Finding the right balance offensively | The Boneyard

Finding the right balance offensively

UChusky916

Making the board a little less insufferable
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Offensively, this team is very good when they are in rhythm. Typically, we see this happen in transition, pushing the ball after a stop. However, the team has also shown it can be very sloppy at times in transition, forcing things when they're not there, or turning the ball over.

Because of the turnovers and sloppy play in transition, Hurley reeled in the team a few weeks ago to try to SLOW things down and run more offense. Unfortunately, our team has a hard time playing in rhythm when playing in the half court methodical offense. And because we don't have bigs to create offense down low, we've seen our guards find themselves in late shot clock situations and have to throw up bad shots or try to force something that isn't there.

So, pick your poison... Sloppy up and down transition play... or a stagnant offense out of rhythm forcing things late in the shot clock.

I think there's a happy medium that Hurley and the team need to find on offense, and we saw it in stretches last night (in the first few mins of the game, and late in the 2nd half to get back in it). We've also seen it when teams go zone against us. The team moves the ball well against zone and with a purpose, so the team plays and shoots in rhythm and generally looks more comfortable.

Hurley will have to find a way to get the team to push the ball and play fast with a purpose on offense while not turning the ball over. It's a delicate balance to find and guys are going to make the occasional mistake, but if the offense keeps pressing and can play in rhythm, we'll make up for the mistakes on other possessions. Also I think we'll find ourselves at the FT line more, which should help with the foul disparity.

Slowing the offense down to try to execute in the half court simply has not worked well for this team.

A lot of this fast-paced style depends on getting stops defensively, and I'm sure Hurley is telling his guys that... defensive stops are the priority. But offensively, the team has shown they simply struggle to execute in a slow methodical pace. Either press more and punish turnovers/mistakes, or find a way for the team to be more effective by moving the ball more and creating a rhythm offensively.
 
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Yeah it's definitely pick your poison with them I agree. I would prefer them to run as much as possible but not turn it over unnecessarily. Whatever it will be different game to game with this team, as long as we see the passion we saw last night and mostly the SMU game I can weather the storm of 2019.
 

UConnSwag11

Storrs, CT The Mecca
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When this team doesn’t turn the ball over and there aren’t a ton of fouls making the flow of the game choppy we’ve been very good. But we have to work on limiting turnovers and getting to the foul line. Most of our losses have come from games where the refs were blowing the whistle on everything and teams that like to make the game sloppy benefit from that
 

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