ESPN: Top 50 College Hoops Coaches

[elduderino]

When Cronin read this, do you think the leprechaun stormed up and down in his office yelling at an imaginary referee?

I'm not a fan of the guy, but he's overachieving just about every year IMO. Doesn't seem real likeable, but I'd have to have him just a half step below Hoiberg and B Williams in annual performance to talent ratio, although Buzz's last year was an admittedly pathetic disaster.

 

[elduderino]

How can I not LIKE that?!

 

[jibsey]

I don't think we disagree much at all. The very talented high school players at Kentucky didn't develop much over the course a season. Isn't that pretty much what a coach is supposed to do? We won a championship with our undersize guards taking opposing teams out of their comfort zone game after game. Credit goes to Bazz, Boat and Samuel for that, no doubt, but huge props goes to Ollie for putting together the game plan. We ran the table as underdogs (except maybe St. Joes) pretty impressive. I have a hard time putting Calipari above Ollie head to head, if we are only considering last season. That's subjective though.

KO gave huge defensive game plan credit to Glenn Miller, and that's where I disagree with this ranking of individual coaches. Now coaches get some credit for hiring their staff with some inherited from before usually but aren't they the guys that stay up around the clock breaking down tape and always work one on one with the players? The boss soaks up the glory and the salary and 60% of the work is the underlings. Maybe the difference was we has better staff?

 

[Gurleyman]

calipari was lauded for switching (which was forced) to a zone in the title game. KO threw really interesting zone looks sparingly through games, which is much more cerebral. KO's defensive philosophy( man2man and pnr coverage) was much more thought out than Cal... cal essentially had them playing pick up out there.
I think a big factor in our run was conditioning, guys like randle/dakari johnson and dawson had their hands on their knees very quickly after a few big2big doubles. And wilbekan was done for, wasn't in good enough shape to handle boat in his grill. Heres a quote from Paxtons piece today i loved

It was all summed up in the final minute. Kentucky tried to run a designed defensive play to trap Bazz late in the shot clock and force the ball out of his hands (after the debacle of killing 50 seconds due to a tardy foul without being in the bonus). Some thought Young did that on his own, but it was clearly a designed defense. In theory, a good plan with Young leaving our least significant offensive threat on the floor open (Kromah). The problem was, their organization was just terrible. Young ran at Bazz while Harrison was playing five feet off him with his hands down. Bazz was in the middle of the floor, under no ball pressure whatsoever, and could survey the whole floor, see where the double was coming from, and adjust his passing angle accordingly to find the open man. Easy peasy. He/we saw it coming a mile away. For that to work against a veteran guard who isn't going to have his head down for no reason, Harrison has to be putting more pressure on the ball so that Bazz can't see the double coming that easily - ideally forcing him to one side of the floor so the rest of the defense (playing at a 3-on-4 disadvantage) can anticipate where the next pass is going to go.

In addition to that, Poythress was also way late sagging off of DD to help after Young made his move, so he had to come at Kromah in a panic (a simple upfake and he landed on him). If he had slid over right when Young left Kromah (i.e. the sign of a team coached well in how to do this), he might have been able to challenge without fouling and the plan might have worked even without Harrison/Young executing the first part of it properly. But the whole defensive scheme was a hot mess (the disadvantage of having four freshmen and a sophomore out there, perhaps). We were ready for it, and Kromah went right to the rim.

Then at the other end, we (Boat) pressured them up the length of the floor to slow them down, switched a dribble handoff seamlessly forcing them out wide, and made them take a deep, contested three after burning 10 seconds. We knew what we were doing defensively, and they didn't. We had control of the game anyway at that point, but it was nice to put the final stamp on it and not have the anxious moment of them having the ball with a chance to tie or take a lead.

 

[intlzncster]

KO gave huge defensive game plan credit to Glenn Miller, and that's where I disagree with this ranking of individual coaches. Now coaches get some credit for hiring their staff with some inherited from before usually but aren't they the guys that stay up around the clock breaking down tape and always work one on one with the players? The boss soaks up the glory and the salary and 60% of the work is the underlings. Maybe the difference was we has better staff?

But that's the way it is in any sport. If you throw out caveats like that every time, you can't really evaluate anybody.

 

[gtcam]

First, I love KO, his character and bball knowledge is top 5. However, after 2 years, and yes, a NC, I find it hard to put him in top 5. I was surprised he wasn't in the bottom 25.
If he, and I have no reason to think he won't, remains as successful as past 2 years, he will be in top 5 in 5 years.

 

[Inyatkin]

It was all summed up in the final minute. Kentucky tried to run a designed defensive play to trap Bazz late in the shot clock and force the ball out of his hands (after the debacle of killing 50 seconds due to a y foul without being in the bonus). Some thought Young did that on his own, but it was clearly a designed defense..

I don't know. I could see a freshman, and a bad defender at that, acting all crazy like Young did and essentially ending the game by leaving Kromah alone underneath. To think that that was somehow a designed defensive play, by someone considered one of the better coaches going, is hard to figure.

 

[Gurleyman]

I don't know. I could see a freshman, and a bad defender at that, acting all crazy like Young did and essentially ending the game by leaving Kromah alone underneath. To think that that was somehow a designed defensive play, by someone considered one of the better coaches going, is hard to figure.

I think it was clearly designed for a couple reasons. Cal is off screen, but the players on the court look in his direction when Naiper's holding the ball at midcourt as if to observe a signal. And then Young made his move with 10 seconds on the shot clock - as if the clock was the cue to run the double.

A hyperactive guy might have left after Harrison poked the ball free thinking there might be a loose ball, or possibly brought help too soon if he was the closest defender. But Young was 40 feet away, and had to pass by Boat and his Harrison (defender) to bring the double. It is possible that Poythress didn't hear/see the signal and didn't react properly. There was never a timeout called, so perhaps they needed a chance to get organized (but final minute of a NC, you better figure out a way to be organized).

 

[Inyatkin]

I think it was clearly designed for a couple reasons. Cal is off screen, but the players on the court look in his direction when Naiper's holding the ball at midcourt as if to observe a signal. And then Young made his move with 10 seconds on the shot clock - as if the clock was the cue to run the double.

A hyperactive guy might have left after Harrison poked the ball free thinking there might be a loose ball, or possibly brought help too soon if he was the closest defender. But Young was 40 feet away, and had to pass by Boat and his Harrison (defender) to bring the double. It is possible that Poythress didn't hear/see the signal and didn't react properly. There was never a timeout called, so perhaps they needed a chance to get organized (but final minute of a NC, you better figure out a way to be organized).

Yeah I think the key is that designed or not, it was so unbelievably poorly executed. Really doesn't speak well for his coaching if 40 games into the season that's how his players are carrying out his plans (or freelancing, whichever).

 

[Gurleyman]

Yeah I think the key is that designed or not, it was so unbelievably poorly executed. Really doesn't speak well for his coaching if 40 games into the season that's how his players are carrying out his plans (or freelancing, whichever).

Yeah - it looked like a drill on October 20 where the coach stops the practice and says, "no, no, no - that's all wrong". The whole point of doing it is to force someone else to make the play, but Kromah didn't even have to make a play, really - other than catching the ball. Harrison's hands were down the whole time in a Venus de Milo defense, and for Bazz it was just a jump to the left to create a passing angle (and then a step to the right).

I was also wrong - Kentucky did call a timeout after the foul with 50 seconds left, so they all should have been on the same page. It looked like Kentucky had never run this type of double before, but I wouldn't put it past our coaching staff to have seen it in film study and had everyome prepared on how to break it. When you look at the success we had with the lob pass to DD against zones (an option unavailable when he was in foul trouble), or how we leaked out Giff against the UF press, or how we exploited the switch that put Randle on Boat - we always (or often) seemed to be prepared to atttack various wrinkles. Kentucky was in enough close games that they may have shown that double before. Or it could just be Bazz being savvy and acting on instinct from seeing doubles like that before.

 

[CL82]

KO gave huge defensive game plan credit to Glenn Miller, and that's where I disagree with this ranking of individual coaches. Now coaches get some credit for hiring their staff with some inherited from before usually but aren't they the guys that stay up around the clock breaking down tape and always work one on one with the players? The boss soaks up the glory and the salary and 60% of the work is the underlings. Maybe the difference was we has better staff?

Good point. Head coaches get the credit or the blame for a team's success but it's not that simple. Watching Ryan completely take good college players out of the game, I couldn't help but think of Ricky Moore. Part of what makes the UConn staff is that they are all share a Connecticut/Calhoun lineage. I think coming off of the same coaching tree makes them very effective.