Barnes offense

W

Waller Creek

100+ Posts
Rick Barnes' offense has always frustrated me. I feel that it relies too much on 3 point shooting. There's a lot of standing around and throwing the ball around the perimeter. In years when we have excellent ball handling guards like Augustine and Ford, it's a lot better because that guard can penetrate and dish, but it's still frequently penetrate and kick to the 3 pointer.

When we're hitting outside shots, we're deadly and will beat anyone. The problem comes when we're not hitting outside shots. We don't get to the line enough and we don't have reliable offensive options. I would so much prefer some diversity in the offense with more low post play.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade Barnes for anyone, and his success is obvious. His success comes from having great players, great shooters, and playing excellent defense. I think we'd have better success, especially this time of year, if we had a little more motion to the offense and a more significant low post game.
 
Actually the thing I've noticed most about this year's team is that there hasn't been a lot of standing around. A lot more cutting to the basket, a lot more high-low game. The only time the offense has really looked stagnant to me is when they're killing clock.
 
Penders was live and die by the three.

Barnes uses it as one of his tools. Sometimes it's more prevalent. Others, they use the inside game more. All depends on the opponent.
 
I see more motion in UT's offense this year than I can remember seeing since . . . I don't know when. Atchley spends 30 minutes a game on the court running around and setting screens for DJ. For that reason alone, he should be immune from any criticism about anything else he might fail to do in any given game. And when he hits some threes and blocks some shots, he's invaluable.
 
i hate our offense, but our guys do a great job running it and it's gotten us this far. it will HAVE to change next year though to take advantage of all our bigs, imo.
 
I don't like seeing Atchley run around the arc so much. he can shoot the trey pretty well but doesn't pull the trigger on it that much and is much more effective inside cleaning up the glass and working the high low. We will definately need him and Sexy Dexy working those twins for Stanford. They are some lanky ******** but I think we can neutralize them if Dex leans on them in the paint a lot.
 
This team doesn't have a post player through which it can run an offense. Right now what they're doing is appropriate for their personnel. I don't really see what about the offense is to hate at this point, other than the "kill the clock" offense.
 
I agree that the offense is running better this year than it has since Ford was here. That's because it again has an elite point guard that can penetrate. Maybe statistics would refute me, but I would be willing to guess that over Barnes' tenure in Austin, points in the paint and getting to the line have consistently been below average for a top tier team. To me, those two stats are highly correlated to offensive consistency.

Too often, the Horns are only as good as their 3 point shooting, which runs hot and cold by nature. Am I applying too much NBA logic to college ball?
 
I think it's just that you talk as if Barnes NEVER uses his big men, and that's not the case. Traditionally he's gone with whatever strength he has, and frankly he's been more prone IMO to want a big-centered offense than not. It just hasn't worked out that way the past few years because he hasn't had the personnel. I'd argue that he hasn't had a pure scoring center since Chris Mihm.

I don't see any way that any of the posts on the roster today will be that type of player next year. I think they'll all improve but not to the point of being a primary option. The fact is, none of them are good enough yet to talk about it being "criminal" not to use them.
 
y'all are some non reading fools, but feel free to add whatever meaning to what i originally wrote. see whatever you want between the lines, i guess.

our offense is anything but beautiful and free flowing. it's straight up nba pick and pop. i think that's ugly and unimaginative and i hate it. i never said it wasn't good, because it is. however, it's good because of the players that run it, and run it very well, not because the x's and o's give us easy looks.

i also never said barnes hadn't changed offenses or shown a willingness to change, because he has. i will say i've hated a lot of them, but they have gotten much better over the years.

it would absolutely be criminal to not develop a low post offense, or at least one that gives our big men easy looks next year. we are going to have an assload of experienced, talented big men next year. we'll be able to run 6 verfied badasses at everyone we face. the deepest frontcourt in the big 12 for sure, and probably the nation, and that's not counting hill. 27 fouls and still walking strong. why anyone would think that is an odd statement is beyond me.
 
jt09,

Please keep talking...but pleez lose the leprechaun.
hookem.gif
 
Barnes can adjust. Its tough to complain about the 3 point offense this year because of our personel, but I agree we should develop a big inside game next year.

I love our 3 balls but even against Miami when we were running our kill the clock offense, I think the possesion should have ended with a look inside instead of a last second 3, thats the difference between sealing the game and having the opponent make a comeback because it is hard to hit 3s forever. I think just a few more looks inside each game would help, especially when we have a decent lead
 
Here's a link to a brief analysis of UT's offense:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Behold the Historic Weirdness of Texas

Thursday, my redoubtable colleague Ken Pomeroy voiced this lament: "It's always bothered me how shooting typically dominates the other three factors (turnovers, rebounds and free throws)." So true. For all the analysis we toss around here at Basketball Prospectus, this sport often comes down to a simple rule: make your shots and make the other team miss theirs. Yawn.

Well, be of good cheer, Ken! This year there's a team that's grabbed that "simple rule" by the scruff of the neck and tossed it into the dustbin of history. Take a gander at what the hep-cat Texas Longhorns have been up to in Austin:



Good Offense, 2008: Points per Possession & Effective FG Pct.

BCS conferences plus Missouri Valley
Conference games only, through Feb. 27



PPP eFG pct.
UCLA 1.13 51.9
Kansas 1.13 52.6
Drake 1.13 53.5
North Carolina 1.12 50.7
Duke 1.11 53.3
Kansas St. 1.11 50.5
Tennessee 1.11 51.2
Texas 1.10 47.8


Note that Texas doesn't shoot anywhere near as well as do their peers in this "good offense" group. In fact, the Longhorns don't even shoot as well as an average Big 12 team. Yet Rick Barnes somehow has his team scoring points at a rate that's on a par with the nation's elite offenses. How can this be?

The Longhorns are able to surmount their relatively poor shooting because they crash the offensive glass and never turn the ball over. That's easy to describe, but it's very difficult to do. In fact, Texas this year is the first team I've seen to combine these two traits, which are customarily antithetical, to such an extreme. Getting to 39 percent of your own misses while committing a turnover on just 14 percent of your possessions is simply unheard of. More to the point, it gives you a ton of shots. Teams facing the 'Horns in the tournament should forget about trying to force turnovers (ask Tennessee) and focus instead on grabbing every available defensive board.
 
I like the wrinkle this year where Conner (or any post really) sets a pick for D.J. at the top of the key and as D.J. passes it to another post who then passes it to the cutting Conner for a basket. A lot of motion involved in that little wrinkle.
 
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