Santa Clara Men's Basketball - Are We On The Rebound?

                                                                                                        

If the Broncos are going to make some noise in the WCC and have any shot at the post season, we need to rebound from our rebounding.  The sordid details are that in our last four games, we've given up 58 offensive rebounds resulting in 54 second chance points.  Add to that 64 turnovers in those four games resulting in 64 point off turnovers.  Huge.

Granted this team is a work in process, but we need to find a Chairman of the Boards.   Someone with a "tude".  We're big enough, but we need to play big enough.   Maybe a guy like Cam Tongue.   He scores tough inside and has half the bigger guys rebounds in one-third of their minutes.  

To be fair, we get a rebound, but don't secure it and have it swatted away.  Opposing coaches are smart learning that officials look up for rebounding fouls, but not down when control is being established.  It's hard to watch small guards slap the ball away from seven footers. 

IMHO, a similar issue with our turnovers.   Feisty defenses hold us and slap at the ball off the dribble where refs won't make that call.  They know we are thin at point guard and totally overplay passing lanes daring us to make the backdoor cut pass which, when we do, is quite successful when our guys keep moving. 

To rebound from our poor rebounding, we need to focus on the power of 10.  Against good teams, when we allow 10 or fewer offensive rebounds and commit 10 or fewer turnovers, we win.   How do we consistently apply the power of 10?   Rebound.  

That's our engine.  Our athletes are really good in the open court from an outlet pass secured by, you guessed it, a rebound.  In our Quad 1 wins, we've pushed the ball up the court and our guys got open lanes to the rim or an uncontested three.  It works.  Open court passes are easier AND prevents us from slogging it away in half court sets where we tend to bog down and turn the ball over. 

 With three games to go before league, we could use three 10's.  We're Hoping for a 11-4 preseason, but 10-5 with our tough schedule gives us the opportunity for a post season nod with 10 or more WCC wins. 

And that's a rebound we are all looking forward to!