We were yaking with a old Bronco BBall star from the 60's at the Roadhouse after the game, and he and I both agreed that one pretty effective way to attack a zone is to go high/low with your bigs. Put Stainbrook at free throw circle and let hutch or Flen work the lane side to side. This frees up some needed space in the lane to run your offense.
Matt has the advantage of height to turn look over the lane, pass or kick it out to the wing.... Too many other options to discuss here, but suffice it to say that this is an option that I've never seen Hawk use. Which is too bad because it just gets to friggin congested running our sets the way we do.
At least the nice crowd we had didn't leave with a loss!!
I feel bad for D. Ward. He is struggling mightly to get his game going. I hope he finds it.
I'm slipping into the camp that believes our coach is all talk and no walk. I think that we worked very hard to get a push with Zeigler. Hutch had 17 he had 19. Comparing all the other players today, suggests that we really should have beaten the crap out of what was left of CMU's starters compared to ours..
Lastly, some of the unforced errors on our part were hideous, 8th. grade mistakes. Our passing was horrid. Not to mention having 3 out of bounds turnovers in one game, really!!! And we still BEAT 'em by 3...

'broncojohnny

Quote:Put Stainbrook at free throw circle and let hutch or Flen work the lane side to side. This frees up some needed space in the lane to run your offense. Matt has the advantage of height to turn look over the lane, pass or kick it out to the wing

Change the game plan? The hell you say

Quote:suffice it to say that this is an option that I've never seen Hawk use. Which is too bad because it just gets to friggin congested running our sets the way we do.

Somewhere between every 3rd or 4th turnover we managed to thread a pass between all the defenders hands for an easy bunny. I think Hawk believes those layups off dribble penetration are there all night, if we just execute. He may be right, but for now, that's just a turnoverfest.

Quote:At least the nice crowd we had didn't leave with a loss!!

We won, but honestly did it feel like it.

Quote:I feel bad for D. Ward. He is struggling mightly to get his game going. I hope he finds it.

Which begs the question, do you wait, and wait, and wait, or do you try the next man in and see what happens?

Quote:I'm slipping into the camp that believes our coach is all talk and no walk.

I slip into that camp every year, and then he has an 8 game winning streak and February and I forget how much he frustrates me.

Quote:Comparing all the other players today, suggests that we really should have beaten the crap out of what was left of CMU's starters compared to ours.

Yep, that's the part that frustrates me the most.

Quote:Lastly, some of the unforced errors on our part were hideous, 8th. grade mistakes. Our passing was horrid. Not to mention having 3 out of bounds turnovers in one game, really!!! And we still BEAT 'em by 3...

That performance against the majority of MAC teams = L

Actually the inbounds play I used with my 8th grade team was much more effective than Hawks.

It's really tough to attack a zone when our best shooter has played sparingly the last two games. H2 needs to start getting minutes with stain and whitfield rather than conteh and whittington. If teams are going to play a zone and/or double team stain and flen, we need a consistent 3 point shooter who can make teams pay.

Our offensive rotation is slow and deliberate, HH would have "Wilson" stamped on his forehead half the time.

I really think not only do we have have a coach who can doesn't know how to coach zone, he doesn't know how to coach a team to effectively attack one. And, why would he?

It really amazes me teams have taken this long to figure out WMU's offense is awful against the zone. This has been the case for YEARS. I even recall games/times when our tourney team struggled against zone way back in 2003-2004. Nothing has changed all these years later.

Hawk says the reason he doesn't play the zone is because it is so easy to beat it.

Huh?

(01-22-2012 05:00 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  Hawk says the reason he doesn't play the zone is because it is so easy to beat it.

Huh?

Interesting I have never heard that explanation from Hawk.
I have always heard Hawkins maintain his players have more defensive accountability when playing man.

(01-22-2012 05:25 PM)okgc Wrote:  

(01-22-2012 05:00 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  Hawk says the reason he doesn't play the zone is because it is so easy to beat it.

Huh?

Interesting I have never heard that explanation from Hawk.
I have always heard Hawkins maintain his players have more defensive accountability when playing man.

He said that after Troy lit us up from 3 last year after we'd gone to a zone. Yeah, a zone doesn't work if you are making outside shots.

A zone doesn't work if you stand around either, you have to coach accountability to your assignment whether it's the match up of an area. I never heard that he said that but if he did, it's a cop out.

(01-22-2012 07:11 PM)DesertBronco Wrote:  A zone doesn't work if you stand around either, you have to coach accountability to your assignment whether it's the match up of an area. I never heard that he said that but if he did, it's a cop out.

The standing around part is what is killing us. Move the ball quickly and the openings show themselves. Holding the ball while waiting for our inside guys to get position is brutal. It seemed like the first ten mins of the game were filled with our wings holding the ball for 2-3 seconds. Make a move, penetrate, do something! We look for the perfect pass way too much, and it's most evident when facing a zone.

The good news is that I doubt Kent, Akron, Ohio, or buffalo will show much, if any, zone looks. All four of them think they can beat us straight up with man to man defense. I doubt Miami will show any either, unless CC has a history of using a zone that I dont know about. That leaves BG and I would expect them to employ it the majority of the game.

(01-22-2012 08:32 PM)EA3 Wrote:  The good news is that I doubt Kent, Akron, Ohio, or buffalo will show much, if any, zone looks. All four of them think they can beat us straight up with man to man defense.

And they are probably correct.

If I seee one more skip pass turnover I might jump off a bridge.
Seems like we ignore every basic concept against a zone defense that you could find on a google search.

You are exactly right. Stain needs to set up the top. When the ball is at that spot he has two wings and two blocks he can put it to. There is so many set plays you can do from that spot...give and go, hand off, quick pass to flen, so much. But the problem is that we want Stain to be scoring because of his size, which shouldnt be the case.