Buffs Basketball Fan
Well-Known Member
White needed to go up a level.
Did all he could at D2.
Did all he could at D2.
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MBB vs Wazzu - Which Team Will Coug It?
- Thread starter Goose
- Start date
Buffs Basketball Fan
Well-Known Member
Fortune at least has more than an assist a game
So does Wes and Thomas.
Other than that no assists
But if you have a turn over for EVERY assist, what good are you doing?
Wes is our post player, he shouldn't have more assists than both of our PGs, especially since our offense really isn't based on inside out play.
Because you can't just play 5 guys. there just aren't a lot of good options and Fortune is best of the worst.
That's fine. I don't mind disagreement. AB would be boring as **** if we agreed on everything.
I see King as very skilled on offense but needing to work on his handle because when his jumper's not falling he is very limited creating for himself and doesn't create for others. He doesn't make others better. (Also, he's capable of being a much better rebounder than he consistently shows.)
With XJ, it's the same as with King but with some skill when he has his back to the basket. Again, a guy who doesn't make others better and doesn't rebound with the consistency he's capable of.
Fortune, like the above two, doesn't make the other players around him better. And he's more one dimensional. He's a shooter who becomes a liability when he tries to do more than that. When his shot's not falling or he doesn't have room to shoot, he presses and gets into trouble.
Part of the problem with all 3 of those guys is that they let their success on offense determine their interest level in defense and rebounding.
Wes is just not an assertive guy on the court. He does make the guys around him better by covering their defensive mistakes and being a pretty good passer for a big guy. Willingly sets screens, etc. But he doesn't consistently fight for post position on either end of the court, doesn't look for his shot, doesn't do well finishing through contact and his activity as a help defender often takes him out of rebounding position. He's much better as a battery mate to a guy like J40 than trying to be the main post guy.
With the roster we have this year, I think we're better set up to play zone with Wes rotating to block shots and to cover the issues with stopping dribble penetration. And since they're not a team of players who have the mentality of fighting a man for position every second of a defensive possession, a zone would allow them to cover some of that laziness and use their length to recover & challenge shots.
On offense, ideally XJ would embrace being a college PF with Wes being the stretch guy setting screens and taking the occasional jumper (like last year) instead of being the primary back-to-the-basket guy. But XJ wants to be a wing and float on the perimeter most possessions instead of accepting the role that would most help the team. That also screws up the spacing and detracts from King & Fortune being able to play their games because the perimeter is too damn crowded.
I didn't mention White in any of this because he's fine. Only issue I have with him is on the leadership side. As the PG, he's got to be the guy who rewards guys on the offensive end for making hustle plays on D and freezes them out for falling asleep on D. He doesn't orchestrate with that mindset and sometimes you have to be an asshole when you're in that position (something that Nate and Spencer didn't mind being).
In terms of the bench, I'm not sure they understand their roles. Makes me question coaching and also makes me pissed about the lack of leadership from our veterans. Very stark contrast between what I'm seeing of them and what I saw during the football season when the bench guys embraced the mantra of "star in your role" however limited or if you were needed to step up bigger than normal.
Primary ball handler who orchestrates things. Often your leading scorer, but makes others better while getting his. Defensively, can keep the opposing point from breaking down your defense.
It seems like you don't like the Westbrook/ Curry/ Lillard type of PG or don't consider them to be true point guards.
Buffs Basketball Fan
Well-Known Member
Pass to the open man should be the mantra. That's role of all players on the court. Encourages movement
Well, that sucked. So tired of the turnovers and lack of finishing at the rim. Bad decisions beget bad decisions. The team has regressed so far from the team that played ND, TX and Xavier well earlier in the year. I really see a lot of guys playing below what we have seen them do in the past. All pretty much covered by Nik above. Hope we see a turn around but I am not thinking we will. This was a bad Wassu team and we made them look pretty good. They had lost their last 2 home games by a combined 60 pts.
Birch1
Well-Known Member
This is why advanced stats don't always work. If they put Fortune in instead of a freshman with some potential (Peters), then all those in favor are robots who don't take into account context. We're possibly the worst team in the league this year. Time to turn toward next year. Let the freshman play and work through mistakes. Hell, throw Siewart in and let him get burned, maybe he'll develop. I mean, truly, can we play any worse? Maybe, but the win/loss record won't show it.
Buffs Basketball Fan
Well-Known Member
How does next year get better
Who is PG
Recruiting class is good but they will have to learn.
There is nothing wrong with the stats. My post was about putting the best roster for this year, not planning for the future, which is what Tad is doing by playing 11 guys. 10 had at least 10 minutes. WSU went 7 deep btw. Utah and Washington each have gone 8 deep.
aghcsm
Well-Known Member
Definitely. Reminds me of the 2014 & 2015 football teams, could/"should" have won 3-4 more games each year. Something about a losing culture/character seems to make the loss inevitable, even though the final score is close and it seems just a play or two would have reversed the outcome.
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Buffs Basketball Fan
Well-Known Member
Mr. Babar
I have no elephant books
Wrong. Tad is a proven commodity who has made 20-wins normal for CU (unheard of for a long time). The talent is there, but the turnovers are killing them right now. Poor chemistry on the court right now, and that is on the players to figure out via communication.
B_Walk
Cursed
I'm not trying to be snarky, but where? Where is the talent? Nobody on our team can even make a shot. I don't see any conventional basketball skill on this team at all.
This is a bad basketball team right now. Undoubtedly. But I'm sorry, you are just ignorant if you don't think there is talent on this team. They don't have Arizona, UCLA or Oregon talent, but they absolutely have as much talent as anyone else in the conference. That's why they are so frustrating. The problems come down to a lack of cohesion, atrocious defensive effort, lousy constant effort in general, and poor decision making. If this team had no talent, they wouldn't be beating Xavier and having a chance to win lots of games at the end. It absolutely isn't acceptable to be 0-7, but there is talent there.
I was thinking about this today.
At worst this team has talent in the middle group of the PAC 12, far from the bottom. Despite that I am wondering if we will win more than one or two games the rest of the year.
Nik did a great job of breaking down the team. What this team doesn't lack is physical ability. What it does seem to lack is on court leadership, this team lacks passion, they consistently fail to step up and make the effort plays at key times that win games. There is nobody on the floor who grabs their attention and can turn up the intensity of the team when needed.
I respect Tad as a coach and he has done things here that haven't been done in my lifetime, and I'm not young. What I do see though is that he has recruited talent but failed to recruit leadership. Who on this team can you point to who is willing to trade pain for victory, who do the other players look to to set an attitude that makes everyone stand up and step up.
The last guy I can look at who really demanded respect from his team was Spencer, we haven't been the same since he got hurt then moved on. Time for Tad to re-evaluate what he is doing and place character a little higher on the scale in recruiting.
Folks, Tad is responsible for this. He has been very clear for years that he wanted to run a guard orientated offense. Fortunately for CU, We had Josh Scott for 4 years as a gap between a few previous NBA players. What is blatantly obvious now is that Tad's offense scheme is atrocious, there is not a coach on staff that is able to teach man to man defense properly (this team as well as previous teams for the past 3 years) is unable to simply have their head up and step over for help defense on penetration or properly step out and guard players on the perimeter against three pointers. This has been a pattern, but without Scott in the middle or Andre or Spencer and their strong defensive ability to do both, you see the deficiencies in the team as well as the coaching inabilities.
I really do not like to kick someone when they are down, but this vision of Tad's, despite concern about size and lack of recruiting, has been visible when you look at the overall numbers on defense alone for the past three years. Yet Tad has either been unable to recruit big men or (as his vision identifies) he has not been able to bring in any quality big men for five years. Miller is a big body band-aid, a loosely hanging band-aid at that. Gordon is atrocious this season and constantly has his head down - he is not having fun in this system and if you don't like being there, you are not going to play - he shows little to zero effort. Imagine this sub par .500 team without XJ, White and Gordon - well, that is what you have next year (a team that may win 12 games), this years team may not win 16 games.
I am all for another season of Tad, out of respect for what he has accomplished, but if he cannot bring in any better players that the current roster and incoming four, this program is in serious trouble for several years. I do not think this is something that has gone unnoticed by RG. Speaking of which, RG needs to upgrade the basketball facilities along with the coaching system in order to bring in elite players. I truly hope Tad can turn the corner here but that means having him coach outside of his comfort zone and relying on others to assist him in recruiting the players necessary to turn it around in Boulder.
I really do not like to kick someone when they are down, but this vision of Tad's, despite concern about size and lack of recruiting, has been visible when you look at the overall numbers on defense alone for the past three years. Yet Tad has either been unable to recruit big men or (as his vision identifies) he has not been able to bring in any quality big men for five years. Miller is a big body band-aid, a loosely hanging band-aid at that. Gordon is atrocious this season and constantly has his head down - he is not having fun in this system and if you don't like being there, you are not going to play - he shows little to zero effort. Imagine this sub par .500 team without XJ, White and Gordon - well, that is what you have next year (a team that may win 12 games), this years team may not win 16 games.
I am all for another season of Tad, out of respect for what he has accomplished, but if he cannot bring in any better players that the current roster and incoming four, this program is in serious trouble for several years. I do not think this is something that has gone unnoticed by RG. Speaking of which, RG needs to upgrade the basketball facilities along with the coaching system in order to bring in elite players. I truly hope Tad can turn the corner here but that means having him coach outside of his comfort zone and relying on others to assist him in recruiting the players necessary to turn it around in Boulder.
The quotes for the game in today's paper by Tad reference the players needing to make one play but don't mention his timeout with less than a minute to go in OT. We had a 2 point lead and XJ was behind the defense, received a pass and made an easy bucket for a 4 point lead only it wasn't allowed due to the timeout. The play that was drawn up didn't work and WSU came down and scored to tie the game and then win it.
Folks! This is a bad year! Get over it! Tad isn't going anywhere. We have a top 20 class coming in. Stop with the "give Tad one more year" crap. I'm sure Tad is WAY harder on himself than any fair weather fans are. Some of you probably wanted your dad to kick mom out of the house because she burned the meatloaf.
WSU just beat us playing 7 - we played 11 and 5 of them should never see the court
Every play drawn up during timeouts seem to fail. Half the time, we can barely inbound the ball.