Offensive Identity, or lack thereof

[PimpMario]

I will preface my comments.  The good news, this team is relatively young (although they really aren't that young compared to other B1G teams).  The bad news is that they are young, and who knows if they will be coached up between now and next year.  

 

I still think this team can grow and we can have a good year next year, and I don't think the sky is completely falling.  

 

Having said that, last night was terrible.  And yes, if we had pulled out the win I would have still made this thread because as terrible as we played last night Penn State may have actually played worse.

 

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I honestly don't know who has less of an offensive identity right now, the football or basketball team?  And that is not a compliment to either.

 

I was so heartbroken after the Michigan loss.  Today, I am not sad I am just mad and frustrated.

 

I woke up today to Nick Bahe venting about the offense and a lot of what he said paralleled what I have been feeling about the offensive identify of this team. 

 

You should give it a listen, I can't find a direct link and don't know how to embed but the podcast segment is entitled "Segment 2: Finishing the Thought"

 

What is a good possession?  Miles and this team need to figure out how to make the guys understand what a good possession is.  With good possessions we will get good high percentage shots.  Sometimes shots don't fall, but that hasn't been our problem.  If doesn't seem like guys know they they are supposed to be doing within the flow of the offense so they just fall back on whatever they do when they play pick up games.

 

We have a systemic problem of this team being selfish.  We are worse than 300th in the country in assists.  And maybe the guys aren't being selfish but they certainly haven't been taught that driving down and jacking up a shot without rebounders is bad.  

 

WE aren't getting good possessions, and I don't know if it is because Miles hasn't communicated to his team what he wants, if they are ignoring him or if Miles doesn't know what they want. 

 

Nick talks a lot of about sharing the ball, screening for you teammates, driving and kicking, cutting.  All of which it seems like this team either doesn't do or does half heartedly.    

 

I thought we might be onto something with the UM and OSU games.  I thought we were going to have Petteway, Biggs and Webster drive a lot.  Put pressure on defenses and kick it to open shooters.  Instead last night we jacked up a lot of 3s early in the shot clock.   Kept the ball on drives and turned it over some more.  

 

And Miles sucks out of timeouts.  We never seem to get good set plays out of timeouts.  Maybe that is why Miles doesn't like calling timeouts, they don't do us any good.

 

Nick quantifies coaching of players this way, here is my rankings for last year and this year.

How hard do they play: Last year A+, this year B- 

How unselfish do they play: Last year B+, this year F-

How smart do they play: Last year B+, this year C+ I am not sure anyone knows what they want to do on offense

 

"Good teams have good possessions and good possessions usually lead to high percentage shots and rarely lead to turnovers."

 

/vent