GAME THREAD - MBB at Wake Forest, Weds 12/14, 7pm

[Bootsy]

It was a bitter loss, but it showed that App has the talent to hang with stronger squads.

[AppDub]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

[bigdaddyg]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

I always wonder about situations like that. The coach has to hurriedly (under control) gather his team, call the play and hope that they execute. We had Gregory (I believe) making the inbounds pass and they put a taller guy on him. Even experienced players might freeze up, panic a little bit or in a play like this think the 5 second clock is going to expire. Lots of stuff goes on and for us last night at the end the stuff went against us. Once Kerns really nails down 8-9 man rotation we should do some damage in the Belt. FWIW a formerly one loss Marshall got it handed to them at UNCG the other night.

[AppState80]

Exciting game to watch. Our guys played strong around the rim, many dunks, offensive boards, we did miss some put backs just off the rim. We played a solid game, the rotation is coming together. We can hit shots from anywhere on the court. I hope we make it to post-season, team will be ready. I questions the ridiculous late call on the 3-ball, that gave them 3 points at the line. Foul call came way to late, like calling a ball out in tennis after you missed the shot. Foul differential way towards Wake side, almost double the fouls called on us. Team froze on inbound play, they will not next time. Wake had a good win and hit a great shot at the buzzer. Curious to see what they do in ACC play. Looking forward to Sunbelt conference games.

[311neers]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

huntley was streaking deep wide open. every player should have been going deep. do not even give gregory the opportunity to throw it under our basket. coaches have to put players in better situations. leave no doubt!

[ASU3432Mi]

To add salt to our wounds, Sportcenter's top play was Wake's winning bucket and the ESPN sports babe mispronounced Appalachian. How does this keep happening with sports media?

[BallantyneApp]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

huntley was streaking deep wide open. every player should have been going deep. do not even give gregory the opportunity to throw it under our basket. coaches have to put players in better situations. leave no doubt!

Oof. Salt to the wound. Honestly sounds like “the plan” worked if Huntley was open or almost open. I’d rather have a 1 on 1 down there. Def Wake putting their biggest player on Gregory was a good call by Forbes. We definitely deserved to win I hope this loss doesn’t get in their heads

[bigdaddyg]

Again it's way too easy to both second guess and to coach from home on a keyboard but it seems like there were easy options to kill the clock. Just bounce the ball off the defender's leg. Anything besides throwing it out of bounds. Water under the bridge now.

Hopefully this team is dramatically different in a month. I can see it happening.

[Cro-Magnon App]

You’ve got to have an in-BSS set that you use in these situations - some screening to free up players, a call for who goes deep, create some space … and have your best in-bounded throwing it in. Aggravating to lose like that.

[CharlotteApp05]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

huntley was streaking deep wide open. every player should have been going deep. do not even give gregory the opportunity to throw it under our basket. coaches have to put players in better situations. leave no doubt!

I may get butchered for this, but DG has disappointed this year. I'm not saying anything too negative, but he reminds me a little of Forest in his last couple of years playing a bit too selfish and not quite the leader I hoped he would be. Last night was not his night and he continued to force bad shots. There were a few times where Mantis was wide open and he decided to go straight into the lane 1 on 2 and miss creating a long rebound and easy bucket. The fact that it was him that blatantly disregarded the play to go long and then threw a bad pass is in line with his decision making this year. Be a team player, be a leader, share the damn ball and most importantly work harder than anyone else. That is the job of a senior who is a program guy and not what I am seeing.

[AppState89]

Great game and it appeared we had more fans there than they did. The cheers and boos were a lot louder than the Wake fans. App nation showed out last night.

[MrCraig]

I thought the football threads were bad about coach bashing, but I think basketball takes the cake. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, some of y’all need to get a firmer grip on reality.

You’re right. When I attended App, no one talked about basketball. There’s at least some buy in from the student body now, and I attribute that a lot to Kerns. People need to give the guy a chance.

I am still disappointed in the loss and game management leading up to it, but we move on.

It's hugely disappointing, but it happens.
I just rewatched the failed in-bounds play, and it is exactly what you want to run. They had a man set a screen for another to streak down the court. Then two players screened for each other down low. The problem is, Wake had their tallest player guarding the in-bounds pass. It looks like Gregory couldn't see anyone on the right half of the court, and he couldn't throw it deep without throwing it directly at his defender. So, he went to the man who was open. Unfortunately, again, the giant that was in front of him stuck his arm out to disrupt the pass, the catch was tipped, and went out of bounds.
There is quite literally nothing that Kerns could have done to make that play work better, it just didn't happen.
But sure, "tHiS Is oN ThE CoAcHiNg!"

[CharlotteApp05]

I also think the loss is a little bit symbolic of our Athletics department as a whole right now. Just a lot of disappointment. All of our football losses except maybe Texas State were close losses. Real close losses. And then you get to basketball and while you don't expect to win every game, we seem to lose close games and in the case of Louisville, make it way closer than it has to be. And I think just having so much recent success, the two heartbreaking seasons (And yes I mean heartbreak is exactly how I felt after the UNC loss, the JMU loss and Georgia Southern Loss and now the Wake Forest loss) back to back is really inflicting a lot of pain on the fan base. There has been more infighting across social media and more frustration in general than we have ever had. Not sure how to change it, but it sure feels better when our teams unite us. We need some positive energy!

[WataugaMan]

To add salt to our wounds, Sportcenter's top play was Wake's winning bucket and the ESPN sports babe mispronounced Appalachian. How does this keep happening with sports media?

Fake News

[MrCraig]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

huntley was streaking deep wide open. every player should have been going deep. do not even give gregory the opportunity to throw it under our basket. coaches have to put players in better situations. leave no doubt!

I may get butchered for this, but DG has disappointed this year. I'm not saying anything too negative, but he reminds me a little of Forest in his last couple of years playing a bit too selfish and not quite the leader I hoped he would be. Last night was not his night and he continued to force bad shots. There were a few times where Mantis was wide open and he decided to go straight into the lane 1 on 2 and miss creating a long rebound and easy bucket. The fact that it was him that blatantly disregarded the play to go long and then threw a bad pass is in line with his decision making this year. Be a team player, be a leader, share the damn ball and most importantly work harder than anyone else. That is the job of a senior who is a program guy and not what I am seeing.

There were a few plays where DG definitely played selfishly, and I said so aloud to the tv. However, if you watch that bad in-bounds play, he clearly looks for the man going deep, but can't see/get it to him because the man guarding him was about a foot and half taller than him.

[appgrad2010]

The WF defender on the App inbounds clearly crossed the line with his foot. Should have been a violation right then, but oh well. Throw it up over the WF defender and let ball fall where it may....time runs out when touched hands down. Way less chance of WF catching and scoring off that then what transpired.....

[Yosefus]

Saw score didn't get to see the game. Hopefully, even with the loss it will be a confidence builder for the team to hang with a blue blood program.

[bigdaddyg]

I thought the football threads were bad about coach bashing, but I think basketball takes the cake. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, some of y’all need to get a firmer grip on reality.

You’re right. When I attended App, no one talked about basketball. There’s at least some buy in from the student body now, and I attribute that a lot to Kerns. People need to give the guy a chance.

I am still disappointed in the loss and game management leading up to it, but we move on.

It's hugely disappointing, but it happens.
I just rewatched the failed in-bounds play, and it is exactly what you want to run. They had a man set a screen for another to streak down the court. Then two players screened for each other down low. The problem is, Wake had their tallest player guarding the in-bounds pass. It looks like Gregory couldn't see anyone on the right half of the court, and he couldn't throw it deep without throwing it directly at his defender. So, he went to the man who was open. Unfortunately, again, the giant that was in front of him stuck his arm out to disrupt the pass, the catch was tipped, and went out of bounds.
There is quite literally nothing that Kerns could have done to make that play work better, it just didn't happen.
But sure, "tHiS Is oN ThE CoAcHiNg!"

Didn't Wake use a really tall guy to block a kick against us that last game in Boone? Hated to bring it up but crap that's two losses to them due to big guys getting us.

[311neers]

Kerns said in post game, the inbounds was designed to go long.

Interesting. I may have to go back and rewatch the final inbounds but I don't recall anyone breaking long. Should have been more than one going deep too. If that was the plan, execution was poor. Either way, very tough loss to take. Would have done a ton for morale. Hoping we play like this in conference play (minus the last play). We will win plenty of games.

huntley was streaking deep wide open. every player should have been going deep. do not even give gregory the opportunity to throw it under our basket. coaches have to put players in better situations. leave no doubt!

I may get butchered for this, but DG has disappointed this year. I'm not saying anything too negative, but he reminds me a little of Forest in his last couple of years playing a bit too selfish and not quite the leader I hoped he would be. Last night was not his night and he continued to force bad shots. There were a few times where Mantis was wide open and he decided to go straight into the lane 1 on 2 and miss creating a long rebound and easy bucket. The fact that it was him that blatantly disregarded the play to go long and then threw a bad pass is in line with his decision making this year. Be a team player, be a leader, share the damn ball and most importantly work harder than anyone else. That is the job of a senior who is a program guy and not what I am seeing.

There were a few plays where DG definitely played selfishly, and I said so aloud to the tv. However, if you watch that bad in-bounds play, he clearly looks for the man going deep, but can't see/get it to him because the man guarding him was about a foot and half taller than him.

you throw it deep anyway, regardless if you cant see. straight up and deep. you knew he was going to be there, trust it. I love gregory and most everything he does. The fadeaways form 6' are a little odd and the offensive charges happen. No reason a big guard should fade away unless you're lebron. I think we missed Boykin's experience down the stretch, he had a heck of a game. Carr (WF guys covering inbounds is only 6'10, had 5" on gregory. No excuses to not throw it deep).

[311neers]

I thought the football threads were bad about coach bashing, but I think basketball takes the cake. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, some of y’all need to get a firmer grip on reality.

You’re right. When I attended App, no one talked about basketball. There’s at least some buy in from the student body now, and I attribute that a lot to Kerns. People need to give the guy a chance.

I am still disappointed in the loss and game management leading up to it, but we move on.

It's hugely disappointing, but it happens.
I just rewatched the failed in-bounds play, and it is exactly what you want to run. They had a man set a screen for another to streak down the court. Then two players screened for each other down low. The problem is, Wake had their tallest player guarding the in-bounds pass. It looks like Gregory couldn't see anyone on the right half of the court, and he couldn't throw it deep without throwing it directly at his defender. So, he went to the man who was open. Unfortunately, again, the giant that was in front of him stuck his arm out to disrupt the pass, the catch was tipped, and went out of bounds.
There is quite literally nothing that Kerns could have done to make that play work better, it just didn't happen.
But sure, "tHiS Is oN ThE CoAcHiNg!"

The problem is, kerns gave gregory 2 options to throw it under our basket. Send everyone deep. Don't even let him have the option to throw it under our basket. Throw a hail marry, ball touched, game over. Put the players in no doubt win situations, dont give them a chance to screw it up. So while, he sent 1 guy deep, he should have sent all 4. It happens, but happens too often late in games for us. He's a great coach, just seems to get flustered in late game situations. WIN THE BELT AND WE DANCE! Our goals are still in front of us haha