This really needs it’s own thread/should be plastered everywhere in JPJ
https://twitter.com/Michael_Cohen13/status/1770454148082749919
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There is hope. But only one person can make this happen. He’s said he will take a look in the mirror, let’s hope it’s a long one. I love the man and still believe in him, he is a great coach, but it’s time for a philosophical change.
I have hope this can be Tony and the program’s “The world is actually round” moment.
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Not sure I buy Tennessee changing that much. They have an older team and struck gold with Knecht. If he’s not scoring they are the same old team. Next year will be telling.
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Most interesting line was Hurley saying he has much less stress knowing he won’t be in a “rock fight” every night and that they can always go on a scoring run.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Go Hoos. Please stay Elijah
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The interesting thing about UConn, is that they’ve still been quite good defensively even after re-prioritizing the program to focus on offense. Is it too much to ask that we be good at both offense AND defense?
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I mean, it helps to have some of the best talent in the country.
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They have only one 5 star. Last year they didnt have any 5 stars
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Talent always helps, but I think there are takeaways that could be applied to our situation without having 5-star talent. Dan Hurley rethought how he valued offense compared to defense, and then implemented a complex, continuous motion offensive system that requires players to read opposing defenses and make the correct reaction, all within the system. He then committed enough practice time to ensure that players could run that offensive system well, and then he used efficiency numbers to lean in to the areas where that system was working well for the players on a given roster.
My broader point is that UConn ended up with an offensive system with very similar traits as B/M, but they practice it enough for players to execute it well. At what point this year did it look like our guys, esp. the newcomers, look like they were comfortable enough in the system to run things well?
The corollary to that, is that even though UConn shifted to a preference for offense, they’ve still put out solid-to-elite defenses.
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I think the valuable insight in that article is about how comprehensive and well-aligned their efforts had to be in order to achieve a big offensive transformation, along with how self-reflective they had to be.
I would guess that most coaches think they have defined an offensive identity for their team and that they recruit aligned with that, but I’m not sure if most coaches are able to be so self-reflective and willing to reevaluate core features of their offensive identity, without ending up with an approach that changes too often or isn’t defined enough.
I also like that the article shows that the scheme is just the tip of iceberg, so just changing the actions you run is superficial if it isn’t accompanied by the other things they talk about, like redefining offensive principles, recalibrating their view on the recruiting profiles they go after, changing how they teach offense, incorporating data in actionable ways, etc etc. No quick fixes and what not, at least if you want some sort of transformational change.
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Bingo. The big stand out for me was “changed the way we allocated practice time.” It was a full commitment to transformational change. You’re not getting it without going 100% in on.
And I guess why I say that was the “big stand out” is that for TB this would be a COLOSSAL change in priority (from what we’ve heard). It’s what we need to do, but time will tell if it’s what we will do.
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Yeah, this nails it. Its gigantically complicated because everything ties into everything else and making it all align properly really is extremely difficult.
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Exactly. The last team to win a national title with a 5 star was I believe Nova in 2018.
You don’t need 5 star talent to win titles. And you don’t need 5 star talent to play offense. People tend to think you need those things to be able to keep up with Duke / UNC. That’s a weird way of thinking.
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I believe Tony thinks offensive practice / shooting is to be done on a players’ own time.
Formal practice time is scrimmage and team defense / individual defensive principles.
Go HOOS. Please stay Elijah.
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Recruiting stars are irrelevant in this conversation. UCONN has 5 star college talent that is in a good system with good schemes. What matters is how good the players are in college and UCONN has among some of the best players in the country right now.
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Yeah I’m of two minds:
- If you want things to change, you really need to want them to change. So a big redistribution of priorities like this is needed.
- Maybe we are talking about this in more all-or-nothing terms than is strictly right. Perhaps the big issue is the lack of alignment between these different pieces, and fixing that while still emphasizing defense gets us to top-50 on offense while remaining top-10 on defense.
Edit: Tony-the-recruiter seems to sometimes be recruiting for a different offense than what Tony-the-coach wants to play. I want to see what happens if Tony-the-coach follows Tony-the-recruiter’s lead more.
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If you put Beekman, IMac and Dunn on UConn right now (swap out Newton, Spencer and Clingan) you hypothetically have the same results.
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And this right here is why Tony will struggle with transfers and recruits. Other coaches have figured it out. If you have Dan Hurley and Tony recruiting you, where do you want to go?
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I dunno if that’s strictly true. There’s a lot of talented players that go to dogsh!t teams. Louisville the last couple of years is the low hanging fruit example.
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You’re joking right? Newton is a significantly better offensive player, and especially scorer, than Reece. Spencer has the best offensive efficiency in the freaking country, and comparing Dunn to Clingan is very unfair.
They appear that way because of the system. But Newton is not a significantly better player than Reece and Spencer isn’t a significantly better player than IMac.
You can even look at their averages and UVa offensive efficiency to tell.
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