1standgoal
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DeShields needs help.
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mlindsay
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What do yall want from her? When she doesn't shoot she's the problem, when she does shoot she's shooting too much. Last night she played just as Holly asked her to play, she didn't jack up shot, she didn't try to make it about Diamond and a couple of her turnovers was still due to her trying to force it into the Post. Yes I would love to have the free throws made but what else could she have done? She played within the flow of the game which is what everyone has been asking her to do and yet it still isn't enough smdh
mlindsay
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mlindsay
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How can she if she is being handcuffed (like many of the other girls) Why isn't Dunbar playing? Why is Carter and Reynolds playing so much? Why isn't Moore seeing more action? Holly seems to play players based on seniority or what they can do for her at that moment and not the best players on the team and that's troublesome. To say you know you need to play a certain player more but seem to never be able to do is horrible coaching.
Playing them by some other criteria perhaps.....it is truly strange the playing time that Carter and Reynolds are getting.....and playing them together for long periods of time.....both have real issues scoring the ball and Carter who is supposed to be a defensive whiz was beaten off the dribble time and again last nite.I have noted that when these two are in the game at the same time we usually go into a long scoring drought and blow double digit leads or dig a hole so deep we can not get out of it just like the south Carolina game.
Carter had some nice on the ball defense last night that forced Ole Miss to rush their offense. She is a major pest against PGs with average handle, court awareness, and athletic ability. But against teams with a capable floor leader that isn't bothered by her energy, then she is unable to disrupt their playmaking ability nor their ability to beat her off the dribble.
I do wonder if her supposedly elite defensive skills make up for lack of offensive production enough that Holly isn't willing to gamble on Kortney's offense making up for her supposed defensive liabilities.
vol-un-tear
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teacherdean
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We can't use Diamond as a scapegoat. She was a great player her freshman year and I doubt that you can find one LV fan who wasn't excited about Diamond's choosing the Lady Vols. I think we are looking at a very stressed young lady who has a difficult time playing in our present system. Yes there is a an ego issue, but most great players have that. If you look at Diamond, you see a defeated, and very unhappy, young lady that almost looks clueless. You never say that during her freshman year. She has lost her confidence and basically has gone from a big game player to an unpredictable role player.
Look at all the players and what do you see? Not one player has played up to their high school press clippings, you see it ocassionaly but it is only for a very short time. The question becomes is it the system or is it the players? As a team we are a turnover machine and have been so for the last four years. Not only are the players broken, but the system is broken.
Look at all the players and what do you see? Not one player has played up to their high school press clippings, you see it ocassionaly but it is only for a very short time. The question becomes is it the system or is it the players? As a team we are a turnover machine and have been so for the last four years. Not only are the players broken, but the system is broken.
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vol-un-tear
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from the beginning people have been complaining about DD, has she meet our haughty expectations of her? Perhaps not, but from the beginning people have called her selfish, a ball hog, not a team player and on and on. From my prospective I saw a player trying to be the go to player, when others wouldn't shoot the ball she would have to jack up the shot. That wasn't good enough for some they started complaining about her shooting so much so she started trying to pass the ball to no avail because she now has so many turn overs. At the SC game I saw at least 3 to's credited to her that the pass should have been caught or blown assists by her teammates. You say she's not a team player but KD in an interview said DD told her to be ready she was going to get her the ball. She was up celebrating when something good happened for this team. Some of you don't agree but her defense and rebounding are pretty darn good. Maybe she is trying to adjust to playing with pain! My heart breaks for this child that so many of you want to crucify!! I think her main crime may be trying too hard to do good for this team. How can we fault her for that? I'm not good at expressing exactly what I'm trying to say, I just think a lot of things are being said about and blamed on DD that are unfair? Did she come in and say she was the "promised one" or were those our expectations of her?
teacherdean
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madtownvol
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I wish this post could be pinned. 99.999% of posters who are so authoritatively posting about Diamond being a cancer, etc have no clue about her relationship with teammates, attitudes during practice and so. They are just projecting their own negativity onto a convenient scapegoat.
It is one thing to trash coaches--they are adults and paid to do a job--student-athletes are just that. It was thing to analyze aspect of their game but all this character assassination is troubling. It is unfortunate how widespread it is on this board.
You are a star player, and you are the most gifted player on the team, and the head coach tells you that you (guard, wing players) must move (I would say pass, but we all know it's dribble) the ball around the top of the key and let the post players do their thing.
UNC ran a motion offense with Diamond, a lot of movement, and a lot of fast break (and yes that comes with a high TO rate no matter the team). Imagine what we would see if we saw a different offensive strategy in our game.
As a coach, it is SOOO clear as night and day what the issue is. Diamond wants to win. Diamond wants to lead the team, Diamond has not bought into the offensive strategy. In the same line, she isn't being coached. They want her to settle in, stop pressing the issue of trying to score points. Diamond has only knows how to be a top scorer. The strategy is to let Russell/Graves score the majority of our points. Do you see plays being ran for our players coming off screens for wide-open jump shots? See a player running baseline with a post setting a low post screen? No.
Diamond isn't being used to her abilities, but rather, being forced to play in an offensive strategy that the coach's have made that is post oriented, paint points. So what is the outcome of this situation? A Megan Simmons-esk stat line. And that's not a blow to Megan or Diamond. That's the way Pat wanted it. I think this offensive strategy works when you have players like Holdsclaw, Catchings, Parker's, G. Johnson (never really developed to her potential IMO) that can out work their opponents in the paint because they can jump, score, and move at a pace that nobody can stop them. We don't have that right now in our post.
We are stuck expecting results from an offensive system built for personnel we don't have. Ladies and gentleman, this is the issue. Mismanagement of personal on the offensive side. But I'm not surprised, because here at Tennessee, we are defense first, always have been that way. And that has proven to win championships. I love my lady Vols. Here's to finishing the season strong ... to the best of our abilities.
UNC ran a motion offense with Diamond, a lot of movement, and a lot of fast break (and yes that comes with a high TO rate no matter the team). Imagine what we would see if we saw a different offensive strategy in our game.
As a coach, it is SOOO clear as night and day what the issue is. Diamond wants to win. Diamond wants to lead the team, Diamond has not bought into the offensive strategy. In the same line, she isn't being coached. They want her to settle in, stop pressing the issue of trying to score points. Diamond has only knows how to be a top scorer. The strategy is to let Russell/Graves score the majority of our points. Do you see plays being ran for our players coming off screens for wide-open jump shots? See a player running baseline with a post setting a low post screen? No.
Diamond isn't being used to her abilities, but rather, being forced to play in an offensive strategy that the coach's have made that is post oriented, paint points. So what is the outcome of this situation? A Megan Simmons-esk stat line. And that's not a blow to Megan or Diamond. That's the way Pat wanted it. I think this offensive strategy works when you have players like Holdsclaw, Catchings, Parker's, G. Johnson (never really developed to her potential IMO) that can out work their opponents in the paint because they can jump, score, and move at a pace that nobody can stop them. We don't have that right now in our post.
We are stuck expecting results from an offensive system built for personnel we don't have. Ladies and gentleman, this is the issue. Mismanagement of personal on the offensive side. But I'm not surprised, because here at Tennessee, we are defense first, always have been that way. And that has proven to win championships. I love my lady Vols. Here's to finishing the season strong ... to the best of our abilities.
armchair
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our offensive system is terrible. I couldn't tell you what it is, but it seems to involve a lot of aimless dribbling around the perimeter, wasting the shot clock, and then a pass or two to someone who is not open and then whoever has the ball often has to force up a shot. We have lots of TOs partly (but not solely) because we have too many players standing around on every possession. It--IS---TERRIBLE.
It is very clear that Warlick is stuck in the 1970s. She can't see that offense is the problem, and she hews to UT's 1975 style of offense, which involved throwing it to a big who would score. The game has changed, Warlick. Russell and Graves are not real scorers. But it must also be said that they do NOT take a lot of shots.
Who does? DeShields has about twice as many shots as anybody on the team. (Cooper is second--and both have low shooting percentages, in the 30s). She's had a lot of good looks, too--because she can get a good look almost any time she wants. But she misses most of them. Does she miss because she's forcing shots, rushing shots, etc.? It's hard to say, but there is something way off about her game. And she tries too many flashy passes that don't work. Sometimes our players are not expecting them, often they are too hard to be handled properly, and sometimes they're just errant. She came in the second half last night, drove the baseball, and then whistled a pass inside that went straight to an Ole Miss defender.
Is coaching and our crap system a party of this debacle? No doubt about it--but where exactly coaching stupidity ends and player accountability begins is hard to say. Even in pickup games with no coaching, good players will play well--they will make open shots, they will make good passes. DD has not done that.
As for DD's attitude. She was not on the floor for two minutes in her first game for UT when one could detect some bad body language with her--frowns, a bit of a casual approach to the game that suggests someone who has a tendency to turn on her play and then turn it off a bit when she feels like it, kind of playing apart from her teammates. She seems to have a tendency to want to drift on the court--and then suddenly try to do something special, make a quick move and score and make some halfway impossible pass. On defense she will jog around almost casually--and then try to get serious if she has to. She seems to lack a commitment to consistent hard work and fundamentals. I don't think DD is a bad person at all, she's probably a very good person, but there is definitely a prima donna quality to her game. And that would be OK by me and most people if she actually performed like a prima donna! That's the problem--she hasn't. So I think both our system and DD herself are the problems.
Another problem is that we've all overrated our talent. Most of our players simply aren't that good, and that might also figure to small degree in the DD equation. Russell is OK but just is too big and clunky to be a dynamic force in the paint. Graves works hard but is not a natural scorer. We have NO natural scorers other than DD. I've always liked Carter--and we damn sure need her defense--but offensively she does very little; she plays the PG position too cautiously. In a better offense, with lots of screening and cutting and people getting open, she'd be fine. But in our crap offense, where there is little of that and people do not get open, Carter seems often to have the ball with the shot clock running down, and she is not great at creating. Reynolds is better at that, because she's bigger and can get her shot off more easily. We've played some crappy, ugly offensive basketball for years--but this year it is especially bad.
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