Let's try to coach the men's basketball team

[ogar_hog]

My Never-Play 3 if I were coach.

Steven Hill
Vincent Hunter
Preston Cranford

I'll agree with Hunter, but why the other two?

Hill - 0 points and 0 rebounds with 1 block in 17 minutes versus TTech and seems to disappear in games.
Cranford - was a walk on for a reason.  He always looks lost on the floor, IMO.

Cranford doesn't have anywhere near the footspeed to compete at this level, particularly on the defensive end.  Watch him play a couple of defensive series in man-to-man (if they don't switch to zone) and you'll notice what I'm talking about.  I've only seen one video of Rakestraw.  I hope the same isn't true of him.

No Cranford isn't going to gaurd anyone man to man.  His role on this team is to play 1-2 minutes in each half and hit a three, get a spark going and set back down. 

Hill to me this weekend looked uninterested.  When he plays with a little passion he does much better.

[hogmary]

Weems is being overcoached.  He is thinking too much to play.  Heath has done to him what he did to Modica.  I love Beverley and Welsh.  They obviously just play and don't pay attention to anything else.  I think Welsh has improved since coming here...he seems to have gotten over his stage fright.  Thomas has been my favorite player since he's been here.  He, along with Beverley and Welsh, give it their all every minute they are on the floor.  They dive on the floor, play defense and pass the ball.  Beverley loves playing defense...haven't seen that under Heath in a while.  My starting five would be
McCurdy (plays hard all the time and passes well...more under control than Ervin)
Beverley
Thomas (wish we could clone Beverley and Thomas)
Townes (if he keeps the attitude he's had for the past several games and doesn't pout)
I don't have a 5th....I love to see Beverley and Welsh in the game at the same time.
The main thing that needs to be done is to have someone who can coach to run the practices.  Cannot figure out why no one was expecting the pressure from Missouri.  Texas Tech certainly took advantage of the film.  Ervin is going to be pressured every time he touches the ball the rest of the year...can't they work on that in practice?
I agree with Biggus...what exactly is our style of basketball?  I haven't figured it out.

[Hogvious]

My Never-Play 3 if I were coach.

Steven Hill
Vincent Hunter
Preston Cranford

I'll agree with Hunter, but why the other two?

Hill - 0 points and 0 rebounds with 1 block in 17 minutes versus TTech and seems to disappear in games.
Cranford - was a walk on for a reason.  He always looks lost on the floor, IMO.

Cranford doesn't have anywhere near the footspeed to compete at this level, particularly on the defensive end.  Watch him play a couple of defensive series in man-to-man (if they don't switch to zone) and you'll notice what I'm talking about.  I've only seen one video of Rakestraw.  I hope the same isn't true of him.

Fresh Legs/Quick Trigger,

I debated with you about the merits of Stan Heath as our coach several weeks back.  I have to say looking at these two losses, and our total lack of competitiveness, that you were right and I was wrong.  We need a change at HC in basketball.

[Bomis Hawg]

Welsh can get to the rim.  At least, that was one of his assets in HS.  I'd love to see him be the 6th man, well part of the first substitution.

A Townes/Thomas set up would be perfect, if they can get the ball.  Thomas was a 3 when he first got to Arkansas.  He wanted to shoot, a lot at that.

The one thing I see about having Thomas & Townes out there without Hill is do they have enough play in their guards to counteract the lack of Hill being there?  Possibly.

I agree with puttting the ball through Beverley.  I don't see a problem with starting McCurdy.  Let him start it then run the offense.  If he can be a serviceable shooter, it can't hurt.  Weems, Beverley, Thomas, Townes, and Welsh could be your main guys to initiate and score.  A line of 6 points, 5 assists, and 2 turnovers would be nice for Sean -- wonder if he has the skills to do so?

What happened to guys like McCurdy, McGowen, and Michael Washington?  Those guys have been pulling some serious splinters from their rear.

[sportscrazy]

The problem with the team right now which is very correctable is the flow of the half court offense.  There needs to be more attention given to who is starting at the point guard position.  Also the half-court offense is too crowded.  No spacing and too many people in the lane = taking away Ervin, Weems and McCurdy's opportunities to do what they do best (Penetrate).  It also hurts our post play b/c it limits what moves our post players can make b/c too many defenders around them.  They need to spread the floor more and get better spacing.  If they could figure that out I know we would all be surprised with how good our primary players are.

[GolfHawg]

First we need a coach!

[hogfankb]

McCurdy is pretty useless out there. I thought he would be fine giving Ervin a breather but he is about like hill. Just doesn't do much. We have to go to a zone(a bad one at that) when he is out there because of his defense. He hasn't proved he can shoot and he doesn't do any better at distributing the ball or taking care of it than Ervin.

Ervin would be a lot better if he didn't over do everything. He penetrates too far and tries to make bounce passes from 2 feet away to our big men that cant catch. He could drop off atleast 2 TOs a game if he would just pull up from 8 feet to decide what to do with the ball.

Weems confuses me. Everyone thinks he is a great defender and he is against the ball. But he is SOO slow getting over screens away from the ball. If the ball goes away from him on offense he stands in one spot even if the point picks up his dribble.

Hill should be a spot started against teams like LSU/Florida.

My starting 5 would be
Beverley
Welsh
Weems
Thomas
Townes

With Bev/Welsh splitting time at the point. Just get the ball to the closest one and run it up the other teams back.

I would then teach the team how to make cuts and create the right spacing. We can't ever start our "offense" because we can't make the initial pass to the wing. This is when we pick up our dribble and turn it over. I would also have thomas or townes flash up from the block to the top of the key to relieve the pressure.

[Niels Boar]

We run the motion offense terribly.  It's a good offense.  Bob Knight is its master.  Eddie Sutton swore by it at Arkansas.

We can't settle on a style of play, not even a tempo.  We don't have an ace rebounder.  We don't have a defensive stopper to play on the perimeter.  We don't have a shooting specialist.  We are very role-player constrained.  SO we better jack up the tempo and try to use our athletic ability.

It pains me to say this, but I'm not sure we shouldn't do the opposite unless we start getting better point play.  Maybe running would get Weems' production up.  I'm afraid uptempo with this bunch will mean 20+ TOs against a real uptempo squad like the Vols or UGA.  Missouri beat us by 20 in a 76 possession game, and they aren't as quick as UGA.  Of course, the Texas Tech game wasn't much better at 66 possessions.  If you can't handle or shoot,  I'm not sure what tempo will help.  I'm thinking more of an NBA isolation offense through the post.  We have individual scorers.  Walk it up and use our size.  I'd prefer Ervin and Weems to step it up and let us run, though.

The Orlando wins have held up well.  None of those teams had anything on the baseline, though.  Heath's teams tend to look good against opponents they can physically overwhelm.  When we play teams with comparable athleticism, the skill level looks woefully deficient. 

[Oklahawg]

One strength of Nolan Richardson as a coach would have appeared by now: recognize the most glaring weakness and most obvious asset and work to marry the two together.

I am amazed that we have no serviceable offensive scheme. No dribble/drive iso option. No motion option (motion? what's motion?). No pick play to get the go-to guy the ball. No recognizeable inside gameplan.

Plan One: find someone, anyone who can control the ball on offense. With whatever problems this player brings to the court, fine. With whatever we take away by having this player play point, fine. If we lose 10 point a game off of Beverley's average to get him productive as point, fine. Is there an intramural player who can do it? Geez, this bunch looks like a junior high church league team when pressure is applied.

Plan Two: create a half dozen plays for both Thomas and Weems, maybe Beverley also. Ignore everything else until those 18 plays are there. Heck, might be six, rotated around the 3 players. Fine. Find something that works.

The coaching job done at RRS is NFL HOF caliber in comparison to the rock brigade seated on the sideline at BWA.

[Dugann]

I know a few high school coaches in Arkansas that could do more with that team then Stan can, I'd even go as far as to say our Lady B-Ball coach would do a better job.   I know a ex-juco coach from Ft. Smith that would do 200% better then Heath.  Sad Sad.

[pignatious]

The hard facts are that we don't have enough quality players to win in the SEC and get to the tournament. Our coach is clueless. We can band aid it and move players around and maybe it would help a little. However, I don't recall one player improving since he has gotten here under Heath. We don't have a point guard, we don't have consistent shooters, we have no style at all...defensive or offensive. Until a coaching change is made, I believe that our program will be mired in futility.

[TDHog]

"Can McCurdy really shoot?  He's never shown it on the court."

He actually has shot pretty well the last few games, he just doesn't look to shoot as a PG (on of the reasons I like him).  He is not the slasher Ervin is, but is much more under control.

Welsh has shown more of a tendency than McCurdy or Ervin to pick up the dribble too early and get flustered bring the ball up, I like him in the off guard.  If Beverly is the PG I'd rotate McCurdy and Welsh as the #2 guard.
My preference would be McCurdy at PG Beverly @ #2

[TDHog]

Yes, I believe McCurdy is taller than Ervin.

only cause he spikes the front of his hair

Someone has to start.  Out of Ervin, McCurdy, Welsh...who would you like playing the 2-spot?  I know the answer is none of them but someone has to play the position. 

McCurdy, I think his shooting would be very good without the burden of running the offense (or lack there of)

[Chad In Real Life]

Given that Stan Heath and staff decided to take an early vacation, let's take over and tell them what to do.

I said my piece after the Missouri game.  Gary Ervin is not going to work as the starting point guard.  He needs to be a role player.  Ervin could be very useful coming off the bench.  Use him as a defensive specialist in a three-guard lineup, as a change of pace when we need more pressure on the ball.

His main problem is being asked to do things he can't.

Train up Patrick Beverley to be the point guard.  Let him be a pass/score kind of point guard.  He may actually find better shots this way.  Of all the options I can't find a better one.

Choosing a starting five isn't the main problem for this team, it's choosing a style of play that the team can support through numerous player substitutions.  Whatever style Heath was trying to implement on Saturday was never evident.  That was a futile maneuver.

Looks like guys ranging from Weems to Beverley to Thomas to Hill...don't know what they are supposed to be doing.  Who's supposed to take the first step.  Like everybody's waiting, and finally Thomas asserts himself on his own.

I'd believed we should be playing Beverley, Weems, Thomas, Townes and Hill.  Beverley for having the most potential to be able to play the point (not that he's ready yet), Weems because he's the most dangerous and a defensive obstacle for opposing guards, Thomas at three because he needs a central role, Townes at four because he doesn't defend the post but can score face up, Hill at five because of anybody on the team he's the one with above-average defensive talent.

I don't like the way Hill is looking when he's on the floor.  Maybe he would look better with Townes and Thomas in there, but it wouldn't be a whole-game solution.  His development seems to be stuck.  Does anybody see new dimensions of skill blossom from Hill when he catches the basketball?  No doubt Hill came in as raw material, but right now giving him big minutes means dictating a style of play with no low post scoring, passing or rebounding.  Who wants to play like that?  Why hasn't he improved?

If we shift Weems, Thomas and Townes up a slot, somebody's gotta play the two.  Who's ready for that?  If we got our scoring elsewhere (very doable) then we could go with a defensive specialist, perhaps Ervin, but he's short enough to have major matchup problems at the two.  We don't recruit the 6-4-ish Walker, Robertson, Hawkins type who can run and defend like a demon.  Welsh seems too green.

As for post depth, our bench seems to be wasting oxygen.  Not surprising given that Hill, Townes and Hunter display the same limitations they had when they were freshmen.  Nobody's progressing.

What are we trying to do?  What kind of team are we going to be?  What's our core philosophy?  Feel free to e-mail Stan Heath some ideas, as he doesn't have any.  At least that's what it looks like.

VERY GOOD POST

As far as Hill goes, I can tell by watching him this year that he WANTS to be more aggressive. Ive seen him making more moves to the basket and has seemed to developed somewhat of a little hook shot.  However any time he has the ball in his hands more than 5 feet away from the basket he looks like he's holding a dead puppy. He looks scared to death, and for Christs sake Steven....Please dont try and dribble the ball out of pressure

[TDHog]

"We have to go to a zone(a bad one at that) when he is out there because of his defense"

Hogs have actually gotten several compliments from commentators on Man to Man D with McCurdy in the game.  I said this before, this lack of D argument is a carryover from last year.  His D this year has been fine.  7 steals to Ervins 10 and McCurdy has about 1/3 of the playing time.

[Jim Harris]

We run the motion offense terribly.  It's a good offense.  Bob Knight is its master.  Eddie Sutton swore by it at Arkansas.

We can't settle on a style of play, not even a tempo.  We don't have an ace rebounder.  We don't have a defensive stopper to play on the perimeter.  We don't have a shooting specialist.  We are very role-player constrained.  SO we better jack up the tempo and try to use our athletic ability.

we look like a decent 19-and-under AAU team.

[Biggus Piggus]

Weems is being overcoached.  He is thinking too much to play.  Heath has done to him what he did to Modica.  I love Beverley and Welsh.  They obviously just play and don't pay attention to anything else.  I think Welsh has improved since coming here...he seems to have gotten over his stage fright.  Thomas has been my favorite player since he's been here.  He, along with Beverley and Welsh, give it their all every minute they are on the floor.  They dive on the floor, play defense and pass the ball.  Beverley loves playing defense...haven't seen that under Heath in a while.  My starting five would be
McCurdy (plays hard all the time and passes well...more under control than Ervin)
Beverley
Thomas (wish we could clone Beverley and Thomas)
Townes (if he keeps the attitude he's had for the past several games and doesn't pout)
I don't have a 5th....I love to see Beverley and Welsh in the game at the same time.
The main thing that needs to be done is to have someone who can coach to run the practices.  Cannot figure out why no one was expecting the pressure from Missouri.  Texas Tech certainly took advantage of the film.  Ervin is going to be pressured every time he touches the ball the rest of the year...can't they work on that in practice?
I agree with Biggus...what exactly is our style of basketball?  I haven't figured it out.

Hogmary, every time you post about basketball, I read it very carefully.  McCurdy may never work out, as he's the kind of player who needs minutes to get comfortable, and he won't get minutes with the short leash he is on.