D
Deleted member 308
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Dave's core critical flaw is that he is too much of an optimist. Given the potential upside and downside of any situation, he seems to only expect the positive outcome. And pretty much all of his gambles have come back to bite him....
1. 2 Shooting guards = 1 point guard.
This seems to be the most consistent backfire. Blame it on the success of the concept at BYU with Jimmer and Emery where 2 shooting guards shared the responsibility of running the offense given the situation. At UNLV it has been a fcking failure. ANT/Katin, Deville/Kendall, Deville/Olekabe, Jalean/Mccaw, Jalean/Doolin, Seagears/McCaw, Seagears/Poyser. It hasn't worked out. It's been a massive disaster.
2. Placating the unengaged.
Bennett was the death of the 12/13 team. It wasn't ANT vs Katin. Bennett was the star player who never had to work hard at the game. Who had a team of excuse makers protecting him anytime anyone ever questioned his injuries or durability. Never had to give effort on both ends of the floor. Was called the best player in the nation one week into his college career based of highlights that didn't show how little defense he played, or how little he shared the ball with his teammates. He was given the highest praise in the nation for just being who he is.
So what's a coach to do? Hope that he comes around and engages with the game of basketball to get more of that sweet sweet success that he got a taste of? Or NIP that primadona to-good-to-play-both-ends-of-the-floor-attitude in the ass? With Bennett and Wood (Bryce, Katin, Moser, Jalen etc), Rice hoped for the best. Ride their highs an hope the lows aren't that bad. By the time Rice realized the highs were behind them, the bulk of the season's practices had been waisted on their shallow one dimensional abilities. Now the best case scenario is to feature them to get them out the door, and maybe win some games in the process.
Had Rice put them at the end of the bench for not playing the game to win, they might have taken a different approach to the game. Maybe not. But the rest of the team would have noticed. Why should Dwayne give a sh!t and battle for boards if Wood gets his minutes by being a POS. Why should any player give a sh¡t?
3. Too many players to run.
Stack the roster with talent and let the players fight for minutes? Sounds like a good idea. The potential downside is that you don't have enough minutes for everyone to find a role and rhythm. We're halfway through the 15/16 campaign and we don't know who the go-to-guy is. We don't know who is going to give consistent minutes anywhere on the roster outside of Dwayne, Ben and Poyser.
We have enough guys to play super up-tempo. But we don't have PG who can remember to push. We could sit Seagars if we only had a back-up PG. How do we have so many dudes that they dropping like flies from he program to find minutes, but we only have two sh¡tty options at the point?
Back in the day, there were more hours in the week that you could practice, not so much today. With a stacked roster you have to split those few hours developing 12 new guys instead of focusing on 8. You install 20 set plays when the increase in possessions means you need 40. Then the guys lose focus. You end up running so may combinations of players that they don't what their role is, what their strengths are, what the purpose is....
If we did't constantly lose the gamble on 1 & 2, then maybe we could be successful with running. There is actually a huge upside to stacking the roster and pushing uptempo. But constantly losing all 3 bets year in and year out has killed Dave. He hopes for the best, but always gets the worst.
Right now Dave is probably still trying to motivate everyone on his roster. He's still investing time into making Sager a PG. Still trying to get McCaw to focus. Still trying to get Ike to a 5th year senior guard. He needs to cut his loses. He need to assume each of those situations is going to turn to sh¡t, and go with the options that have both he least downside, and upside. He needs to be a pessimist cause it ain't going to come up roses.
1. 2 Shooting guards = 1 point guard.
This seems to be the most consistent backfire. Blame it on the success of the concept at BYU with Jimmer and Emery where 2 shooting guards shared the responsibility of running the offense given the situation. At UNLV it has been a fcking failure. ANT/Katin, Deville/Kendall, Deville/Olekabe, Jalean/Mccaw, Jalean/Doolin, Seagears/McCaw, Seagears/Poyser. It hasn't worked out. It's been a massive disaster.
2. Placating the unengaged.
Bennett was the death of the 12/13 team. It wasn't ANT vs Katin. Bennett was the star player who never had to work hard at the game. Who had a team of excuse makers protecting him anytime anyone ever questioned his injuries or durability. Never had to give effort on both ends of the floor. Was called the best player in the nation one week into his college career based of highlights that didn't show how little defense he played, or how little he shared the ball with his teammates. He was given the highest praise in the nation for just being who he is.
So what's a coach to do? Hope that he comes around and engages with the game of basketball to get more of that sweet sweet success that he got a taste of? Or NIP that primadona to-good-to-play-both-ends-of-the-floor-attitude in the ass? With Bennett and Wood (Bryce, Katin, Moser, Jalen etc), Rice hoped for the best. Ride their highs an hope the lows aren't that bad. By the time Rice realized the highs were behind them, the bulk of the season's practices had been waisted on their shallow one dimensional abilities. Now the best case scenario is to feature them to get them out the door, and maybe win some games in the process.
Had Rice put them at the end of the bench for not playing the game to win, they might have taken a different approach to the game. Maybe not. But the rest of the team would have noticed. Why should Dwayne give a sh!t and battle for boards if Wood gets his minutes by being a POS. Why should any player give a sh¡t?
3. Too many players to run.
Stack the roster with talent and let the players fight for minutes? Sounds like a good idea. The potential downside is that you don't have enough minutes for everyone to find a role and rhythm. We're halfway through the 15/16 campaign and we don't know who the go-to-guy is. We don't know who is going to give consistent minutes anywhere on the roster outside of Dwayne, Ben and Poyser.
We have enough guys to play super up-tempo. But we don't have PG who can remember to push. We could sit Seagars if we only had a back-up PG. How do we have so many dudes that they dropping like flies from he program to find minutes, but we only have two sh¡tty options at the point?
Back in the day, there were more hours in the week that you could practice, not so much today. With a stacked roster you have to split those few hours developing 12 new guys instead of focusing on 8. You install 20 set plays when the increase in possessions means you need 40. Then the guys lose focus. You end up running so may combinations of players that they don't what their role is, what their strengths are, what the purpose is....
If we did't constantly lose the gamble on 1 & 2, then maybe we could be successful with running. There is actually a huge upside to stacking the roster and pushing uptempo. But constantly losing all 3 bets year in and year out has killed Dave. He hopes for the best, but always gets the worst.
Right now Dave is probably still trying to motivate everyone on his roster. He's still investing time into making Sager a PG. Still trying to get McCaw to focus. Still trying to get Ike to a 5th year senior guard. He needs to cut his loses. He need to assume each of those situations is going to turn to sh¡t, and go with the options that have both he least downside, and upside. He needs to be a pessimist cause it ain't going to come up roses.
