UMassHoops.com

Marty Peretz · Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject:

Lets be real for a minute and acknowledge what the fundamental problem was tonight and what the fundamental problem with this team has been all year (though prior to tonight, we were fortunate enough to not have had it truly exposed): we lack a coherent approach when it comes to half court offense. We simply do not have any real sets aimed at getting easy baskets. When you force your will on other teams by demoralizing them with a great transition game as we often do, the lack of a half court offense becomes a footnote and no one needs to worry much over it. But when you aren't establishing the run game and you have to turn to your half court offense, there's a few things you can do to ensure you still play well. One of them is to be a system oriented team in which you run a flex, a motion, the DDM or any number of other systems. We rightly abandoned that approach and moved to a more full-court style, which I was fine with and I wouldn't expect our answer to a rough night of transition offense to be the implementation of a new system altogether.

Your next option is to have a meaningful big man as a scoring threat. If you have that, you can throw it to him on the block when there's no other options. Inevitably, he'll draw double teams or at least the other team will have another defender hedge over a bit to make things more difficult. When a team hedges of doubles on a quality offensive big man, said quality offensive big man has the ability to kick it out to guys who, if not open, at least have a step on their defender. Provided they have a step and are athletic enough (as our threats are), things begin to open up and you get at least a solid handful of easy buckets each game.

Even though Cady only played in 12 or so games, he was really emerging as that type of player. The kid was a freshman averaging 7 or so points in like 15 minutes a game. He made some blunders, but the kid was remarkably polished offensively in the half-court for a freshman and that allowed teams to have to hedge over and quasi-double and this in turn allowed our wings and chaz to get easier buckets.

For a while, Sean was emerging as a pretty competent big man and you saw the results early on. More open looks, the effectiveness of that high screen and roll from he and Chaz, etc etc. Since Sean has seemingly reverted back a bit to his non-dominant ways, we haven't gotten nearly as many easy buckets. Obviously it doesn't help when we can't buy a bucket from long range, but since we really don't have much movement in the half court and really don't have too many formal sets, it's awfully tough when your bigs aren't getting easy buckets. It means you have to create difficult looks on seemingly every half court possession.

I'm a bit irked by DK when it comes to this because, frankly, the moment Cady went down, we should have put in four or five sets that would have given us six or eight easy looks each game. Other than that high ball screen leading to a screen and roll from Chaz to Sean, I can't really think of a single set we've run effectively this year.

I'm also unsure as to why Putney doesn't catch the ball with his back to the basket more or at least penetrate down the lane more. The kid should be taking 15 or 16 shots a night and that's not happening right now.

I don't think this season is over, but I think teams have figured us out and we're going to have to add at least some semblance of a "wrinkle" for us to be able to make a meaningful run in the conference tourney. Otherwise, unless guys just get ridiculously hot from deep, we might be toast.

Side note: two positives from tonight were Freddie's D and Maxie's overall play.
_________________
Muck Fax Page

tdmass · Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject:

Dayton has beaten us now home and away by 61 points!!! un "F" ing
believable!!!

TheInsider · Hall of Fame Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 2065

Marty did X "figure" us out?? No. We play like crap on the road and Put disappears. That's the dif. When we r at home I think we play o.k. In the half court. How did st. Louis and lasalle do on the road today? We played like shit. It happens.

xlgman · Hall of Fame Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 2760

^^ Marty I didn't see the game but I think you're over-reaching here.

We've run a lot more set plays and dumped it into the post and made some good inside-out looks and variations on the pick-and-roll and give-and-go this season. I think we run a ton more sets and off the all screens and cuts than last year in the half court and not a ton less than other teams. The Xavier game was a game where we didn't run like crazy but we executed well in the half court and looked competent.

We also shot well. Which leads me to......

IMO the biggest weakness in this team is and has always been our poor shooting. We are simply not skilled shooters and no one is a really great scorer either. Sure Chaz and Jesse and Put can put up numbers but they're streaky and not terribly efficient. Chaz especially, god bless him. Vinson is hot and cold. Freddie and Farrell warm and cold. Sean is very dependent on getting feeds from Chaz and is also warm and cold.

We simply are not a good shooting team.

The second biggest problem is and always has been a lack of ballhandling depth. If Chaz and Jesse are off, we're toast. Teams that focus in on those two will have their way.
_________________
There ain't no days off. That's the only way you can get it. SUCCESS DON'T COME EASY!@big_booge5

Mrbaseball220 · Junior Joined: 01 Feb 2006 Posts: 462

Hopefully people do not overract to this one! Oh wait, that is not going to happen here. Just a bad shooting night, that is it. We all know this team goes as Chaz does and he was off tonight.

Sean Carter has been great in the A-10 this year and tonight he dissapeared. When Chaz is off, your not hitting 3's and you have no inside presence, this is going to happen.

I think we are all starting to see the importance of the loss of Cady. He was starting to show some real promise. If you had him when chaz is off and 3's are not faling you could atleast pound it inside and get some easy buckets.

One other big factor is one of the strengths of this team was/is balance. For most of the time you have Chaz and Putney consistenly providing a one two punch. Then you had TV, Jesse, Riley, Carter, Esho filling in the gaps. Usually any two of those players supported the efrorts of Put and Chaz. The problem tonigth was that none of those guys stepped up and all had bad nigths.

I don't want to hear this one is on DK! I love how people say he didn't have them prepared. The only thing he could have done to have them better prepared is to go out and shoot for them. These guys missed wide open shots and many of which were layups. Nothing you can do as a coach. No matter the combo, it didn't work.

Also not having chaz for 1/2 of the first half is a killer. Without Chaz on the floor the offense doesn't move and that is what it is.

One major question that needs to be answered quicly is where has Jesse gone?

Jesse's Last 3:

Vs. Dayton 1-9 0-4 from 3 2 pts.
Vs. Xavier 1-6 0-3 from 3 4pts
Vs. Lasalle 2-9 0-4 from 3 4pts

Need to get him back on track quickly!

With all that said, just a bad shooting night and this team can play with anyone in the A-10. The good news is Umass has followed up a clunker this year by playing well. So let's chalk it up to bad shooting, put it behind us and go and take care of Temple. Worst case is we lose there (which most of us should not be expecting a win) then come home take care of URI and finish a fantastic season at 20-10.

The future is bright don't let a few blemishes or bad shooting nights take away from the overall picture!

TheInsider · Hall of Fame Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 2065

^^^ the games we have shot well (which have been a lot) weve won. When we have an off night we lose. We r not the worst shooting team in the league. We had a lot of wide open shots tonight that we missed. I think the biggest diff is that Put has been a non factor on the road. Hes been a 1st team a10 player at home and 10th a10 team player on the road.

Jackman · Senior Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 1974

I agree with you, Marty. People who want to say, "oh, we just didn't shoot well and missed layups" are remembering a small number of frustrating plays in key moments and forgetting the many, many more times we brought the ball down and never created a shot we should expect to go in. We've seen this in previous losses. If you can prevent UMass from driving without sacrificing your perimeter defense, our halfcourt offense goes nowhere. It usually takes small, fast teams to do that to us. Dayton did it with exceptional help defense and excellent spacing.

The most important thing we need to add to the offense next season is a more sophisticated approach to involving the bigs on offense without the guards driving. Dayton fans have been saying all week that athletic big men give them fits, but we couldn't get the ball to them in position to score, the same as how we couldn't exploit Duquesne's tiny lineup. A bounce pass to Sean Carter 8 feet from the rim with his back to the basket doesn't help us against this type of defense. He'll either spin into a double-team or kick it back out and we start over (or drop the pass entirely). I'd like to see more bigs setting picks and screens for other bigs when we can't get anything generated out of Chaz. All three of Vinson, Esho and Putney can do damage if we can give them one foot of separation so they can immediately turn and face the basket when they catch the ball. Make the help defenders help on inside switches and that will open up the outside, and so on.

Right now against a prepared defense we're playing rock-paper-scissors without the rock. That's a noticeable improvement over the DDM when we were just running with scissors, and anyone who threw 'zone' beat us. But to reach the next level we need a third option besides Chaz driving and creating or a three pointer. Most of our shooting woes were because we didn't create good shots. If we'd hit the open shots we missed at a normal rate, we wouldn't have lost by 33, but we'd still have lost.

Mills-Hamlin 69 · Junior Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 420

69MG · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 1:03 am Post subject:

I watched the first 10 minutes and then went to the hockey game. Right now that looks like a good call. We looked out of sync from the opening tip. We missed 3 layups in the first 90 seconds and didn't cover anyone taking a three for the whole time I watched. I left with a bad feeling about the game and I guess it only got worse. OK, we had a stinker. Put it behind us and focus on the next two games. If we don't, the season will end on a very sour note. I don't expect us to beat Temple, but I do think we will handle RI and 20-10 is better than where I thought we would be when the season started.

TheInsider · Hall of Fame Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 2065

Wow! We only shot 25% Shocked

I think we missed a lot of open shots early and that took us out of our game the rest of the way.

vanmeter · Senior Joined: 02 Apr 2003 Posts: 1263

A fantastic season is making the NCAA's. Having an RPI approaching 100 is not fantastic.

shovelhd · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 9:50 am Post subject:

Jackman, I like your take on it.

LooneyGoon · Senior Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 969

Bi-Polar
_________________
Ball so hard

uz2b-len · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 1:07 pm Post subject:

InnervisionsUMASS · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 1:52 pm Post subject:

I think the word "throttled" is the best way to describe last night...
_________________
Stop waiting for UMass to do something big and help UMass do something big. - Shades