we are not even 1/4th of the way into this season and we are talking about next year? :skeptical: We looked decent @ OSU, granted they arent great, but alteast there are signs of improvement. Last night was not our night, simple enough. Every shot they took seemed to fall, while ours bounced off the rim and into a Drake players hands. Petersen & Haluska look like Freshman out there more than Diante & Boozer, who atleast have the body of a Big 12 player and not a Patriot League player. Just my 2 cents as I love the ups and downs, because you know when we beat Iowa Saturday:yes: people will be saying how great (fill in the blank) looked.
Why we look confused.
- Thread starter ISUonthemove
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You nailed it cycloneworld. That is the most baffling thing to most Cyclone bball fans right now. It's not that we don't trust GMac, but where is the justification for BP logging the minutes he is right now.
The following guys should be starting and playing SIGNIFICANT minutes
Garrett
Boozer
Clark
Brackins
Hubalek
[Edit: The above is assuming Wesley Johnson gets a redshirt. If he plays, there is even less reason to play BP and SH.]
If you want to bring Peterson in for 5-8 minutes a game, fine. Same for Haluska. But they should not be playing the minutes they are right now.
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From what I've seen this year, we have one play. BP attempts to get the ball up the court, picks up his dribble and passes to the wing. Wing reverses the ball after missing an open Brackins, back to BP whom picks up his dribble and passes the other wing...so on and so forth....shot clock gets to 5 and we force a shot. Our D isn't much better. We NEED a point, I am confident there is a point guard walking the grounds at ISU that could walk on and do a better job than what we are seeing. I've seen better guards in intramurals.
That's what I don't get about BP and SH. There are literally thousands of guards available every year in recruiting, and we couldn't find 2 guys better than them? I'm really not trying to dog them, because I think they play hard, but they just aren't cut out for this level of play. Could we really not find guys any better than that? And you can't say that Garrett and Boozer are better, otherwise they'd be playing.
I know people criticize SH for his inconsistent shooting, but this guy brings a lot more than what he takes away. He may be our best defender, besides Clark, and rarely turns the ball over. After seeing him make a couple shots last night, his confidence has to be restored somewhat, and we should see him play some more minutes. He hustles, plays great defense, takes care of the ball, and when he starts knockin down some more shots, he should contribute a lot to this team.
True, Sporting News did a story on UNI Mac's last year there, the Bracket Buster week.
They showed the locker room with all these sets of playes taped up to the wall. They mentioned all of this.
He probably does have that many plays but I doubt if this team has worked on more than 10 % of them. Not when they need so much work on defense and rebounding and even getting the ball across mid-court. You can't get an offense going or even break down the defense for an open 3 if you can't dribble the ball past anybody. This reminds me of Fizer's first two years--great player who couldn't do much till Tinsley came and fed him the ball.
I still have hope for Haluska. He showed some signs of life last night and we need him and maybe another guy to have some "John Neal" moments against Iowa. We also need to limit our turnovers against them because even though they may not be very good, I don't think they're going to beat themselves.
I still have hope for Haluska. He showed some signs of life last night and we need him and maybe another guy to have some "John Neal" moments against Iowa. We also need to limit our turnovers against them because even though they may not be very good, I don't think they're going to beat themselves.
Its not that we whiffed... but lets be honest... these guys arent class headliners. They are filler players until Mac can get the type of guys he wants for each position. He had to get SOMEONE. Anyone who believes we have more than 3-4 legit big 12 (not just decent roll players) caliber guys on this team is just flat out wrong.
Who cares if we lose to Drake by 35 or 55? I think we should play Diante and Booze now.....they're gonna take their lumps, but they're gonna learn in the process, and they (and we) will be better for it. SP and Haluska do not provide anything for us. It's one thing if JC guys can come in and win games (Taylor last year), but these guys aren't capable of that, so we should just play our future and hope that the experience will do them well.
At this level you can't afford to just recruit 'fillers'. If that is the case he should have just gone shorthanded. Unless Garrett and Boozer get run off or transfer, which to be honest, I can see then we are stuck with their scholly's for four years...
I'm sorry to hear that our coach has 250 sets and 50 out of bounds plays...frankly, I think that is ridiculous...nothing more than over-coaching what is a relatively simple game.
I watched the UNC/Penn game a few nights ago and UNC's primary staple of a play was their patented secondary break (if they didn't get a look on the intial break...they do push the ball upcourt) while Penn's primary staple was the Princeton back door (you cut to the basket when your teammate dribbles towards you).
Going back a little further, the old pick & roll was nearly indefensible with Stockton and Malone and the same thing for the simple triangle offense the Bulls ran with Jordan, Pippen, and a third player.
I know we don't have Stockton, Malone, Jordan, or Pippen on our team but I find it hard to believe there is a lot of value to having this number of set plays...I have always found that players that have to do too much thinking end up being slow to react during the game. I certainly don't want "street ball" but there is a point of diminishing returns with respect to the number of plays.
Frankly, I would like to see us recruit long, quick, athletic guys and let them play...look at the teams in the past few final fours...that is what you will mostly see. This 250 play nonsense seems to be better suited to a team with short, slow, un-athletic guys.
I watched the UNC/Penn game a few nights ago and UNC's primary staple of a play was their patented secondary break (if they didn't get a look on the intial break...they do push the ball upcourt) while Penn's primary staple was the Princeton back door (you cut to the basket when your teammate dribbles towards you).
Going back a little further, the old pick & roll was nearly indefensible with Stockton and Malone and the same thing for the simple triangle offense the Bulls ran with Jordan, Pippen, and a third player.
I know we don't have Stockton, Malone, Jordan, or Pippen on our team but I find it hard to believe there is a lot of value to having this number of set plays...I have always found that players that have to do too much thinking end up being slow to react during the game. I certainly don't want "street ball" but there is a point of diminishing returns with respect to the number of plays.
Frankly, I would like to see us recruit long, quick, athletic guys and let them play...look at the teams in the past few final fours...that is what you will mostly see. This 250 play nonsense seems to be better suited to a team with short, slow, un-athletic guys.
I knew that Gmac was a set play style coach. The 250 number, however, is alarming to hear. For a comparison, Collier's failure at Nebraska was linked to players having a hard time mastering his 200 play offense.
For the college game, I've always favored the Bobby Knight style motion offense. Orr liked to have his teams run, but his half court approach was similar to BK's.
For the college game, I've always favored the Bobby Knight style motion offense. Orr liked to have his teams run, but his half court approach was similar to BK's.
I didn't see the Drake game, but I've seen all the others. It's my hope that the Drake blowout will finally convince McDermott to change his mindset about our season. I think he honestly believed that Petersen and Haluska were better. Being JUCO players, I'm sure they were better at running McDermott's offense during the short practice time that led up to the start of the season. He probably felt they gave us the best chance to win games, and they did help us win three games (well at least Petersen helped us win three games). The problem is that we aren't going to win more than 10 games all season with those guys playing 25-30 minutes/game. The talent in the Big 12 (Augustine, Collins, etc.) is just too good. We can all see that, and I'm sure McDermott can too.
250 set and 100 inbound plays has got to be hyperbole. Just because someone says it on a message board doesn't mean it's true.
I think it's assanine to say we whiffed on Garrett and Boozer just a handful of games into their Freshman years.
It's also good to know that we have several members of our fan base that know a lot more about coaching than Greg. Obviously several of you will become D1 coaches in the next several years. Geesh.
It's also good to know that we have several members of our fan base that know a lot more about coaching than Greg. Obviously several of you will become D1 coaches in the next several years. Geesh.
McD has a pile of plays, but they usually break down with the point guard. last year, Mike Taylor totally improvised when no one moved to the ball.
I would set BP and Sean H down and tell their two backups to dribblre until you can get the ball to Alex, Craig, Jiri, or Rashon. Diante has missed all his layups so just pass off to a big. Tell the bigs one is coming out if they miss 3 straight shots. make the carrot for the bigs shooting and scoring. WEho needs reboiunds if you make the first shot.
With Wesley's injury, we truly have no take charge player left to our name. We just have a series of roll/role players.
I would set BP and Sean H down and tell their two backups to dribblre until you can get the ball to Alex, Craig, Jiri, or Rashon. Diante has missed all his layups so just pass off to a big. Tell the bigs one is coming out if they miss 3 straight shots. make the carrot for the bigs shooting and scoring. WEho needs reboiunds if you make the first shot.
With Wesley's injury, we truly have no take charge player left to our name. We just have a series of roll/role players.
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Anyone who thinks we look any different than last year through the non-conference season has a short memory and needs to go back and watch some of those tapes. We looked confused through the entire non-conference season last year as well. There is one big difference, Mike Taylor. After that, the players may be the different, but the team is basically the same team as last year. Rahshon lacking a distributor and defense to make his game shine, Jiri still injured and nowhere to be found (last year he was sitting out), inexperience at the guard positions (CMAC and Dodie), and Wesley starting, but playing limited minutes to start the season. Everything is the same, big difference, no Mike Taylor-like player. So you get what we got last year, an offense that was dumbed down and unrecognizable at times and a defense set up to give us a chance to stay in games, just this time we don't have a great scorer. Brackins has had his moments, but just like last year, our wings can't get him in position for easy scores right now, so he disappears most games. So you get what we have.
How many plays do you think
MacFarland has for football? Does ANYBODY think they practice all those plays, let alone use them in a game? GMac probably HAS collected hundreds of set plays throughout the years and probably has some that are geared for a specific situation on the court. Does ANYBODY think there are enough hours in the day to walk-thru hundreds of plays?
Some people are just WAY to literal....
As for SH and BP, SH provides defense that Boozer doesn't - and thats what has been said by GMac in postgames. GMac really loves his defense but wants his offense to catch-up.
And they were supposed to be role players for Taylor and CMac. We're actually lucky to have them considering our circumstances....
DG is the better athlete, but unless he knows the offense not of just the PG but all other players on the floor and understands the defense deployed, what use is he in the system and in the near-term progress of this team? I'm not saying BP knows more or not, I'm just putting my faith in the professional basketball coach who has more professional years of service in his field of expertise than probably the rest of us combined and has a track record of winning basketball...
Next year will be better - we'll be healthier, more experienced at some spots, younger at others, etc..... then the year after is where I'm lookign for our first taste of excellence.
MacFarland has for football? Does ANYBODY think they practice all those plays, let alone use them in a game? GMac probably HAS collected hundreds of set plays throughout the years and probably has some that are geared for a specific situation on the court. Does ANYBODY think there are enough hours in the day to walk-thru hundreds of plays?
Some people are just WAY to literal....
As for SH and BP, SH provides defense that Boozer doesn't - and thats what has been said by GMac in postgames. GMac really loves his defense but wants his offense to catch-up.
And they were supposed to be role players for Taylor and CMac. We're actually lucky to have them considering our circumstances....
DG is the better athlete, but unless he knows the offense not of just the PG but all other players on the floor and understands the defense deployed, what use is he in the system and in the near-term progress of this team? I'm not saying BP knows more or not, I'm just putting my faith in the professional basketball coach who has more professional years of service in his field of expertise than probably the rest of us combined and has a track record of winning basketball...
Next year will be better - we'll be healthier, more experienced at some spots, younger at others, etc..... then the year after is where I'm lookign for our first taste of excellence.
