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Message: [QUOTE="Bone Dog, post: 4424902, member: 12088"] Good post. I'm not sure you're actually disagreeing with me, at least about the first point. I pretty much said he teaches a sophisticated passing game first and foremost. This is part of building the team culture he wants to see, along with the emphasis on teaching team D. [B]But once this project is well underway, and when he's reflecting on the team with Coach P, as in this clip, he also notes the need to encourage kids to "just go." [/B]This is pretty much consonant with what you are saying. You present this thought as a criticism of Geno's over-emphasis on the passing game, and it [B]almost[/B] sounds like Coach P thinks this too. But I see it as two-different stages of how he builds the team up each year. He is well aware that the structured passing game is not as effective in March -- he's said this [B]many[/B] times -- and that's why he also has to encourage a "one-on-one" mentality into his players. Also, the problem isn't encountering "more physical teams," but rather encountering better coached teams that know how to respond to complicated passing schemes. They may be more physical as well, but this hasn't always been the case. You call this a "dribble-drive-pitch" mentality, perhaps rightly so, and this leads to your second remark about Nika, namely that [B]you think she's more than capable of this[/B]. I'd agree, if we say this capability has been mainly an undeveloped potential. The evidence is pretty clear that in her first two years she did very little of this, and even quite often slashed and then passed up what looked very much like easy layups to pitch it out. She seemed to lack the one-on-one mentality, to be afraid to finish, or perhaps merely diffident about her shot making ability. Eventually in each season, opposing teams stopped defending this from her, and her ability to find open teammates was greatly diminished. This was very thoroughly discussed all summer long. Two signs of this shortcoming in her game: 1. she took very few free throws, and 2) Geno took to sitting her down in the 4th quarter of close games, or using her in an O/D platoon. Now, I agree with you that [B]this is a part of her game she can develop[/B] -- we might mean that she's capable of it in this sense -- and[B] I even think I've already seen signs of it in the first two games[/B]. For example, she took and made a midrange jumper against NE. The very next play, she slashed into the lane and the defense collapsed on her, and she found Azzi on the perimeter. Classic dribble-drive-pitch. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach