Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Forget the Hype: Let's Just Get Back to Playing Good Basketball

So here's the situation.

There is no question that this year has been a major disappointment thus far. Any dreams we had of a consistent top ten team obviously are up in smoke. Injuries, illness, lack of mental toughness, etc. have derailed that.

Frankly, at this point, I would just like us to get back to playing some good basketball. Scrap the preseason expectations, buck my preseason hype post about "this being the year", forget everything that has been said about this team. Heck, forget everything that this team has done up until this point.

We need to just get back to playing some decent fundamental basketball. Lost in the analysis of each player's individual performance and in the stat lines is the obvious notion that we simply are not playing as a team. We aren't running plays effectively and we're not playing good help defense. I dare say it, but about 7/8ths of this squad is playing not to lose rather than playing to win. There is one player who is actually playing phenomenally well at this point (Jeff Taylor), but he simply cannot do it alone. There must be a sacrifice on the part of everyone else for the good of the team, and there must be a greater mental focus from everyone.

So do everything you can to run your plays perfectly. We love to set screens at the top of the key to free up our guards to drive or shoot. So set them PERFECTLY. Make sure they are fundamental. Attack the rim without charging through a guy. Box out. If a pass is remotely risky, don't take it. Most importantly, if the opposition puts a screen on your teammate, hedge just enough to help your man catch up, and then resume your position (that is, if you aren't switching). Rotate over if your man gets beat. Identify the shooters and NEVER leave them. These are just things that are fundamental in man-to-man defense. But, alas, they are things we are not doing.

These guys are seniors and juniors primarily. So let's get a fresh start, forget everything else, and just pretend that we're playing back in Hickory.

That's this one blogger's opinion. Don't think we're going to see anything different until we just do that.

1 comment:

festivus said...

this just about says it all...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/gallery/enlargePhoto?id=7372020&story=7371808