Sleeping On It ....

[Taj79]

... didn't make it much better but it has moved me back off the edge of trying to teach the wind how to fly .....

Everybody has already pointed out a whole boatload of failings last night. I have to admit I was absolutely shocked at some of the things I saw .. namely a coach not doing all he could to stem an early tide, a total lack of effort, a total lackadaisical performance by the #9 team in the country, at home no less, to a C- team, and so on. Observations:

1) While Santa Clara shot phenominally well, so did SC-Upstate. SC-Upstate was making them from everywhere, Santa Clara just seemed to pulverize our boys on the floor, the boards, you name it. We were never in it from 11-11 on. They only got 7 offensive rebounds but it felt like they got everything. And as roy pointed out in the defensive rotation, things were missing and rotations missed as there seemed to be SC layups all over the place.

2) The defense. I thought we prided ourselves on that. Haven't seen it. SC-Upstate shot well. Sanat Clara just dominated at every position. Why did Foster miss the second half of the season last year? What was he suspended for or was it an injury? He reminded me of the old Detroit Piston guy ... Vinne Johnson "the microwave." According to Rammer, someone else on the bench at Santa Clara is called that but believe me, it's Foster. How come we can't get guys like that? I was worried about Craig at SC Upstate. Foster was fantastic. As Earl said too, we could never get a defensive stop. Even when we did force a missed field goal, we'd lose the loose ball rebound or turn it right back over ourselves. And if they are going to ignore flopping this year as everyone seems to believe, Cody has got to stand up stronger because when he flops and there's no call, the path to the basket is wide open. As Timmerman noted, if this is a team that feeds its offense by its defense, we're the next Biafra.

3) Individual defense. Roquemore ate McCall's lunch. He was toying with him. Now maybe running the point AND playing defense are a little too much for Mike but he looked horrible on defense. And on offense, as Earl noted, he went into some bad situations on the drive and left no viable option for relief. Whereas McCall and Jett dominated SC-Upstate, they were the whipped boys last night. Jett's all-defense place took a huge hit last night. Manning, Glaze and even Barnett do not seem to have the rotations down and understood. Evans gets an A for effort -- at one point he had Foster and at another Roquemore, two guards that took our lone rebounder away from the boards.

4) The offense. Two key items, each the same play. Both times, Loe set a high ball screen for McCall and both times McCall took the ball off it soft allowing the defender to go between the ball and the screen which then got Loe offensive screen fouls each time. Crews talked about more on-ball screens as opposed to RM's off-ball screens when he took over. The key to any screen is cutting angle -- geometry. We are not very crisp right now. That's just lazy. Santa Clara's defense seemed to be content to allow McCall and Jett to drive at will. Neither finished well but the Broncos did not drop off our outside-shooting bigs. And without the catch-n-shoot flare play, neither Loe nor Ellis is going to dribble and create their own shot. And as projected, neither is going to change their lifelong game and become inside-dependent, let alone inside-dominant. There seemed to be large segemnts of the game where our offense was nothing what it was last year. As noted by some, lots of abandoning the play and free lancing. i know we posted another six-minute scoring drought in the first half. And we missed our first five shots of the second. Still getting an F grade for two bombers ermerging per night. Two games and we are 8-of-32 from the arc bu *** sure seems all them cam ein mop-up time in both. And we are still a team who's personality is based on the three point shot as far as I can tell.

5) The interior. Now I'm still scared here. It would appear Remekun is our major hope but it is stil way too early to tell due to lackof anythign concrete. That doesn't make me feel very good. Glaze, outside of some nice hustle and enthusiasm, hasn't shown me much yet. But again it's early. However, if he can't compete against the OOC bigs, I'm not thrilled about him getting up against Gaston, Braswell, Aiken, Roberts, Lee, Holis-Jeferson and the known big dudes in the A10. Manning? No clue still. Our most viable NBA talent (accoridng to the HOF coach) has played an average of 3.5 minutes per game so far. I really want to see us play Jeff Withey and Kansas.

6) Boy are we thin. Mitchell was one thing but then deduct Cory and lose Jett to fouls and Carter to the injury and some of the combinations were downright scary. And speaking of thin, while I am not about to bail out and all over Crews, do not think the loss of Majerus doesn't mean something.

A loss at home to Santa Clara should pretty much drop us from any poll considerations until maybe late February. We can get over that now. Again, no time to panic but a lot of questions have to be answered in the OOC schedule. Once again, we are a lunch-pail kind of team that cannot rest on its talent but must rely on hard work as the sum is much greater than the parts and the parts have to come together in the framework to make it work.

Contrary to what someone said, no, we don't have Columbus any more. That was then, this is now. Need to step back, take lessons learned, and go from there. I have lower lows than last night ---- 20 points at GeeDub, losing to McKendree, losing to a 5-win Detroit team in the first round of the MCC tournament, and so on ---- but last night was a low I guess due to expectations. No panic but recognize a long way to go.

And change the dance team's "uniforms."

[Quality Is Job 1]

4) The offense. Two key items, each the same play. Both times, Loe set a high ball screen for McCall and both times McCall took the ball off it soft allowing the defender to go between the ball and the screen which then got Loe offensive screen fouls each time. Crews talked about more on-ball screens as opposed to RM's off-ball screens when he took over. The key to any screen is cutting angle -- geometry. We are not very crisp right now. That's just lazy. Santa Clara's defense seemed to be content to allow McCall and Jett to drive at will. Neither finished well but the Broncos did not drop off our outside-shooting bigs. And without the catch-n-shoot flare play, neither Loe nor Ellis is going to dribble and create their own shot. And as projected, neither is going to change their lifelong game and become inside-dependent, let alone inside-dominant. There seemed to be large segemnts of the game where our offense was nothing what it was last year. As noted by some, lots of abandoning the play and free lancing. i know we posted another six-minute scoring drought in the first half. And we missed our first five shots of the second. Still getting an F grade for two bombers ermerging per night. Two games and we are 8-of-32 from the arc bu *** sure seems all them cam ein mop-up time in both. And we are still a team who's personality is based on the three point shot as far as I can tell.

I believe you got that backward. Majerus has installed ball screens, and Crews is maintaining that though he prefers screens off of the ball (i.e., motion offense, if I'm not mistaken).

[West Pine Jim]

I believe you got that backward. Majerus has installed ball screens, and Crews is maintaining that though he prefers screens off of the ball (i.e., motion offense, if I'm not mistaken).

A basic rule of Knight-style motion offense vs. man D was to pass the ball, then set a screen away from the ball. (the passer's other choices were to cut to the basket or to cut away, then replace oneself. Ball screens were shunned because that invited a double-team on the ball. Majerus' screens were different because of his system of automatic moves to counter the double-team. Knight's thoughts might have been different initially if the 3-pt. shot had existed.

Through our first two games, our screens, like several aspects of our game, have been terrible. Majerus insisted on details like Knight did. Freelancing ? Let the pros do it.

[slu72]

Taj, as pointed out, you did get it backwards. RM knew how to coach on ball screens and was pretty graphic in teaching players his methods, ie the dropped pants thing at Utah. But back to sleeping on it. No, the sky's not falling, yet. But there is reason for concern when you can't defend your house against a third rate burglar. Now SClara may be better than anyone thought, but not to the point where they come in and thoroughly kick your ass. The team on the floor last night bore no resemblance to the team we saw in Columbus. There was no discipline on either D or O. And while players play the game the coach is there to tell them when they're playing it right or wrong. I don't think JC did that last night.

Another thought, if you'll recall RM rarely sat down during a game. He stood and would holler instructions. Did anyone see JC alongside the court last night saying/yelling anything? I think we all felt RM's absence would hurt us to a degree, but would not inflict the traumatic wounds it did against SClara.

[Clock_Tower]

Taj, as pointed out, you did get it backwards. RM knew how to coach on ball screens and was pretty graphic in teaching players his methods, ie the dropped pants thing at Utah. But back to sleeping on it. No, the sky's not falling, yet. But there is reason for concern when you can't defend your house against a third rate burglar. Now SClara may be better than anyone thought, but not to the point where they come in and thoroughly kick your ass. The team on the floor last night bore no resemblance to the team we saw in Columbus. There was no discipline on either D or O. And while players play the game the coach is there to tell them when they're playing it right or wrong. I don't think JC did that last night.

Another thought, if you'll recall RM rarely sat down during a game. He stood and would holler instructions. Did anyone see JC alongside the court last night saying/yelling anything? I think we all felt RM's absence would hurt us to a degree, but would not inflict the traumatic wounds it did against SClara.

Taj. We did not lose (and get trounced at that on our home court) because of our ball screen technique. We lost because of our effort, our planning, our lack of adjustments/coaching/motivation, our passive defense, our mental breakdowns and because we cannot shoot the ball well.

72. For the second half, I changed seats and sat directly behind our bench probably 8 rows up and all I saw was a confused, deer-in-the-headlight from Crews. Verbally, I heard absolutely nothing. And no, I did not see one player get pulled due to a mental mistake, bad pass/turnover, lack of effort .... Rich Grawer had the quickest hook of any player. Spoon and RM would remove them but sometimes 30 seconds later. Crews seemed to remove only at his pre-game scheduled times.