No Troll What We'd Like to See Discussion

[jbhtexas]

We hung in the game when we were 3-6 from 3. When we fell behind we were forcing threes, quickly going down in percentage. Shot selection is key.

Defensive intensity, and rebounding intensity. Players watched Kansas take the ball from us. We don't block out. We don't "go after" the ball, we wait for it.

This. And add to that lack of post development. In general, the style of play is passive. Given that the above items have been consistently problematic, it suggests that the current coaching staff is not equipped to correct them. I don't know how Prohm fixes that...different assistants...different consultant...different mentors...but he needs to fix it.

ISU has given up over 50% 3pt FG% in both conference games, and that is on a higher number of attempts in both games. It's nearly impossible to win when that happens.

 

[heitclone]

The rest of this year should be more or less practice for next year. Let guys like Jackson, Grill, Lewis and Zion get minutes over Nixon and Mike, its fine if they continue to start out of respect but the young guys should be getting the lion's share of minutes. Conditt should continue to get more time than Solo .We can't just ease in to next year assuming they will all be ready to step up. While losing Nixon and MJ isn't devastating, we'll still need to replace a lot of production. Those same guys should be working on multiple defenses, if we try to match up next year the same way we are this year, we'll be awful again.

A starting caliber player on the wing, preferably a PG through the transfer portal. If you go by today, Bolton may be the starter at PG. He doesn't seem to have the ability to be a scorer AND distributor. That's what we'll need.

 

[ISUCubswin]

Prohm is bad for this university; not trolling, he has single handedly put Hilton Magic back on life support.

The only way to get it back is to win, and this is not a winning group. Good guys, love the character, but unfortunately, using OPs guidelines, nothing we do this year will help next year.

 

[MeowingCows]

Stick with the experienced guys, as they seem to generally play better than the younger ones. Keep as many older guys on the floor at one time is possible when managing rotations... Well, unless you're tanking the season, in which case put out the young guys as much as possible. Depends on goal.

I just want to see this team shoot the damn ball well. Watching them miss open shots and unconfidentally pass away open looks is infuriating. It doesn't matter how good your defense is, you're not winning games shooting <40% from the floor. That's unacceptable from D1-level athletes, as is the frequently-poor passing. These are basic fundamentals that a D1 player should be able to handle by the time they reach campus, then have refined and grow while here.

 

[allenj32]

CSP needs to go. This is Déjà vu from when another Mid-major coach (McDermott) ran the program into the ground and couldn’t hang in the Big 12. CSP was able to win with Fred’s players, but Hilton Magic is gone and CSP should be too.

 

[DSMCy]

The next few years will determine if the ISU AD has the desire (or more importantly financial ability) to be competitive in both football and basketball.

Can ISU afford to pay a football coach $4+M and a basketball coach $3+M?

If the desire and money is there, I'm confident ISU could attract a high level head basketball coach.
If not, then Pollard will continue going after decent mid-major guys that he can pay $1.5-2M. It's not a bad strategy. If a guy works out, then you can give him extensions and raises to try to keep him. But we're seeing now how quickly it goes south if the guy doesn't work out.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

I just want to see improvement at this point. After the Hoiberg circus I'm over the stress and speculation of coaching hires. I suppose I'm being premature in thinking that's it for Steve but it would take some serious improvement for me to see us being anything better than average in this season or the next. I'm at the point where I just want to enjoy Tyrese while he's here, though last night was not a good performance against his first real test.

 

[cyatheart]

Defending the pick and roll and defending the 3 have been problems since Prohm arrived. Would be nice to see some improvement in one of those at some point. We just never see it.

Also, it would be a positive step if he could collectively get the entire team to play hard for several games in a row. Rarely do you see D1 teams just not compete, and for long stretches of time over the entire time he has been here, he has really struggled to get guys to buy in. Not just one guy, not all the time, but he really struggles to get an entire team, collectively, to play hard consistently.

 

[heitclone]

Roster stability would also be nice. THT and Tyrese are exceptions but everyone else basically left the program on a negative note (even Lindell). Prohm has had 3 out of 4 recruiting classes that were more or less whiffs. The "he recruited so good it hurt him " angle is totally ignorant and while I love guys like Lindell, Tyrese and Talen, none of them were program changing guys who left their mark and moved on. They will all more or less slink away without much impact (1 middle of pack finish in the b 12 and zero tourney wins....KC was nice I guess but we've won that tournament without their caliber of recruit).

 

[Clonefan32]

I think we are caught between identities. Steve wants us to be a defensive team, which we are not. We still push tempo and shoot threes in a manner that worked for former teams, but not this team.. So when you are pushing tempo, taking alot of shots, missing alot of shots and bad on defense, the end result will not be good.

So what I'd like to see is adapt our strategy to what we are working with. If you don't have a fast break take most of the shot clock. Limit the opponents possessions. Try and play inside-out. Quit jacking threes. We have to limit their possessions, slow the game down and hope like hell we can learn how to guard and rebound.

 

[SCyclone]

Another thing that just occurred to me.....the snafu on Saturday (failing to foul intentionally at the end of regulation) was either a horribly botched sequence, or players simply not doing what they were told. Either way, this simply can't happen, not when it costs a game.

 

[madguy30]

So the team that played well in the Bahamas has just disappeared, I'm not sure why. Were we that fragile that Iowa broke us?

All indications are that that 'performance' in the Bahamas wasn't really that great judging by what the other teams have done since, although Seton Hall's still pretty good.

 

[Gunnerclone]

Another thing that just occurred to me.....the snafu on Saturday (failing to foul intentionally at the end of regulation) was either a horribly botched sequence, or players simply not doing what they were told. Either way, this simply can't happen, not when it costs a game.

There’s a big difference between “players not doing what they were told” and “players failing to execute what they were told to do not for lack of any effort to try and do so”.

 

[AuH2O]

Great points, everyone. What we're seeing is a coach who can't adjust to the roster he has. Prohm tries to have these guys play the way we played in previous years, but this roster is totally different. A coach like Weber, Dixon, or Huggins (or even Floyd and Eustachy) would have these players slowing the game down, playing hard defense, and focus on their strengths.

Look at Huggins and Weber teams for example. They really only have one or two scorers, but everyone else knew their specialized roles. Hard defense, rebounding, pressing, etc. Bot coaches knew they did not have the firepower to compete with Kansas of the world, so they muck it up and limit offensive posessions for the other team. In a team with few shooters, we should have been doing something similar.

I think if you're going to break down the failure of this year, this is one of the main points. I mentioned this in one of the other threads. Prohm and this staff have been good at getting a ball-dominant, aggressive scorer matchups and looks. That included Niang, Burton and Shayok. I'd even say to an extent it was successful with the next tier scorers like Wigginton, Monte and Nader. Even though Haliburton can score, it's in transition, in the flow of the offense, and he simply isn't a guy that's going to hunt his shot. I think this roster has good enough talent to be a very good offense, but Prohm hasn't adjusted to make it click. In fact, it's pretty bad offense with zero movement without the ball

I keep harping on the unwillingness of guys off the ball to pick spots and cut in the lane without the ball when teams keep overplaying passing lanes. There can be a fine line between picking your spots and doing this effectively vs. clogging up the lane and ruining spacing. That becomes a much easier task when you have good 3 point shooters. ISU does not, so maintaining spacing for guys like Haliburton and Bolton that are terrific at getting into the lane can be tough. But, Prohm gets paid well to figure out these problems and get the guys to understand and execute it.

 

[madguy30]

I think we are caught between identities. Steve wants us to be a defensive team, which we are not. We still push tempo and shoot threes in a manner that worked for former teams, but not this team.. So when you are pushing tempo, taking alot of shots, missing alot of shots and bad on defense, the end result will not be good.

So what I'd like to see is adapt our strategy to what we are working with. If you don't have a fast break take most of the shot clock. Limit the opponents possessions. Try and play inside-out. Quit jacking threes. We have to limit their possessions, slow the game down and hope like hell we can learn how to guard and rebound.

I think that's pretty common in most years under Prohm. There's supposed to be this defensive work being done but they're still not very good.

 

[rochclone]

I think we are caught between identities. Steve wants us to be a defensive team, which we are not. We still push tempo and shoot threes in a manner that worked for former teams, but not this team.. So when you are pushing tempo, taking alot of shots, missing alot of shots and bad on defense, the end result will not be good.

So what I'd like to see is adapt our strategy to what we are working with. If you don't have a fast break take most of the shot clock. Limit the opponents possessions. Try and play inside-out. Quit jacking threes. We have to limit their possessions, slow the game down and hope like hell we can learn how to guard and rebound.

The problem is this team’s offensive efficiency within the half court.

 

[Trice]

Let’s just make a few assumptions right away to frame the discussion:

1. We aren’t going to crap on players. They are doing their best. I absolutely respect the heck out of every one of them, most of whom came from somewhere a long way away to a place they didn’t know to try and achieve a dream.
2. Prohm isn’t going to get fired after this year.
3. Hoiberg isn’t coming back.
4. TH is going pro.
5. This season, for all intents and purposes, is over. They can shuffle the pieces around on the team, start one guy over another, etc, but let’s be honest, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

Now, for what I’d like to see for 2021:

1. Identity on defense. The departure of TH will be the last departing plus player on offense. For all of Prohm’s talk about being tough, gritty, defensive minded… he has not been able to effectively communicate it. He needs to fire an assistant and bring in a guy to instill that mindset in this team. If he doesn’t do this, he’ll be fired anyway and players will likely transfer out, so he needs to do this even if it drives guys away.
2. Also on this, we tried a bunch of defenses yesterday that I thought were just doomed to failure. The Young/MJ two bigs doubling the opposing big was an alley oop machine. The zone was a disaster. That said, I think we need to lean into that zone next year. We go full Baylor. Foster/Conditt down low, Johnson or Blackwell on the edges, and a consistently feisty Jackson at the point. I honestly think we’ll have to play 90’s Knicks basketball, slow it down, grind it out, work from the inside out.
3. We absolutely need Jackson to develop a 3 point shot. He’s struggling mightily right now but I like what I’m seeing from him from an effort and tenacity level. Honestly I think he’s the only guy actually playing like Prohm wants this team to right now.

If this team is going to have success going forward, the identity of the team needs to change. If it doesn’t next year and we roll the ball out the same way we are this year without TH, that’s going to be one of the worst teams in the modern history of the program. It’s up to Prohm to figure that out or get fired. I do think there are kids that want to defend the legacy of Hilton on this team and I’m sure this isn’t what they pictured when they signed up for this.

I also think we should honestly just be nice and not freak out the rest of the way. This year is what it is. No use getting pissed about it.

TLDR: "The coach should be fired but he won't be, but here's what I hope he'll accomplish by next year even though he hasn't been able to accomplish that so far, which is why he should be fired but won't be."

In all seriousness, I just don't want to get caught in no-man's land where we're not bad enough to fire him but not good enough to compete for anything meaningful.

 

[SolarGarlic]

The problem is this team’s offensive efficiency within the half court.

We don't have playmakers or pure scorers. Haliburton is it.

Teams don't have to worry about Nixon on the perimeter. Bolton is ineffective without the ball in his hands. The bottom line is we don't have the talent to win, and the poor coaching is exacerbating that problem.

With the offense we're running, which is very little sets and off the ball movement, you need guys that can break down their defender one on one. You can go under Haliburton's pick and rolls because of his slow release. You can ice Bolton's pick and rolls because he doesn't like going left. You can tempt Nixon into shooting 1/7 from 3 on any given night. Our guys just don't have the talent to beat their man, and we're running an offense that is based solely on that concept.

 

[jbhtexas]

The problem is this team’s offensive efficiency within the half court.

I was watching OU/UT last night. UT looks like ISU...hoisting up and missing unnecessary 3pt shots, when they appeared to have a pretty good post player...never got him the ball. OU, on the other hand, was driving the ball to hole, and scoring inside (and got some FTs), with the game on the line, and pulled away in the last 5 minutes.

Lon vs. Shaka...experience vs. not-so-experienced...

If you can't hit 3pt shots, maybe try more 2pt shots...two points is better than no points.

 

[SolarGarlic]

What I'd like to see:

I want to figure out what we have in Griffin. Him and Conditt should be playing as much as possible.

I don't really care to see Jacobson or Young play more than a bench role. I love those guys, but at least one of them shouldn't be starting. Prohm's seniority BS is dumb.

It's really tough because this roster is so limited.