✂ Cuts From The Corner - Baha Mar

Men's Basketball
21

In 2018, we had one key get injured and we let a 16-seed beat us like a rented mule. That seems pretty un-resilient.

I don’t really have a particular point other than to point out that we attribute these positive words to teams that are successful (tough, resilient, good chemistry) and when teams lose we attribute the negative versions. There’s no good way to measure these intangibles. That’s why they’re intangible!

Maybe I’m just embittered by the “finesse-y” fiasco of 20-21. Looking back, my kingdom for a team that had some goddamn finesse! :joy:

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22

Ha, mostly agree with with your general point, but I was specifically referring to the actually not so good 2020 team, not the 2019 team. They couldn’t do shit on offense but they were resilient - they fought incredibly hard and won a bunch of one possession games they easily couldn’t have. Haven’t really felt that in the subsequent versions of the team. Has felt like there’s been a vocal leadership gap and lack of cohesion out there a lot of the time. But without being on the sideline and locker room, to your point, who knows how much it is real versus how much it is being unhappy with the results and making assumptions from afar.

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23

Well, yeah. We are definitely less good. But can we not have collapses on top of that general less goodness?

That still probably doesn’t make us better than last year, unless we show real improvement all around against our baseline.

Closest thing to operationalizing this (at least the iteration I’m talking about from last year) is long periods of our opponents taking and making difficult shots above what you’d expect, then followed by long periods of them taking and making a lot easier shots.

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24

Yeah, so… great question. The examples I gave were, more or less, accidental (specifically the Rohde one) - and that’s the shift I’d make - it to be less accidental and much more purposeful.

Playing through the post is generally easier to set up and can withstand the perimeter pressure because really you just have to control the ball long enough to toss it into the guy with his back to the basket. We have enough shooters to either discourage or punish double teams.

Of course, we don’t really have any post players who seem adept at being a go-to in this regard… but we also don’t have any guards who seem adept at being a go-to to set up the offense from the perimeter. So, I think it’s worth a look considering we also currently use it more as a change of pace as opposed to any kind of committed way and it would seem like as big as we often do play, we could find and target matchups and play through those players.

Alternatively - you could also go back to an offense like the Inside Triangle - not necessarily that one specifically, but an offense similar to that one. Basically, that offense works by a player just holding the ball on the perimeter without dribbling while the rest of your players run off of a ton of different screening actions to try to create a good look. Your player on the wing can either use the element of surprise to blow by the defender when the defense is distracted, or just wait for someone to (hopefully) come open and pass it to them.

I’m less optimistic about that kind of offense, though, because you’d either have to dredge up the old where people mostly know how to defend it anyway or invest time into creating something entirely new mid-season while there are so many areas to work on - and I think it’s still easier to disrupt because your passer can still be obstructed at the moment that the play comes open.

Easier, in my opinion, to use the offense you already have and just place an emphasis on more post touches and designate who should get more of them. I’m not convinced Cofie facing up from just outside the block and making a move like in that one clip I showed can’t be somewhat effective offense or that Blake and Saunders couldn’t get better at it with more opportunity. Plus, then the defense doesn’t get into the rhythm of pressuring the perimeter as often and so when you do kick it back out or run other elements of the offense, they should at least somewhat be more effective.

But, yeah, it’s going to be hard. It’s just really hard to run offense when everyone is so easily pressured and disrupted.

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25

Just using one dumb example, but in the clip you included where Cofie gets it in the post (and really not even in that dangerous of a position), as soon as he gets the ball, every Vol’s head is turned towards him and they’ve all shaded towards the ball and away from the their man, like they’re just waiting to slide/rotate. Before the ball goes into him, everybody’s got their man right in front of him. Seems like at a minimum worth trying to get the ball in earlier just so everybody on D isn’t just perfectly set up to pressure the perimeter.

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26

Exactly. And if they can draw some attention then a pass out can be more effective two-fold - either just getting enough space for a three - or allowing a player (Taine has been okay at this, for example, but is terrible when he gets the ball with his man already on him) to drive on a close out.

27

I will say that pass Ames made on the Imac curl was absolutely terrible. Ames would be the type of player TB would bench immediately - so far he’s made so many clueless turnovers yet he’s also the only one who’s aggressive the majority of the time.

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28

He really has made some absolutely awful passes. Baffling to a degree. Like he’s not even looking at the guys he’s passing to.

If he’s trying to do no-look stuff to throw off the defense, just stop. Let’s just have a game where we complete most of our normal passes and don’t turn the ball over every third possession or whatever. Do the cute stuff later when we’ve got the basics down.

29

So far, he’s awful in a way that I’m not sure is going to get better. He seems to lack awareness and vision. This team probably makes the tournament with kihei at the helm, only to lose in embarrassing fashion in the first round but hey at least we would’ve made it.

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30

Reminds me of when my daughter played basketball in middle school. The coaches taught offense, but when it came to a game, few teams could even get into their offense. So many tie-ups.

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31

Yeah that’s kind of what I’m meaning… liken it to the new offense. Sure it’s different and by deductive reasoning “better” but if the end result is still can’t break 70… :man_shrugging:t2:

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32

Goes back to what HGN was saying, players playing without an objective. Just getting the ball to make the next pass within the system.

Same thing that plagued us in blocker mover in recent years.

It’s partly lack of playmakers. But partly something that seems deeper and cultural. Not sure how you experiment with breaking that this year, but it’d have to be pretty radical.

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