UChusky916
Making the board a little less insufferable
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- Sep 1, 2011
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I'm going to piggy-back off of my Cassell/Nolan lineup thread... Why did we see that lineup according to Ollie? (thanks for the quote @Kitaman )
This has been a theme of KO... giving players minutes based on practice performance. We've seen that with Nolan/Enoch off the bench at the 5 and now we're seeing it with Omar/Cassell off the bench at the 3.
I think it's a great concept that he wants enforce... the culture of 'EARNING' your minutes in practice to keep the competition-level high.
However, playing guys like Cassell/Nolan should be reserved for November/December home games versus cupcakes, and not January road games vs conference teams. At some point or another, you have to consider the fact that some guys have better pure ability than others and they play better when the game lights are on.
Not to mention, KO seems to play these guys at the oddest times. Up 11 early in the first half he maybe felt like he could 'afford' to play these guys. This is not only a terrible thought on its own, but especially so since this team has shown throughout the whole year that in the blink of an eye they can suddenly go LONG stretches of playing poor basketball.
That's exactly what happened yesterday when KO took out 3 of our starters out in the under 12 timeout. Not only was Nolan terrible (6 mins, 4 fouls, 1 TO, 1 REB) and Cassell invisible, but the team's starters also lost any momentum they had by the time they came back in after the weird line up. As I mentioned in the other thread, after KO inserted Nolan/Cassell, the team would only make 1 FG over the next 8:30. Sterling looked out of sync, turning the ball over. And the 11 point lead we had was eviscerated by halftime.
KO needs to understand that this team's STARTERS are still learning each others' tendencies and growing together to develop chemistry and learn their roles. There's a lot of new faces on this team between the freshmen and transfers... they've basically only had a 6 months of playing with one another. Also, there's no way to replicate game situations in practice, so they're really only been playing GAMES together for 3 months. Throw in the Brimah injury, and you have a chemistry shake-up nightmare.
Compare this team who has had 3 months of game action together to the 2014 team, whose starters had a minimum of 2 or 3 years to develop chemistry with the same core group of guys and you can see the difference.
KO should not be tinkering with the line-up more than he has to, it's only further hurting the chemistry of the team, and that's a big problem for us right now.
"Sam has been playing well in practice," Ollie said. "Wanted to get a shooter in there. Omar has been struggling from the three-point line the last couple of games and Sam had been playing real well in practice, making some shots. I just gave him a chance. Everybody's just got to be alive."
This has been a theme of KO... giving players minutes based on practice performance. We've seen that with Nolan/Enoch off the bench at the 5 and now we're seeing it with Omar/Cassell off the bench at the 3.
I think it's a great concept that he wants enforce... the culture of 'EARNING' your minutes in practice to keep the competition-level high.
However, playing guys like Cassell/Nolan should be reserved for November/December home games versus cupcakes, and not January road games vs conference teams. At some point or another, you have to consider the fact that some guys have better pure ability than others and they play better when the game lights are on.
Not to mention, KO seems to play these guys at the oddest times. Up 11 early in the first half he maybe felt like he could 'afford' to play these guys. This is not only a terrible thought on its own, but especially so since this team has shown throughout the whole year that in the blink of an eye they can suddenly go LONG stretches of playing poor basketball.
That's exactly what happened yesterday when KO took out 3 of our starters out in the under 12 timeout. Not only was Nolan terrible (6 mins, 4 fouls, 1 TO, 1 REB) and Cassell invisible, but the team's starters also lost any momentum they had by the time they came back in after the weird line up. As I mentioned in the other thread, after KO inserted Nolan/Cassell, the team would only make 1 FG over the next 8:30. Sterling looked out of sync, turning the ball over. And the 11 point lead we had was eviscerated by halftime.
KO needs to understand that this team's STARTERS are still learning each others' tendencies and growing together to develop chemistry and learn their roles. There's a lot of new faces on this team between the freshmen and transfers... they've basically only had a 6 months of playing with one another. Also, there's no way to replicate game situations in practice, so they're really only been playing GAMES together for 3 months. Throw in the Brimah injury, and you have a chemistry shake-up nightmare.
Compare this team who has had 3 months of game action together to the 2014 team, whose starters had a minimum of 2 or 3 years to develop chemistry with the same core group of guys and you can see the difference.
KO should not be tinkering with the line-up more than he has to, it's only further hurting the chemistry of the team, and that's a big problem for us right now.