A lot wrong

B

bevaux

250+ Posts
There is a lot wrong with this Texas team right now. I'd be interested in the thoughts of each of you.
My thoughts: About a week ago Calipari heard that Coach wooden was watching Kentucky with interest. Calipari called him and asked his opinions on where they could improve. Wooden told him he needed to shorten his rotation, that he was playing too may players. Calipari listened. Would Rick Barnes? Heck, would Barnes even pick up the phone and call?

Now, I'm not putting this all on Barnes and the staff. However, the constant rotation of players and the total lack of an offensive game plan (today against uconn we simply dribbled and tried to drive for buckets) is hard to overlook. We simply have no offensive rhythm because we seem to have no offensive plan. This has been evident for 3 consecutive games now. Will it be addressed? I'm left to wonder.
Thoughts?
 
If you run a movement offense badly spacing becomes horrible. Get bunched together and you end up with lot's of defensive arms and hands within reach of the ball and play gets ragged really quick with turnovers and wild and hurried shots.
 
My thoughts . . .

-- I absolutely hate the player that Pittman has become. He can't stay out of foul trouble, whines about calls too much and worst of all has become the dirtiest player on the team. He looked like a lottery pick a couple weeks ago - now he looks like a European League sub.

-- I don't want to shorten the bench by coming up with a set rotation. I want Barnes to play the 5 guys that are going to give the most hustle on the court. When they get tired, replace them.

-- I love getting the ball to Hamilton to jack a 3 when he's open, but when he's not he has to give it up. He forces way too many bad shots.

-- Feed the ball to the hot player. Too many times someone will hit 2-3 shots in a row, only to become invisible or substituted for on the ensuing trips. If we've got 12 guys good enough to see the court, then we're bound to have 1 guy that is "on" that day.

-- Hill needs to take the ball to the hole. He tried to lay-in an open shot under the basket instead of flushing it. In practice, I would do 1 thing with Hill. Put him under the bucket, let him practice rebounding and then dunk every single ball he gets his hands on. Eventually, he'll have the confidence to take the ball to the hole everytime. Quit playing volleyball with it. Grab the rebound, then go strong to the hole. (Do the same thing with Wangmene.)

-- Starting line-up: Johnson in, Pittman out

-- Force every player on the team to shoot 250 FTs at practice. Reward the team by lowering that number to 100 for practices after games in which we shoot 70%.
 
I don't necessarily think that we are playing too many players. We have have a lot of people that can take over a game, but they just have been flat for the past two games. The announcer brought up a point that Rick Barnes mentioned to him that Avery Bradley had begun to become exhausted physically and emotionally over the past few games. Our team relies A LOT on some very talented true freshman who may not necessarily be conditioned to handle that kind of pressure. If you look at how our veteran leadership (Pittman, Balbay, Mason, James, Johnson) have struggled over the past three or four games the freshman have been forced to contribute more than they are capable of at this point.

The veterans are the foundation of this team and they have lost some confidence and it is severely limiting the younger playmakers. The confidence issue is typified by their struggles at the free throw line. It is painful watching them at them shoot free throws - it is like a disease that is spreading through the team.

At the end of the day this is a final four team because of the depth. I don't think that they need to play less players so much as they need take a deep breath and remember what they are capable of.

I think that we just need to get better minutes out of the leaders of the team, namely Dexter Pittman, Dogus Balbay and Justin Mason.

Dexter Pittman is obviously very frustrated out there right now.
 
I think it boils down to our free throws. I would like to know how much Barnes makes them practice these, and the fact that we have so many Freshmen. They are just going to make mistakes. All is not lost however. We WILL get better. It is just painful to see our weaknesses now that we are playing better quality opponents. Everyone brings their "A" game against us. Look at UCONN. First sellout of their arena this year. Look at K. State. They weren't so "HIGH" against unranked OSU and got beat!! We just better get used to this, #1 or not.
 
Team hasn't played great the last 2 weeks. Obviously the last 2 games were losses. Who had the worst game during that stretch....Pittman. What has been the worst facet of the team's play during this stretch...I'll give you two...inside play and FTs. Inside play can be put on Pittman who was doing much better earlier in the season.

The last 5 games Pittman has not scored more than 6 points in a game. He attempted 7 FG against K-state and no more than 5 in any of the other 4 games. That is some serious lack of production from our guy inside who was playing big time earlier in the season.

What is the difference in him? I don't have the answer but I can tell you that it his lack of play the last 5 games that is hurting the team the most.

I also think that since Lucas came on the team there has been an obvious change in Balbay's game. It is like Barnes has told hm to only focus on his defense and passing skills. Everything else has gone out the window.

Brown and Mason have had some pretty poor games recently as well.

Hamilton has been playing well. Barnes needs to reward him with more minutes.

Based on above and who is playing well here is the lineup I would suggest for now:

James (no brainer, but would like to play inside with Pittman being absent)
Bradley (Barnes need to have him shoot more)
Johnson (gives you some size at 6-6)
Hamilton (would like to have him play the perimeter)
Balbay (you need a point guard, so I say give him about 25 min/game....team was doing much better when he was getting this much time on the court earlier in the season)
 
In my opinion, We need to sit Justin Mason. He doesent do anything for us offensively. He is worse than Balbay, But atleast Balbay drives to the dam basket!
 
Free throw shooting will not improve. We will break through the wall we have run into. It is best we slump now, instead of sucking in March when it really counts. Mark it down, Texas will win the Big 12 tourney, ans make it to the final Four.
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A mixture of what Chest and Rex said. Can you guys coach the team?

Mason is horrid. Get him off the floor. I don't care if you think he is a "glue" guy. He can't shoot, he can't dribble, and Balbay and Bradley play WAY better defense.

Gary Johnson has become one of our top 3 players. Get him in the game.
 
Man, where to start? A couple weeks ago, I was saying that I'd be dissappointed if we didn't make it to the Final 4. Now, it looks like we'll be lucky to make it to the Sweet 16.

I do think we need to settle on the guys that are going to be our players. Not because I a problem with playing a deep bench. Just that some folks aren't playing well enough to justify the time. Adjustments that I would make:

1. Not really an adjustment but Damion and Avery need to be on the court 30-35 minutes. If anything, I'm worried about them getting worn down.

2, I know Dex is struggling, but we got to get more minutes out of him. I hate that Barnes sits him with 2 fouls in the first half. Conventional wisdom would say your OK until 3.

3. Balbay has got to be on the court as much as possible. Our offense is stagnant without him. After his quick 3 fouls, we fell apart. Limit Lucas's minutes, he ain't getting it done.

4. I don't necessarily agree that Johnson should start, but he should be the first post player of the bench. Chapman, second. Wangmene and Hill only if we are foul trouble.

5. I've been saying it all season and will continue to say it. He is an offensive liability. We've got to shift minutes to Hamilton. I'd lie to see him start - I think he would press less to shoot.

6. Continue to sprinkle in minutes for Brown - resting Balbay and Bradley.
 
FWIW Bradley told Barnes last week he was more tired after the KSU game than he's ever been in his life...so worn down = affirmative.
 
Then Bradley needs to stay another year to work on his conditioning.

If I were Barnes and I thought I had Bradley for one year, I would play him 35 min a game. A worn down Bradley is better than any other guard we have at full strength.
 
I don't think there is a worry about Bradley leaving after one. He has way too much to work on to be ready, and the assessment will confirm that.
 
We shouldnt be getting out rebounded.

Lexi has got to get his hands back.


The only thing I hate with Rick's rotation is that it is based on whether or not you screw up. Sometimes you need to just let guys play it out.

Justin Mason has to start being more aggressive. If he would start driving to the basket and making contact, I trust him at the line.

Same things goes for JB. He always runs into the lane and avoids all contact by shooting a floater over everyone. You are our best FT shooter... get to the line!

As for everyone elses FT shooting.. its awful. We can never make 2 in a row and everyone just looks lost when they shoot there. Rick really needs to get this straightened out. Spend 2 days straight just shooting FT's. Everyone needs to reevaluate their routine.

Play Clint Chapman. Not Matt Hill. Chapman atleast looks to score and dunks the ball when he is down low. Hill comes out to set picks and never catch the ball off the pick and roll. His hands are worse than Titans WR's.

I will also say this. We just played 2 of the hardest back to back away games you can have. Playing a storied program in UConn who is NOT the #22 team in the country. They are much better than their record. And a #9 KSU team who was on fire leading up to our game.

Not to mention any time you play on the road - everything goes the home teams way. Including the calls.

Let this team get back to the EC and get some confidence back. They arent going to let this little slump effect them.

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I remember when Barnes first came to Texas the rap sheet said he was a "defense first" coach who had not shown a lot of creativity offensively.

I know very little about basketball techically, or schemewise. Would you guys with Basketball knowledge agree that Barnes is a weak offensive coach, and if so, how about his assistants? Who is the offensive mind on the Horn bench, if it is not Barnes.
 
There is no question Barnes is a weak offensive coach. Don't know much about his assistants. It appears he relies on them for recruiting, mostly, and Todd Wright for strength/conditioning.
 
Mason seems to be the target by many for reduced PT. He was an adequate shooter in his freshman and sophomore years. He developed a mental block last year and it got worse once his defenders started backing off on him daring him to shoot mid-range shots. This year -- I may be imagining things -- I'm beginning to see his defensive intensity to start falling off because of his offensive struggles.

I think he's done so much for the program that he should keep his starting spot and >25 minutes in PT. I know this doesn't make sense to many of you. As a program, you rise and fall with 4 year starters like Mason. The team is as much his as DJ's. It doesn't look like we'll lose Bradley or Hamilton to NBA after this year, so we'll have another shot at making the Final Four next year. Let's hope Mason will shake off his slump very soon.
 
Really Stat? Watch the next time Hamilton or Brown make a bad play. They are going out the next whistle for damn sure. All the others are just "most of the time."
 
The funny thing is the exact opposite argument is being made on the Duke basketball forums.

The beef is that Coach K shortens the rotation too early in the year and that the team has run out of gas in March for the last 7 years. I'd rather take losses during the season, play a lot of folks, keep them fresh and then shorten in Feb.

As for free throws, plenty of pros struggle and they don't have limitations on practice time. At some point, the kids are going to have to take responsibility for making the set shot (on their own time).
 
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