I actually just wrote about the offensive scheme so far, look for the article on the blog in the coming days. I agree that blocker mover won’t be the look this year, but as you said it can certainly be used to get Huff and Diakite into the post. I like what you mentioned on the bigs in the slot, that could definitley be an area where and Huff and Diakite can feast, especially as they both now can shoot it from deep. In the spread ball screen, yeah the re-screen with Huff was repetitive, but the way Clark was getting to the rim, while also kicking out to Diakite and Key was what made it so effective. But yeah Huff needs to develop as the ball screener. Once shots started to fall though, like with any offense, they were clicking. Loving to see Key and Diakite confident in their longer looks, great to see them sink a couple.
I’m in agreement about the rescreen being effective, and it’s definitely the right read when Clark’s man goes under the initial screen. I think they will have to dress up the spread ball screens if they are going to run it heavily, maybe some false motion before or during the screen that puts the defense in confusion about who needs to tag the roll man.
Looking at the numbers, I think last night’s performance was encouraging: a little over 1 point-per-possession against a good defense, 10-for-11 at the rim. The shooting was solid, ball security was good after the first few possessions; the only demerits were not a lot of offensive rebounds and not getting to the line much, but against a top-75 quality Vermont team, that’s not bad.
On defense, I was worried some about the Smith-Lamb inverted pick and roll, but after some shaky possessions, Key and Diakite were fighting over it well, and Clark was providing a decent hedge for a guard not usually in that role.
Morsell can D up big time.
You and Tony agree
One stray thought I had about the 3pt shooting: We are evaluating these guys on really small samples of shooting, which is a little obvious, but what we have to go on is barely a fraction of how much information you need to feel confident about someone’s shooting ability. Take this (stat-heavy) discussion from this post trying to figure out how many NBA 3pt attempts do you need to see before having a stable sense of a player’s 3pt percentage: How Long Does It Take For Three Point Shooting To Stabilize?
To find the point at which three-point shooting stabilizes we need to find out when the reliability crosses a certain threshold. A reliability of 0.7 seems to be the standard threshold used. After this point, the skill aspect will outweigh the noise. To gather a big enough sample of players with a sufficient number of attempts, I used the past seven season’s worth of three-point shooting data from NBA.com and I found that after roughly 750 attempts the reliability crosses the 0.7 threshold. This means that after 750 attempts a player’s percentage is split 50-50 between skill and noise.
Obviously, that’s way more than we get to see in many players’ career, let alone a given season. This just means to me that it is really hard to tell this early on what these new guys can do from 3. Maybe they’re good, maybe they’re not, but <20 attempts will have a ton of noise in it; same deal if they started off super hot, it’d be early to say with confidence that this is real. A recent example of that perspective is Duke’s Jack White last season, who was 21-for-47 from 3 through the first 13 games, and then was 6-for-50 over the next 25 games. Obviously, it’s not the most encouraging of starts, but I’m not any more worried about the shooting than I was at the beginning of the season (though I would describe that state of mind as slightly worried).
@AdventiveQuasar. Tb mentions that talking at the end of his press conference…he was not a fan.
Or, as I like to think: if 3 point percentage in the first month of the season (let alone the first month of a career) were a valid indicator, both Billy Baron and Taylor Barnette would have spent four years at UVa. And, based on his marksmanship in the 2017/2018 season prior to Christmas, Ty Jerome would still be riding the pine. So much remains unknown.
Real question, and I dont know answer, is how are they shooting it in practice and personal workouts. If the guys are knockin em down regularly outside of games then its gonna come. If not…
Tomas answering your question on IG. Of course, they could have been layups for all we know. 
Braxton mentioned that in his post game comments and alluded to the shots falling in training. If that’s the case you have to imagine it’s just a matter of time before they start falling in games.
haha. there it is
