is getting downright goofy. I don't see how anyone watched last night's game and thinks that lack of a true pg is our big issue.
We had:
-players throwing the ball away and having complete loss of all vision at points (Mooring and Clyburn)
-players who completely panicked and stopped running the offense when the other team overplayed the rotations (a seasoned team would have scored 20 points just on backdoor cuts)
-an over simplified offense (waaayyyyy too simplified) running high screens and horns with few options allowing the other team to overplay the guard positions- this despite the fact that the short corner was open for a short jumper by Jones EVERYTIME it was run (cuts away from the ball-UCLA type- were open and never taken whether by scheme or by execution, I don't know.)
-our front court defense was completely outmatched and no scheme was attempted to account for it.
-our transition defense was reverting to zones of coverage to stop the bleeding, leading to mismatches all over the place.
-we are not deep enough to cover athletic wings and power forwards, and have to guard them with Green (not a knock on him, he's just not capable of staying with some athletes).
-if we addressed defensive rebounding fundamentals, then nobody listened. Everyone is just crashing the rim and allowing their man a running start at the rebound.
I'm not saying all this to rip the team. I'm personally giving them way more rope because I am not blind enough to think that we are going to have a quick fix. I was proud of the way they kept scrapping and the trio of Baxter, Clyburn, and Poyser all scrapped as hard as any team we have had in a long time. They are likable and seem to be genuinely a hard nosed and serious group of guys.
It's just that with all the correctable and chronic (for this year at least) problems, pg is not even close to the worst. Basically, find a guy to be a placeholder that won't throw it away and will start the offense, and then move on to bigger problems. Worrying about a pure pg vs a shooting guard that can bring the ball up- at this point- is like worrying about your fuel economy when your whole engine needs to be rebuilt and your car has no tires.
We had:
-players throwing the ball away and having complete loss of all vision at points (Mooring and Clyburn)
-players who completely panicked and stopped running the offense when the other team overplayed the rotations (a seasoned team would have scored 20 points just on backdoor cuts)
-an over simplified offense (waaayyyyy too simplified) running high screens and horns with few options allowing the other team to overplay the guard positions- this despite the fact that the short corner was open for a short jumper by Jones EVERYTIME it was run (cuts away from the ball-UCLA type- were open and never taken whether by scheme or by execution, I don't know.)
-our front court defense was completely outmatched and no scheme was attempted to account for it.
-our transition defense was reverting to zones of coverage to stop the bleeding, leading to mismatches all over the place.
-we are not deep enough to cover athletic wings and power forwards, and have to guard them with Green (not a knock on him, he's just not capable of staying with some athletes).
-if we addressed defensive rebounding fundamentals, then nobody listened. Everyone is just crashing the rim and allowing their man a running start at the rebound.
I'm not saying all this to rip the team. I'm personally giving them way more rope because I am not blind enough to think that we are going to have a quick fix. I was proud of the way they kept scrapping and the trio of Baxter, Clyburn, and Poyser all scrapped as hard as any team we have had in a long time. They are likable and seem to be genuinely a hard nosed and serious group of guys.
It's just that with all the correctable and chronic (for this year at least) problems, pg is not even close to the worst. Basically, find a guy to be a placeholder that won't throw it away and will start the offense, and then move on to bigger problems. Worrying about a pure pg vs a shooting guard that can bring the ball up- at this point- is like worrying about your fuel economy when your whole engine needs to be rebuilt and your car has no tires.
