Depth

[GTNupe11 2,033]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

Man this is all speculation from me. I don't know if Bruce would even want Mark. But I don't know why you wouldn't want him.

But me knowing Mark and me knowing his family history with Auburn and what I know as far as basketball if we had him right now it would be a match made in heaven. 

But I do know coach Pearl knows him and I know he's a legacy but that's all I really know. Also idk but you may have seen how some people laughed at me and said he wasn't that good, so you can imagine how satisfying that would be for me as well. 

I'm already smiling back saying not too bad for a community college player huh 😁

But actually I don't guess now is the time to talk about roster moves. I'll enjoy the team we have now!

Haha. You know how people can be round' these parts. I mean, it's always fun talking about roster moves, so, I welcome the insight and conversation. 

[rocketman73 31]

Virginia* double dribbled.

Don't tell me to "get over it".

[Dunndone414 469]

5 hours ago, cole256 said:

Man this is all speculation from me. I don't know if Bruce would even want Mark. But I don't know why you wouldn't want him.

But me knowing Mark and me knowing his family history with Auburn and what I know as far as basketball if we had him right now it would be a match made in heaven. 

But I do know coach Pearl knows him and I know he's a legacy but that's all I really know. Also idk but you may have seen how some people laughed at me and said he wasn't that good, so you can imagine how satisfying that would be for me as well. 

I'm already smiling back saying not too bad for a community college player huh 😁

But actually I don't guess now is the time to talk about roster moves. I'll enjoy the team we have now!

Without attrition I’m not sure we really have room for more guards next season. (Should never rule out attrition in CBB, though.) The #1 portal priority will be addressing the frontcourt. 

[cole256 17,042]

On 2/14/2022 at 9:55 AM, GTNupe11 said:

Haha. You know how people can be round' these parts. I mean, it's always fun talking about roster moves, so, I welcome the insight and conversation. 

Ok cool, you just know how some guys be. Imo Mark is pretty much our 3 guards in one player so that would be an awesome addition. But that's just my opinion and coach may not see it that way. 

I don't think anybody can look at Mark's game and stats and not see how talented he is though

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

On 2/12/2022 at 2:24 PM, cole256 said:

And this latest game against A&M highlights another point I was trying to make with the turnovers. Watching that game you will feel that we still didn't play that well but look at the score. 

You see this is most teams against us as we are just more talented. We can play bad but still beat most teams. The only way teams are going to beat us is if we turn the ball over too much. Once of the main fifferences between this game and arky game is turnovers (other is free throw) if a team can't get us to turn the ball over even our ugly games our opponent still can't measure up. 

Imo turnovers is the only way we can really be beat, so that's why I was emphasising. 

Just offering an explanation and showing the logic of my opinion. Everybody is certainly entitled to their own. Also in my experience whenever I lost to a team that really wasn't in our class in talent and also the games where I won that we shouldn't have won the main reason was turnovers. 

Turnovers can get anyone beat on any given day. The only thing our guards do that really gives me heartburn is when they drive into a lane they can't finish in (crowded at the rim). The reason this bothers me so much is our wings and other guards don't do a good job of spotting up to give the driver a bailout. They're not out there just getting their pockets picked left and right. Its a team-wide issue with making sure there is a shooter in the open passing lane. 

On 2/12/2022 at 3:25 PM, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

I know for the longest he was shooting far above 50% on catch and shoot threes here. Didn’t get many of them with being asked to be the primary shot creator, but he was virtually automatic. 
 

THOSE would be almost exclusively the type of shots he gets here. And those have been in abundance here, to say the least 

No real opinion on Powell other than to say his role is what is missing on this team. Like I said above about the turnovers, we don't have a guy right now doing a good job spotting up. Most of our threes are being shot off the dribble (Green/KD), and those are just lower percentage shots. KD needs to step up here. Of the guys that get the most playing time, I think he has the ability to do better spotting up and his percentages will rise as a result. 

At this point in the season we are who we are and we can only improve on certain things. Better spacing and filling passing lanes should be something that can be improved on, which should improve shooting percentages. Don't expect someone to just start consistently making shots, we will have to continue to win with lower 3 point shooting percentages, but hopefully more catch and shoot and less pull up 3s will help some. 

[cole256 17,042]

22 minutes ago, JwgreDeux said:

Turnovers can get anyone beat on any given day. The only thing our guards do that really gives me heartburn is when they drive into a lane they can't finish in (crowded at the rim). The reason this bothers me so much is our wings and other guards don't do a good job of spotting up to give the driver a bailout. They're not out there just getting their pockets picked left and right. Its a team-wide issue with making sure there is a shooter in the open passing lane. 

No real opinion on Powell other than to say his role is what is missing on this team. Like I said above about the turnovers, we don't have a guy right now doing a good job spotting up. Most of our threes are being shot off the dribble (Green/KD), and those are just lower percentage shots. KD needs to step up here. Of the guys that get the most playing time, I think he has the ability to do better spotting up and his percentages will rise as a result. 

At this point in the season we are who we are and we can only improve on certain things. Better spacing and filling passing lanes should be something that can be improved on, which should improve shooting percentages. Don't expect someone to just start consistently making shots, we will have to continue to win with lower 3 point shooting percentages, but hopefully more catch and shoot and less pull up 3s will help some. 

I've written a good bit on it, turnovers and ball handling is much more than getting your pocket picked. In your other post you mentioned Powell I'll use him as an example.

I haven't looked but I imagine looking at his stats last year people may come to a conclusion he was a good ball handler. From watching film on him I'd say he absolutely was not. He had to dribble with his back turned to move the ball, he didn't control pace, and he didn't handle tight defense well. Many people went on about how he was a good ball handler before conference games started and I disagreed. Everybody went crazy about it.

Then we played somebody like ole miss or maybe arky and they almost killed him. I knew this because of how uncomfortable he was, how I knew he would be scouted, how I knew they were going to attack him because you could see he was uncomfortable. And our IQ isn't high. 

But besides that like you mentioned driving and can't finish, also rushing and not really wanting the ball, not looking to make plays just looking to score. There's a reason the breakdowns happens at the end of games. They aren't confident. And yes turnovers can get anybody beat which is why I worry because without them I don't think we will get beat. There's a reason I knew this was coming. If you watch closely you can see we're in need of improvement in this area. 

When I would help train my cousin I knew he was a tweener and he was going to have to be complete. He later told me when he was on campus everything I would tell him as far as protecting the ball is exactly what coach Barnes preached. He wasn't the best PG in the nation or anything but there weren't many guards that performed better than him in the end of games. 

Handling and decision making, we need to get better before this thing ramp up. I'm sure Pearl is saying the same thing. 

[cole256 17,042]

Turnovers and our guards making poor decisions at the end of the game......whenever we want to talk about it and people want to know what's going on I'd love to have that conversation. I know since I said it it pisses a few people off, but it is what it is. I know what I'm talking about.

That being said this season isn't over or anything like that

[AUfan3333 74]

Your absolutely correct Cole. Poor (sometimes selfish) guard decisions have killed us in some games. I still think we can win it all, but this has to change. That last play tonight was just atrocious. Gotta at least give ourselves a chance there.

[Grumps 3,704]

42 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Turnovers and our guards making poor decisions at the end of the game......whenever we want to talk about it and people want to know what's going on I'd love to have that conversation. I know since I said it it pisses a few people off, but it is what it is. I know what I'm talking about.

That being said this season isn't over or anything like that

How easy/hard is it for guards to learn to make better decisions?

Can excessive turnovers be reduced/eliminated in two weeks?

Can we adjust our offensive strategy this late in the season to go through Jabari more?

Would this reduce turnovers?

[cole256 17,042]

24 minutes ago, Grumps said:

How easy/hard is it for guards to learn to make better decisions?

Can excessive turnovers be reduced/eliminated in two weeks?

Can we adjust our offensive strategy this late in the season to go through Jabari more?

Would this reduce turnovers?

I'm glad you asked these questions. We can turn stuff around but first we had to acknowledge the problems. You may have see a few people argue with me about turnovers not being a problem and they used stats to point this out. I imagine the players may have sort of been taking that attitude. 

But now since it's come to rear it's head and have now cost us a couple of games, our guys now have to look in the mirror. 

The reason I saw this coming was the habits our players have shown, even before they were costing us. They don't have a strong handle, and they don't value the ball every single possession. They can be nonchalant with the ball and even in attitude at times. 

They don't handle looking for others, they more handle to look to score. If they aren't attacking they aren't comfortable with the ball in their hands. They drive without thinking, sometimes getting trapped in the air because there wasn't any thought but score. You can tell everybody value the point statistic but nobody is going out of their way to lead in assists on the box score. 

Then you have to realize people are giving their all against us. And I don't think they play with that same grit they played with at the beginning, they may think they can, but you can't just turn it on and off like that. They need to give it everything they got. 

You see these are things you don't go to a box score and see, but you better believe guys are watching film just like I broke some things down waiting to exploit the first sign of weakness. 

I think we can shore up most of this, but teams are going to try to blitz us at the end of games, it's been successful time and time again, so people are going to attack that weakness, and somebody is going to have to be at the least a decent point guard for us. Somebody is going to have to step up and own that role. 

There shouldn't be anybody thinking anything else besides get the ball to Jabari at the end of a game. If he kicks it out be ready to shoot, but besides that give him the ball.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,648]

16 hours ago, cole256 said:

They don't have a strong handle

Something that I can’t help but think limits how many teams you can beat out of the major contenders. Someone’s just gonna be an ass and press all of our guards 94 feet and make it to where we can’t even initiate a look for Jabari and Kessler

[bigbird 60,441]

10 minutes ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

Something that I can’t help but think limits how many teams you can beat out of the major contenders. Someone’s just gonna be an ass and press all of our guards 94 feet and make it to where we can’t even initiate a look for Jabari and Kessler

I'd run a 1-2-2 or a 1-3-1 and trap the hell out us

[autan 737]

I think CBP is a great coach, but I would like him to take a little more responsibility for some of the  chaos we see at times, especially at end of regulation with 7.5 seconds. After a timeout I was disappointed. Throwing it in to Green in deep back court who dances around from 30 ft. out waiting for something to happen had me closing my eyes. Where was Jabari? I've played and coached a little basketball but I don't claim to know much, if anything.

My guess is KD was geared up and ready to go. Giving it to him and letting him go to the hole like a bat out of Hades was maybe our best hope. If they put two on him, maybe he dishes to JS for the short jumper or WK for the dunk. I think we at least get a shot off in 7.5 seconds and maybe even a second chance. I think we all realize no foul was going to be called by those refs unless it was a charge on KD. But what do I know?

[abw0004 10,109]

@JwgreDeux and @cole256:  Not a depth question but I do feel like we are starting to regress the last few games.  I think it started before Arkansas honestly.  To me, I feel like Johnson is becoming our biggest liability on the court.  I feel like he gets too stubborn and when he is having a bad game he does not distribute the ball and takes the entire team down with him.  He isn't like Smith, Jr. who realizes he is not having a great game and will get the ball to others.  It is starting to give me a bad taste in my mouth every time I see JD with the ball.

Am I wrong in my thinking?

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

On 2/19/2022 at 7:23 PM, Grumps said:

How easy/hard is it for guards to learn to make better decisions?

Can excessive turnovers be reduced/eliminated in two weeks?

Can we adjust our offensive strategy this late in the season to go through Jabari more?

Would this reduce turnovers?

Better decision making is tough frankly, but CBP can tweak the actions and set plays to give our guards better options. 

To reduce them, we need to get back to what we were doing before, pass the ball. I don't mean to oversimplify it, but too much dribbling is hurting us. CBP here can also tweak alignments to help in certain circumstances. 

I think it is less about going through Jabari and more about reducing how much we rely on the dribble by our guards. One thing you can do is to quickly get it out of there hands by going to a big above the top of the key to swing the ball and let our guards get a catch to survey the floor before they have to put it on the floor, small things like that can help a lot. 

Green strikes me as a smart enough player to improve, KD I worry about. But this is a team wide issue. Look at our two recent losses, yes you have turnovers from the guards, but also by AF, Kessler and Smith. And the assist numbers are down. Vs UF 9-17 assist to TO, vs Arky 8-19 assist to TO. The only player in either of those games with more than 1 assist was Green. Also in both games, we only forced 11 TOs and our block numbers were down as well with only 2 blocks as a team vs UF. I few this more of the team going through some growing pains, than I do a fatal flaw being exposed. We have good wins vs good teams that had time to scout us and press us and we handled it well. I think CBP makes some adjustments and we will be fine. 

 

3 hours ago, abw0004 said:

@JwgreDeux and @cole256:  Not a depth question but I do feel like we are starting to regress the last few games.  I think it started before Arkansas honestly.  To me, I feel like Johnson is becoming our biggest liability on the court.  I feel like he gets too stubborn and when he is having a bad game he does not distribute the ball and takes the entire team down with him.  He isn't like Smith, Jr. who realizes he is not having a great game and will get the ball to others.  It is starting to give me a bad taste in my mouth every time I see JD with the ball.

Am I wrong in my thinking?

I don't think he is our biggest liability. He hurts us at times, but he helps more than he hurts. Do I wish he would pass more? Yes, but his energy and scoring at big pluses. A guy we need more from is Flannigan. He's the guy I've been waiting to turn it up as the season has gone on. He has shown glimpses, but has not come along yet. I am holding out hope he does, as that is what can change the dynamic of this team for the better quickly. 

 

All of that being said, and acknowledging we have turned it over too much recently. The sky is not falling. Our three losses have been in OT and by 1 on the road. Despite not playing well in those games we still had opportunities to win, and all three of those teams are tourney teams (UF on the bubble). Take a deep breath, these tests will help us improve as we figure out what this roster is capable of going forward. 

[cole256 17,042]

Like I've said we need our guards to pick up their play, they've been scouted now.....people are prepared for them. We have to be creative and consistent moving forward. We need to end this or actually start anew. 

While everybody has been all over flan nobody says a word about green and KD. Like I said when you watch our guards they don't induce fear, and while they may not be the most talented individually, they can be formidable if they trust each other and work the system. 

[LPTiger 5,153]

What about getting Kess more shots?  In our last three loses, WG took 46 shots and made just 13 = .28%.   Kess had just 24 shots making 14 = .58%.   19 of WG's shots were 3s.   He made 2.  Kess took just 7 shots yesterday.

 

[Win4AU 4,052]

Need Jaylin, Cambridge, Cardwell to come out and have a big game at some point.  Haven’t really seen a bench guy go off like we’ve had in the past.  

[JwgreDeux 1,279]

On 2/26/2022 at 11:54 PM, cole256 said:

Like I've said we need our guards to pick up their play, they've been scouted now.....people are prepared for them. We have to be creative and consistent moving forward. We need to end this or actually start anew. 

While everybody has been all over flan nobody says a word about green and KD. Like I said when you watch our guards they don't induce fear, and while they may not be the most talented individually, they can be formidable if they trust each other and work the system. 

Flan had a good outing vs UT and didn't get the ball enough. He looked under control and more comfortable and needed more touches. That is where Green, Zep and KD have to do better (I'd like to see Zep get more minutes due to this). A big role of a point is to get the ball where it needs to go, sometimes that is doing it yourself, but often it is passing to the right guy in the right spot. Green has struggled with this in tight game situations. 

Due to his size, he has trouble seeing and passing over and around bigs that either trap or hedge on the pick and rule with Kessler in late game situations.

A couple of things that he could do that may help with the issues:  

• Build up a head of steam before getting into the half court to make it harder on the big to hedge without fouling. You see this often in the NBA with certain guards. 
• CBP could put Jabari in the pick n roll instead of Kessler. This forces him closer to the ball action and his defender would have less size than the player guarding Kessler. 
• CBP could utilize a designed reversal off of the screen so the action isn't immediately towards the basket, that is what I thought was coming in the UF game at the end before it all went sideways. 
• Take the ball out of Greens hands at the end. Let KD run it, or run a different action altogether designed to get Smith the ball.

So looking at the UT loss it shows that our struggles isn't limited to one issues like turnovers. It is a larger picture issue with tweaking the system to account for what opposing teams are doing. You see Smith's shots going up, which is obviously good and I have been calling for. But you still see Green and KD jacking up similar shots, so the ball movement has gotten worse as three guys took all the shots. Green and KD have to give up some shots to keep the flow going while Smith's shot volume rightfully increases. 

Let's use a bench guy who can provide scoring as an example. Williams shot the ball 5 or more times 13 of our first 17 games, scoring more than 5 points 12 times. In our last 12 games he has shot the ball 5 or more times 2 times, scoring more than 5 points 2 times. I could probably find similar numbers for Cambridge and Cardwell who depend on others getting them the ball in position to get lobs and layups. Green is the only guy off the bench that really can create, and he's not creating for anyone else at the moment. 

In our same first 17 games, Green averaged 10.6 shots per game, shooting less than 10 shots in 7 games. In our same last 12 games, he is averaging 12 shots per game, shooting less than 10 shots 4 times. He has shot the ball 15 or more times in 7 games this season. He has done it in 4 of our last 8 games, including two losses. In those first 18 games he shot 30% or less in 1 game. In our last 12 he has shot 30% or less 8 times, including two losses. 

In that same span we shot 40% or less as a team 2 times in our first 17 games, but have done so 6 times in our last 12, including 3 losses. IN those first 17 games we shot less than 30 % on three point attempts 4 times, in our last 12 we have done it 8 times. During our first 17 games we had 10 or fewer assists 7 times, during our last 12 we have done it 6 times, including three losses. 

Long story short, as we are getting Smith more shots, the rest of the shots are getting too concentrated on Green and KD and they are not shooting good percentages. They must accept the reduced load and sacrifice some shots for the good of the team. 

[abw0004 10,109]

On 2/27/2022 at 12:54 AM, cole256 said:

While everybody has been all over flan nobody says a word about green and KD.

I did!  I even asked you about it.  😂

On 2/23/2022 at 8:26 AM, abw0004 said:

@JwgreDeux and @cole256:  Not a depth question but I do feel like we are starting to regress the last few games.  I think it started before Arkansas honestly.  To me, I feel like Johnson is becoming our biggest liability on the court.  I feel like he gets too stubborn and when he is having a bad game he does not distribute the ball and takes the entire team down with him.  He isn't like Smith, Jr. who realizes he is not having a great game and will get the ball to others.  It is starting to give me a bad taste in my mouth every time I see JD with the ball.

Am I wrong in my thinking?

 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,648]

Yeah I’ve think Green has gotten plenty of blame too lol

[cole256 17,042]

I haven't seen it anywhere close to flan but it doesn't matter really. 

 

I just need our guards to get better, that's the only thing I'm worried about. The tournament is dictated by guards. The team with the smartest and most consistent guards are the teams that win

[steeleagle 2,945]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

I haven't seen it anywhere close to flan but it doesn't matter really. 

 

I just need our guards to get better, that's the only thing I'm worried about. The tournament is dictated by guards. The team with the smartest and most consistent guards are the teams that win

Yep. We’ve known that for years. Our pgs have to get better shots. Make better decisions. 
I heard on major sports review of dark horse in ncaas that it’s guard play that gets u to the FF and finals. And this one analyzer thought Auburn was falling down on odds just bc guards are playing so poorly. 

[Viper 3,128]

1 hour ago, steeleagle said:

Yep. We’ve known that for years. Our pgs have to get better shots. Make better decisions. 
I heard on major sports review of dark horse in ncaas that it’s guard play that gets u to the FF and finals. And this one analyzer thought Auburn was falling down on odds just bc guards are playing so poorly. 

Unfortunately have to agree. Jasper has to take more 3's. KD has to take less. KD would make a killing off dishin in the paint. Just have to swallow that pride and...

[Viper 3,128]

13 minutes ago, Viper said:

Jasper has to take more 3's.