THANK YOU, that is my gosh darn point, he isn't getting PT at the 4 and I feel like he should. Look, if Withers was playing well, no problem, other than I would want him to start at the 4, as I said so many times pre-season with Ingram at the 3. Problem is that so far Withers has been disappointing, I wish that were not true but it is. Even if you keep Ingram at the 4 we have to have a back up for him that can produce something positive. I like High's motor, I like that he gets on the boards but he is raw and for now he is just limited, it is almost like putting Konkwo out there just for motor.
Look, I don't think I have seen this discussed from this particular angle, I have alluded to it but not really gone in to much depth about it. We all should know by now that defensively player wise we have 2 problems. First, we have 2 small back court starters with 1 of them being a freshman and we have no true rim protector that plays over the rim. You have to understand that their lacking these 2 elements that great defenses usually have, it forces everyone to play at a much higher level, using big time effort. That is just hard for any team to do the majority of a 40mins game and it is near impossible if you don't use your bench extra deep.
You see it and it isn't hard to see, we will defend in the half court, we will play solid defense, switching and all for about 30sec of the shot clock but then it breaks down, much harder to defend for 30sec than it is to play offense for that same 30sec. So they turn the corner on us and we don't have that guy that alters every shot in the paint, that is a known shot blocker that alters how teams can attack in the paint, that shot blocker that not only gets up off his feet quick but gets off his feet for a second leap quickly as well. So everyone has to work harder due to that, we don't have that guy that covers up those mistakes. I do believe that Bacot and Jalen in together and Ingram at the 5 is about as long as we can get but I do think that can cover up a lot of those back court mistakes that are just going to happen. Now system wise we do need to stop switching our big men on to guards out in space and our guards on to big men in the paint, fine to switch between the 4 and 5 and maybe add the 3 in with Ingram but the guards need to switch 1-3 if they are forced to. We should never be switching at all unless a guy is beat and has to switch.
Much of this season we have been switching 1-5 but our centers in Bacot and Jalen have gone in to drop coverage pretty frequently but that leaves someone wide open. When our center catches that he will try to leave the drop and get to the open guy, especially if it is a known shooter, so he flies out at him and that open guy is going to either shoot before our center gets to him or will drive the pressure coming at him, total advantage offensive player. Now you tell me, considering that BOTH Bacot and Jalen are playing a lot of drop while everyone else is switching is that because they just decide to or is it because they are told to? You know they are doing that because they are told to do so. Bacot has a bit of an advantage because he has that great bulk, he is harder to drive past than Jalen because Jalen is all arms & legs. Teams have been working our switches until they get the matchups they want and then directly attacking that matchup.
