What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

State of the Buffs Offense - MBB

BIGEZ321

Club Member
Club Member
So we're now 6-3 in the Pac-12 Conference (should be 7-2). When I reflect back on this CU season, it seems our offense is decent at times and horrible at times. Our offense has especially looked terrible down the stretch in several games, magnified by losing the lead late in some very winnable contests.

I see that we are running a couple offenses. 1) Pick and roll up top with a big. 2) Pass and cut up top with bigs posting low. 3) Some kind of pass and cut/dribble drive motion. But what ever we're doing, I see our players dribbling into traffic or driving baseline and turning the ball over, especially Fortune. In short, I see too much one-on-one play to be a consistently good offense, and that worries me down the stretch. I rarely see a good, hard screen to get someone open.

I'm thinking that CU needs to install a couple sets to get shooters open at the 3pt line (double, triple, down screens). Then if the 3 isn't there, dump it down low and/or resume the normal motion offense. I think Fortune and King could thrive off screens. Fortune especially because his game is best suited for catch and shoot. Shooting from the 3pt line has miraculously become a positive for CU and I think it could be the ticket to making some real noise.

Basically the offense seems a tad slow, predictable and easy to defend. Why our point guards walk the ball up the floor still amazes me, are we trying to run the shot clock down intentionally. Aklayzili is the only one that consistently pushes the ball up the floor. CU should push the ball on misses and makes, especially in Boulder.

Just some thoughts... Guess I can't complain too much as CU is in the mix for an NCAA berth. Hopefully the Buffs continue to get better doing what their doing.
 
The unpredictability and the high drama finishes are what make College Basketball what it is. Very rarely are you going to blow the doors off of someone and have the final score line reflect it. For example, Cal has 3 McDonald All-Americans playing right now. The fact we got up by as much as we did was because we got one of them in foul trouble. The line before the game was 4.5pts for a reason.

Our offense is based on feeding josh. He should touch the ball in the paint every possession. That is when we are at our best. It frees up the wings and the guards to work the perimeter and it frees wes to get behind someone. Not sure how we can really complain about offense when we have scored 80+ points in 13 out of our 22 games. The offense works, and works well as long as our guards don't turn the ball over.
 
Difference at the end of games is having guys who can beat a guy off the dribble to get a layup or draw a foul.

King's handle isn't quite there. Same with Fletch.

Fortune isn't usually able to turn the corner.

Dom's starting to bring this. Another big reason why so many of us said the ceiling for this year is determined by Dom's progression.
 
The unpredictability and the high drama finishes are what make College Basketball what it is. Very rarely are you going to blow the doors off of someone and have the final score line reflect it. For example, Cal has 3 McDonald All-Americans playing right now. The fact we got up by as much as we did was because we got one of them in foul trouble. The line before the game was 4.5pts for a reason.

Our offense is based on feeding josh. He should touch the ball in the paint every possession. That is when we are at our best. It frees up the wings and the guards to work the perimeter and it frees wes to get behind someone. Not sure how we can really complain about offense when we have scored 80+ points in 13 out of our 22 games. The offense works, and works well as long as our guards don't turn the ball over.
I agree that the ball does need to touch Scott's hands and yeah, turning the ball over had me pulling my hair out during a few games. I noticed that when the post men are denied the post feed, the offense seems to resort into a driving one-on-one offense into defenders, which is where a lot of the turnovers that I see come from. I think a couple plays to get some open jumpers for our best shooters would make the offense more diverse.
 
Agree with your larger points BIGEZ but I think King is making strides off the dribble. I know we don't want him to see him shooting mid-range jumpers all night, but I thought he made good decisions to pull up in the 12-15 foot range on at least three possessions last night. I know his TO numbers are right behind Fortune but, at least to my memory, he seems to make quite a few when he's not under much pressure and away from the paint.
 
Agree with your larger points BIGEZ but I think King is making strides off the dribble. I know we don't want him to see him shooting mid-range jumpers all night, but I thought he made good decisions to pull up in the 12-15 foot range on at least three possessions last night. I know his TO numbers are right behind Fortune but, at least to my memory, he seems to make quite a few when he's not under much pressure and away from the paint.

GK is the ONLY player on this team that I want shooting a mid-range jumper. Pretty much ever.

Other than Scott and Miller, King is the only other player on the team that has been better than average in two point field goal production. Everyone else is WAY below average (source: hoopsnerd.com).

I hope we can keep up the torrid 3 point shooting and Wes can get things figured out atound the rim.
 
GK is the ONLY player on this team that I want shooting a mid-range jumper. Pretty much ever.

Other than Scott and Miller, King is the only other player on the team that has been better than average in two point field goal production. Everyone else is WAY below average (source: hoopsnerd.com).

I hope we can keep up the torrid 3 point shooting and Wes can get things figured out atound the rim.

This team still has that stagnant offense in critical times....throw the ball around the perimeter then someone has to throw up a desperation shot. Last year it was Booker who had to do it...this year it is GK. The PAC is more balanced this year...but the upper echelon teams are nowwhere near as good as last year... I dont see the Buffs winning another road game... Oregon schools, UCLA, USC, Utah....best teams in the conference....Gotta hold serve at home....
 
I think Dom is really starting to recognize, even anticipate, when we're startingto go stagnant and take matters into his own hands. He's really stepping up and I thought he was the reason we were able to hold Cal off.
 
Doesn't Dom need to become a consistant 14/15 ppg - 5 apg guy?
 
This team still has that stagnant offense in critical times....throw the ball around the perimeter then someone has to throw up a desperation shot. Last year it was Booker who had to do it...this year it is GK. The PAC is more balanced this year...but the upper echelon teams are nowwhere near as good as last year... I dont see the Buffs winning another road game... Oregon schools, UCLA, USC, Utah....best teams in the conference....Gotta hold serve at home....

It is frustrating watching the offense stagnate and last season was nearly unwatchable, but this us not a CU phenomena. This is college basketball. Watch any college basketball team, even many of the very good ones, for an entire season and you'll see the same thing.

This is not the NBA. This season is much better than last, and can still get better, but we're going to be very frustrated from time to time no matter what.
 
I don't think he needs to score that much. A ppg that high might indicate other problems in the offense. Although occasionally that might be necessary when he sees our offense faltering like vs Cal on Sunday. JScott was doing well but very much contested by their bigs. Wes is in a scoring drought. Fortune and Fletch weren't doing much and GMFK was the focus of their defense. Dom had the matchup because Tyrone Wallace is injured. Dom stepped up.
 
Our season turned because our team stop playing soft. I have never seen Josh Scott dunk as much as he has this year. He is playing stronger in the paint.
And my hat off to the DBC story that praised Yaz's surprise contribution several weeks ago. Since then, Collier got serious and started playing a lot better. Nothing like having your back up praised in the local press at the same time people are questioning what was wrong with Dom. It lit a fire and he has played better while less brooding and pouting.
Tonight, I want to see Scott, Gordon, Miller dominate the paint, and Collier be effective in getting our offense in sync. This will allow our wings to shoot threes wide open. With Tad's dislike for Altman, I believe we will come out ready to battle.
GO BUFFS
 
Back
Top