SRP
Postdoc
Posts: 4911
Reg: 02-04-06
|
02-24-18 08:53 PM - Post#249299
In response to cc66
The team's meltdown this year has been strange. Some tactical, some emotional, some technical.
I still think the elixir for all three of the problems is to play more aggressive, ball-hawking defense with simpler rotations and slides. It's hard to be in a funk when you're getting deflections and steals and harassing the other team. And it's easier to yell "play harder" than "play smarter," which MH has ended up having to do too many times.
Lots of long-armed guys with decent hops but not as much lateral quickness, combined with a lot of younger guys who have trouble figuring out switches, makes the current complex yet mostly passive switching man/matchup zone a questionable choice. (Especially against Harvard, which practically wants to turn the ball over if you give them half an excuse, it seems perverse not to be all over the dribbler and the first-pass lanes.) So frustrating to get a team in trouble late in the shot clock, only to have them hit a shot or get an OR, which has happened a lot during this losing streak. At least stick Morales in there to be a pest once in a while.
For most of the game, the offense looked OK, although the threes weren't falling and the FT shooting was poor. But at least there was some shape and spacing and passing and cutting--it looked like an offense, not a bunch of guys trying to win it by themselves.
Much will get a lot better next year, I predict (although he was quite productive this year). The angry expression on his face when he makes a mistake looks like "I know I can be better than that," which bodes well for him cleaning up some of his defensive issues. Cannady should spend time working on his floater game, because he can usually get into the lane when opponents overplay the three, but he cannot finish at the rim in traffic with any consistency. Stephens should keep working on that outside shot and practice finding open guys against collapsing defenses. Aririguzoh has only scratched the surface of what he can do--I thought he played valiantly against Lewis and did a decent job, even though Lewis scored efficiently overall. i wouldn't write off Schwieger, either--he looked good but inexperienced this year.
|
