More random thoughts

This last game reinforced, as I stated earlier, that this team HAS to be efficient. They cannot make mistakes. They have to value every possession and get after every rebound. We do not have a player like Frank Mason who can put the team on his back and drag our team to victory like we have had in the past. Efficient possessions, where we do not have a turnover, and get a good shot are key to success this year more than many years in the past.

Defensively, I like how we are switching and the help defense on picks has been very good, clean and with a lot of communication. But opposing guards seem to get their shoulders past Graham fairly routinely. This is a problem, specially with the switching going on and they aren't fighting through as many screens as they have in the past. Graham cannot continue to allow his man to turn the corner on him.

For the record, this was a huge complaint of mine for Svi last year. I noted that once Svi got his feet set, he was a good defender. He broke down when he was coming out to defend and his man made a move prior to his getting his feet set. Then it was a blow by. With the switching taking place, Svi has been set more often than not and as a result, his D has been much improved, in my opinion.

Rebounding. Good grief we are bad at it. I have watched while KU watched others get the rebound. Standing around, not boxing out, often not even jumping for it. Rebounding is about position and effort, when you don't have either of those, you get killed on the boards. I realize that Dok can't be as aggressive as he might want to be as fouls would further kill this team, but at least box out and don't get boxed out!

The three. When we are hot, we look fantastic. making 17 threes hides a lot of other weaknesses. But we seem to have a bunch of streaky shooters out there and streaky is bad. I would rather be consistent than make three in a row in the first half and then nothing in the second. This goes back to efficiency and execution. Perhaps I should add balance. We shouldn't be an all or nothing team. It shouldn't be all threes OR all drive to the basket. We have to balance the inside and outside game and not be on OR the other.

Just some random thoughts.