I think the 2 main themes that I have hammered hard this season is
1) Scheme to have players in positions that allow them to work to the strength of their game rather than the weakness of their game. You have the players you have and if that is not the best group of talents then you better start making "chicken salad". LOL Our last starting line up has IN MY OPINION at LEAST 3 guys playing out side of what their natural positions are. Some of that is by need but some of it is preventable.
2) This maddening usage of our front court players, or should I say the lack of use of our front court players? This is not a overly talented front court, OK, move past the talent portion of the discussion. If there is a lacking in talent then it is especially critical that you use them properly, you MUST hammer execution. I can give a ton of examples of this but for me the absolute key is getting Jalen Washington playing to his strengths and it seems to be that every effort is being made to force him in to playing to the weakest area of his game, his lack of physical strength to battle deep in the paint. He has become a modern day Desmond Hubert and Desmond was a much better defender?
Told ya in pre-season, many times, told ya many times since this season began, if you try to use Jalen like you used Bacot it is not going to work. The kid simply is not a back to the basket guy, he is a Jr now, isn't about time we accept that? I know many here were not able to see it but David Sisk LAST season had a write up on 4Cs that was very interesting. He was making the case that with Bacot being such a fixture in the deep paint that it took away driving lanes from our guards but honestly, if you have a Bacot you have to play him deep paint back to the basket , you really did not want your double digit rebounded stepping away from the basket and you didn't really want to see Bacot taking many jumpers any way. Even thou Bacot being in the deep paint absolutely clogged up the lane making it MUCH harder for our guards you had to play toward Bacot's game strength. Flash to now, we have Jalen, who is basically as opposite to Bacot as you can find and yet rather than have Jalen drag defenders out of that paint, we are for some insane reason trying to force Jalen to be Bacot? Why would you EVER do that?
Look at the make up of our front court. Jalen is a face the basket shooter that is deadly from mid range and does have range out to the trey. He is NOT physically strong, upper or lower body. He really struggles to take a close in attempt miss and be able to go right back up to tip his own miss ( the Meeks, Bacot, even Sean Maye) speciality. He is not hugely athletic, doesn't explode off the floor, there is not a lot of quick twitch there but he is long and does have a nice jump shot.
Lubin, at barely 6'8" does have the brawn, he is IMO much like Garrison (not the first time I have said that), never going to be flashy but that guy plays with some grit. He actually has a nice little jmid range game that he used at Vandy, been MIA for the most part with us, why?
JWit, again my opinion but I see him as our most athletic front court player (note not including Drake because he should not be played at the 4 on any kind of regular rotation, fine for short runs of extra small ball but not your starting power forward). JWit does seem to have absolute belief in his ability to jump shoot but from my perspective he is the absolutely worst jump shooter in our front court. What his size and athletism does allow him to be is a great guy to cut thru the lane and catch a Cadeau pass for the flush, as opposed to being basically a dare to shoot from the deep corner really poor ball handler if he puts the ball on the floor for more than 1 or 2 dribbles, the opposite of a guy you want sticking outside? He has the physical strength to play thru contact in side, you have to flash him inside,use his ability to make hard cuts and finish. IN many ways JWit is the exact polar opposite of Jalen, they need to trade positions.
Tyson, first off kid is more a 3 than a 4, I mean he does try, he gets a few boards and can hit the open look trey when he has time. But I think to many are looking at him as maybe Brady Manek and he simply isn't. JUst have to realize, his best games are against teams that we have the matchup advantage with but he is a basic no show vs the majority of our schedule. The difference between he and Jalen is that this team in more than 1 game has made a dedicated effort to feed Tyson the ball, to get him the ball in positions to use the strength of his game, hitting treys. Think about it, Tyson's most important role as shared on a pod cast in the last couple days is that he is a threat. It isn't that he hits big time shots vs big time programs but that he is a threat to? At some point he is going to have to earn that threat title against teams within the top 100. This defines to me as a situational player, similar to maybe Paxon, not Manek.
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