Seems like the defense is on the verge of becoming special, just wish we could figure it out on the offensive end. I think if you asked a lot of us at the beginning of the season it would have been the reverse with us worrying about the defense and not having concerns with the offense.
I think we're making some headway offensively. Honestly, when Brimah went down, the offense was pretty respectable (I forget where exactly they were ranked, maybe 50th or so).
Brimah is a useful offensive player, but that's in a vacuum. For us, he's arguably a transformative offensive player if for no other reason than that Nolan is so bad on that end. As a result, the difference between Brimah and Nolan may constitute the difference between an incompetent offense and a passable one. I don't think it's a coincidence that, in Brimah's first game back, we had one of our better shooting performances in a while (46% from the field, granted against a bad defense).
I don't say this to slam Nolan. He's a valuable spare part who is going to help us win a game once in a while - defensively, he does certain things that Brimah and Facey don't do, and if the match-up dictates he gets more minutes, he should. He's earned that much.
The chasm in the on/off splits with him on the court are hard to ignore, though, and that's not just based on this season. It's last season, too. When he's not in there, the ball reverses sides with more fluidity because defenders have to pinch down from the weak side on Brimah rolls.
The challenge lies in improving the offense while maintaining the defensive efficiency that we reached with Nolan getting minutes. If we can do that, I'll take my chances against anybody, sans maybe UNC, on a neutral court. Today was a good step in that direction.
