Game thread - NIT- Basketball at Texas (Wednesday, 3/27, 7:00 PM MT)

[Shldr2Shldr]

It's like this for a majority of teams across the country. It is just difficult to win on the road. Always has been and always will be. To win on the road you have to have the right mindset and group of players. You gotta play under control and not turn the ball over especially on multiple possessions. You don't rush shots, and you minimize your 3-point opportunities and instead drive the lanes, creating fouls and higher percentage opportunities.

I really like Tad Boyle. I do think he is a quality coach and has a good looking group of players that will grow and learn from this. Next season CAN BE better but they still will need to clean up a lot of things.

However, there are other things that bug me more than games like tonight vs Texas. What bugs me more is how Tad's teams seem to -every year- find a way to lose those 2 or 3 games to teams that they have no business losing to. Like this year vs Indiana St, Hawaii, and the home loss to Oregon State. In my mind those are "unacceptable" losses. Tad's teams always seem to find a way to lose multiple games of this nature and these losses really sting by seasons end.
Furthermore, his teams have a tendency to play out of control, mindless, and undisciplined a lot and the coaches fail to realize the obvious very often. Like when the team "often" is caught up jacking up lazy "missed" 3-pointers and otherwise playing one on one basketball while everyone is standing around. I often wonder how a coach can possibly let that type of play go on for more than a possession or two? That's not how you get things under control. You instead drive the lane, dish it off, create fouls, and look for high percentage shots. It's ridiculous at times!

I have some problems with your analysis.

1) Shane Gatling was brought here as a 3 point shooting weapon. He struggled in that regard at the D1 level for some reason. I expect a return to form for him this offseason with the experience he gained this year.

2) Lucas Siewert lead the conference in 3 point shooting last season. I have no idea what happened to him in the 2nd half of this year. Total loss of confidence, looked like he didn't want to even be there some days. Hope he can get right this offseason.

3) Schwartz is a dangerous shooter. I want him shooting the open 3's he gets.

This team did not jack up "lazy missed 3 pointers" very often. Surprisingly, this season, CU had a LOT of good, open looks from 3. They just failed to connect.

Also, this season, there was a plan in place for how to run the offense. It was going to be very post heavy with Walton, Siewert, and Bey. The plan wasn't to rely on Battey because of his medical / playing history. That plan got thrown out the window when Dallas went down. They had to rely heavily on Battey who had not played a game of basketball in over 2 years, and it showed. Battey was very rusty to start the season, and because of his propensity to foul, we also ended up relying on Alex Strating who really only started to find his way in the final games of the regular season / conference tournament.

Add to that the loss of a senior leader in Namon Wright, the loss of one of your top defenders and more experienced players in Deleon Brown, a point guard who could hardly shoot due to a separated shoulder, another defender that was coming in to his own, Eli Parquet, missed the last part of the regular season and the conference tournament with a knee injury,and perhaps most importantly how YOUNG this team is, and it is no wonder they looked uncontrolled and sloppy at times this year, particularly towards the end.

Now all of that means that Schwartz, Kountz, Strating, Parquet, and Battey got a lot more playing time and responsibility than they probably would have otherwise. It means that while still young, the returning team will be very experienced. We are going to be talented, deep, and experienced next year. CU could be the favorite to win the conference next year depending on how the draft/transfer season hits the Pac-12. Given how the media talked about CU during the NIT, I wouldn't be surprised to see CU near the top 25 to start the season next year.


Now, I agree that Tad is not blameless. The out of conference scheduling, IMO, did not prepare this team for the rest of the season. It also made it so that the team would have to be perfect in OOC to have any shot at the NCAA Tournament. I don't care where we have to play people next year, the OOC schedule must be better. Do the 2 for 1 deals with the big boys. Do the neutral site games. Whatever it takes. While he has improved somewhat in this regard, I still think he lets his team "figure it out" too often without calling a timeout and some games, like last night, get away from him. His offense scheme has improved since he has been at CU, but it needs to continue to improve. His flexibility on using Zone vs Man to Man has also improved, but he needs to continue to get this team more comfortable with both styles. At times, they look like they are thinking too much in the zone.

 

[Liver]

you will be expected to attend the Bay Area games next season, or consequences.....

attend a college bb game? matt bullard and scott wilke in the paint?

 

[Scotch]

attend a college bb game? matt bullard and scott wilke in the paint?

No... "The Dutch Wonder"... aka Alexander Strating.... in the paint!

 

[BuffsNYC]

attend a college bb game? matt bullard and scott wilke in the paint?

I watched Matt Bullard play in Coors a few times. I don't recall him lingering in the paint much at all . . .

 

[seattlebuff]

I have some problems with your analysis.

1) Shane Gatling was brought here as a 3 point shooting weapon. He struggled in that regard at the D1 level for some reason. I expect a return to form for him this offseason with the experience he gained this year.

2) Lucas Siewert lead the conference in 3 point shooting last season. I have no idea what happened to him in the 2nd half of this year. Total loss of confidence, looked like he didn't want to even be there some days. Hope he can get right this offseason.

3) Schwartz is a dangerous shooter. I want him shooting the open 3's he gets.

This team did not jack up "lazy missed 3 pointers" very often. Surprisingly, this season, CU had a LOT of good, open looks from 3. They just failed to connect.

Also, this season, there was a plan in place for how to run the offense. It was going to be very post heavy with Walton, Siewert, and Bey. The plan wasn't to rely on Battey because of his medical / playing history. That plan got thrown out the window when Dallas went down. They had to rely heavily on Battey who had not played a game of basketball in over 2 years, and it showed. Battey was very rusty to start the season, and because of his propensity to foul, we also ended up relying on Alex Strating who really only started to find his way in the final games of the regular season / conference tournament.

Add to that the loss of a senior leader in Namon Wright, the loss of one of your top defenders and more experienced players in Deleon Brown, a point guard who could hardly shoot due to a separated shoulder, another defender that was coming in to his own, Eli Parquet, missed the last part of the regular season and the conference tournament with a knee injury,and perhaps most importantly how YOUNG this team is, and it is no wonder they looked uncontrolled and sloppy at times this year, particularly towards the end.

Now all of that means that Schwartz, Kountz, Strating, Parquet, and Battey got a lot more playing time and responsibility than they probably would have otherwise. It means that while still young, the returning team will be very experienced. We are going to be talented, deep, and experienced next year. CU could be the favorite to win the conference next year depending on how the draft/transfer season hits the Pac-12. Given how the media talked about CU during the NIT, I wouldn't be surprised to see CU near the top 25 to start the season next year.


Now, I agree that Tad is not blameless. The out of conference scheduling, IMO, did not prepare this team for the rest of the season. It also made it so that the team would have to be perfect in OOC to have any shot at the NCAA Tournament. I don't care where we have to play people next year, the OOC schedule must be better. Do the 2 for 1 deals with the big boys. Do the neutral site games. Whatever it takes. While he has improved somewhat in this regard, I still think he lets his team "figure it out" too often without calling a timeout and some games, like last night, get away from him. His offense scheme has improved since he has been at CU, but it needs to continue to improve. His flexibility on using Zone vs Man to Man has also improved, but he needs to continue to get this team more comfortable with both styles. At times, they look like they are thinking too much in the zone.

When mentioning things that hampered us, don’t forget Kin’s torn labrum. You can see after that he wasn’t as fearless driving to the basket and creating off the dribble. He’s really the only guy on the team that does that effectively (Kountz and Schwartz show flashes). Kin having to scale back that dynamic part of his game had a big effect on us. In some ways it made him more complete and his 3pt shooting got better. But we desperately need guys that can penetrate the zone, which seems to be the P12 default defense now.