Our problems

[c-townfan]

My conclusion... We aren't a good man to man defensive team. I know that isn't news but just have to vent.

Us continuing to switch on ball screens is what they wanted. It kept leading to mismatches and Beard guarding their big man anout every other possession. We also sink down and help too much on d. This is probably due to most of our players being poor defenders once a drive is initiated. When they drove to the basket, someone always left their man to sink down to help. But it's never a predetermined assignment it seems. More like free reign of whoever felt like doing it.

Helping a teammate defend is necessary for most teams to help a poor defensive player. It was needed against Waters but not as much as we did and seem to every game. And we would usually have two or more crash down randomly to help leaving multiple players wide open. Waters drove in multiple times seemingly without a plan of attack but was continuously bailed out by bad d because multiple people were always wide open. Everyone knows our tendency here and it's why we are a terrible perimeter team.

Waters is a good pg but he is a true freshman and other teams don't seem to struggle as bad as we did against him. I think I'd rather us go to an uptempo zone the rest of the year. I say uptempo because we are average to below average in a half court offense so uptempo is needed. I could go into our offensive struggles (mainly selfishness) for a while but I don't feel like it and our main problem is d.

I don't understand why Bailey gets hardly any minutes anymore. He played 15 mins today but didn't get in till later. He is 10 times better than Cook. And provides a spark that Thompson and Thomas doesn't a lot of times. I don't care if he is green or undersized on d. He's athletic, plays with intensity, and crashes the boards. Also how much better would Hall and Jones be if they got half of Beard's minutes? Jones doesn't play cause he's lost on d but beard is lost on offense and defense as well as half of our team... so we have nothing to lose there. Beard is is God awful and continues to play lots of minutes.

I do like Mike. I think our program is in pretty good shape and one of the best states since Nolan. Just a testament to how bad things were I guess though. I want Mike to right the ship and don't necessarily want him fired. These things could be fixed but I don't know if they can be this late. Just frustrating when have 7 seniors and are loaded with good guards that should have us poised for a tourney run.

[Kevin]

not a good defensive team, no matter what type of defense they try

no playmakers on offense. no one to break the defense down.

[jbigs77]

Good post. It drives me crazy seeing us try to trap, either we foul or they break it and drive in for a baseline dunk or layup, and if we do manage to guard it, they kick it out for a WIDE  OPEN 3. We are also slow down the floor on both sides of the ball much of the time. We drive the lane, and if a shot is not there, we shoot anyway and its often blocked. Look out side people, there's open 3s there. We shoot 3s off a poor screen that's usually guarded 7 seconds into the shot clock.
My oh My, I believe we have the players currently that could be successful. Just my op. but I think bad game plans and strategy.

[razorpimp]

not a good defensive team, no matter what type of defense they try

no playmakers on offense. no one to break the defense down.

I actually think this team can be better on defense with the right mix of players and not wasting all of their energy on a worthless full court whatever they run...if they could fall back into half court then they might have enough energy to play a "decent" defense...

And the offense wasn't that bad especially when Gafford, Hall, and Bailey were in there to crash the boards

Mediocre Mike needs to quit being stubborn and drop his outdated, worthless full court BS