Run, Brad, Run....shoot, Brad, shoot....

[slu72]

You look at some of the best games we played last year and they were against teams that like to push it, ie get the scores into the 75+ range. UNC, Charlotte, GW, X....Now while the scores in these games weren't always in the 70's the Bills seemed to play these games well. Won a few and lost a couple of toughies. Contrast that to slowdown ball played by teams like St.Joes and Richmond. Arguably, one of our best games last year was vs Charlotte. As I recall, this was pretty much a race horse type game with both teams exchanging buckets at a good pace. Charlotte likes to push it and not waste a lot of time finding the open shot. The same was true against UNC in Chapel Hill, until we got homered at the end. The team looked comfortable moving at a good pace. Games where we seemed to have trouble, especially against St. Joes, was where we stood around and took shots w/ 2-3 seconds on the clock. I think these guys need to run...to establish a flow. Guys like KL and TL are used to this from there hs and prep school days. Also, don't think there's any question DB likes up tempo. He strikes me as very much a reactive type player, ie I'm open, I'm popping...not worrying about whose supposed to be coming off some screen. Point is I think we do better when Brad "releases the hounds" rather than have them all on a very short lease.

[billiken_roy]

you assume that the opposing team has no choice in what happens tempowise and it is all up to brad.

[slufanskip]

I agree. UB was just on KFNS and they talked about pushing the pace. He even said when DM came to the bench ... he told him he was getting good shots, keep taking them.

I think when you don't have a team of great shooters you tend to overthink things at a slow pace. Like you said with DB ...

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[slufanskip]

I think you make a good point, but in those instances where teams really try to slow it down, I'd like to see us push the intensity on D. Throw a little full court press, get out of the pack and get more aggressive on the perimiter D. Usually if a team is slowing it down, we will be more athletic and we need to push our strength at them.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[willie]

It's a lot easier to tell DM to keep shooting the ball in an exibition game then say Texas A&M. I think 72's point was well taken. When you cut possesions it puts more pressure on each possesion. We were a poor shooting team last year. I really do believe that Brad believes running is our best option.

[slu72]

Good teams dictate the tempo, Broy. Granted playing slo-mo ball with Richmond makes it hard to crack 50 points, but as Skip says throw some pressure on them, force them out of a style they are comfortable with. Don't just sit back and let them set up to slowly eat up the clock. John Wooden was a master at changing and dictating the tempo of a game. Now granted he had some pretty good ponies to make things go his way, but look at UAB. Hard as hell to slow things down with them. I'm not saying we should be a 40 minutes of hell team, but we can speed things up on our end rather than get trapped in the other teams web. One of the reasons we had soooo much trouble w/ St. Joe's last year was Martelli figured KL was the only guy that could hit an outside shot. So he doubled down on IV and counted on us taking lot's of time to look for getting KL a good shot after our first option, ie getting the ball to IV, was eliminated. Result, we avg'd 38 points and lost both games. The team never got into any kind of flow and ended up standing around playing hot potato rather than basketball. I remember watching the tournament game, screaming at AD to push the frigging ball up the court after a St. Joe's basket. Nope, he just leisurely brought it up allowing St.Joes to get everything set up for another disastrous trip down the court. This year I'd like to see us after a basket have IV inbound to a streaking DP, DB, TL, KL or whoever just to take them out of their comfort zone.

[ACE]

Good point about dictacting tempo. We don't do it enough. I think we have the depth and athleticism to press more and try to create some turnovers.

[slufanskip]

You are kidding I'm sure. You don't think he just lies to appease us fans and potential recruits?

What he basically said was that he thinks DM is a shooter and will normally make those shots, therefore he should keep shooting as long as he is taking good shots.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[billiken_roy]

not necessarily. how soon we forget marque perry and josh fisher dictating tempo against far better teams. and as the likes of second ranked louisville tried to turn up the heat they only p!ssed down the side of their legs even more.

as to your john wooden comment, thanks for the great laugh. let me know when we have lew alcindor, or bill walton or sidney wicks or keith wilkes on the team. not saying wooden wasnt a great coach, but he had teams that no one else came close talentwise as well.

while uab played an exciting brand of ball during the mike anderson years, they didnt make it to any sweet 16's either did they?

your martelli comment is more akin to making my argument. not sure why you bring that up in your debate. martelli is more the master of dictating tempo than anyone i ever saw. when he had the horses like west and nelson, he ran, when he didnt like last year, he could effectively take the air out of the ball.

i agree the st joes game was defined by no made shots, but you could also say it was defined by no second shots. give us a few putbacks and the tone of that game changes.

[brianstl]

I think one big key to the press would be Polk. After watching his shooting struggles again Friday, I believe he will have trouble getting minutes. I have been high on him all off-season, but I am really starting to wonder if he will ever shoot well in a game. He does enough other stuff well that if he could just hit an open 15 footer, that would be enough. His game shooting is just depressing.

[slufanskip]

I don't think you can turn it into a track meet against teams that intentionally slow it down ... but you can try and push the tempo on the defensive end. Especially when you aren't shooting well, a few turnovers that turn into fastbreak points may change the momentum and turn your shooting arounds also. Alot of shooting the ball is confidence ... a few easy buckets and the attitude of the team changes.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[slufanskip]

Don't get down on Dwayne ... he needs to do like he did at the end of last year ... forget his outside shot. Play hard D and push the ball. In other words he needs to play to his strengths and away from his weaknesses. Not everyone will be a star and shooting well or not, Dwayne brings an intensity level on the defensive end that is unmatched on our team besides Kevin. We need Dwayne to just be Dwayne.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[billiken_roy]

keep in mind that pushing the perimeter defensively also opens up the lane and will lead to less defensive rebounds (and more offensive rebounds and easy putbacks for our opponent) and leave us vulnerable to players that are very athletic and good at going to the basket one on onelike.

with that said, you better have defenders that have kevin lisch mindsets. polk approaches that, so does meyer, but maguire, liddell and brown do not imo. now if they change that intensity and skillset then i might agree with you. or if we had a legitimate power forward to help ian rebound more i could see it.

but for now, i am a buyer in the pack defense which i think is a great equalizer when a team is a position or two short defensively.

[slufanskip]

but rarely do you find a more athletic team looking to slow it down. I don't think we are 2 positions short defensively. I agree that the 4 is a tough spot right now ... but I think when we get completely healthy we will be as good as almost anyone defensively. We will have more height inside also to help with the defensive boards. Imo ... the pack d gives up too many open 3's. We have the personel, we need to play d close enough to make our opponents uncomfortable. I can see why we played it in the past, but imo ... those days are over.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[billiken_roy]

while i consider myself a charter member of the tommie liddell club, tommie isnt turning any nba heads with his defense. couple that with our current power forward woes, i count 2 and if maguire and/or brown are also in the game, you might be looking at 3.

the day you see liddell, brown and maguire getting after it the same as lisch, polk and meyer, now we can talk about pushing out the perimeter defensively.

[slufanskip]

I agree Tommie isn't Kevin or Dwayne, but he isn't a slouch either, nor is Danny. On the radio today ... UB mentioned Danny's defense positively.

We have the atheletes we need to play to our strength. If we have teams not as athletic as us and we let them get comfortable (and the pack does) ... especially if they are a better shooting team than us, and many are ... we are playing into their hand.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[nostatic]

I think last year we were really packed with the defense, making sure we gave our younger players some confidence and some wins. As we get more comfortable and more athletic, we can still play the pack but extend it out another 2-3 steps and not give up the uncontested "3". I'm sure that has to be a point of emphasis with this years team.

UB has always been good at dictating tempo when the athletic edge went to the other team. Now we should have quite a few games where the shoe is on the other foot. Let's see how this team handles it.

[willie]

I think your talking about Tommie of last year. I watched his defense Friday and thought it was very good. I also thought Danny's defense was good. I'm with Skip I hate the pack defense,gives up too many 3's and thats how you can lose to an inferior team like a Quincy.

[kshoe]

The main reason not to press a team is that they are going to take advantage of it for easy buckets. If a team is determined to slow it down against you, they are less likely to push the ball for those easy buckets. i certainly hope that if we are truly going to be a run and gun team this year that includes a full court press at least part of the time.

[ACE]

>not necessarily. how soon we forget marque perry and josh

>fisher dictating tempo against far better teams. and as the

>likes of second ranked louisville tried to turn up the heat

>they only p!ssed down the side of their legs even more.

>

>as to your john wooden comment, thanks for the great laugh.

>let me know when we have lew alcindor, or bill walton or

>sidney wicks or keith wilkes on the team. not saying wooden

>wasnt a great coach, but he had teams that no one else came

>close talentwise as well.

>

>while uab played an exciting brand of ball during the mike

>anderson years, they didnt make it to any sweet 16's either

>did they?

>

>your martelli comment is more akin to making my argument.

>not sure why you bring that up in your debate. martelli is

>more the master of dictating tempo than anyone i ever saw.

>when he had the horses like west and nelson, he ran, when he

>didnt like last year, he could effectively take the air out

>of the ball.

>

>i agree the st joes game was defined by no made shots, but

>you could also say it was defined by no second shots. give

>us a few putbacks and the tone of that game changes.

Roy, UAB made the sweet 16 in 2004.

As for the press, Tommie's quickness and wing span seem to give opponents fits any time we use a press.

[cheeseman]

I hesitate to enter this thread because if you say anything that some would construe as not supporting Brad then you are anti the program. That being said I will at least put my toe in the water. The person who said it is easy to tell your kids to run and keep shooting during a preseason game but what will happen with it really counts and it is not working really asks the key question. I am ever hopeful that Brad means what he is saying - however, the last two years he said the same thing. He was always saying that he was telling the kids to shoot and push the ball but it never really worked out that way. So what are we to believe, that the kids defied him - not likely. My point is come January if the team is running and shooting then great but if they are not, what are we to conclude. Finally, in the UNC, and GW games, we had a player who was hot from the outside: UNC - AD, GW - DB. I do not remember who had the hot hand against UNCC and Xavier but I know we had little trouble scoring and it helped immensely that they could not hit the ocean with a beach ball those nights. I am not saying that Brad is a liar just that he has shown that he is slow to move out of his comfort zones.

[slufanskip]

So if he's say's he's telling them to run and they don't ... what do you think it is?

I would guess you have 2 options ... the kids aren't doing it, or he really doesn't want them to, isn't telling them to and is lying when he says that he tells them to. ... which do you figure it is ... and then why?

I think it is a confidence thing. Why do you think they pushed the ball against GW, UNC, UNCC and X. Could it be that they were hitting and got confident and continued?

It's not that you don't support Brad ... it's that you don't seem to make sense. Why would Brad say he tells them to run, but then actually tell them not to. Please help me understand.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of Slu72's bid to join the Billiken Blue Kool Aid Club

[Billikan]

In terms of the last two years we need to look at what really happened:

Two years ago we had our starting center and our best shooter go down with injuries. Bryant was never the same yet he kept shooting and he clearly could not "run" like he did before the injury. Frericks was never the same amd he hobbled when he was on the court and Ian came on at the end but he was still very green and not in top shape. The team as a whole shot the ball miserably and the entire season was a big mess because of the injuries.

Last year we did run and sometimes we ran a lot. The results were generally disasterous in terms of won lost record and we lost several games at the end because we turned it over on the run. But the bottom line is that you need to do three things well to run the ball effectively--first, you need to take care of the ball and not turn it over for an easy lay up at the other end--nothing is more deflating than to see a pass intercepted and have the other team get an uncontested layup. Second, you need to rebound on the defensive end and get the ball out fast. Good teams recover very quickly and even if you want to run unless you get a great outlet you will never get an open fast break basket. Third, you need to finish and shoot the ball at a decent clip. We were awful last year when we tried to run in terms of shooting and finishing. In terms of Brad, I know he was frustrated by two things--one was that we turned the ball over and seemed to lose our momentum when we were "running' and the second was that when he pushed the team to run more they often did not do it, probably because they were young.

This year's team is a completely different story. We have much more experienced guards and the guys are for the most part in top shape. If we defend well and get some steals that will automatically bring us some running opportunities. Ian has always been a good passer and he now has become an excellent outlet passer so that should help. But the bottom line will be the ball handling and shooting as I have said over and over. If we run as fast as everyone wants on 5 consecutive plays and turn it over for opposing layups twice, miss an open 3 where they get a long rebound and go down for an open shot that they hit, and then we miss two contested layups and they go down and score on one of two possessions then we are down 8-0 or worse and our "running" game has killed us. If we handle the ball well and shoot effectively then the running game will help us win games. If not, then it will be the reason we lose games we should win.

[willie]

I think part of this argument is what do you desribe as running. If we push the ball and get to the hole thats great. If we push the ball and Polk stops and waits for everybody to set up thats not running in my book. I would love to see us let the ball fly on the secondary break. Untill Brad encourages that secondary fast break shot I don't really look for us to get that many transition baskets. I would love for us to push the ball down the wing and have Kevin or Danny jack up the shot. Are we ready for that???

[Billikan]

The answer is pretty obvious. If we miss those shots with our team all moving toward the basket and there is a long rebound the other team will get an easy layup. If we do that often enough it will ruin our defensive prowness and we will lose a lot of games. If we hit those shots we will look like world beaters because the rest of our game abilities are very solid.