Morning After Coaches - a rant

[Beware of the CPaw]

I've been lurking this whole season, but I've finally had enough.

For all of you morning after coaches out there that seem to know more about the players strenghts and weaknesses than Hugs and his staff, I ask you to think about how much you would be screaming about an 8 win season right now.

Yes I said 8 win season!

Although the guys that play major minutes "suck" and the bench riding freshman have talent oozing out of them, you need to, as Nick Bakay would say, break it down scientifically.  The recent comment de jour has been that the offense is stagnet with Barker out there and that it flows much better with someone that penetrates and dishes.  The offense is stagnet because the team is not committed to running the offensive sets.  Although many of you think Hugs couldn't coach an offense out a paper bag, I'm pretty sure that he did not design the sets to have such horrible spacing.  Hugs fustration this year is that if he goes to his bench, he has to bring in someone that does even a worse job of remembering the scouting report and the position he is suppose to be in during a particular set.

The only reason the team seems to score better in a "fast paced" game is that the other team is less committed to making UC play basketball and, much like the summer league, athleticism can cover up for dumb play.  When you watch the freshman play, they thrill some of you because they attempt to play this more fun style, but that is because they don't remember what their assignments are.  Pro and High-Level College Basketball are much more than organized chaos.  Players need to spend time on film study, learing the offensive sets, reading and remembering the scouting reports.  Every player on the floor has an assignment.

Back to the reason I said 8 wins.  If Hugs did play the young guys more, they may have seemed like they would be more fun to watch (BTW, last time I checked it was about winning, not entertaining, unless we are talking the Globetrotters).  But the team would have looked like North Carolina did last year.  Hugs chooses to go to war with the players that committ to him and his way of doing things.  

The freshman have a lot of talent.  Hugs is on record stating that Kirk could be one of the best he's had at UC, IF HE LISTENS.  I don't understand how anyone thinks that players are suddenly going to make the correct decisions during a pressure packed game if they can't do it during practice.  Oh that's right, you are willing to give up defensive positioning for the CHANCE that someone might be able to score more points.  This isn't 1989 and we are not LMU.

Now before everyone thinks that I think Hugs is the greatest offensive coach in the world, I do think he made a mistake from the start of the season in the offensive philosophy for this season.  He had an expectation that Max would play on the block and that he had 2 shooters (FW and TB) that would keep defenses from sagging.  I think he overlooked the fact that he no team would respect his other post player and would use that defender to clog up the passing lanes.  However, as I sit and think about it, the other options all pose their own major weaknesses.  The triangle requires good interior passers to get the ball back out and the open post motion offense would have kept Max out of his comfort zone too much of the time.

I could go on, but I will end with this.  How spoiled are we that a 17 win season is considered an absolute failure.

Mike in LA

ps I love the revisionist history on the forum: we lost because the team didn't have their legs because Hugs ran them too hard on Monday and Tuesday.  That one was almost as good as Charles Williams getting suspended for flashing a gang sign!




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