It seems to me that Murphy's teams have been characterized by stellar D and mediocre to poor O. That may be a generalization, but I believe it is accurate. What are your theories? I'll throw some out.

1. Murphy is a better D coach than O coach.
2. D is emphasized to the detriment to O.
3. Defensive minded players are preferred.

#2 and (maybe) #3.

EagleSam went into a discussion of how transition offense causes problems for a zone defense as it leads to many fast breaks which does not permit the zone defense to set up. If the zone isn't set up, it is very vulnerable (to the open three). Getting back on a man to man defense is much different.

#3. It is hard to say that Lee, Ward, Talley, Price, etc. aren't offensive minded players. Put those guys on the play ground and they'd go crazy.

id say 1 and/or 2. none of us really know Murphy's offensive acumen, so we cant distinguish between the two. i agree with Steve that we have the raw offensive talent. they just never look like they are running a set offense of any sort. it's more like really calm rec league offense.

We do have an offense but it is not a good one and it is very inefficient. What do I mean by inefficient? We dribble way way too much to move the ball. Anyone of us who has played on a fundamental basketball team understands that passing is quicker at moving the ball vs dribbling; however, I keep seeing us(especially Talley) dribble too much and it more times than not leads to a turn over. I do not fault our players because it is Murphy's system. He has to develop a much better system that spreads the floor, moves the ball with passing and develops a low post game. I am concerned because the offense run, or lack thereof, is the same inefficient and ineffective offense Murphy has run since year 1. I still believe we have more talent than any team in the league but I do not like our offense. I do give Murphy credit, he is much much better than Barnes, Boone and Ramsey and even with the deficiencies in place we will still win 20 games this year.

It's a pretty basic motion offense. Nothing that will fool anyone. Lots of high screens and post ups, but none of our big men are good enough offensively for other teams to respect it. We do run the elevator screen play here and there, and that gets us some open looks, but it doesn't matter when you can't knock them down.

I actually think it's a combination of all 3. Murphy doesn't seem very innovative with the offense, defense is CLEARLY emphasized ahead of offense when you consider how he'll sit guys for bad D but not bad O, and a lot of players are very athletic but not the most skilled offensively. Yet he still has a team that is good enough to beat anyone in the conference. Sadly, we've shown that we can also lose to anyone in the conference as well.

The concept of winning with a superior defense, and sometime lackluster (or worse) offense, is well engrained in sports.

One of the more famous lines in sports: "Offense put people in the seats but defense win championships."

In MLB, it is pitching, pitching, pitching (not hitting, hitting, hitting...).

If we want to reach our potential as a team, Murphy has to be able to balance and assess a player's offensive and defensive abilities. Certainly at the Center position, Murphy would take a 7' that can't play offense (Riley/Samuels) but could play in his zone. I think this logic is flawed. We cant focus on just D and no O. Ben Braun would instead recruit a smaller low post scorer (even 6' 5" Kareem Carpenter) because he could score in the post.

This is low POST precence I am talkung about. We have a dunker (Ward) but no low post like this MAC kid..... http://www.hustlebelt.com/2015/1/10/7526...he-bobcats