Niang
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We were going to have a tough time on their bigs and not surprised at all by the fouls. Actually was impressed that with the zone he wasn't trying to force his game; whole team did a pretty good job letting the game come to them. Our best matchup to go to at that time was Kane and he delivered. Rode that horse until defense changed and we adjusted.
I tweeted last night that I get so infuriated at times at Georges for some pretty dumb decisions, but then immediately turn around and hug the TV seconds later. He's a sophomore that's just going to get smarter and smarter. And as somebody else said, the beauty of this team is that if one of the players is contained it only opens up the other four to murder the competition.
That was their last option. They had tried all others. They had no one who could defeat Kane.
We carved up their man to man. Their zone was the only thing that kept Baylor in the game. Jefferson is the conference third leading rebounder and he tied Hogue with ten last night.
Georges is rebounding better lately. Just noting.
I haven't seen anything specifically discussing him but I just wanted to add that he seems a lot better than last year and a ton better than Woodbury. He actually gets his feet off the floor. Shot improved. Quicker on D (when they aren't putting him out at midcourt). Could Scott Drew be better at developing players than other mad coaches?:wideeyed:
Niang has been the guy we've gone when our big games were on the line, he will continue to be. I have no problem with anything about last night, Baylor knew Niang would drag their best defender away from the basket if they went man so they decided to let us shred their zone instead. Fred has so many options, sometimes gameplans vary and you have to let your opponent pick their poison. I think Baylor was just hiding weaknesses, they looked like one of the slowest teams we've played all year. Def not the best team we've played.
If you want another Austin / Iowa comparison, he runs the floor as smoothly as Acie Earl. :spinny:
Nitpicking I know, but I thought our team could have done a better job of rotating when Niang was getting doubled. Once in particular in the second half when Niang had an ugly turnover, I thought Naz needed to float towards him on the three point line to give Niang a passing lane for the kick-out but he remained stagnant and a turnover was the result.
I agree that there wasn't a lot of movement against the zone early in the game. I was frustrated they didn't exploit the baseline the few times they appeared to be playing a 1-3-1. They rectified these issues as the game wore on and eventually shot BU out of their zone.
Georges seems to play about 10% faster in the first several minutes, and I think that throws things off just a bit. Once he gets in his groove, he can carry us if he needs to. The cool part is I think Georges is happy as hell just winning, and doesn't worry a bit about whether he is getting his (other than making sure that he is part of making it go).
cmjh and I were saying at the Baylor game that they need to start playing Enter Sandman when he comes back in late in the game.
[video=youtube;CD-E-LDc384]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384[/video]
[video=youtube;CD-E-LDc384]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384[/video]
I agree he did a great job of not forcing his game too much. He had some times when he forced it but those were acceptable as you have to at least try to get going at some points.
I totally expected Niang to have a big game and make Austin et al. look foolish. Guess not. Like others have said, his offensive game, outside shooting aside, is much more suited to playing against man to man D. He's incredibly hard to guard 1 on 1 for most bigs, but zone allows help D too easily and is hard for him to isolate to one guy.
What it comes down to is opponents are flat out having problems with picking their poison. When the opponent aims to shut down the perimeter, Niang destroys them in the post. When they aim to shut down Niang, Kane or Ejim destroys them. Shut down Kane and/or Ejim, someone else has a career night.
We may only regularly play 7 players, but it's true depth. Good luck trying to stop everyone - ISU's opponents this season so far are 0-14 at it.
We may only regularly play 7 players, but it's true depth. Good luck trying to stop everyone - ISU's opponents this season so far are 0-14 at it.
He also has such a sure dribble when he's driving and wheeling/dealing. I always think someone is going to steal it or he's going to lose it, but somehow he controls it and usually gets of a decent shot or finds a shooter if the other team collapses.
I think his best play of the night might have been when Kane lost the ball coming across half court. It was a mess and Niang scrambled to get the ball. The "smart play" at that point is to pull it out, get it back to your point guard and regroup. Instead, Georges did what no one expected and pushed the secondary break anyway finding the open man on the baseline with a lob for an open three. Smart and difficult play for a big and Georges made it look easy.
