There will always be growing pains when you are incorporating young and inexperienced players. It is a process. Funny that we have been kinda spoiled to expect success, which is a good thing. Some quick observations:
1) Defense: It seems to me that we have changed our defense a bit and it is hurting us. The past few years we switched EVERYTHING on defense. In other words we were not getting bogged down by trying to fight through screens. In fact, most of the teams in the MVC play defense this way, especially since LU started having great success with it. This year seems like we are not switching everything and instead we are trying to fight through screens. Our bigs have not been as aggressive in showing early and forcing the ball handlers to change directions (back towards half court) or stopping as a result, our bigs show late and ball handler turns the corner with the defender on his back and the screener rolling to the hoop with the ballhandler in a little 2 on 1 scenario vs our big in the lane. We are now forced to crash inside to help with other players and hence open 3's. When we switch everything, there is less help and recovery out to the arc is quicker.
2) Scoring: This team has players that can be effective in transition and they have tried to run more. When you run more or play quicker, you get more possessions into the game-for BOTH teams. This is going to lead to slightly higher offensive numbers for the other guys. The key to playing up tempo is make good decisions and know when to pull back out. As Johnny Wooden used to say, you want to play quick, not fast. TO's when running has been an issue and leads to the other teaming getting more shots up that us.
3) Offense: We have a tendency to go away from hot shooters. Tate Hall was locked in pretty good against Coppin and there were long stretches where he did not get a look or that nothing seemed to be run for him. We were actually setting up our sets on the opposite side of the floor from him. We did this a lot last year with Cooper. Our player movement at times also stalls. Our shooters also tend be stationary. It would be nice to have our wing players rotate, set screens and not be predicable in terms where they are standing on the floor. Watch what Creighton did to us in the NIT last year. Pretty offense with movement. UC Davis we were in constant movement the whole game. Furman and Coppin not as much. Now in the MVC, teams will pack it into the lane until we prove we can consistently stick 3's, so backdoors are gonna be tough to come by. Krut will be double or triple teamed.
The good news is that Tate has shown he can play and is tough kid. Lucas is not going to shoot 0-8 from 3 very often. Marquise has shown flashes and still learning to play in an offense where he is not handling the ball as much and clearly does not have the freedom he had in HS, and Tom is getting acquainted with the more physical post play of collage ball. We got some guys hurt and we are young. The good news is from watching the bench, the players seem like they like each other, they have good motors and if they work hard and the coaches do a better job with learning the players and playing to their strengths, we should be fine.
My expectation with this group was that 2020-2021 was the year that we were gonna be monsters and ready to go. It could happen sooner, time will tell.
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