What happens when the most experienced team in the Coach Sendek era can't seem to perform to their own expectations or talent level? Or when a team with a schedule designed to be NCAA worthy falls apart the first six games? What about a roster that's ten deep and can't seem to find an on the floor combination that can consistently score or defend?
How about having good second half leads in three games with under 3 minutes to play and lose all those games? What if even fundamentals like working the clock late in the game to get the shot you want by the person you want to shoot it or making free throws to close out the game?
It all ends up in the same place. Soul searching. Coaches and players together and players only to lay bare how to revive their season. A locker room confessional of honesty, accountability, and commitment to each other with a penance of doing the work of turning this 2-4 start around. A willingness to play the hot hands and sit the cold ones.
The numbers are a head scratcher: 5 of our 8 core players are well behind their prior season averages; some significantly. Out of 364 Division 1 teams, we are ranked # 180 in effective field goal offense, # 272 in 3pt field goal offense, # 244 in field goal defense, #330 in effective 3pt field goal defense, and # 257 in free throw rate offense.
Soul searching...
It's only six games in, yet we seem to be taking the same approach. Our game plans are to defend our opponents best three point shooters off the 3 point line, but we don't or can't; as our 3 point defense rank above shows. Witness Saturday night against Stanford when Oziyah Sellers shredded us for 10 points with three minutes to play making two 3 pointers and an undefended dunk. On our offense, we continue to shoot 3's early in the clock coming from those who might be better off taking it to the rim to get a better look or foul. A # 257 free throw rate and assist rates make this apparent. The ball and our players are not moving.
Our talent rank is #131 and WCC talent rank # 6.
There are bright spots. New Juco transfer Elijah Mahi is shooting it at 55% from two and three. Christoph Tilly and Tyree Bryan are also off to good starts. Bukky Oboye showed some skills Saturday night on defense and even made his first three. Not bad for a 7'1" Freshman.
Our depth, while an advantage, is fragile. An advantage, in that we don't have much drop off from starters to second units with the exception at center, where our bigger subs are a freshman and a sophomore with only a few minutes playing time. Fragile, in that the matchups on defense and rebounding can be more challenging when 7'0" Tilly and 6'10" Johnny O'Neil are off the floor. Our size drops down about 4 inches per player to about 6'6".
Herein may lie the Coaches dilemma. Without Tilly, and if O'Neil and/or Bal are not shooting well that night, we get smaller fast. Going smaller allows us to interchange capable shooters like Mahi and Bryan at the risk of not successfully defending opposing centers and rebounding. The Coaches need to be able to go with the hot hands since we've had several 20% 3 point shooting games from starters. Maybe Bukky Oboye can assume the minutes when Tilly and Cam are in early foul trouble freeing up Coaches to sub for shooters on off nights.
We'll find out Thursday what if any changes will be made or rotations that might be different. Standing pat may not bear fruit. Even Steve Kerr sits Steph Curry when he's not right.
Maybe soul searching and Mea Culpa's will have been done so we can start playing with more grit, ball movement, direction, and freedom. We'll find out Thursday versus TCU.
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