I think the systems offensively and defensively are sound systems seen around the NCAA. But unless you have a SUPERSTAR you need all 5 guys to be in the right spots. I think we have tons of guys who are out of position. Ad strong as Osbourne is I think he is a 4 and gets in big foul trouble playing the 5. Oleary is not a 5 either and can not post up. and is not physically ready...we change when he comes in the game running a 1-4 set and trying to post Thomas up inside sometimes successfully and OLeary is a good passer from the top. He draws their 5 away until they realize what is happening and then they guard him with the 4. King is still not physically ready and Johnson was a late pick up but I also think they should just give him the 5 spot and see what happens.
I think when Cully Payne left it really left us in a bad spot at the point. White has had for the most part good assist to turnover ration and has become more of an offensive threat but I think he is beat.. and when we sub for him it is Dukumbo who has his issues or Doyle who is not a good enough ball handler yet and Pickett who may have developed, was hurt and is still hurt from what I understand.
I think you just take one spot the 5 fill it with a real effective 5 (lets say Alec Brown from UWGB) and now Osbourne plays the 4, Christian Thomas plays the 4 or 3 depending on match ups. Christian Thomas and Milton Doyle share the 3(depending on matchups) Milton Doyle and Chrisman share the 2 and White and Payne share the 1. Turk can do some stuff at 2 or 3. and Dont forget we lost Tanner Williams as well as Payne.
Also this high ball screen offense that we run a lot depends on a lot of ball handling and the only really good ballhandler is White.

My conclusion.....is that we do not have the lineup to succeed for a variety of reasons....some known(injuries and recruiting) some unknown (payne). I think if PM is going to take a hit for anything it is unsuccessful recruiting for his system. We need better ballhandling and better post play whether we recruit them or players improve I guess we will wait and see.
In the mean time I know being a fair whether fan will not help so I will sally forth
GO RAMBLERS

We will probably end up facing Bradley again on Thursday in St Louis...

We have played some brutal basketball against those guys.

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I hope it will be Bradley--I really think we can beat them --I truly do NOT know why except that it is difficult to beat a team THREE times--AND maybe Milton and Devon will go off big time--They are due. Maybe just maybe Moser will have a surprise up his sleeve--

Keke had best be rested !! W#e will need him.

We could get to 9th if Drake beats Evansville on Tuesday, and we beat Evansville at home on the last day of the regular season. In which case we would likely face Drake at a neutral site in the 8/9 game-- probably our best shot at winning a game in St. Louis. But then we'd face Wichita State the next day in front of 4000+ WSU fans.

Even without winning a single game on the road this year, we could have probably reached 7th by simply winning the games we were favored in over Bradley and SIU at home. With the wins over UNI, MSU, Drake, and ISU, plus a win over Evansville, that would have given us a 7-11 record, probably good for 7th place with the tiebreaker formula that doomed us when the schedule came out. That was about what I expected at the beginning of the year. I didn't really expect the MSU and UNI wins at home, but I did expect us to win maybe two games of the roadies at SIU, Drake, Evansville, ISU or Bradley.

Chalk it up to learning-- winning a road game in this conference is priceless. Since every other team in the conference did it at least once, I thought it wouldn't be such a huge hurdle for us.

On the plus side from my trip to Peoria, I got some sweet video of Kaboom's big reveal.


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I want Bo back

Hey Smokeyjoe,
Explain to me what you mean by a "systems coach." I have never studied basketball strategy and have wondered what is meant by such terms as "motion offense" or Gene Sullivan's "double stack offense." I have some idea of what a high-low post is. Can you recommend a tome from which I may gain some knowledge on this subject?

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Let's go Braden!

ll give it a shot but the game changes faster than I can keep up.Maybe some of the guys on the Board who have played recently can give us a better explanation. Some offenses are really structured with few options and are pretty repetitive...like the double stack which starts with screens down low on both posts. The high ball screen that Whitesell ( I think) and PM run a lot starts with usually the post player up high setting a pick and roll for the point guard and requires a point guard that can get to the rim and hit the pull up jumper. I think Jeff White is getting better and better at this but it also requires a post player that can both step back and hit the 3, get to the basket and roll and post up.Wichita State ran us crazy with this.It also requires a 3 point shooter who can get to the basket.Doyle is perfect here. This is the offense I see the most in college. A motion offense has everybody with options and was mastered by the old Dean Smith teams. He wrote the best book I read on the motion offense called Multiple offenses and Defenses(i think). If I am not mistaken a lot of the time when we post up Christian Thomas with Oleary up high it is a form of the old John Wooden UCLA offense.
Any way I guess my point is that I think PM runs the same stuff, the same offensive systems you see everywhere else in college basketball but I am not sure if he has the personnel to run what he wants but is also the kind of guy that tries to stick with what he know.