bobinator said:
But there's room for some nuance within "too many turnovers" that's worth discussing.
Davis was doing too much too far from the basket, Admon was lazy with passes at times, Hogg has to be stronger with the ball, etc.
It's sort of like how "shoot better" is going to be a key for almost everyone, but it's about being specific.
Yeah, just talking at a high level, personally I'm a fan who doesn't think shooting improvements are even that critical to at least being an NCAA team next season. We will have the kind of team that can be hell on lots of opponents on the offensive glass anyways. Just make sure to get a dang shot up to give yourself a chance at a rebound instead of dumb turnovers. Even if our guys are shooting bricks, if guys like Davis/Williams/etc. are getting some put-backs it will matter less. That seems to be how North Carolina has often won lately. Just relentlessly gets offensive rebounds.
Given our roster next year, if you told me right now that at the end of the season we will:
a) Finish ranked Top-25 on Kenpom in defensive efficiency (points per possession) and,
b) Average 12 or less turnovers per game (that would have had us ranked about Top-80-ish last year...versus averaging 14+ turnovers and being ranked #277 nationally)
Then I would say 'Yep, we made the NCAA tournament'.
Play good to great defense and make about 2-3 turnovers per game less than they did last season...to me those are the first most basic core goals to at least get an NCAA bid. If you are not accomplishing those two goals, then a lot of the other stuff won't matter much IMO.
And there are no excuses for next year's roster to not at least be a very good defensive team. We will have everything you want in terms of pieces to play elite defense.