Not only confidence but joy.
I’m not trying to get cheesy here, but when you play the game (or do anything in life) with joy, the outcome is always good.
This picture of Wagner...
- Thread starter HagginHall1999
- Start date
I’m not trying to get cheesy here, but when you play the game (or do anything in life) with joy, the outcome is always good.
This team has enough guys that just play hard to win that it is starting to wear off. You have guys like Reed, DJ, Thiero who are dogs and lay it all out there. Then you have guys like Bradshaw and Dillingham who play with natural energy, but that dog wears off on them and their game takes a step because they are playing with energy all the time within the team. add Mitchell who is an experienced versatile big and Reeves who is a pure scorer and you have a pretty damn good 7. Get Edwards playing like Adou and then its an embarrassment of riches.
Yeah. It really is a weird phenomenon. Non of these guys should be bad defenders. Reed and Dilly should be the worst of the guards from a lockdown standpoint but make up for it with shooting passing lanes and hands.
But for whatever reason Edwards and Wagner neither get in a good, low, wide defensive stance that allows quick short lateral strides to prevent the Offensive players first step getting downhill. Their feet are closer together and almost just try to run sideways once the O gets them in their hip w a diagonal downhill first step. Cal should have them both watch tape of Liggins and how his good defensive stance on ball helps force the Os first step to be sideways and not towards the basket. Once they start sideways, they aren’t going to get the edge on you
Cal has gotten several kids to improve by leaps & bounds in their defense. De’Aaron Fox was god awful to start the season and one of pure best defenders at the end.
Gets the mismatch he wants, holds up "1" to call his play, everyone gets out of the way, drives, shoots.
The key will be kicking out to the right open shooter when other teams watch that film and start bringing down a help defender.
The key will be kicking out to the right open shooter when other teams watch that film and start bringing down a help defender.
I rewatched the game highlights and this pic is from just about 1:05 left to go in the game. It came after Bradshaw missed the FT, the 2 UNC guys bobbled the rebound that went right to Reeves, he kicked it out to Rob who got it back over to Wagner. So, that's Wagner with the ball in his hands and pure joy and confidence with just about a minute to go in the game. Awesome!
I would love to know exactly what he was thinking at that moment. Whatever it was, it made him smile.
