Buzz mistake

[BCHoopster]

MU found out how hard it is to play without one of the centers in the game, big mistake.  You have 2 centers with 2 fouls in the first half, so what.  That is 10 fouls between the 2
of them.  Play one of them, Notre Dame is to long to not have one of them in the game, it cost Buzz and the team.  So one picks up a third foul, so what.  The team had no idea what to do offensively once they were on the bench.

[4everwarriors]

Who needs centers when you have guards.

[CTWarrior]

MU found out how hard it is to play without one of the centers in the game, big mistake.  You have 2 centers with 2 fouls in the first half, so what.  That is 10 fouls between the 2
of them.  Play one of them, Notre Dame is to long to not have one of them in the game, it cost Buzz and the team.  So one picks up a third foul, so what.  The team had no idea what to do offensively once they were on the bench.

Agree.  Thought so at the time as well.  Neither one of them ended up in real foul trouble, too.  I always say that if a player fouls out, he played the maximum minutes he could have played.  If he doesn't you left him on the bench too long.  If you're worried about foul trouble, I'd have stuck with Otule in those spots.  We don't play him the last 5 minutes because of his poor foul shooting anyway.

[Niv Berkowitz]

Hind sight is always 20-20.

I think what he did was right. So...he leaves in Otule or Ox and they get to four fouls. Then what? You have to now pray ND doesn't have a coach smart enough to hammer it down low w/Cooley against whoever has 4.

It's a 40 minute game. IMHO, you have to play the odds/clock and sit those guys for 20% of the first half and roll w/the second half essentially at a tie game.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Who needs centers when you have guards.

You need good guards.....consistent guards....do we have them? 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

You need good guards.....consistent guards....do we have them? 

I'll just end the ensuing debate for both of you.

You be a REALLY good team, you need good players at EVERY position.

[We R Final Four]

I can live with a foul battling under the basket. What drives me crazy is that fricking foul hedging on a screen 25' from the hoop. When DG got his first, I said that is going to hurt us later. My buddy said its only his first. I know they all count the same, and you only get 4 before you are done, but our bigs are always susceptible to this on O and on D.

[denverMU]

How about playing zone?  Many coaches play zone to protect players in foul trouble.  Let alone maybe it would prevent lay-up after lay-up in the second half with are inability to defense the pick and roll.

[MarquetteDano]

Who needs centers when you have guards.

Still waiting for the three center lineup in college like half the teams in college employ on the guard side.

[GGGG]

I can live with a foul battling under the basket. What drives me crazy is that fricking foul hedging on a screen 25' from the hoop. When DG got his first, I said that is going to hurt us later. My buddy said its only his first. I know they all count the same, and you only get 4 before you are done, but our bigs are always susceptible to this on O and on D.

Marquette is going to keep doing that when Buzz is here.  We have been doing that for five years and not had inordinate trouble with fouls on our bigs during his tenure.

As far as the OP, I agree that sitting both bigs sapped the momentum and I do think he should have played them.  However they also overcame that and Otule was HUGE at the beginning of the second half, and we built a nice little lead.

Which we promptly pissed away with turnovers and giving up offensive rebounds.

[ErickJD08]

I thought the biggest mistake was not getting the ball to DG or CO immediately after Cooley picked up his fourth.  The next time it was done was with about a minute left in the game and Cooley immediately fouled out.  In the meantime, he got about three offensive boards.  Oh well.  On to the big dance.

[Lennys Tap]

I can live with a foul battling under the basket. What drives me crazy is that fricking foul hedging on a screen 25' from the hoop. When DG got his first, I said that is going to hurt us later. My buddy said its only his first. I know they all count the same, and you only get 4 before you are done, but our bigs are always susceptible to this on O and on D.

I (amid several swear words) said the same thing.

[Dawson Rental]

How about playing zone?  Many coaches play zone to protect players in foul trouble.  Let alone maybe it would prevent lay-up after lay-up in the second half with are inability to defense the pick and roll.

Connaughton made that impossible.

[Litehouse]

The crazy thing is that neither of them got another foul the rest of the game.  If Buzz really had to pick, he should have left Otule in and saved Gardner for the end.  Dancing Bear's offense and free-throw shooting is more valuable at the end.

[denverMU]

Connaughton made that impossible.

No he did not.  He started 0-2, we were giving him wide open threes playing man to man how could zone be worse?, and we played zone plenty against them when we beat them at home.  

[LAZER]

All around I don't think Buzz did a very good job managing that game.  Seemed like he was subbing too much and disrupted momentum and flow for MU.

Taylor needs more than 7 minutes in that game too.

[The Equalizer]

All around I don't think Buzz did a very good job managing that game.  Seemed like he was subbing too much and disrupted momentum and flow for MU.

Taylor needs more than 7 minutes in that game too.

I don't think Buzz did anything different from what he does in any other game--its just that it didn't work this time.  If we won the game by pulling away from ND at the end, the story line would have been what a masterful job of managing his bench to wear down the opposing team.

The problem is that Notre Dame didn't wear down at the end.

The same thing on defense.  If you've watched MU over the last five years, you notice that Buzz puts a premium on tight man defense. That normally creates a lot of turnovers that lead to transition baskets--but it also means that if a player does break free from his defender against MU, he'll either wind up with an open look, an easy path to the basket, or we'll break down defensively trying to recover, leaving a man open.

IMO, Brey did a great job to identify and exploit our defensive weaknesses. 

In other words, to do a better job defending the three, we'd have to give up pressuring the ball 35 feet from the basket. 

As an aside, the +/- on Taylor was minus 10.  Playing him more isn't the answer.

[LAZER]

I don't think Buzz did anything different from what he does in any other game--its just that it didn't work this time.  If we won the game by pulling away from ND at the end, the story line would have been what a masterful job of managing his bench to wear down the opposing team.

Exactly, it didn't work and they couldn't get anything going, so there's probably something Buzz could have done better.  I think one glaring issue is coming up with a plan to guard Connaughton.  He was at the Rutgers-ND game, it should have been emphasized that they couldn't afford to let him get open.

And we didn't pull away for ND and our bench didn't wear down ND, so now the story line is what could MU have done differently.

[BCHoopster]

They were picking for Connaugton, so the whole team has to help, I mean seriously, MU goes into a zone on out of bounce and you do not guard him, are you kidding me?  That to
me is bad coaching.

[CTWarrior]

As an aside, the +/- on Taylor was minus 10.  Playing him more isn't the answer.

Except almost all of Taylor's minutes were in the stretch without Gardner or Otule.  I don't think anyone is suggesting we play Taylor instead of those guys, but rather instead of Lockett/Mayo/Anderson. 

[We R Final Four]

Marquette is going to keep doing that when Buzz is here.  We have been doing that for five years and not had inordinate trouble with fouls on our bigs during his tenure.

Happened with Jae, happenned with CO, happens with DG.  Inordinate trouble?

I'm not going to ignore it either.  Buzz may keep doing it, and our bigs will continue to get cheap fouls called on them 30' from the hoop. 

[RJax55]

Happened with Jae, happenned with CO, happens with DG.  Inordinate trouble?

I'm not going to ignore it either.  Buzz may keep doing it, and our bigs will continue to get cheap fouls called on them 30' from the hoop. 

Sultan's right. To eliminate the fouls, MU would need to change how it defends ball screens. If you change that, you're changing the entire way MU plays half-court defense. Also, as frustrating as some of those fouls are, our bigs still need to hedge the screen hard. If they don't, that's only going to cause bigger problems.

Ever defense has its pluses and minuses. A minus of this system is that your bigs can pick-up fouls far away from the basket.

[Eldon]

#freestevetaylor

[GGGG]

Happened with Jae, happenned with CO, happens with DG.  Inordinate trouble?

I'm not going to ignore it either.  Buzz may keep doing it, and our bigs will continue to get cheap fouls called on them 30' from the hoop.  

But it doesn't happen all that often.  I don't think we have a big committing a foul hedging a ball screen more than a dozen times a year...maybe not even that often.  Then the question has to be whether or not it is worth those dozen fouls a year to completely change the defense.

Where ND was *killing* MU last night is that they were running Grant off down screens and letting him curl and get down the lane with impunity.  Everything that Buzz's defense is predicated upon is keeping the ball out of the lane...the anti-paint touch.

[Warriors10]

#freestevetaylor

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