BARNES ... What's wrong with an offense?

L

LikeMike

500+ Posts
Read an interesting article on Barking Carnival defending Barnes this weekend. Got me thinking.

Barnes has been great for UT. And, it's fun to watch an occasional NBA game and see our alums playing.

But, I have yet to hear how such a smart coach can continue to put such a bad offense on the floor.

The Baker wrote about how great is was to see a future Hall of Fame guy play for us. But, I often got really pissed during Durant's year because we never, never ran a play or set a pick for him. He could have scored even more and we probably would have won more if we actually helped him!
 
The "never running a play for Durant" fallacy is one of the dumbest things ever espoused by Bill Simmons and continues to sound dumb over on Texags today.

It's one thing to say we didn't set up in a pick-and-roll offense and run it to Durant, but we honestly didn't have the personnel for it. You had Abrams who was a non-threat anywhere inside 23 feet from the rim. We all know Mason's limitations. Augustin was still learning the ropes, as the painful USC game showed. Who else other than Durant was supposed to make plays for him?

We were far more effective with Durant playing ISO the whole season. If it was the Augustin of 2008, I could see how that would have been a huge improvement into implementing screen and rolls and that kind of stuff. But KD literally had no help in 2007, especially once the tournament rolled around.

I guess you could fault Barnes for putting that group together, although I don't think I'd give back the one year of KD for what we went through the last two seasons.
 
Have you ever played ball?

I'm over 50 and still play. Now, often with high school kids who could be my grand children. Many just want to take threes (and some hit them, often because very few of the guys play defense), but a high school junior who wants to can set a pick, make a bounce pass to a cutter or cut to the basket. They at least can pass the ball. It's more fun and it's amazing how many easy baskets you get if the entire team plays unselfishly.

If you start in pre-season and work on it you should be able to do very well with the talent at Texas.

Durant is an extraordinary talent and he was often helpless at season end and in the tournament.
 
Horns ... I noticed you didn't mention the bigs from that team. I'm a 4 and regularly set picks at the top of the key.

Barnes bigs, as a rule, do not know how to set a pick. Has improved a bit in the last few years. But, during the Durant year, they were terrible. And, when is the last time they set a pick near the baseline? Or what about a double screen?
 
As I recall Durant had a pretty good year even without any offense being run for him. Didn't he win National Player of the Year or something like that?
 
Mihm, Klotz, Buckman, and Atchley were successful pick men. You can't ask Pittman to fill that role because he couldn't move. When Durant was playing in 2007, we were asking James to be the clean up guy as a freshman, and he didn't quite have the scheme down enough to be the guy who made the motion happen. The James of 2010 probably could have handled it pretty well.

A secondary problem with this equation is the PG. We haven't had one since Augustin in 2008. Even Ivan Wagner had enough handles to know what to do with the ball when Mihm came to the high post. I guess the good news is that Kabongo is coming, although he's not going to have much a supporting cast next year, let alone a big man who can do the screens. Augustin was good at picking up the easy assists to Abrams and Durant in 2007, but he took his game to a whole other level in 2008.
 
Dirty... Syracuse beat us with a Frosh named Carmelo (who although very good is not a Durant). They played as a team.
 
Horns... most of those guys you mention were halfway screeners, more worried about not getting called for a foul than blocking the defender. They would get there late put there hand behind their backs (what's that all about?) and then wonder why the defender was already past them.

Get there early, set it hard, if the first one does not work set it on the other side of the defender, then go to the baseline and set a screen for the wing to break to the basket. Ever seen it in the Barnes era?

As I've said, the last two years have been a bit better, but our guys are not taught to set effective screen.

And, Durant, could have had 4 or 5 more baskets per game if we had a coach who taught a motion offense!
 
I understand your point. I have grown to dislike his recruiting approach. One and dones are fun don't get me wrong. But, they are not likely to give us the ultimate results we are looking for.
 
See, my list of complaints for last season have mostly to do with coaching.

The one-and-dones mess up continuity from one year to the next, unless you recruit a new crop every year, as Calipari has done. I really think that they thought they were going to get two years from Thompson. If they had, the train would still be running.

But Connecticut had the kind of roster Texas did, and won the tournament -- some really good young players and support from upperclassmen. That shows you can do it the way Barnes is trying to do it. The question is whether he will do it. He's not out of time, and he's still getting players.

But yeah, he had chances at it the last couple of years and botched them. They weren't No. 1 seeds, but they could have been. It's not a good sign.
 
Bob, no one expected the Durant team to win it all. I sure didn't. I just watched Kevin try to do one-on one or one-on-two and wondered why Barnes did not run a few plays for him.
 
What actions? The DMN reported that Barnes told Cory Joseph to stay in school.

If he was so set on pushing players out the door, Damion James never would have stayed four years.
 
Most of the time I believe Barnes will counsel the players to "stay one more year". Any coach would. Unless the guy is a jerk, it will most often help the team and probably help the player.

But, what's wrong with employing a quality offense?

Duke's players seem to get drafted and they actually play as a team on offense.
 
Duke is unusual in that Coach K can recruit guys who could leave early and get them to stay, often for four years.

I think Kyrie Irving was his first one-and-done since Luol Deng, and before that, you have to go back to 1999.

But Coach K's resume is a bit shinier than RB's.

Since 2001, when TJ Ford signed, Barnes has signed 10 McDonald's All-Americans. Only one (Brad Buckman) stayed on campus more than two years. (Damion James was not a McD A-A.) Barnes's guys generally have leaned toward leaving earlier rather than later. It has made a big difference.

In a similar period, KU has signed 12, and five have stayed more than two years. Not surprisingly, a couple of them were on the championship team in 2008.

As I said, he had an acceptable mix this year, in a year when all of the top eight seeds failed to make the championship game. Since UConn had a similar roster, I don't know that the method is flawed, but the execution has been.
 
Thought about you comment saying we had an offense for most of the year and I disagree. Ii remember many games where our offense for long periods was J. Brown ball hogging the ball and them driving to the basket and throwing up a junior high miss.
 
You said you remembered the offense being J'Covan hogging the ball and throwing up a miss. It was much more likely that it was Hamilton missing.

I don't know what to tell you when you vary from your own topic.
 
My point was: Often, but not every game, Barnes would give up on teaching or implementing a nonexistant offense and let Brown "create". He was often out of control and seldom looked to involve his team mates.

On those occasions we had a very bad offense. Hamilton was not great, but he at least took shots as part of the offense most of the time.
 
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