Good post.
......yes it was not a game that left a good taste, and the idea Beach was a 'contendor' at least for now has been dispelled, doesn't mean though we won't contend.
1) MSU was good. the noticable difference to CBU was MSU had a solid Big, MSU had impeccable spacing, and shooters with great form, MSU had a plan to attack the press from the get go
2) to expect the same pressing success as we got last year this early is silly. again, Slater, Cobb, Roberts were tremendous defensively and in fundamentals. we are lengthly, wingy, but that's not the same until guys know what they are doing, and it's a bunch of Jucos thrown out there. against UCLA and MSU we just got KILLED by the first pass and rarely trapped. we did adjust a bit later to our credit, if you are going to trap you have to be able to prevent those 30' passes over the trap or you'll get burned every time
2) guys played hard, but man the biggest issue was EVERYONE blocking out. Cobb again is the example of a guy that always found a body to seal. shooters were left unimpeded to follow their shot. that sort of stuff must be occuring in practice, and if it isn't our staff is lost, if it is and guys are losing focus to block out in real time in games, they need to be benched
3) our offense, I keep thinnking as a former Utah Jazz / Jerry Sloan fan the old Jazz offense of multiple screens to free up for good inside/mid-range shots, until his old-school basketball style got overwhelmed by 3 point shooting and modern spacing. this offense may be ok, but I can't believe all these Jucos can run it that well in month and learning to screen/timing effectively was a bit comedic, and all the screening is occuring in and clogging the lane, lol. I don't know how soon they'll get there. at least the 3 man motion up top doesn't clog the lane. Guys need to learn in modern offense when a guy like A. Traore has it to post and go to the hoop to basically get the F out of the way and have him space. Murray drives into traffic, our bigs don't receive it with much room. MSU was clearing out to isolate their big
part of it is not hitting 3s doesn't help, but part of that is also you don't get great looks when 3 guys are parked within 3 feet of the key. last year with no bigs, we simply cleared out a lot, the lack of a big forced Monson to spread, and it was interesting Monson actually played some with A. Traore as the 5 like last year. hence Monson just chucked the offense and went to the Murray and A. Traore show. A. Traore basically took it on himself to try to somehow win the game in the face of disorganized offense. Tremendous effort by him.
what's the answer? I don't know. Tone is super fast, but most of yesterday he was going nowhere fast. I'll repeat, we need to get Tone to actually get a few shots versus just dribbling as fast as he can to the bucker or along the baseline hoping a big he'll find. MSU just clogged everything when he did that.
I get people want to 'speed it up', and yeah if Defense converts to offense, but actually we need to take some lumps getting guys to run sets. I have no idea what we are running for Jones, to me we really aren't running much of anything which will need to change, and yeah he had a bad day on both ends. I think the Tsahonis-Murray combo does not move the ball, so would like to see more of Tone-Murray with Murray as an off guard.
4) it was as bad as it looked, and also the Juco's got a real rude introduction to playing a solid D1 offense/defense
5) a little concerning is the 3 shooting of Tsahonis an Rootegard. they simply have to hit (as a result of getting good looks) some 3s. Rootegard was 29% from 3s last year, his form is good, but so far he is not hitting when he gets good looks, so who knows. Tsahonis simply needs to take the 3s when it's a good look. Polynice? does he really have the green light to shoot 3s, lol? great if he's the next Dirk Niwitzki, but I have my doubts lol
on to Oakland, have to control what guys can control which is blockng out, foot movement, and benching non-compliers. On offense, actually a bit more patience. nice to isolate A. Traore as part of the offense, and Murray hit more shots, so some progress but everyone else was wretched
4) still ahve a good feeling about the team, and especially Tone to acclimate as the schedule goes on, but shall see
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