One of the most ugly wins I can recall, this team needs to spend a lot of quality practice court time and finally we do have a few days for that. This team has lost it's identity, it's leadership is gone? Players look really confused and because they are confused the buy in is not there. When you see that there should be little question of what needs to happen, you have to simplify things. As a coach you must ask yourself, am I putting my players in the best situation that allows them to maximize what they do.
This is not nearly as complicated as we fans tend to spin it as. You tell me, is making Jalen in to a back to the basket deep paint guy the best use of his ability? Jalen is a face the basket guy and he is just not overly physical so sure why not use him like we did Bacot? Cadeau is not a great jump shooter, his shooting form does not look any different from last season yet all we heard coming in to this season was how much better his shooting was, really... ? You have JWit spending a LOT of time camping out in the deep corner and yet he rivals Cadeau as a jump shooter? RJ is trying prove he deserves to be a NCAA AA and has been forcing things that just are not there. You have 2 big time freshmen that are just going to get lost but especially so when you try to be to complicated. You have a VERY quiet team, guys that just are not vocal as a team must be depending on extreme communication, especially on the defensive end?
I see 1 and only 1 guy consistently playing to his strengths, Seth but the freshmen are coming along, I do not like Drake at the 4. The starting line up yesterday was EC, RJ, Seth, Drake and Lubin (a line up many fans here have been calling for). Drake at 6'5-6" as the power forward and Lubin at 6'8" as our center, sitting our 6'9" power forward and our 6'10" center? A really really small team gets smaller as the solution?
Now for all those that I saw in the game thread talking about how this team can not play, asking is this even a NIT team, sharing how the sky is falling, I do want to remind folks, this is the same team that battled back from HUGE holes against 3 top 5 teams and even Dayton looked very much like a top 20 team to me but against those teams we played really bad first halves, if you can play like that for 1 half you can play like that for 2. This team can play and play well but it has to constantly be put in position to maximize what our individual players can do well.
One thing that has to get fixed like right now, our big men MUST expect a pass from Cadeau at all times, I am not going back and looking but a LOT of the TOs Cadeau has are actually due to the guy he is passing to not being ready for the pass. I think it was MSU, a Cadeau TO that stuck in my head, Cadeau drives is doubled, Cadeau drops a sweet little pocket pass to Lubin who had a free lane to the basket, was not expecting the pass, TO on Cadeau? Now yes, Cadeau does need to read when a guy is not ready but it isn't all on him. Yesterday, what was it, twice Cadeau passes to guys that cut off their spot ending up in Cadeau TOs?
Going to end this reply with simply this, this team does not look like the are having fun out there right now, it look looks more like labor than fun, it has got to be fun, when they are having fun they are free wheeling and playing the game they love, not play like you are on your way to the dentist office. This team has fun when they are playing free and loose, ripping and running. When they do that they get lost in to the game, they are not counting points or anything else, they are just playing, the other team scores so what, you barely notice, you are lost in the game, you pop open for a clean shot there is no pressure on you, pressure is not there when you are lost in the game. Example, there have been spots this season where JWit gets lost in the game and he just explodes for 5-6pts, snags boards, plays really strong defense, just it all flows, the ball finds him and he just does what he feels comfortable with but just as quickly the light switch flips off and he starts thinking and out comes bad JWit? Get out of your head and just play...
