting to step up and show what they can do to help with buy in. And hopefully it translates to recruiting as well!!

How Bucky got this team on the same page in a short amount of time is remarkable. This season is not done yet their chemistry is off the charts.

Bucky alluded to this in his post game radio interview. He says he tells the team, "We'll look at the scoreboard after the game" meaning we are not changing what we do just because the game gets tight. Love it

Funny thing is that I think it's a surprise to opposing coaches. If you watch Ruben off ball during a possession, he gets hounded to deny him the ball. An entire defender that doesn't help. It's been that way most of the season and it absolutely opens up shots for others who have happily taken them.

I believe the reality of this team is why Mike White commented on it so strongly. I don't think he believed it going in. I also think it's why in the NCAA tourney with short notice, we will be really hard to prepare for.

Yeah I think we're just straight up better than coaches think. They spend all this time worrying about our presses and everything and then we get into the game and we're whipping the ball around.

I also think our speed threw off Georgia. They're used to being the one pushing the tempo but it probably happened 3-4 times yesterday where they'd make a layup and we'd zip the ball up the court and beat them back down the floor and get an easy basket. I'm sure that drove White nuts.

bobinator said:

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Yeah I think we're just straight up better than coaches think. They spend all this time worrying about our presses and everything and then we get into the game and we're whipping the ball around.

I also think our speed threw off Georgia. They're used to being the one pushing the tempo but it probably happened 3-4 times yesterday where they'd make a layup and we'd zip the ball up the court and beat them back down the floor and get an easy basket. I'm sure that drove White nuts.

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Absolutely all of this

This team reminds me a lot of my high school team: we consistently played against teams bigger than ours but we were relentless, killed teams with our presses and had guys all over the court who could score and make shots from anywhere

GrayMatter said:

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How Bucky got this team on the same page in a short amount of time is remarkable. This season is not done yet their chemistry is off the charts.

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Its incredible. A team full of shooters thrown together for the 1st time in a new system, made into a selfless team. Yeah it helps immensely that this team is full of mature older players but that is A+ coaching!

Think a lot of people that really follow college hoops closely on here thought we'd be able to score this season. I certainly thought the offense would be fine once they got accustomed. This wasn't a cheap roster by any means (despite the people who act like we just threw slop together and are making it work). A bunch of these guys are all in their 4th-5th season of D1 hoops and were at least decent players at their prior stops

It was always a question of could we defend and rebound enough. Would we be soft was a legit concern. A lot of these players were considered skilled but fairly finesse

The fact our half court defense is at least average is outstanding coaching

Our half court defense seems to be top half of the SEC which is shocking considering what we saw the first month.