I would agree… my brain puts me in the right position on the soccer field because of rote memory and constant drills (plus my center back and goalkeeper screaming all the time). As I now referee all levels of soccer… you can see the jump from active brain engagement inhibiting the correct actions in a timely manner to higher level games where their legs move them into the correct location due to practice and higher skill levels. I remember many games where one of my center backs would yell “pull!” (or “zieh!”) and I’d be running 3 steps forward before my brain registered anyone said anything.
It should translate pretty easily to the basketball court I think.
I’d agree with that re: general PG play and lineup construction.
The point from the article was specific to the press break and Ames was disappointing in that role. I’m concerned that 36 minutes of him on the floor didn’t appear to give us a ton of relief in that area and that Rohde still appears to be our primary option there when he’s playing.
Gotcha - and I’d go with Ames. The Campbell game was just 2 games ago…
To expand a bit - we have two games of each kinda doing it (press break) on their own against low major competition. Then we have one game with us trying to find different ways of doing it against high major competition. By and large, I think the way we did it vs Nova worked the best, considering the comp. Have them both try it, with plenty of supporting characters, but with Ames in the lead. I’m now reading you to say, no, give it back to Rohde because Ames was the last one whose mistakes I’m currently focused on. My point is - but we saw Rohde do that against Campbell.
You know what would help our press break? Getting the ball inbounds quicker out of the net. I feel like other team scores and many times we kinda hang our heads for couple seconds. Instead of grabbing the ball and going
In general, there’s still a commitment to going slow, no matter what Ron tells the gullible announcers. “I always tell the guys, if you wind up with the ball in your hands as a defender, and there is nobody between you and the other basket, then it’s okay with me if you advance it towards the basket.” That was a nice Corey Spector-ism that we heard in both cupcakes.
Hey, we’ve taken a whole 18% of our shots in transition! That’s a lot by our standards.
But yeah, I don’t think going fast is a point of emphasis, at least not at the cost of defensive rebounding. And that’s a real tradeoff, the faster teams tend to have worse defensive rebounding.
I just got to the clip where Nova doesn’t drop and instead turns a flat hedge into a switch for reasons(?) and then Brickus ends up circumnavigating the globe to eventually be very late on a close out to IMac. Good example of switching not necessarily covering up bad defense. I understand a little more why they played so much drop coverage, they are soooo bad at navigating rotations and switches, and drop just lets everyone off-ball just stay on their man.
I keep meaning to say things about our team but am getting so distracted by the horror that is Nova’s defensive execution.
Just to be clear - that section just highlighted how badly Ames did against the press and how often he deferred to players he shouldn’t have (who also did badly). I didn’t draw any conclusion that Rohde should be the starting PG (still don’t think so). I did draw the conclusion earlier in the piece that he could play more alongside Ames than I’d previously thought and that could be a positive development if both are shooting well since we haven’t had a good SF solution emerge yet and I expect we’ll be trying a lot of things throughout the season (unless this just becomes the de facto solution, which it might).
Coppin St. also didn’t press until late in the game and, even then, it was just very token pressure while our starters were in - so we hadn’t seen Ames really have to deal with it much until this one.
Most of Ames’s mistakes against the press were mental (except the behind the back dribble play which was both physical and mental). So, I’d actually like to see him take this on like it’s HIS responsibility to get the ball over the timeline rather than thinking of it more like a committee situation (of course he’s going to have to pass it to other people but a lot of the time he just cleared out and let the others deal with it or left the ball in TJ Power’s hands, of all people). Continue to get reps doing that until he’s better at it and use Rohde as a supporting option, not as the primary option unless it’s a high-leverage situation and Ames has been doing poorly.
As it stands right now, Rohde is better at it - but I don’t think he has to be nor is it best for us if he is.
It’s a good question, and I agree with Fresh’s sentiments. A couple of things I would add:
In college, without being too broad, I think there are two kinds of coaches. And I don’t mean offensive vs. defensive coaches. I categorize them as “pro-instinct” and “pro-system”. Pro-instinct coaches have philosophies and systems, but they promote the creative and instinctual aspects of the game. Calipari/Scheyer types who have thoroughbreds and rely on these guys to “make plays.”
The “pro-system" coaches are guys like CTB. These guys take players out when they take a bad shot and reward players with court time for following the system. You see less creativity in this system, and I believe it eventually dulls instincts over time. But there are a lot of great pro-system coaches who have won a lot of games, including CTB.
A good example of this is the imbalanced playing time with Rohde and Elijah last year. Rohde was substantially rewarded with playing time because he rarely, if ever, deviated from the system. Elijah was penalized last year because he operated on the fringes of the system and CTB doesn’t like that.
I think the most pleasant surprise of this new era is seeing the guys play more instinctually under Ron. I’m not sure that will translate to a lot of wins, but the Villanova game was notable in regard to player freedom. Some players took and made shots that they would probably not take under CTB. For instance, Imac was pulling up off the bounce and elevating early in the clock. The flared leg kick on his jumper was (as DTW pointed out) reminiscent of his high school tape. And I’m not sure Rohde would have taken those floaters - one of which was pretty deep for a floater.
There is nothing earth-shattering here, but at the end of the day, players have to make plays and counter the opposition with instinct. The question is whether you are doing that in a rigid system or as it presents itself randomly.
Villanova just beat an Ivy by 44 points last night. They’re going through some things but there’s still talent there and Dixon is real. It’s not a worthless win by any means.
I had felt like Ron has been coaching games to win so far, as opposed to TB (who I will defend until my last days) way of over the last few seasons seemingly coaching to not lose.
Dai Dai is a great revelation so far… under TB I’m not sure we would’ve seen that. Cofie same way, talk before the TB news was more can they keep him engaged enough. Under Ron? He’s 1 of our top guys so far. Same thing with Sharma seeming to get more minutes than Taine.
Obviously a long way to go and much tougher competition ahead but Ron has been more maximizing upside as opposed to minimizing risk and the reward has been there so far.
Yeah, I really like how Ron’s utilized the roster so far. Everything’s made sense in the context of game flow and player potential (aside from so little Ames in game 1 - but adapting to that pretty quickly after game 2) and there hasn’t been anything… counter-intuitive, we’ll say.
Possible. But then he played him 36 mins - so that’s quite the turnaround for someone you had no faith in after one decent game against the second worst team in DI.
Either way he deserves some credit for either not being as entrenched in his early opinions as we thought or for overcoming his priors very quickly.
I harp on this all the time because (1) I like it and (2) it ultimately is a funny anecdote with a happy ending, but consider the DJ Laster example:
The prior. Tony is a HOF coach. I’m a jamoke from the internet, who had trouble getting PT in CYO. But my prior was that Salt would get burned by Laster, an undersized and mobile big. Tony’s prior was “how about what we always do”. My prior was right! Score one for the jamoke.
Adjusting the prior. Having a correct prior is ideal, but it’s an unreasonable standard. But adjusting that prior quickly, as needed, is really important. Especially when you play low possession hoops! Tony took an inordinate amount of time to adjust.
I think you can use the same basic framework to evaluate the PG decision. I still think deciding to play Rohde for 30 and Ames for about 10 was a really bad prior! But I thought Ron adjusted well. Now, I think @DavetheWave does raise a fair point: would Ron have adjusted w/o the back injury? But it doesn’t matter that much. K was gifted a natty with the Sulaimon sich falling into his lap (addition by subtraction). Sometimes coaches can’t figure things out on their own. Just like the rest of us.