this team

has no clue what's it's doing on offense yet. No flow, no rhythm, nothing resembling the crisp plays and ball movement of years past.
Maybe I'm spoiled after watching last year's bunch, but these guys, with the obvious exception of Vick (so far), don't shoot well either.
Hope it will come together, but it may be a struggle on offense this year.

Good assessment but doubly or triply so with Charlie Moore running the show. I am struggling to be enthusiastic about seeing him come into the game. He has done virtually nothing for this team this year.

agreed - but they also seem to pull it together when they need to...my heart is not going to have any rhythm this season I'm guessing.

That was the most stressful 25 point win that I can remember. I could only listen on the radio and it sounded like we were pretty fortunate they shot so poorly. When the other team shoots less than 20% from 3 but we shot worse.

Not lucky at all Hairy. This was so far and away our best defense of the year. Kudo’s to Grimes on his man on defense. But Marcus guarding their big guy and Devon roaming the perimeter was a work of art.

Agree. They focused on defense and were able to shut down Woffard's 3 point attack. Lots of guys contributed to that. The negative was that it meant that our bigs were often out of position for rebounds and Woffard got a ton of those. Nevertheless, defensively it showed what you need to do to play perimeter defense.

On the flipside, we looked awful on offense, but nothing that can't be corrected.

My knowledge of the basketball intricacy is woefully lacking, so I can't make intelligent observations as many of you do. My simple thought is that the combination of the players on the floor when we put the game out of reach might just have been the right one.

Good observation Murph. In philosophy we call that a tautology.

Good observation and 2 comments:

1.) it was certainly the best combination to beat Wofford. Might work well against Villanova too. Might NOT work so well against teams that have different combinations of strengths and weaknesses.

2.) I always felt like when Perry played, it took a long time for HCBS to recognize that Perry would never be a back-to-the-basket post player. Once that got sorted out, and Self changed the lineup around, allowing Perry to play more of a power forward position, things really took off. Wondering if "on paper" the Dok/Lawson combo was somewhat "written in stone". Throw in Vick (senior) and then it's just a matter of what combination of Dotson, Moore and Grimes is in. With Dok out, it looks like Garrett might break into the starting lineup.

So maybe, if we end up playing "small" (Dok OR Lawson vs. Dok AND Lawson in at the same time) it's the same kind of 'realization' that will change Self's outlook and expectations on what this team should look like. Last year, Self was forced to play "small", but we all know he likes to play with 2 bigs. Maybe that'll be the case this year too (or maybe not).

In any case, it's good to have options and losing Dok (hopefully not for too long) doesn't have to be a season killer.

On another topic, I almost posted a "what kind of adversity will we face?" poll the other day, but I decided not to because it seemed to macabre. Nevertheless, every year, SOMETHING bad happens. Guys get hurt, guys do stupid things and get benched, eligibility issues, etc, etc. No team EVER comes through a year unscathed, and I thought it might be interested to hear everyone's predictions....but then thought the better of it. Anyway, I'm sure that "(key player) gets hurt" would be one of those inevitabilities. Hope this is the worst of it, but it's a long season and we'll inevitably face other challenges.

Hopefully this is also the end of silly mistakes like not showing up on time.

NotO, I think you nailed it.

We were clearly pushing the hi-lo at all cost for the first few games. DLawson appeared to be flummoxed at how to operate with Dok clogging the block/lane. He was way off.

Grimes and guards were stagnated just trying to force entry passes to Dok.

All the while we were getting torched by three point shooting as our bigs could not guard outside the lane.

When Dok was out, we went small and started to produce offensively, and DLawson found his spots. Yesterday, with Dok gone most of the game, DLawson responded, Dotson and Grimes did as well.

Frankly, it's why Dok is not a hot NBA prospect. The game has changed, and the dual big man game is passe. I hate to see him hurt, but I do think we'll see a much better offensive team going forward, albeit with a disadvantage on the boards.

I agree with all that, except the "game has changed" stuff. Not saying it hasn't...it absolutely has. I do, however, believe that if you can run the high-low properly it will still work, and that there's always going to be a use for big 7' tall guys who can play back to the basket offense, block shots, screen, and play D.

It just comes down to symmetric vs. asymmetric warfare. If most teams play 4 guards and one 6'9" who can hit 3's and play in the paint...and if they all play each other, they'll match up well and it'll be interesting (symmetric).

IF, however, a 4-smalls/1-big lineup plays a team with 2 bigs, it simply becomes asymmetric. One style won't consistently beat the other (in my opinion). If the two big lineup can score at will in the paint and dominate the boards, they're going to be tough to beat. If the small ball team can hit 45% from 3, the bigs are going to lose. Neither outcome, however, is pre-ordained.

If I were a big today, I'd know that I'd need to work hard on my mid-range jumper and perimeter defense to negate these weaknesses.

I guess my point is that if the guys were executing the high-low properly, we'd win plenty of games with it. I think the lack of familiarity (due to the changes in the game) has taken it out of fashion, so it's harder for guys to LEARN it in the first place.

Side note: I was streaming the UMass/Holy Cross game before our game yesterday (trying to catch a glimpse of my daughter in the UMass pep band). HC is coached by Bill Carmody who coached at Princeton in the late '80s. The announcers noted that he had brought a lot of "Princeton-style" tricks to his current spot: using ALL of the shot clock, and often wearing defenses down with motion to finally score on a backdoor cut. We've all seen this before, and everyone who plays Princeton knows it's coming, yet somehow it still works. Granted Princeton isn't a threat for the NC, but it's just another example of a supposedly "outdated" style of play that still works today if it's executed properly.

Back to my point: if Wilt was a freshman today, I'd still want him on my team and I still think he'd be the best player in the league despite the assumption that big guys no longer have a place in the sport.