This team is not good when we decide to just iso Jefferson because iso Jefferson just ends up in a turnover usually or the ball just gets stuck. We need to be setting screens for Milan constantly. Move the ball and stop dribbling so much
Coach Nate Schmidt
- Thread starter ClonesTwenty1
- Start date
Probably the best offensive set last night was JJ and Milan playing a two man game and the other three on the other side of the court. The problem is it’s easy to double JJ and clog the lane when we have guards that can’t shoot.
Schmidt just has these games where he has no answers. I think he's generally fine as a coach but these games where the only answer he seems to be able to come up with is a JJ ISO are infuriating. Like, get the best shooter in the country a clean look or two. He couldn't get the shooters looks, he couldn't keep JJ out of a double, and he didn't really seem to have anything for answers. This has happened in game for the last few years and if we want to actually win championships of some sort, you can't drop this game or even the Cinci game. It could cost us the conference, though I am pretty skeptical we can beat KU or AU right now (bad attitude after a loss), and it's certainly going to cost seed lines. It's going to be interesting going forward to see what happens because I'd assume the JJ iso stuff is going to be jumped hard and rendered ineffective.
I could be wrong but I feel like last year we had a really good offense for the first half of the conference season and then fell off pretty hard as well once the scout was out.
Our lack of another scoring guard is painfully obvious. Lipsey, Toure and Heise collectively do not score well enough each game to support Momcilovic and Jefferson effectively. We win games when those two go for 50+ combined points by themselves, but when they don't, we often struggle. For the most part, the other guards scored alright early in the season, but have fallen off quite a bit since then.
How do we fix Lipsey in particular? His stat lines aren't bad scoring-wise, but that's primarily driven by high shot volume (the majority of those makes probably being layups, on top of that). 27% from three and 66% from FT (!) are not acceptable for a player of his experience and caliber. Heise and Toure are not much better from three. Someone else besides Momcilovic and Jefferson need to be reliable scoring threats.
How do we fix Lipsey in particular? His stat lines aren't bad scoring-wise, but that's primarily driven by high shot volume (the majority of those makes probably being layups, on top of that). 27% from three and 66% from FT (!) are not acceptable for a player of his experience and caliber. Heise and Toure are not much better from three. Someone else besides Momcilovic and Jefferson need to be reliable scoring threats.
We needed better spacing and more straight line drives last night. They way they extended their defense we needed to drive by them. But we got into the bad habit of just passing it around the 3 point line (that's not just an ISU thing as we have made other offenses do this), but it's just frustrating.
Also, I do wish we'd stop with the finesse crap around the rim. Quit trying to avoid contact, play through the contact and welcome the contact.
Our bigs being soft at the rim is definitely a factor in some other issues around, like the foul disparity for example. You have to take a foul in order for it to get called. This is a contact sport, sometimes you have to tap into some physical gameplay to take control of the game. Buchanan and Pleta so far are not those guys, we don't have a post enforcer. Admittedly l'm less concerned about this issue versus the guards, as college is heavily a guard's game, but still. It's there.
In this game, we didn't get to the line enough for this even to factor in. If we had gone 8-8 on FT, we still lose.
5-23 from 3 is the reason we lost. TCU clogged the paint and threw a blanket on Milan. They dared Lipsey, Toure, Heise, and Batmon to hit open 3s, and they couldn't. Those guys went 1-9. If a few of those 3s go down, it opens everything else up and we probably win by 10.
I think this is about right. It's hard to criticize this staff. They've done a great job. But there's no denying that there are some real clunkers in the half-court offense. But also tough to create half-court offense while the guards are shooting so poorly from 3.
Yeah I don't get it, if I was 6'10" and could dunk with minimal effort I'm trying to dunk everything. Those two last night went up soft almost every time.
I welcome contact, but I guess that's why I played football and they play basketball.
That goes back a little bit to the "force the issue" convo from earlier about being soft, but even still, FTs can be a momentum killer. Us going 0-fer on them down the stretch is definitely not a momentum-killer for TCU.
Who knows, it'll be an entirely-different roster by then. The one right now does a good job most nights, except for these handful of nights where it seems like the entire team can't hit anything consistently. But, these handfuls of games are very important: the difference between 1-2 seeds and 3-5 seeds, the difference between first weekend exits and Elite Eight teams, etc.
Another marker of the difference between good teams and contenders. Contenders don't miss almost 10 straight times on mostly-unguarded looks.
That's why I think for us to get to and get past the Sweet 16, we HAVE to have multiple people be good from the 3. Batemon, Momchilovic, Heise, Jefferson, absolutely have to make multiple 3s...Even Lipsey and Toure have to be better from 3. Making 3s just opens up everything else on the inside.
Back when the Squawkeyes made their Final 4 in 1980 they made everything in sight during their run. Brookins, Boyle, Arnold, Lester Hansen...that's what we'll have to do.
Iowa State has:
Milan: .517
JJeff: .406
Batemon: .390
Toure: .327
Heise: .283
Lipsey: .274
Heise and Lipsey are struggling, but there are enough guys who can hit threes to generally be effective. Even Toure's percentage comes out to almost a point an attempt. That is like a guy averaging 50% from 2. What you can't have is all of them having a bad night the same night.
And that isn't even counting Mulder who is perfect from 3.
This is the theme I have noticed as well. TCU scouted us very well. There were certain plays that ran in the game that we did earlier in the season for players like Milan that just didn't work since TCU knew it was coming. There was a play i know that TCU just straight up cut off the pass to Milan and we were clueless on what to do and the possession resulted in a TO since we tried to force the pass that wasn't there.
I actually think we run nice offensive sets, but I question our ability to create sets on the fly when making adjustments. Especially as the season goes on and teams figure out the sets we run. This team is just too good to be limited to 55 points. I don't know the answer, maybe we need personal that specialize in creating offense from breakdowns. I know Nelson was thought of as a player that can create offense on his own, but I don't think he is the level of player to fix the issue.
