Coaching vs Pitt

[CTWarrior]

I was dumbfounded that we were not consistently doubling down against Gray, just as I was dumbfounded by the same decision against McRoberts of Duke.  Which is probably one of many reasons why I'm never going to coach kids above the town rec leagues.  Brilliant decision because it helped keep Pitt's three point bombers from getting going.  The offense has returned to its strength, which is utuilizing our quickness with constant ball movement and the drive and kick.  A masterfully coached game by Crean.

OTOH, am I the only one who gets infuriated by our stubborn refusal to play offense when we have an 8-12 point lead with less than five minutes to go?  It's the one thing about coach's in game style that has driven me crazy since he got here.  When we were up 9 with less than four minutes to go, I was 95% confident we were going to let them back in the game, because we always do.  We stop playing offense and start playing keep-away in that spot.  We are perfectly content to take a shot clock violation or throw up an off balance 20 footer as the shot clock expires.  Don't get me wrong, I'm OK with using some clock, but how about running 15-20 seconds off rather than 30 before we try to do something?  Or taking a layup when one is presented because of a failed steal attempt?

Granted the ref hosed us big time with that foul call with 3.5 seconds to go, but we shouldn't put ourselves in a position where one bad call can kill us, either.

[mu03eng]

I, too, do get frustrated with the taking the air out of the ball at the end of games.  It usually works out but sometimes the team gets panicy, like at UofL, and we turn it over a couple of times in a row.  I actually agreed with Packer yesterday, James needs to monopolize the ball in the last two minutes.  Make sure the offense flows through him.  I think the key is we wait maybe 5 seconds too late before attacking the basket.  All in all, I think it has gotten better as we go.  Give Crean another year or two and I think he will take care of this deficiency as well.

[NYWarrior]

I think some of the blame goes to DJ here -- and credit to Pitt's defense too.  When Gray was out of the game late, the Panthers played their best defense of the afternoon.  MU's high picks were much less effective, so our guards could not create the openings they did earlier in the game.  There were at least two occassions late where DJ had a mismatch on the perimeter (remember that awful three when he shot it over Vanilla Ice?) that he failed to recognize -- and settled for  a 'J' over a drive.  MU still had good matchups late but Pitt's look was different -- perhaps the guys on the floor were slow to recognize it

[RawdogDX]

One thing you have to remeber is although it probably has cost us some games and made some close that shouldn't have been close it probably has won some games that we would have lost had we kept up a fast pace attack style of play.

[CTWarrior]

I think some of the blame goes to DJ here -- and credit to Pitt's defense too.  When Gray was out of the game late, the Panthers played their best defense of the afternoon. 

While no doubt Pitt was quicker with Gray out of the game, I in no way blame players for this.  We were doing the same keep away nonsense and giving up leads when our offensive weapons included Dwyane Wade, Travis Diener, Steve Novak and Robert Jackson.  The good thing about that team is that once we blew the lead they could turn it back on and pull the game out anyway (See Pitt in the 2003 tournament).  I think the passive offense really takes the starch out of the team and even translates over to the defensive end of the floor as we basically concede all momentum and aggression to the other team.  I don't think Crean is going to "correct" this issue over the next couple years because I am confident he doesn't see it as an issue.  And he may be right.  Just drives me nuts is all.

[Big Papi]

I too am disappointed with the way we ran our offense against Pitt at the end of the game and this is a common occurence but I think there is a fine line between good and bad taking the air out of the ball and unfortunately with this team your going to get a lot of both where everything changes in an instant from one extreme to another. 

We are generally a bit too loose with the ball throughout an entire game.  That stems from our aggressive behavior that leads to a lot of streaks both good and bad.  We constantly look to attack the hoop and try to take the first opportunity we get so during the good we get lots of layups and foul shots, during the bad we turn the ball over a lot, take bad shots and get a lot of charges called on us.  When we take the air out, we automatically get away from what we do 99 percent of the time but you still have to do it because it still tries to minimize our bad streaks by eating away the clock.  I would much rather turn the ball over 30 seconds into the shot clock than 7 seconds.  Its frustrating and I know it is not ideal but we could just as easily give the lead away by playing aggressive instead of taking the air out of the ball.  Hopefully we will get better at it as the year goes on and with the progress this team has already achieved, i am sure we will.

[MU71]

Save the frustration for when we lose - we'll have opportunity yet this year.  All in all I think TC did a great job yesterday but we wouldn't be knowledgeable fans if we didn't have issues with a few things.  I for one, hate to see a time out to set up a shot with less than 10 seconds on the clock - it seems we never get the shot we want. 
But we won and overall the game plan was flawless.  I was ready to write this team off based on the preseason and the first 2 BE games.  I will now fully commend Tom for righting this ship.  Fifteen free throws in a row to end the game - who would have possibly foreseen that?