Why is our pace of play per Kenpom 210? I thought our goal this year was to play faster and more in transition?
This is the one I want to hear more about. I'm not worried about Diggins or Johnson... as has been shown ad nauseam on this board, in the last few years, we're been about average in freshman minutes. I trust our staff to know who is good enough to play. Having coached for some time--who gets minutes is often the easiest part of the job.
THIS is the most important though. The refrain ALL of this offseason was running running running... and yet? We're in the bottom half of D1 teams. And it's a familiar story--our coach has talked about running the ball for what feels like years now and we've yet to see it on the court in any meaningful way. He needs to be looking into the mirror and deciding who he wants to be as a coach. We've had multiple players at every position and all but 2 Hurley recruits on the roster now. It's the coach's fault if we don't play fast at this point. He's holding them back.
I'm cool with playing a slow, grind-it-out style OR a fast up and down style. But we need to have a consistent message for our team. We need to recruit guys that fit our style (and Karaban and Clingan are both going to be slower, half-court type players... so maybe we're changing?). We need to practice the way we play to prepare for games.
This along with the poor late-game management of offense are the things that are driving me nuts about our coach right now. But are SO, SO fixable.
