9 Threes or Fool's Gold Returns
-
Topic
-
What’s your question?
-
This can’t continue if we want this team to reach its potential. Duke destroyed KU’s “offense” last night when KU tried to feed the post. It’s clear that Bill seems to think it is option A-Z but if the team doesn’t have good entry passers and the bigs don’t know what to do with the ball then the whole thing goes to crap. I think we have some decent three point shooters but Self needs to be okay with them letting it rip.
-
If we’re going to play 2 big-men then our bigs need to get better at passing out of double-teams and the other players need to know exactly what to do right away when the double comes and sprint to their spots. We just need to get to the point in the offense where our big has a 1-on-1 match-up in the post or he’s doubled and our ball movement is quick enough that someone else gets an open shot. Double-teams shouldn’t be rewarded with turnovers, it should give someone else a quality look.
-
Can Bill get the team to that point this year is a valid question. I would agree if they can get there then this team can be very good.
-
If this team cannot stretch the floor with the threat of three point shooting, there is no way to enter the ball into the post because sagging defenders destroy the passing windows.
Since none of our big men is really a threat to knock down 15 footers with regularity, they are non-threats away from the block. Agbaji is the only three point shooter that other teams respect right now. Enaruna could be, and Braun will be if he plays enough, but that remains to be seen. Until Garrett starts shooting (and making) consistently, no one has any reason to guard him out there. Same with Dotson. He has to take (and make) some threes to open the floor up.
We have a huge problem of just not having enough shooters to space the floor. We have spacing problems that we cannot solve without getting some shooting from other guys.
-
@justanotherfan exactly what I was saying on the game thread. It’s too easy for teams to pack the paint against us and force turnovers. Now we were playing Dook, a well coached team of mostly 5* players and we could clean up several unforced turnovers. So that bodes well going forward but I still agree with @BShark it is a good way to exit early in March. I’m perfectly fine with not jacking up 30 threes per game. We are a division 1 team we should have 4 guys that can hit 30% or better from 3. Dotson, Moss, Ochai and Enaruna would be the best candidates. The chiefs are a great example, their offense looked much better in the first half of last season with Hunt because other teams had to respect the run game. Now teams just pin their ears back and blitz.
-
I’ve been saying all along this team could possibly regress from last year offensively. Our bigs are low skilled players. Doke is pure power and useless outside of 5’. Silvio is still very raw and inexperienced on offense. Dave probably has the most skill offensively and is the one big that has the ability to stretch the floor, but he’s also the least athletic of the bigs.
As unathletic as Dedric Lawson was, he was probably the most skilled big man KU has had in a very long time. I would’ve loved to have had Dedric on this roster.
Our guards are essentially the same as last year. On the offensive end, Moss and Vick are very similar players in regards to what skills they bring to the table.
This is still going to be a team that has stretches where they struggle offensively for extended stretches.
Defensively is where the upgrades are this season. This team is going be very tough to score against in the paint with the two big line up. Moss is also a huge upgrade over Vick on the defensive end of the floor. It’s going to be a very rare occurrance for teams to reach 70 points against KU this season. I’m also expecting KU to hold several teams under 50 this season with their defense.
Defense will be KU’s saving grace this season and give KU a better shot at a deep run than last season.
-
Bigs, low bb IQ
-
@Crimsonorblue22 I don’t think they’re low IQ, in the case of Silvio and Dave, they’re still very inexperienced. Silvio still has under 200 minutes of game experience in a KU uniform. I think he’s at 182 total minutes. That’s 4.5 games worth of experience. KU will have multiple players surpass 200 minutes this season by the end of Maui.
Silvio has good awareness and IQ, he just doesn’t have any experience yet.
Dave was solid last night. He’s not going to be a big scorer, but other than finishing at the time, he was the best big man last night. He was an absolute beast on the glass. That’s going to be his primary role this year is the clean up guy.
-
Those passes in the paint? Passing out of a dble team? Dribbling in the paint, bringing the ball down, etc. They should know that stuff by now. You could steal that last pass from my house. Was frustrating to see.
-
Azuibuke is a very unique player for a lot of reasons.
The positives:
- He’s one of the strongest players at the D1 level in some time.
- He’s big, but not a statue, so he can outrun opposing bigs if they do not hustle
- He cannot be forced off his spot offensively.
The negatives
- He does not handle the ball well, so anything more than a drop step dunk carries significant risk.
- He rebounds with “short arms” so he doesn’t get nearly as many rebounds as you would hope for someone with his size and strength
- For his speed and mobility, he does not have good lateral quickness, which makes him very vulnerable defensively away from the basket.
There will be games where Azubuike will be outright dominant, 11-13 from the field, 25 points, 10 rebounds. There will be games where he’s solid, but has turnover issues. 5-7 from the field, 12 points, 7 rebounds, 4 turnovers. And there will be games where he is a net negative because he isn’t getting the ball where he needs it - 2-4 from the field, 4 points, 4 rebounds, 6 turnovers, 5 fouls.
The challenge is, you don’t know which of those lines you will get pregame. You would take either of the first two, despite the turnovers. It’s that last one that really scares you, but what can you do about that. You can’t really just bench a guy like Doke because he is such a matchup problem at the college level. But that last line is a killer, and we know its coming at some point.
