So, without belaboring the point, that game last night was having to take a bite out of a moldy shit sandwich. There's lots of things to (rightly) complain about. I want to try to be constructive or at the very least analytical in my pissing and moaning (not that there's nothing wrong with anyone else's particular brand of pissing and moaning, you guys do you).
* Southern's game plan for DTJ was really, really good. They put a grown ass man on him and picked him up with really solid full court on ball defense. Got physical with him and made him make mistakes early. It's a smart early game plan, and something Krugs should really be expecting at least until DTJ is a little better seasoned. But we saw nothing to protect Dedan early. No big to set a timeline screen for him, no companion player to run up the court behind. At the first time out with a double digit lead they switched to a 2-2-1 full court pick up and that further put more pressure and frustration on the young guard. Good coaching here. Terribly slow for Kevin to address, and always very reactionary when he did address it.
* I understood what our offensive set early in the game was meant to do. It wasn't pretty, but we clearly wanted to get our wings open shots after a permiter skip pass on a high lateral screen. It's simple, and it's fine to have as a package you run. Hell, if your wings shot better than 1 for 11 from 3 maybe it even works and forces some of their defenders out of the lane area. But it really seemed like that was 90% of our offensive game plan. Something that you'd set up in 15 minutes of play on a YMCA court. You have to at some point see that's not working and transition into something else. Even something equally as simple as a pick and roll, or running a baseline runs through down screens in the post to force the defense to have heads on swivels and at least look elsewhere.
* Defensively, we didn't do anything very well. 95% of Southern's offense was predicated on pick and roll. Big diving hard to the cup on switches, guard shooting over when we tried to go under. I hate switching screens unless you've got a couple of bulldogs who can defend it and you have a big who understands he may have to rotate to cover the diving big or the penetration. DTJ isn't there yet, Webster has never been there, LuRod isn't bad, but was slow to react tonight, Hill was okay i guess. Maybe that gets a little better with Boone in the middle on the defensive help rotation, but given our defensive make up, switching screens is a stubborn 'we're going to do things my way' idea that is going to be exploited all year. Last year we had Parquet and Gilbert and it still got us exposed more often than not. I won't even go into the bench guys getting split all night by either the penetration or the hard roll to the cup. Seems like we shoudl be better prepared to play against the most common offensive set in basketball, but what do I know.
* Kruger's game management was very poor. He's slow to take timeouts, he's slow to change what's not working, he doesn't seem to have any ideas in the game to make other teams uncomfortable. Last year, the matchup zone worked pretty well against bad PGs, but we were actually pretty poor defending team once people figured out that on tape and we never really came up with any alternatives after...and here it is next year and we're still playing bad defense and bad offense.
* Southern played hard as nails and made some tough clutch shots, but they clearly looked like the tougher team who were playing harder. I think baseline effort is uncoachable, it's part of your team psyche and based on hours and hours of practice. However, that extra motivation when you're getting your dick knocked in the dirt can and should come from the coaching staff. Teams that wilt when the oven gets hot are just as much a fault of the coaching staff as the players themselves.
* I'm not sure what to make of Krugs at this point. He's slow to change his gameplan, slow to change his rotations, slow to call timeouts when we're bleeding on the floor, slow to react to things he's seeing in game. I can't remember him drawing up a wrinkle out of a time out to get us a good shot. I can't remember the last time we hot switched a defense, or had a play called out, or seen a guy in foul trouble and direct his guys to attack. He just stands on the sideline and yells a bit, but doesn't do anything. It's weird because he was a pretty good leader as a player, but I just don't feel that from him and the sample size of him not being a great coach is getting larger every game. I just can't believe how unprepared we looked against Southern. It's just a pick and roll offense with a few screens through the key as a wrinkle. It's an offense you'll see in most decent rec leagues. And he's so damned stubborn, he refuses to not switch screens, he refused not to change defenses, he refuses to adapt. I get the feeling his internal monologue gets to the 'what am i supposed to do, they're shooting it so well', and then just does nothing.
* But the saddest thing of all to me is how SOFT and without identity this team is. Who are we? Do we play great defense? Do we play great offense? Do we play as hard as hell? Do we scrap? Do we play like our lives depend on it? No to all of these. There's no attitude, no 'you will not beat me', no I diving to the court for every lose ball, working your ass off on the glass, setting screens that send a damn message, forbid easy layups and anyone that tries has to pay the key tax. Just none of those things. Bad shots, lazy defense, and almost apathy. Look at those kids during that game. They weren't embarrassed to be taken out behind the woodshed. They weren't mad and desperate. They didn't even really look upset besides a few hung heads a few times. And it can't just be me that notices it--which is why there was probably 3500 people in the stands if you are lucky.
I know it's just the first game, but this really looks more like we're playing exactly how we did at the end of last season but with worse defense and fewer bulldogs. I would love nothing more for KK and company to turn things around, but I don't know how much evidence I have to see and ignore before I just admit that this isn't working and probably won't work.
God, I hope I'm wrong.
