Oral Roberts?

[tseugnekillib]

3Star said...."Tommie and Jarod would struggle in this offense because it emphasizes passing and screening rather than passing and cutting"..... imo, that is a dead wrong statement.

The motion offense is all about passing, screening and CUTTING. Perimeter players have more options, more freedom in the motion offense than in an offense consisting of set-plays.

Back-cuts are a part of the motion offense as well. However, three things have to happen: (1) the defensive player has to over-play the offensive player to present the back-cut opportunity; (2) the offensive player must read the defensive overplay and time his back-cut perfectly; (3) the teammate with the ball must see and then hit the offensive player making the back-cut in perfect timing for the easy layup or very short shot.

The motion offense is a excellent offense for perimeter players who are quick, athletic, persistent and most of all good shooters. Unfortunately, it also takes time for teammates to develop the timing of their passes, screens and cuts required to get good looks at the basket.

[3star_recruit]

There are many, many variations of the motion offense as I'm sure you know. I'm just going from observation the last two years -- when our guys have run Brad's variation of motion there seems to a whole lotta passing and screening but not much cutting toward the basket. We have all this congestion in the lane caused by high and low post screening and very little room for the wings to drive, last year included. So the only cuts the perimeter players make on a consistent basis are to another spot on the perimeter and therefore we see a lot of 17-20 foot jump shots.

The difference between this year and last year is that we were making a good percentage of those jump shots. But heck, we could run just about any offense and get a 17-20 foot jump shot -- there's no reason to run motion if that's all we're gonna get from our wings.

[guest]

The sky isn't falling. Relax. The Billikens have lost 3 games by a combined total of 11 points and they haven't played good basketball. Relax. You know as well as I do that Brad won't settle for this and trust me, the team isn't happy either. Bottom line is the defense is there, all they need are a couple more shots to fall per game and suddenly things are turned around.

[billiken_roy]

those three losses will be huge in march. imo, it will take three wins against "wasnt supposed to win's" to offset those. and judging from what we have seen, that will be difficult.

i agree we can right the ship, but now you are likely looking at a 16 or 17 win season which wont even make the nit unless the above happens.

[BillikenButch]

The problem isn't 11 points. Had we scored the 14 points to win these games, the problem would still be there. I am concerned about the caliber of the teams we are losing to. Our problem is not the 3-4 points per game to beat the Austin Peay's, it is the 10 points better we will need when we play the heart of our schedule.

While sinking a shot here or there might have us at 3-1, that one shot will not help us in conference play.

Still plenty of time to fix the issues (and get healthy!) but the concern is legitimate and I have no doubt that the team and coaches think it is legitimate as well.

[Billiken Law]

>The sky isn't falling. Relax. The Billikens have lost 3

>games by a combined total of 11 points and they haven't

>played good basketball. Relax. You know as well as I do

>that Brad won't settle for this and trust me, the team isn't

>happy either. Bottom line is the defense is there, all they

>need are a couple more shots to fall per game and suddenly

>things are turned around.

True, but the 3 losses are to teams SLU has no business losing to.