I beg to differ

Posted on: January 22, 2020 at 14:22:32 CT

Our sets and strategy is perfectly fine. The issue has been execution by players who have never been taught the fundamentals that help create efficiency in organized Basketball and this is not a problem exclusive to MU.

Fundamental lost 1. Our guards on ball screens REFUSE to attack the shoulder of the screener. They slow play it towards the screener, they turn their shoulders 90 degrees from the basket and take a path that is 3-5 away from the screen. Then they don’t explode past the screen to create space and improve the angle to feed the roll. It’s pathetic execution. If they forced their line to the screen shoulder then face up and explode past with 2 big slide steps, they create space, eliminate the potential for a moving screen, they are a bigger threat to warrant a double from a weak side guard, and would have better access to feed the role. 3 major opportunities to create a quality shot off one simple aspect of the game that we leave off the table every time.

Fundamental lost 2: Post feed. We pump fake the pass.....over...and over...and over. It’s nauseating. It’s like they think the post defender is baiting them somehow. Our sets routinely get a post player isolated with good position. Instead of instantly firing the ball to the call hand, we fake, fake again. They have no intention of feeding. They think they are sucking the weak side defender in tighter to free up the reversal...foolish. They don’t value how playing the post forces deeper help and opens up the weak side. It’s not in their basketball IQ. Efficiency and opportunity lost due to a lost fundamental of good guard play.

Fundamental lost 3. Identifying the help defender. This isn’t the open floor of AAU ball anymore. Turning downhill and attacking a sliver of a lane is hard work and usually ineffective. The mentality has to change. You attack with balance and control with the purpose of drawing a double team. That sells to a help defender. That opens up the baseline cutters. More opportunities lost that should be available due to bad fundamentals. I will say Dru is the lone exception though.

Fundamental lost 4. Bring the ball to the middle of the floor in transition. We hit the outlet and stay wide looking for that gap to attack. Fools gold. The right play and will be till the end of time in this sport is to cut back to middle and force the defense to the middle. The ball handlers job it to demand the attention of as many defenders as possible creating space and lanes for wide teammates. We get nothing in translation.

Again, this isn’t just an MU problem. It’s across the sport. Our youth development is failing these kids. They are growing up not learning to value the techniques required to execute the small games within the game that make for efficient offense. Coach had a couple of beautiful baseline out of bounds plays last night that were horribly ineffective simply by a bad screen and then compounded because our guards had simply lost all confidence in their shot. One was a double screen that Picket simply didn’t get tight enough to Mitch( I believe). It took away 2 separate options. I don’t believe you can coach all of this into players in a season and there simply aren’t enough kids available to recruit and be selective about these particular skill sets and IQ.