Slow and Steady Loses the Race

#1
U

UneducatedGuess

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#1
It starts with PACE
My #1 issue with last years team, and I saw it again vs Villanova, is a hesitancy to PUSH THE BALL.

Tennessee is littered with athletes and spot up shooters. When we push the pace, the floor opens organically for this team. We have players who can drive the ball this year. We have additional spot up shooters. Our bigs are mobile.

However, when we walk the ball up, and get into half court, we forfeit our advantage. All the sudden our mobile bigs become glorified screeners. You’ve made them space eaters.

We aren’t the greatest screening team. We have one guy (Santi), maybe two (Bailey when he’s in his positive flow) that are really skilled running their defenders into screens.

When we have JJJ, Olivier, and Fulky in the game, we are a half court set. I don’t know why, but these guys don’t run. It’s a crippling lineup. It was much too static. It looked like Cuonzo was outfitting our team without a big that can score.

Fulkerson, JJJ, nor Olivier pose the Grant Williams scoring threat that unlocked players around them. So with them in the lineup, opposing teams just cover the two guards and pack the paint.

We aren’t a great half court set team. Our team is built to run.
 
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#2
#2
100% this. Tempo is our friend. Playing slow is bad for us. UNC usually plays very fast. I think we will too and today will be a great learning experience about what our identity should be.

Remember the game last year at Rupp. That's how we played, and it was glorious.
 
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#4
#4
Barnes is not going to allow this team to play uptempo. He just doesnt do that. How many years of the same boring **** do we need to see before our fanbase realizes it?
 
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#5
#5
jeff1vol said:
Barnes is not going to allow this team to play uptempo. He just doesnt do that. How many years of the same boring **** do we need to see before our fanbase realizes it?
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Not going to Allow is not the words. Barnes realizes that he has to play uptempo but IMO he has to learn how to coach a 40 minute UpTempo team. He is in transition and almost like he is learning. Hard to abandon old habits especially when you have a team built for both types of games....
 
#6
#6
Barnes needs to know that he has PGs that can handle uptempo without turning the ball over. I remember well when he used to scream at Bone to play faster. It sure looks like he has no issue with ZZ playing fast. KC is still loose with the ball at times.
 
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#7
#7
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Barnes needs to know that he has PGs that can handle uptempo without turning the ball over. I remember well when he used to scream at Bone to play faster. It sure looks like he has no issue with ZZ playing fast. KC is still loose with the ball at times.
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Also screamed at Bowden to play fast and to drive to the basket.
 
#8
#8
jeff1vol said:
Barnes is not going to allow this team to play uptempo. He just doesnt do that. How many years of the same boring **** do we need to see before our fanbase realizes it?
Click to expand...

This isn’t true at all. Jordan Bone pushed the ball regularly. Last year we didn’t push at all, trying to push offense through the post.

We pushed the ball today vs UNC. Perhaps we game planned Villanova to slow down tempo. Just saying, the team isn’t built for that. Let’s play our strengths.
 
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#9
#9
In half court offense, our bigs are not much to be feared. It may turn out that BHH can put some fear into them, but that is a ways off. And it even looks like he can run. Since we are 9 or 10 players deep, and they all can run, and given what we saw with ZZ over the weekend, I agree that we should be trying to push tempo all the time.
 
#11
#11
youcancallmeAl said:
In half court offense, our bigs are not much to be feared. It may turn out that BHH can put some fear into them, but that is a ways off. And it even looks like he can run. Since we are 9 or 10 players deep, and they all can run, and given what we saw with ZZ over the weekend, I agree that we should be trying to push tempo all the time.
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They don’t need to be feared. Just being able to back their man down one-on-one while having the ability to kick the ball out to the 3-PL when the double team comes is sufficient. I think that Fulk, ORN, and BHH are capable of executing that.
 
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#14
#14
cardvolfan said:
So, he didn’t allow them to play up tempo yesterday?
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He did. And Im glad to see it. It would be coaching malpractice if he didnt let them use their athletic ability. Lets not act like he hasn't been very hesitant to let his teams play uptempo his entire career. Maybe he is adjusting to todays game. Finally.
 
#15
#15
Thunder Good-Oil said:
They don’t need to be feared. Just being able to back their man down one-on-one while having the ability to kick the ball out to the 3-PL when the double team comes is sufficient. I think that Fulk, ORN, and BHH are capable of executing that.
Click to expand...

There is no double team because our bigs aren’t scoring threats with their backs to the basket. Even worse, they are not threats away from the basket.

This…is the problem and why we are best suited to RUN. Others pointed out depth as a reason as well.

And before I hear about Fulkersons scoring ability as a post player, most of his points come when he’s gotten the ball in the high post (elbow) and has space to drive. This was largely two years ago before teams started adjusting and collapsing a guard to disrupt his dribbling as his ball handling can be erratic.
 
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#16
#16
UneducatedGuess said:
There is no double team because our bigs aren’t scoring threats with their backs to the basket. Even worse, they are not threats away from the basket.

This…is the problem and why we are best suited to RUN. Others pointed out depth as a reason as well.

And before I hear about Fulkersons scoring ability as a post player, most of his points come when he’s gotten the ball in the high post (elbow) and has space to drive. This was largely two years ago before teams started adjusting and collapsing a guard to disrupt his dribbling as his ball handling can be erratic.
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Hmmm. Nkamhoua is 4-6 from 3 and BHH is 1-1. ORN is currently 83.3% from the FTL. But they aren’t threats to score away from the basket?

Fulkerson often backs his defender in from just outside of the paint from the side. And a second defender will often help out. I’m pretty sure that that is a double team.

“Guess” again.
 
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#17
#17
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Hmmm. Nkamhoua is 4-6 from 3 and BHH is 1-1. ORN is currently 83.3% from the FTL. But they aren’t threats to score away from the basket?

Fulkerson often backs his defender in from just outside of the paint from the side. And a second defender will often help out. I’m pretty sure that that is a double team.

“Guess” again.
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Those outside shots from bigs are results from higher pace games where the floor is open and not compressed.

Against Villanova, where we ran almost exclusively half court sets, our bigs did not even attempt a 3 — and furthermore — barely attempted any shots that I can recall.

Our half court offense, when the ball is walked up, turns bigs into screeners.

Now, maybe it was just that Nova had superior front court talent?? But I’m not sure that’s it because they switched every screen, so we shouldn’t had mismatches….but maybe we just struggle with teams that switch….

Either way, pushing the ball fixes it. Results don’t lie. Play to your strengths.

Olivier (0-2 FG, 0-0 3PT)
Fulkerson (2-2 FG, 0-0 3PT)
BHH (1-1 FG, 0-0 3PT)
Aidoo (0-1 FG, 0-0 3PT)
Uris (0-0 FG, 0-0 3PT)

Just following the stats
 
#18
#18
jeff1vol said:
He did. And Im glad to see it. It would be coaching malpractice if he didnt let them use their athletic ability. Lets not act like he hasn't been very hesitant to let his teams play uptempo his entire career. Maybe he is adjusting to todays game. Finally.
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He's always talked about the 7 second offense. Rarely had the guards to run it except for Bone era.
 
#19
#19
UneducatedGuess said:
This isn’t true at all. Jordan Bone pushed the ball regularly. Last year we didn’t push at all, trying to push offense through the post.

We pushed the ball today vs UNC. Perhaps we game planned Villanova to slow down tempo. Just saying, the team isn’t built for that. Let’s play our strengths.
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Bone didn't push the ball up the court as aggressively or as consistently early on on his career. Barnes did talk to him about this frequently during that period of time.
 
#20
#20
I love that we just beat a blue blood powerhouse in UNC pretty soundly, and here we are bitching about the tempo of our offense--especially this early on in the season. Everyone here is quite aware that Rick Barnes has forgotten more about basketball than anyone here has probably learned, right?

Edited to fix glaring typo missed due to cold meds
 
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#22
#22
volfan4lyfe said:
I love that we just beat a blue blood powerhouse in UNC pretty soundly, and here we are bitching about the tempo of our offense--especially this early on in the season. Everyone here is quite aware that Rick Barnes has forgotten more about basketball than anyone here has probably learned, right?

Edited to fix glaring typo missed due to cold meds
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The post was written before the UNC game and, guess what, they pushed the ball against UNC. Having basketball opinions that something could be better is far from calling for Barnes's head. Some of you all would rather moan about the tiniest perceived slight about Barnes rather than just, you know, discussing hoops. It actually is possible to like Barnes and want things to be better.
 
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#23
#23
Unconditional Surrender said:
The post was written before the UNC game and, guess what, they pushed the ball against UNC. Having basketball opinions that something could be better is far from calling for Barnes's head. Some of you all would rather moan about the tiniest perceived slight about Barnes rather than just, you know, discussing hoops. It actually is possible to like Barnes and want things to be better.
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There have already been about 100 posts about Barnes’s contract. It’s not exactly a tiny perceived slight. It is garbage being spewed chronically by a handful of haters.
 
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#25
#25
Unconditional Surrender said:
I guess I missed the part about his contract in this thread
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Contract extensions, $5 million, 5th highest paid, post season. They drone on relentlessly like the amount of compensation is directly correlated to the amount of effort an already wealthy coach is going to put out. The compensation is a stupid argument to make in EVERY ****ing thread. We get it. They ALL make too much money and how the numbers were determined that are on his specific contract has come about has nothing to do with each and every game. There is zero chance of getting a better result for that amount of money by finding somebody else to build and run the program. Barnes’s pay is irrelevant to how the team’s shots are falling game-to-game. The economics of coaches pay is as relevant in an in-game thread as whether or not his boxers are the correct shade of orange.
 
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