Those of you who don't care for the minutiae of basketball can skip right over this post. :D
I talked to my friend who went to the OU @ UT game Saturday night and he had some interesting observations. I'd really like to hear from any OU fans who were there about what they saw, too.
He said O'Shea had the Bobs in a 2-3 most of the game--despite the fact that it wasn't working(!)--letting Triplett bomb and bomb again. They would occasionaly slip into a 1-3-1, but for the most part were content to pack it inside. Seems odd to me since UT is not exactly a dominant team offensively with their size. They have size, but it's not scoring size it seems to me. They gave Triplett uncontested shots from the corner and he nailed 3 straight 3's at one point and still no change in defense. Maybe it's because they don't have anyone to defend speedy guards--when they did switch to a man late in the game, no one could check Triplett's speed.
On offense, OU kept BH in the high post--which is exactly what UT was defending--they had a small lineup in and still Hunter wouldn't go down on the block. They contained him throughout most of the game until late when they switched out to curb the 3's and he scored most of his points on layups after the game was decided.
I don't understand O'Sh's thinking here. When you have a cannon, you fire it. Hunter is the cannon. He want to use him as a decoy??
If you post Hunter down against a team like UT, he is going to draw so many fouls from their big men who are not nearly as agile as he is. Then you open up the outside shot some. When he's posted high, all the help D is already handy to defend the jumpers.
Plus on D--they are going to have to be able to go man-to-man to hang in this league this year. Too many shooters. You can't hide poor defenders, especially guards, in a zone because what happened Sat. will happen over and over--opposing guards will go nuts with open 3's. They couldn't get to the shooters against UT. My friend thought the zone looked lazy. Good teams drool to play teams that play zone to hide their weaknesses.
OU fans: has this been the pattern this year? Have they been playing this 2-3 zone a lot? Have they gone man in games much and how has it worked if they have? Is BH camping in the high block mostly?
I don't mean to harp on this, but T. O'S's coaching puzzles me. It did last year and it does this year. You can't say they haven't had talent. I just don't see a strong coaching imprint on this team. You see a Joplin, or Coles, or Dakich team, and you know they've been coached well.
I hope that's just a fluke performance.
