Modern offense two games in a row
- Thread starter kyjeff1
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I remember that thread. We'll see if they continue shooting this well, but I'll give you your props for stating that opinion when they were shooting poorly and sticking with it in that thread even with a lot of people calling you crazy.
25 percent for the season, 9 of 13 the last two games. While he's obviously not a close to 70 percent three point shooter (nobody is), he's definitely better than a 25 percent shooter from out there. If you can shoot close to 80 percent from the foul line, it says you should shoot better than 1 out of every 4 from three.
Being young is just an excuse that doesn’t work here. We've had far too many elite shooters come through here that lit it up as soon as they went to the NBA or transferred.
Auburn is the youngest team in the country, but that's not stopping them from hitting a high percentage of threes every game.
You’re saying we need to hit a high percentage from 3 point range, but there are games where we only took 7 total threes. If you hit 4, which is above 50% (a high percentage), you've only hit 4. Our opponents keep hitting 10+ on us. If we were to play Gonzaga or Baylor, we better hit a lot more than 4 threes.
But that's not my only point. Cal's offense has always been anchored to the post. It revolves around the post. We're down 15 with 3 minutes left and dude is still running it through the post… .. with guys who can't score in the post (go watch the Alabama game in Rupp this year.).
The last two games, the offense has ran through outside shooting and look how many points we put up. Look how many driving lanes opened up. Look how many putback dunks we get. This isn't hard to understand.
Yes, you HAVE to shoot a high percentage, but you also have to shoot more than 7. To me, you need to shoot 20-25 threes a game. For one, you'll make at least 8, more times than not and you'll also get a good amount of the rebounds.
Lastly, again, the last two games, Cal has played outside in. In 12 years at UK, those two games are the only games he's done that in.
Well, I went and found that thread a couple hours ago and resurected it. I know I'm an a$$ for doing that, I hate call out threads, but I felt it was necessary today.
No worries. I understand the "I want to say I told you so" mentality.
Ah. You're right. With today's 5 for 8, he improved to 29.4 percent (20 for 68) on the season.
A great thing to see was that he tried to throw it down...no dipsy-doo bullspit. (Which was another call the refs missed; he got hammered)
you keep moving the goal posts. You’re acting like we should have accomplished more in 12 years when measured against the talent we’ve brought in. Well, it’s also extremely relevant to note that our talent is generally younger than what other teams work with, because that shows that maybe the talent advantage that you’re trying to judge Cal against isn’t as much as an advantage after all. It’s a fact that we’re usually working with younger teams. Calling it an excuse won’t make it disappear.
The fairest way to look at it is just to look at the end results. Take out all the ******** about talent, experience, etc. and just cut to the bottom line. And the bottom line under cal has been indisputably very good.
Experience playing at this level can have an impact on shooting percentages. Not always - some guys light it up immediately - but we’ve had tons of players under cal improve their 3pt percentage from the beginning of the season to the end.
Auburn? You mean 11-11 auburn? That Auburn? Would you be happy with Cal if we were 11-11 but took a ton of threes? I wouldn’t. I’d be pretty pissed, just like I am now.
I think we probably agree more on this than we disagree. I think we need to be shooting around 20 per game, maybe slightly more. I don’t think the three ball has to be the primary weapon (because the facts don’t bear that out) to succeed, but I also don’t think we can just take 7 a game. That’s far too few.
Who from Auburn is hitting a high percentage of 3s "every game?" Nobody. But the guys they have that are hitting at an "ok" clip of about 35% are upperclassmen. Powell has shot well, but he's played in less than half the games. Powell is also an anomaly, a freshman who can shoot.
Look at the top 50 players in 3-pt.%s in the NCAA stats. How many freshmen will you find? If that's not enough to make you say hmmm, then look at the next 50 players and tell me how many freshmen you can find even in that bottom group. And it makes perfect sense. College is vastly different game than high school. Now it's bigger, quicker, grown men checking you and coming at you. You now have to get your shot off much quicker than you ever had to in high school. Tell me how that would not impact a shooter. It takes time to get acclimated at a minimum. This usually means lots of repetition getting your shot off quicker and thus for a while feeling like you're "rushing" your shot (e.g., Quickley previously, Allen now), and sometimes even requires shot changes for kids who were good shooters in high school.
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The difference was they made shots. Better ball movement got better shots which improved the percentage.
The analytics nonsense jones et all keep peddling is asinine. 3 point misses count the same as two point misses. It has nothing to do with the shot taken, but who takes it and under what circumstances. The raw analytics doesn't account for the player which weights the true results. Of course if all things are equal, three point shot is preferred but not all players are equal.
The player should always only shoot shots that player has a high percentage chance to make. It's really that simple despite the numbers tossed around.
Want to talk about getting better shot makers? Absolutely agree. But that goes towards the impact on the player side, not the shot itself. Not the notion that just shooting threes will magically make your offense better.
Shooting threes doesn't make your offense better. Making threes does. There is a difference
The analytics nonsense jones et all keep peddling is asinine. 3 point misses count the same as two point misses. It has nothing to do with the shot taken, but who takes it and under what circumstances. The raw analytics doesn't account for the player which weights the true results. Of course if all things are equal, three point shot is preferred but not all players are equal.
The player should always only shoot shots that player has a high percentage chance to make. It's really that simple despite the numbers tossed around.
Want to talk about getting better shot makers? Absolutely agree. But that goes towards the impact on the player side, not the shot itself. Not the notion that just shooting threes will magically make your offense better.
Shooting threes doesn't make your offense better. Making threes does. There is a difference
I brought up the NBA talent thing, because you brought up youth. I'm not actually moving goal posts.
What I AM doing, is I'm defending my points and I'm debating the youth/supreme talent vs veteran/average talent issue. I refuse to bite on the lack of experience thing, because this is the system Cal chooses to use.
You say some guys have improved their three point shooting here at UK under Cal. I strongly disagree and the reason why, is because until the last 2 games, his offense was 100% feed the post or drive the ball. 3 point shooting was never something Cal had in his playbook. As a shooter, you had to get your own.
Take a look at Herro, Murray, Quickly and Booker. Yeah, they were good shooters here, but the second they got to the NBA, they lit it up. Reason being, the NBA plays a spread out style of game and 3 point shooting is a focal point in today's game.
If Cal ran this outside-in offense in 2015 against Wisconsin with Booker, Ulis and Aaron, they would have smoked Wisconsin. That's exactly how duke beat them… .. twice.
Yeah, Cal has been very good, but, like I have been saying, his offense is what has kept him from at least 3 more titles here. You can argue it all you want, but even though Wall, Cuz, Bledsoe, Jones, Knight, Lamb, Randle, Aaron, Andrew, Ulis, Murray, Fox, Monk, Bam, Booker, Townes etc… were freshman, they were still top 5-10 best players the seasons they played. Guys like Wall, Murray, Randle, Fox, Ulis, Cuz and Townes were easily first team talents when they were here, but we didn't win titles those years. You can point to the out dated offense Cal ran as the reasons why we came up short with elite talent, length and athleticism.
Bottom line, it took 16 games into Cal's 12th season, for him to try something different offensively and it's working. He tried to turn Skal into a black to the basket player for Christ sake. He’s been trying to do it with Jackson and Sarr all year this year. He says he adapts to the players he has, but he doesn't, he has 1 offense and 1 defense and they only work with the right mixture of NBA talent and elite size. He finally realized he had to run a modern offense and look what's happening.
Yeah, four final fours and a title is "good enough"… .. until you look closer at the talent he has had. Only Dean Smith did less with more.
You asked if I would he happy with an 11-11 record, well, no, but I'd be happier with that then I am right now with a 6-12 record. I don’t get the point here. Auburn is the youngest team in the country and they didn't get Sharife Cooper until, what, January? They've played a tough schedule too. If we were 11-11, we might actually have a chance at an at-large bid by winning out.
We didn't lose to Wisconsin because of our offense. We lost because they score 1.23 points per possession on our elite defense. Back to back games against ND and Wisconsin the defense was suspect (1.16 vs ND).
That being said those ND and Wisconsin teams had weren't just the best in that specific year offensively but the best since efficiency stats were kept.
Every time we lose especially in the tournament we play the what if game. UK absolutely crushed teams that season. 38 in a row and most weren't close. People don't give Wisconsin nearly enough credit they should in that game. They 8th best offensive rebounding team was completely shut out on the boards and a historically good Wisconsin offense just shot the ball extremely well (and when they did miss they rebounded 43% of their misses).
That being said those ND and Wisconsin teams had weren't just the best in that specific year offensively but the best since efficiency stats were kept.
Every time we lose especially in the tournament we play the what if game. UK absolutely crushed teams that season. 38 in a row and most weren't close. People don't give Wisconsin nearly enough credit they should in that game. They 8th best offensive rebounding team was completely shut out on the boards and a historically good Wisconsin offense just shot the ball extremely well (and when they did miss they rebounded 43% of their misses).
Oh I give Wisconsin a ton of credit, but we lost to them because we stopped scoring. We tried to run clock and ended up with two shot clock violations.
Duke's defense was nowhere near the level UK's was that year, but they beat Wisconsin twice by scoring the ball. Heck, they beat them @ Wisconsin that season.
Cal choked that game away. Some guy did a simulation and he did it 10k times and UK wins 80% of the time. We lost because Cal played stall ball with the ball up 4. The wisconsin players were holding their hips and had their hands on their knees but Cal let them rest and didn’t go for the jugular. Had we scored to put our lead to 6 we win.
I hear ya’. When we hit shots, it not only looks better but it’s “modern.”