Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

Dec 8, 2023, 12:37 AM

Opponent: South Carolina. Dec. 7th

I will be honest – I was pretty incensed after the Davidson game. There’s a kid on this team who I think has pretty high upside – not that what I think impacts him or his future at all. Brad had him starting against Davidson, after starting against UAB and Winthrop as well. Within the first two minutes against Davidson though, a Wildcat forward beat the kid with a baseline move and score. It didn’t take 10 seconds after that for Jack Clark to show up at the scorer’s table, and after all of 3:04 of playing time, Chauncey Wiggins was done for the day. Yep; he went out after the initial defensive miscue, and never returned. Indeed, I even copied here specific details of the substitution pattern that day, pointing out that players were repeatedly replaced immediately after a miscue of some sort. {I copied details directly from the game summary...}

Fast forward to today. Alex Hemenway, the other significant backup wing, hasn’t played since getting 10 minutes against Alcorn State. Clark, started the 3 games after Davidson, but has been nursing injury since managing but 12 minutes against Alabama. As wings go, that basically leaves us now with Wiggins, and/or playing one of the Hunter brothers or Joe Girard out of position at the #3.

With his patented 3-Guard lineup, Brownell doesn’t mind the latter at all. If nothing else though, with Clark listed at 6’10” and Wiggins 6’10.5”, and none of the others legitimately taller than 6’ 4”, we’re giving up quite a bit of length when Clark or Wiggins is on the bench.

So, it is then that Hemenway’s injury has forced a more prominent role for Wiggins in the last 3 games going back to Alabama. The result is a 2-points, 4 boards, and 1 assist line at Bama (17 mins.); a 12/3/1 slash at Pitt (31 mins.); and 15/1/2 against South Carolina (27 mins.). Wiggins joined Scheiffelin in being hailed saviors of the Carolina game. Average minutes played then was about 25, after averaging 8+ last year, and 12 for the first 5 games of this year.

Immediately after the Davidson game, Brownell had been asked about the sudden lineup move, and his comment was that he had noted “a bad match-up” that day. That was it. Several of the Brownell Bros. parroted the comment on this Board multiple times.

LOFL.... and they get on Dabo Swinney for spewing Coach-speak! But I guess I’ve already done the one about Brownell and his Bros. no longer caring about what Lie they tell anymore.

This should all entirely remind of last year when Alex Hemenway got the first 12 starts at Wing, and was averaging 32 minutes per game up until a home tilt against Richmond. Because of injury, though, Hemenway never started again all year, and only averaged 11 minutes per for the remaining 8 games he was available. The primary beneficiaries to the added available time were Hunter Tyson (2 minutes per and 1.5 ppg) and Ian Schieffelin (21 starts, +4 mpg). That we got immediately bigger and longer should be obvious.

One result was that over the remaining 22 games of the year, our 2-point FG% went up by 2.5% points, our Rebounds jumped by 4 a game, and our 3-point FG% dropped 6% points. Now this is correlation, not necessarily direct causation, but still.

So, in the 1st 12 games last year we were 9-3 with an average margin of 9 ppg. In the last half we were 14-8 with a margin of 5 ppg. But note that this is all happening as we moved up in SOS with the ACC conference schedule. Indeed, with -0- being an Average rating, our first 12 opponents average rating was -1.02. Over the last 22 games our opponents’ average rating rose to 6.29.

{For reference, Syracuse had an SRS (rating) of 5.39, and NC State was rated at 12.5, while Morehead State was -7.1. Clemson’s own final SRS was 10.53. }

In short then, through injury last year, we got bigger, and performed generally as well against much better competition after insertion of Schiefffelin in the lineup. The Wing-Forward-Center combo was certainly much more traditional, with more typically 3-4-5 tooled players. And this was directly in contrast the favored 3-Guard set of 6’3”-and-unders that Brownell has run for years. Yeah, no more Honor/Dawes/Trapp scurrying around, thankfully. Instead, we now get to see what the previous added experience has helped do to Schieffelin’s game for this year (12/12/2 steals against Carolina).

Too: one can only whimsically imagine what we might see if there aren’t any more “bad match-ups” this year for Wiggins, right? But if nothing else, through injury again this year, it appears we’ve possibly been saved from the same path that led to two 6’10” players leaving the program for lack of minutes in 2020/21: O-Max Prosper to the NBA now, and Lynn Kidd still making waves at Va Tech (15/7/1 averages).

In a sense then, simple Injury can thus be seen to be the gift that taketh away, but also the gift that keeps on giving when the Tigers’ lineup card comes out. I guess that’s one way to make coaching decisions....

Welcome to Stark Raving Brad.....

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Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

Somebody's stark raving mad

You having a bad matchup day, little fella?***

Re: Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

Yes why would anyone be informed at all?***

This egotistical psycho is consistent

and I'll give you all on this Board credit for consistently attacking only me

Re: and I'll give you all on this Board credit for consistently attacking only me

Re: and I'll give you all on this Board credit for consistently attacking only me

you've been T-mailed***

Mother-fudge, Mic drop

Re: Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

What a waste of time

Is olemike your alter ego?

Dude calm down.

Re: Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

Re: Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

Re: Stark Raving Brad - Backing-in to Coaching success...

looks like you chose a bad season

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