(12-17-2014 02:39 PM)BeerCat Wrote: (12-17-2014 01:42 PM)Overrated Wrote: (12-17-2014 10:38 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: My only real gripe is this is year #9 and this staff is solely responsible for compiling the roster. Nobody stood up for Mick for the first 5 years more than me and I was proven right . The crazies all went on the backs of milk cartons. But I think it is fair to even-handedly criticise if we are in the midst of a rebuild year at this stage of the game. We are not young or inexperienced due to injury, entering drafts early, or guys being kicked off the team due to grades or behavior. Our staff set this team up this way.
This is fair. We just had a terrible (and huge) recruiting class in 2011 and then didn't bring in a single freshman in 2012. So we have no talented experience right now. It held us back a little last year (although I think people overstate the Harvard loss, who ranked 32 in KenPom). This year it is killing us. We are always going to rely on upper clasmen under Mick and we don't have them right now.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but are upperclassmen, or the lack thereof, really the reason for the offensive woes this season? We had senior leaders last year and the offense was still miserable most of the time.
Mick openly states that he doesn't care about offense. I feel like I'm listening to a 7th grade coach who keeps telling kids that "Defense wins championships." These aren't kids, they better understand that defense and rebounding are absolutely necessary. But the coaches damn well better know that offense is absolutely necessary to be able to win championships, even Mick does not realize that by now he's clueless.
So my original point was more about overall team quality. 3 of the last 4 years we have had a top 25 team and the other year was ranked 16th in the country in KenPom when Cash got hurt (there were other factors that hurt that team: poor use of Justin and slowing things down to a glacial pace once there was a touch of adversity after starting the year playing extremely fast). But point being is there has been a very solid standard set here. Fans can want more, that is totally reasonable. But a strong program has been built. My comment about the lack of upperclassmen was about how this years team is clearly behind the last 4.
Also one other note before I address the offense: there is a myth that one side of the ball is more important than the other. A lot of fans like the mantra "offense wins games, defense wins championships," but with UC basketball fans it seems like the opposite is true. It seems like the common saying is defense only gets you so far, you need a strong offense to win in March, or some variant. Both perspectives miss the point. The best teams have the best combination of offense and defense. The better one side is, the more margin for error you have on the other. A couple of years ago Louisville made the final 4 with an offense that ranked in the 100's in adjusted efficiency because their defense was so spectacular. There are surely examples of teams with the exact opposite of circumstances. Generally speaking, your best bet is to be good at both. But it doesn't
have to be that way.
It can't be argued that offense is the weak link of this program though. At it's best we have ranked in the 50's or 60's in adjusted efficiency. This is the third straight year it is in the 100's right now, although it's too early to say it will stay there. There are a lot of reasons for that: recruiting limitations, eying guys that can play defense, a poor system that goes extremely slow, doesn't move the ball quickly and most importantly doesn't have enough players that can break a defense down and be a threat.
We consistently play with quite a few guys that are at best offensively challenged, if not total liabilities. I feel like we have been addressing that with how we have recruited the last 3 classes as well as with next years class. But after the classes of Yancy, Cash and Dixon and then Parker, SK and Lance, we brought in 2 classes in a row that really lacked offensive talent (to be fair, the 2011 class was supposed to be good with offensive talent, it was just a total bust). We are paying for that right now.
I'm pretty sure things will get a decent amount better this year, and next year could possibly be Mick's best team. In our two losses, we have had absurdly bad shooting nights that I think are making people think things are worse than they really are. I understand poor shooting can be a symptom of bad offense, but what I have seen has seemed extreme.
Here are the 3 years of recruiting that set us back (add what I'm missing)
2010:
Justin Jackson
Kelvin Gaines
2011:
Jermaine Sanders
Shaq Thomas
Gelawn Guyn
Jeremiah Sanders
Cheikh Mbodj
2013
Titus Rubles
David Nyarsuk
That just isn't going to get it done. The good news is that I think we have come out of that pretty strongly.
