I was avoiding working, so double-speeded through the Marquette game to see what our offense does with Malachi running point. The dude doesn't want to dribble around. The sets where he is in isolation with the ball are very, very slow to materialize. Far too detailed breakdown below.
For the "Malachi Sucks" contingent.
He enters around 12:20 in the video.
Pretty much right away, he commits a turnover on the oob play. It's just a terrible set and even worse execution. So he'll get the TO in the stat column, but c'mon, that's the best we can do?
at 24:19, we get the first Malachi dribbling around a lot example. But watch off the ball. You've got AK setting a pointless screen and slip to run into a missed screen by Reibe, who then turns to set a screen for Solo. Solo is briefly open, but continues running straight at Smith, creating abysmal spacing, so there's nothing there. So at this point, Malachi has been dribbling for basically 10 seconds b/c nothing is happening in the set.
Secondary action is another high screen by Reibe that the defender jumps, so Malachi spins off of it to penetrate and hit AK, who is open through a screen by Stew, who in turn gets the nice pass for the dunk. So in total, Smith was dribbling around for about 13 seconds, but really only because the offense took so long to develop.
Next offensive possession at 25:30 or so, has Solo starting the set before giving to Malachi, who uses a Tarris screen for space and gets AK the ball, who goes by his man for a dunk.
Around 29:35, you see Malachi get fouled on a drive to the hoop, which looks somewhat out of control. But again, watch the set. AK slips a screen. Then it's a high PNR with Tarris that Gold jumps because we have been scouted, and everyone knows that Tarris is not a threat 30 feet from the hoop, and the other three guys are standing still.
Smith leaves and reenters at around 35:20, and the offense flows fine the rest of the half, with a highlight being his drive and dish to Tarris
Second half, Silas commits his 98298th foul, and Smith comes in at 54:45 and the offense flows fine, other than we are missing shots and are just sloppy. I counted three good passes that were fumbled by AK and Reibe from Malachi.
At 1:05, Malachi gets the ball from Mullins with 5 on the clock for a PNR. They hedge and double Smith. Stew is open, but that would've been a very difficult play to make, at his size and angle, with only 3 seconds on the clock. Smith misses the jumper badly.
1:08, Malachi dribbles around for 15-20 seconds before AK springs open. That set is very, very long to develop. Not a Smith issue. Screen after screen just to get AK off the curl. There is nobody presenting as a passing option.
1:13, again, a lot of dribbling. At this point, at least in this game, the issue is that the sets have a lot of moving parts that are happening off the ball. There's literally nobody for Smith to give the ball to, with two guys setting screens for no one and Mullins and Solo waiting at the three-point line.
