(01-19-2016 08:18 AM)OKIcat Wrote:  When UC has pushed the ball upcourt a little faster, it has yielded brief periods with offensive flow and scoring against USF and Temple. They just couldn't or wouldn't sustain it. I think it's partly a personnel issue.

Look no further than that bunch across town and their point guard earning freshman of the week honors today in the new BE. Our freshman point guard (Jenifer) can't stay on the floor for more than two minutes right now because of errant passes and poor shooting. If Jenifer is really the future at the point, get him on the floor now with Caupain at the two. At this point, the NCAA tournament is less likely by the day. If the freshmen truly are UC's best players, let them take their lumps now to prepare for next season.

Agree with a lot of OKIcat's points, especially the part about letting Jenifer take his lumps. At this point, Mick has the "luxury" of seeing what Jenifer has to help evaluate if another PG is a recruiting emergency or just something to keep his eyes open for. My major concern with playing Jenifer is that if there are instances when he and Cobb are on the court together, this team is extremely small in the backcourt and coupled with the way the 3 pt defense has been, the lack of size could make it even harder to adequately defend that part of the game. Meaning even if (and it's a big if) Jenifer/Cobb are in good position on their man, bigger guards would not have too much of a problem shooting over them or posting them up.

The positive IMO is that when I've seen Jenifer play, he seems to come down court a bit faster and looking to pass into the post or below the FT line or penetrate a bit farther than Troy does. Troy seems to walk the ball up, look to Mick and then toss a slow pass to one of the other guys on the perimeter outside the 3 point line or wait for a pick from one of the bigs 20+ feet from the basket.

Seems like Troy doesn't have enough confidence in his handle against good guards and maybe Jenifer has a bit too much. Given those issues, IMO it's easier and more productive for the rest of this season to polish Jenifer's decision making than to try to get Troy to change his mindset. Plus, even if Jenifer turns it over a few more times than we are currently, that mindset will speed the game up a little and give UC a bit more cushion so that every single possession is not so super important. I realize that all possessions are important, but at the pace we play now, 2 or 3 empty possessions in a row put way too much pressure on playing almost total shut down defense. That's not going to work against decent to good teams as we've seen.