Never blamed Kofi. More on Underwood and the gameplan. Im saying put Kofi on that dude out high and dont let him get easy passes to wherever the wanted to go. It was a stupid defensive gameplan. At least change something at the half.
Have you seen Kofi try to guard people more than 10 feet from the basket? It’s not that he didn’t guard him...he couldn’t guard him. This is exactly why the NBA has gone away from behemoths in the middle.
Kofi is our rim protector and defensive anchor. He’s great within 5’ of the rim and borderline useless anywhere else. Krutwig pulled him away from the basket and they gashed us on easy cuts to the rim because he wasn’t there to erase them. It also wore Kofi the fuck out guarding him. And Krut straight up backed Kofi down and scored on him a couple of times early.
So the staff tried Giorgi and that didn’t work so they had Kofi sag off and Krutwig took advantage of that, too. And when they got penetration off the pick and roll, Kofi got caught several times hedging and they found Krutwig on the lob.
Kofi hadn’t seen a guy with that skill set being used in that way in his college career. Versatility is the name of today’s game and Kofi’s lack of versatility is fairly well documented. Kofi is truly dominant at what he does, but he’s only been playing basketball for five years. The other day he got abused by a high basketball IQ versatile doughy balding white guy with a porn ‘stache. Shit happens. That’s kinda the beauty and the fuckery of the tournament.
The biggest problem is that since the offense runs through Krutwig, we didn’t have a way to hide Kofi defensively and we couldn’t do without him offensively. And there’s simply no long athletic lockdown defender on the roster we could throw at Krutwig. Giorgi clearly wasn’t up to the task. If you throw Grandison or DMW at him he’ll back them down and score at will. He’s a great passer and they cut well so doubling is a problem.
Truly a horrible matchup for our personnel on the defensive end. I was more troubled by our inability to adjust and win matchups on the offensive end. Obviously they’re statistically a great defensive team and it showed.
Watching Kofi trying to pick and roll 22’ from the basket as Ayo got iced over and over and over again was absolutely maddening. Kofi got his 20 but they made him work surprisingly hard for most of them. Missed quite a few around the basket that normally go down. Trent had a guy in his pocket all game but had some good looks that just didn’t drop.
Even though I thought the team did a fairly good job of not panicking, it makes you wonder how seeing those misses combined with their relentless efficiency affected our guys mentally down the stretch.
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by murphstahoe 2026 Pale Hoes by ThePAMan
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