I agree. It certainly couldn’t hurt. But if the staff can’t coach man-to-man, why should they be able to coach zone?
Fire Hubert
- Thread starter TarHeelFanWV
- Start date
- Status
I don't think coaching man D is the issue. I think our personnel can't play man D effectively.
Manek can not play defense one on one. Last night you saw a no named player just back Manek down, get to his main hand, and score repeatedly. Garcia struggled in similar fashion.
Our guards are basically useless after a screen. The opposing guards turn towards the basket and our guards might as well be matadors. With Love it may be an effort issue. With RJ it is definitely a size issue.
Basically you have all these key rotation players who stink at man-to-man D. Switch to a zone D and suddenly those weaknesses are minimized. It's not a cure all. But it directly addresses the biggest problems on defense right now. At least of you stop giving up easy buckets in the paint, the opposing FG% might drop low enough for our offense to turn some of these blow outs into competitive games.
But all of this requires our coaching staff to make defensive changes that suit our personnel.
Roy and the money people made this hire. Bubba had two options, stay quiet and keep his job or object and get fired. Same thing for football. What's ironic is that the people who Bubba has hired are doing a good job so far. Maybe they'll let him do his job next time. That's assuming they don't make him a scapegoat and fire him.
Thanks for that insight. So he, though being the AD, had no say (effectively). I'll reserve judgement then, and thanks for the reminder that he has a good repotoire. And the PTB remember they're paying him $750K/yr to do the job that they did, right?
This has been raised by several people (but none of our main gurus, iirc). Why do you think it hasn't happened?
On the title of the thread, where would UNC be if we had listened many years ago back in the early '60's when some fans wanted Dean Edward Smith fired, (hung in effigy was okay I guess), and to what Theo said, patience people, this is year one, all of y'all bellyaching and bitching speaks volumes as to what some in our fan base are like.
“bellyaching and bitching” sounds like a new country song!
What are you insinuating? That people in general nowadays are more entitled and less patient? I agree.
I'm working on the theory that not many coaches are like Dean Smith. Maybe I'm wrong and it's very common to get someone like him. Not sure why people use the excuse "but Dean." It's just a horrible comparison.
You know, these sanctimonious posts about Dean Smith being hung in effigy, etc. get old. The problem isn't losing. The problem is getting destroyed by average basketball teams, our players quitting, our coach making crazy statements about our players, never taking responsibility for our horrific defense, never benching players who aren't giving max effort, etc. He can't even figure out a substitution pattern! If the players were busting their asses out there and getting beat, so be it, but that's not the case. That's not the case at all............
yeah, you always hear about how "carolina fans" hanged dean smith in effigy like it was the whole fan base. true, fans weren't happy about some bad losses, but the effigy thing was a small group of jerks probably plastered on southern comfort.
And don't forget, you're not a fan if you dare criticize, you're a "fan". I was pulling for this team when a lot of these guys were shittin' diapers, so I'm taking no crap from them.
For everyone bringing up the “what if Dean Smith got fired then” and how we are so impatient these days.. well first off Dean Smith gave this university a name for itself. This is a big time university with big time expectations. Nobody has time for losing, especially 4 blowouts already. Let’s not act like Hubert is going to be the next Dean Smith if we keep him.
I think the problem most fans have and I am included in that group is they didnt hire Hubert because he was qualified but hired him because he was a Black American. By all accounts it seems Hubert is a great guy.. so is Joel Berry, Marcus Paige and Luke Maye.. but none of those are qualified either. Wes Miller is more qualified but was he qualified? Borderline I'd say. If Leonard Hamilton was 10 years younger and was hired for this job, I'd be all in on give him some time because he is qualified to be the coach... same with Chris Beard now at Texas. The way the hiring process played out was garbage.
There was no hiring process. It was pre-determined. If Hubert truly wanted this job, he should have gone somewhere and coached several years ago and paid his dues, but he didn't. I think that rubs people the wrong way, especially with how poorly the team has performed. Don't get me wrong, we looked pretty good in a few games too, but multiple blowouts is just unacceptable.
Another question.. how is it possible that Roy Williams was the head coach for over 30 years and didnt have one assistant become a successful head coach? It seems that at least one would have accidentally had success as a head coach.
love Roy but that’s been a knock against him not having developed any coaches of note who are successful and i’ve heard used by many of my dookie friends who say he can’t win big without elite talent as another. it is what it is.
Well Roy screwed the program by loving Garrison Brooks instead of playing Kessler then pushing for Hubert to be the new coach.
Also I will never understand how Roy managed to keep that 97 Kansas team out of the Final Four.. that was some pretty work.
Point is having Kessler with a qualified coach is much better than the current situation.
Love Roy, but he was pretty full of himself and probably impossible to work for. I mean, Roy referred to himself in the 3rd person quite often. Who does that? That type of personality doesn't lend itself to lifting up others. He thought he knew more about who should be the next coach than anyone else possibly could, and maybe he'll be proven right, but he's a man; a good man, but he isn't without flaws, and that's one of them. IMO
Last edited:
I'm insinuating that anyone with half a brain can recognize both those situations are completely different minus some shallow similarities, and that invoking one of the greatest coaches to ever live just to defend a guy who's not shown he has any of the on-the-court qualities of his archetype is as disingenuous as it is sacrilegious.
Given how much tradition and status quo is so valued around these parts, you would think people here should know better.
And patience is irrelevant. We have no real input in UNC Basketball Operations and neither do the shills. We can all be as critical or as tolerant as we want of Hubert. At the end of the day (no pun intended), he's going to prove what one side already knew about him. I don't care as long as it equates to UNC Basketball == Winning Basketball again.
I'm afraid that Hubert's hiring plan of only hiring former players may have caused him to fill his staff with guys who don't know a lot about defensive adjustments.
Perhaps one of those assistant jobs should have gone to a defensive X's and O's guy, regardless of where he went to school.
That's plausible. We have at least one guy who was a good defender in his own right, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can teach it.
Lebo played for Dean and was a head coach so I’m sure he knows his defensive x’s & o’s… what you arm chair coaches don’t understand is 90% of college coaches prefer man & while I agree this team needs do something you aren’t going to play just zone because if you get behind you are at the other teams mercy. The problem with playing a lot of different defenses is that you have to practice all of them and you aren’t likely to play any of them well. Having upper-classman makes it easier to change d because they had that much more practice at it
Wes Miller sure didn't have any problem asking his brand new Cincinnati team to switch to a zone defense when they were down by 15 points to a ranked Illinois team... in November.
Switching to a zone allowed Cincy to comeback and win by 20.
Switching to a zone allowed Cincy to comeback and win by 20.
He could have been an answer to a few. A rim defender comes in handy, and one who can frequently block shots. That may be why HD tried his best to get him back.
I like Wes and I believe he will do well. Cincy is a wildly inconsistent team struggling to find an identity as one of only a couple name programs playing in their conference at this point. Very similar start to what we are seeing.
Not being able to play defense or understanding the fundamentals of playing defense typically will be there regardless of what defense you play. The best you can do is try to teach fundamentals and then pick a defense that masks the weakness the best. I think a soft man to man with an occasional 2-3 zone to throw in a wriggle from time to time would be suit this team's abilities. I'm sure most on this board would say our man to man has been pretty soft already. But I'm more of a football guy.. so I'd say run a cover 2 and blitz Caleb off the edge.
That switch to a zone in that situation is exactly what Dean Smith would have done.
Wes may prove to have more Dean in his coaching DNA than he does Roy. And that is a difference I would take any time.
At the bare minimum Wes showed the ability to make a successful in-game adjustment. And the adjustment made sense. Illinois was pounding the ball into Kofi Cockburn to build that lead. The zone Wes implemented crowded the paint and shut Kofi down.
That is all we're asking of the current Tar Heel staff. Not to be Dean. Just to recognize what an opponent is doing successfully and make an adjustment that directly addresses that issue.
I wonder if Kessler would be doing as well here, if he had stayed, as he's doing at Auburn.
LOL... you are the most "What if" of anyone I have ever seen on these boards. BTW, the Hawkeyes banned me.
This is why we're giving him 2-3 years. (I hope) no one is satisfied with the season so far, but (I hope) people also know 15 games is a bit early to judge definitively. 3 years is plenty though, and if we miss the tourney the first two years I think that may be too, given the talent on the team.
How did you choose the name Superfan61?
Of what? Bitching. I read this thread and the VT game thread and I don't think you qualify or the number should be way higher! LOL.
- Status
Similar threads
