...and this one was just frustrating.
Look, I fully expected a loss in this first foray into legit opponents, but not to these goons. Now, I hafta give credit to a hot hand --- some jabronie with a shooting pct in the teens from 3 for the season proceeds to do a Steph Curry imitation on us. Hey, that happens, but it shouldn't have been enough. So let's get to it:
- I'm gonna start here, only to get it outta the way: Make no mistake, ISU was a DIRTY team. They came out pushing, grabbing and undercutting. And yesterday I talked about seeing more illegal screens than at a Home Depot burglary, well, these guys knocked over the corporate HQ. Encouragingly, the zebras called much of their early mayhem, to the tune of us getting into the bonus before the 13-minute mark. Unfortunately (as so often happens), pretty-boy Cassell and his crew got numbed to the hockey game. The good news was our guys seemed to get MAD and toughened up (especially Mando, who was having none of any easy layups). The bad news is we finally let it wear on us.
- As usual though, the outcome was ultimately about US. So... start here: TOO MUCH DAMNED DRIBBLING!!! And folks, it wasn't just RJ. I'm gonna say it straight up --- this unsound approach of triggering possessions with the dribble has GOT to stop. Nobody is buying the ball-screen/forced-switch deal anymore --- scouting and stuff --- and these guys ATTACKED our dribblers (and that got ugly), or just let us dick around with the ball leading to a heave.
- Speaking of heaves, those contributed to our abysmal 3-pt %. That, along with too many missed FTs kept us from ever getting a working lead, and left the proverbial door open. And if ya keep doing tham someone is gonna walk thru and snatch a game.
- And broken record --- when we pushed tempo, we put them on their heels. Unfortunately, again, we've only got one perimeter player (Leaky) who knows how to run our transition game. Here once again, we too often muck up our breaks with dribbling in lieu of passing.
- We did have some nice passing vs their Zone, but we need to commit to that vs Man as well. In all seriousness, over the holidays I'd love to see the staff revert back to an old Dean Smith practice technique of having a minimum number of passes before a shot can be taken. I mean, there are good signs when we move the rock. And the best way to do that is trigger our offense off the Secondary and SWING the ball, instead of driving into trouble with nobody moving without the ball.
- Before I point to some bright spots, we've got to deal with the reality of our roster, i.e., that we live in what I'm gonna coin as "PG Purgatory" --- a bunch o' Combos trying to make do at the 1. RJ and Caleb are scorers who are much too fond of dribbling as a default, and Seth is an athlete, but playing Point on offense, is well, just yikes. Last season we schemed around it, but that's been scouted. So IMO, the best way to compensate is to commit to MOTION offense, and let PASSES set up our drives, instead of vice versa.
- Finally, on a brighter note was our effort to get Mando the rock deeper, and we had some effective pass-outs from the post. On defense, we finally saw some of the 24 that Hubert has been promising, but I'll tell ya, I would've loved to see that morph into 44, as I think these guys today would've been VERY vulnerable to some good old-fashoned Carolina scrambling.
Anyway, the guys have a couple of days to breath, and maybe a productive walk-thru can evoke a tweak or two, or at least a reminder of the value of the pass, as whomever we play Sunday will present a renewed challenge in their respective ways, and we can't afford the same old foibles. This time of year is fun, but it's also about getting better. Hopefully that starts Sunday...
Look, I fully expected a loss in this first foray into legit opponents, but not to these goons. Now, I hafta give credit to a hot hand --- some jabronie with a shooting pct in the teens from 3 for the season proceeds to do a Steph Curry imitation on us. Hey, that happens, but it shouldn't have been enough. So let's get to it:
- I'm gonna start here, only to get it outta the way: Make no mistake, ISU was a DIRTY team. They came out pushing, grabbing and undercutting. And yesterday I talked about seeing more illegal screens than at a Home Depot burglary, well, these guys knocked over the corporate HQ. Encouragingly, the zebras called much of their early mayhem, to the tune of us getting into the bonus before the 13-minute mark. Unfortunately (as so often happens), pretty-boy Cassell and his crew got numbed to the hockey game. The good news was our guys seemed to get MAD and toughened up (especially Mando, who was having none of any easy layups). The bad news is we finally let it wear on us.
- As usual though, the outcome was ultimately about US. So... start here: TOO MUCH DAMNED DRIBBLING!!! And folks, it wasn't just RJ. I'm gonna say it straight up --- this unsound approach of triggering possessions with the dribble has GOT to stop. Nobody is buying the ball-screen/forced-switch deal anymore --- scouting and stuff --- and these guys ATTACKED our dribblers (and that got ugly), or just let us dick around with the ball leading to a heave.
- Speaking of heaves, those contributed to our abysmal 3-pt %. That, along with too many missed FTs kept us from ever getting a working lead, and left the proverbial door open. And if ya keep doing tham someone is gonna walk thru and snatch a game.
- And broken record --- when we pushed tempo, we put them on their heels. Unfortunately, again, we've only got one perimeter player (Leaky) who knows how to run our transition game. Here once again, we too often muck up our breaks with dribbling in lieu of passing.
- We did have some nice passing vs their Zone, but we need to commit to that vs Man as well. In all seriousness, over the holidays I'd love to see the staff revert back to an old Dean Smith practice technique of having a minimum number of passes before a shot can be taken. I mean, there are good signs when we move the rock. And the best way to do that is trigger our offense off the Secondary and SWING the ball, instead of driving into trouble with nobody moving without the ball.
- Before I point to some bright spots, we've got to deal with the reality of our roster, i.e., that we live in what I'm gonna coin as "PG Purgatory" --- a bunch o' Combos trying to make do at the 1. RJ and Caleb are scorers who are much too fond of dribbling as a default, and Seth is an athlete, but playing Point on offense, is well, just yikes. Last season we schemed around it, but that's been scouted. So IMO, the best way to compensate is to commit to MOTION offense, and let PASSES set up our drives, instead of vice versa.
- Finally, on a brighter note was our effort to get Mando the rock deeper, and we had some effective pass-outs from the post. On defense, we finally saw some of the 24 that Hubert has been promising, but I'll tell ya, I would've loved to see that morph into 44, as I think these guys today would've been VERY vulnerable to some good old-fashoned Carolina scrambling.
Anyway, the guys have a couple of days to breath, and maybe a productive walk-thru can evoke a tweak or two, or at least a reminder of the value of the pass, as whomever we play Sunday will present a renewed challenge in their respective ways, and we can't afford the same old foibles. This time of year is fun, but it's also about getting better. Hopefully that starts Sunday...