coaching decisions...

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wavevcu

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so with about 13 minutes left in the game we are ahead by 7 and Gerald Lee goes to the bench...i turn to the guy behind me and say "how can you take your best player out when you are down 7 and he is your only scoring option ?'...a minute or so later our lead goes to 10 and Lee comes back in...Lee did not appear tired at the 13 minute mark.

so with 7 minutes left, blaine switches to a zone...turns our to be a brilliant move...we never solved it...we acted like we have never seen a zone before...but two coaching moves in the same half by the same coach...one stupid and the other brilliant...coaches decisions baffle me all the time...I am no genius but I do know the game...you cant sit your best player down with a 7 point deficit and no one else is scoring !
 
wavevcu said:
I am no genius but I do know the game...you cant sit your best player down with a 7 point deficit and no one else is scoring !
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Apparently.... you can.
 
Honestly, Blaine going to the Zone was brilliant and we never adjusted. ODU surged from there and we had no answer. That's partly coaching on our part and partly great execution from ODU. Hats off to them, they went into a hostile environment and took the game.
 
88RAM said:
And Shaka could not adjust to a zone? Weak!
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I didn't see any adjustment really. We were shooting pretty hot, so perhaps we were just planning on shooting over it. Ed and Joey were good in certain possessions at attacking the weak spots of the zone and exploiting them. We just missed some opportunities with Skeen missing a couple of chippies off of beautiful feeds and when we weren't attacking the Zone, we were just passing the ball around on the perimeter. When Brandon came in he shot over the zone and got us back into the game. I also do realize that Brandon wasn't in the game for much of overtime because of matchups. He did help when he was on the floor though. His three really kept the game within reach at a time we really needed a score. While Shaka could have been better, a lot of it has to do with ODU's zone. I mentioned it before the season even started. Their 2-3 matchup zone is just really tough and it proved to be true this year. They had BCS length and tons of bigs to rotate and pick up fouls. The matchup zone killed us and it was a brilliant call by Blaine.
 
We can talk Xs and Os all day, to me the deciding factor in this game was our inability to control the boards. Their bigs killed our bigs. That was the ballgame right there in my mind and its no secret because that's been ODU's formula for winning all season.
 
ShoeSh1ne said:
GMU went to the zone and we handled it well.
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Yes but our size overcame Mason's zone along with Roz's three pointer streak. ODU has really good big men. Size matters when you do different defense strategies. ODU had the size for a good zone.
 
A zone is not rocket science. We were up twelve against their man-to-man. Almost any coach would've tried something else. A zone is a logical choice and was a good call - - it was hardly brilliant though. VCU should've been anticipating that change - - ODU does it every game.

There's only a couple of things to do differently against a zone - - unless you want to only take perimeter shots from 24 feet (which is pretty much what we did).

1) Stop running pure screen plays in favor of motion plays with lots of ball movement.
2) Penetrate the zone and force it to collapse on the dribbler (freeing up interior passes for layups)
3) Once the zone collapses don't let it reset. Everyone will be out of position - - you have to keep the pressure on when that happens.

With all due respect to Joey (cuz I love his heart and what he has brought to the team this year) the main difference is at the PG spot.

The biggest difference this year is not just that we don't have Eric, but that we don't have anyone who can dribble penetrate like he could - - no one is even close. ODU and GMU went to that zone last year. Eric routinely split the middle with authority for an assist or the floater/layup. That didn't happen against ODU's zone Sunday. Joey stood out front and passed the ball around with the other guards. Frankly I think Nixon should have been at the top of the guy with the ball, penetrating that zone. But hey, I'm no college coach.
 
wavevcu said:
so with about 13 minutes left in the game we are ahead by 7 and Gerald Lee goes to the bench...i turn to the guy behind me and say "how can you take your best player out when you are down 7 and he is your only scoring option ?'...a minute or so later our lead goes to 10 and Lee comes back in...Lee did not appear tired at the 13 minute mark.

so with 7 minutes left, blaine switches to a zone...turns our to be a brilliant move...we never solved it...we acted like we have never seen a zone before...but two coaching moves in the same half by the same coach...one stupid and the other brilliant...coaches decisions baffle me all the time...I am no genius but I do know the game...you cant sit your best player down with a 7 point deficit and no one else is scoring !
Click to expand...

Well, what we miss in all this is that the coaches should know their players better than us. They know when they are tired; they know when they need a break; they know just how hard they can push a guy before it is too far.

With 13 minutes left Blaine had to know that he had to get Lee a blow. So he takes him out. We extend the lead, and he has to put him back in.

As for the Zone, we have handled others before. The only problem I have, and we have had this problem for the last couple years, is that we get out of the game that got us the lead and start to do something we don't do well. We blew a few leads under Grant because we we'd go to a half-court game that we were just not good at. With the lead I think you have to kill some time for sure, but how do you do that and keep from just going down, killing the clock, and jacking up some bad shot?

It is just not us. All running teams have the same problem. We play a gambling defense that leads to lots of steals and bad passes. So do you keep pushing or back off? Had Brad not gone for the steal late in the game, Finney never gets the wide-open three, game over. But that is how we play. But you have to have a lot of good players to run the entire game. At some point you have to slow it down. I think we jacked up too many threes early in possessions, with the lead, all season. But again, that is how we got the lead most of the time.

But give ODU some credit here. Their defense is what won them a lot of games.

I think we did what we could to win. It was a one possession game. What more could you ask for against a team that was clearly the favorite all year long? We won with senior leadership last year, Lee was the guy this year. Oh, Lee will be playing in Finland next year. :lol:
 
They are going to miss Lee every bit as much as we missed Eric. He was their top scorer, top rebounder (?), top free throw shooter. heck, their guards are such average ball handlers that he brings the ball up the court against pressure. They let him isolate his man on their last play in regulation. Do you think they might miss him a little? They are looking at a 3-5 finish next year without him - - same as us this year.
 
We will of course miss the heck out of him on the offensive end. But as another ODU poster pointed out to me, Gerald was one of the worst defenders on the team. With Frank/Keyon/Wright/Cooper we will be that much better on defense down low.

Now...where do the points come from? I don't know. Baze will need to be CAA POY if we are to win the conference reg season again. He can but not sure yet.

Also, the reason we let Gerald bring the ball up so much is because teams DO NOT double Gerald ball in the trap spots on the floor. It is a lot easier to double a 6 foot guard then it is a 6'10'' big man who can see over most presses and pass to the open man. It is actually brilliant. DJ's dribbling is fine, not great, but it gets the job done especially the behind the back floater against pressure against W and M last night.

Having said that, G Lee only brings the ball up that often against VCU's press. That is a testament to how good your press is and how much we respect it as a team.
 
Losing Lee will affect ODU more than ODU fans think, just as much as it did us with Eric leaving last year. Granted, Eric was a much better player than Lee, but they meant the same to both their teams as the leader and primary offensive weapon. ODU was already a good defensive team to begin with, it's his offense they are going to miss. ODU was VERY average offensively. Losing your offensive scorer and focal point won't help that. ODU will be just as strong on the defensive end as they were this year, but that won't mean anything if they can't put the ball in the basket.

ODU was building towards this season for the past 2, playing in consecutive first-year made-up tournaments both times (CBI and CIT). We should just be happy that in our transition year we still got the NIT, which still holds credibility with the level of recruit we pursue and the casual basketball fan. ODU will likely be where we were this year, a still very talented team with some adjustments to make and a 3-5th place CAA team. It's just the nature of the beast when talented players like Eric and Gerald leave our programs.
 
Everyone said the same thing when Loughton left, but the following year was the year we beat Georgetown the first time, and got the at-large. There will be plenty of leadership left with Finney, James, Hassell, and Carter. Not to mention Bazemore. ODU will have as much talent and experience at the guard spots as they've had in years. We were sitting behind Kenny Gattison at the tourney, and overheard him saying he thought ODU would score MORE next year. The offense would be a little faster paced, which I could see, seeing as ODU will be as athletic as ever. I mean W&M had about as good a game plan to stop Lee as anyone, and held him to 10 pts. What I don't see replacing is his passing out of the post, Frank and Keyon are nice players, but nowhere near the passers Lee was. Hopefully being a little better on the perimeter will negate that.
 
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