General Thoughts....

[yocdaddy]

Our struggles this year are directly related to the absence of talent at the guard position.  With that being said, we don't exactly match our offensive philosophy to our talent.  Motion offense can be very effective, if you have 4 or 5 guys on the floor that can dribble, pass, and shoot make shots from various spots on the floor.    I don't see us having 4 or 5 guys on our team that have that skill set, let alone on the floor at the same time.  We might have a 2 or 3 on the floor together at the same time, which lends itself to continuity offenses or set plays.  In order to run motion effectively, we need better floor spacing.  Quite frankly, we often attack the lane off the dribble against multiple help defenders.

Our shot selection is horrible and has been all year.  Which lends me to believe shot selection is not a point of emphasis for our offensive philosophy.  If it were an emphasis, we wouldn't continue to take bad shots without consequence or jack up three point shots instead of finding points in the paint. 

If we truly want to be the fastest 40 minutes in basketball, why don't we run secondary break offense.  We run primary break into half court motion.  If we don't get a quick shot off the fast break, we tend to take bad shots or late contested shots  If our philosophy is going to be to set the pace and tempo, shouldn't we be getting good shots within 15-20 seconds?  Run primary fast break into secondary break into a quick hitter.  Our emphasis should be layup, hi/low set, open 3-pt for a shooter, weak-side attack.

Finally, we give way too many easy buckets.  Our philosophy actually benefits teams who have skilled players who can pass out of our traps.  News flash....today's 4-man and 5-man have better ball skills than ever before in college basketball.  Translation, they dribble and pass better than ever.  They may not be great with their back to the basket, but they help beat pressure better than at any time in college basketball.  Thus, our trapping style is less effective, especially on the road where we don't get jacked up with external energy (crowd).  So the teams that we play are much more efficient offensively than the Hogs because they get more easy buckets.  Which in turn means that we need even more turnovers to be successful.  So, our style which used to be very effective when bigs couldn't handle and pass is less effective now, meaning we get fewer points off turnovers and give up more easy points.  We should press some, but not exclusively. 

Basketball is relatively simple.  I know people try to make it complex, but essentially, it comes down to easy buckets and free throws.  We need more easy buckets and free throws than our opponents.  If we shoot more threes than the other team, we are likely to shoot fewer free throws.  Look at the stats from this season.  I bet money that in the games we shot considerably more threes than our opponent, we shot considerably less free throws.  In the games we lost, the discrepancy of points in the paint (easy buckets) was enormous.  People inevitably will say that we lost games because we didn't shoot well.  I'd say, what kind of shots were we taking opposed to our opponent.  Sure, every great once in a while we would get hot and make several threes, but it is a flawed philosophy.

I like Mike Anderson, I love the Arkansas Razorbacks.  He needs to tweak his style a bit or we will continue to get exposed.  In the 1990's, the style was more effective because the majority of teams didn't have the bigs with the ball skills necessary to help alleviate our pressure.  Now, the majority of teams can handle the pressure better thus they don't throw it directly to us and we don't get a ton of layups.  I'm not talking major renovation here....I'm talking tweaks. 

1. Press at opportune times.
2. Run some secondary sets for hi/low action, pin downs, high ball screens for play-makers in space, or double screens for shot makers.
3. Stay between your man and the basket - prevent easy, uncontested layups, contest every shot.
4. Mix in some continuity offenses or set plays in the half court to control who takes the shot and where the shot is taken.
5. Emphasize and teach defensive rebounding.

WPS!

[Dr. Starcs]

^^^^

Excellent post

[Kevin]

leopards don't change their spots

tweaks are not going to happen.

[razorhogLR]

leopards don't change their spots

tweaks are not going to happen.

We get points for talking about them right?

[ArkansasI]

Our struggles this year are directly related to the absence of talent at the guard position.  With that being said, we don't exactly match our offensive philosophy to our talent.  Motion offense can be very effective, if you have 4 or 5 guys on the floor that can dribble, pass, and shoot make shots from various spots on the floor.    I don't see us having 4 or 5 guys on our team that have that skill set, let alone on the floor at the same time.  We might have a 2 or 3 on the floor together at the same time, which lends itself to continuity offenses or set plays.  In order to run motion effectively, we need better floor spacing.  Quite frankly, we often attack the lane off the dribble against multiple help defenders.

Our shot selection is horrible and has been all year.  Which lends me to believe shot selection is not a point of emphasis for our offensive philosophy.  If it were an emphasis, we wouldn't continue to take bad shots without consequence or jack up three point shots instead of finding points in the paint. 

If we truly want to be the fastest 40 minutes in basketball, why don't we run secondary break offense.  We run primary break into half court motion.  If we don't get a quick shot off the fast break, we tend to take bad shots or late contested shots  If our philosophy is going to be to set the pace and tempo, shouldn't we be getting good shots within 15-20 seconds?  Run primary fast break into secondary break into a quick hitter.  Our emphasis should be layup, hi/low set, open 3-pt for a shooter, weak-side attack.

Finally, we give way too many easy buckets.  Our philosophy actually benefits teams who have skilled players who can pass out of our traps.  News flash....today's 4-man and 5-man have better ball skills than ever before in college basketball.  Translation, they dribble and pass better than ever.  They may not be great with their back to the basket, but they help beat pressure better than at any time in college basketball.  Thus, our trapping style is less effective, especially on the road where we don't get jacked up with external energy (crowd).  So the teams that we play are much more efficient offensively than the Hogs because they get more easy buckets.  Which in turn means that we need even more turnovers to be successful.  So, our style which used to be very effective when bigs couldn't handle and pass is less effective now, meaning we get fewer points off turnovers and give up more easy points.  We should press some, but not exclusively. 

Basketball is relatively simple.  I know people try to make it complex, but essentially, it comes down to easy buckets and free throws.  We need more easy buckets and free throws than our opponents.  If we shoot more threes than the other team, we are likely to shoot fewer free throws.  Look at the stats from this season.  I bet money that in the games we shot considerably more threes than our opponent, we shot considerably less free throws.  In the games we lost, the discrepancy of points in the paint (easy buckets) was enormous.  People inevitably will say that we lost games because we didn't shoot well.  I'd say, what kind of shots were we taking opposed to our opponent.  Sure, every great once in a while we would get hot and make several threes, but it is a flawed philosophy.

I like Mike Anderson, I love the Arkansas Razorbacks.  He needs to tweak his style a bit or we will continue to get exposed.  In the 1990's, the style was more effective because the majority of teams didn't have the bigs with the ball skills necessary to help alleviate our pressure.  Now, the majority of teams can handle the pressure better thus they don't throw it directly to us and we don't get a ton of layups.  I'm not talking major renovation here....I'm talking tweaks. 

1. Press at opportune times.
2. Run some secondary sets for hi/low action, pin downs, high ball screens for play-makers in space, or double screens for shot makers.
3. Stay between your man and the basket - prevent easy, uncontested layups, contest every shot.
4. Mix in some continuity offenses or set plays in the half court to control who takes the shot and where the shot is taken.
5. Emphasize and teach defensive rebounding.

WPS!

You should post more.  Rational concern.  Constructive criticizm.