Our Offense

[Hicks' Guns]

Without judgment or bias, I ask this question because I am genuinely confused. I am confused because there are no off-ball screens and seems to be no real effort to get shots close to the hoop. Here's the question:


Can anyone explain to me what our offensive gameplan is? What does "running our offense" mean for this year's UC men's basketball team?

 

[clo]

I don't get it either. The only time the offense looks good is when they run, which is becoming less & less. There is absolutely too much standing around/wasted movement. A basic motion pass and screen off ball would be better than what they do. Even pass the ball to the bigs and cut, just anything that will get them moving with a purpose.

 

[Amberlycolonel]

I don't get it either. The only time the offense looks good is when they run, which is becoming less & less. There is absolutely too much standing around/wasted movement. A basic motion pass and screen off ball would be better than what they do. Even pass the ball to the bigs and cut, just anything that will get them moving with a purpose.

The Cats pass the ball to the bigs? All they do is stand around and wait to receive a toss, then pass it right back to a guard.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Our offense is a bad example of dribble drive. We get ball screens from bigs that bring them away from the hoop the i assume they are supposed to pick and roll,guard drives, or kick it out for a three. However we don't pass well so it ends up being one on five with whoever has the ball with the shot clock running down. No off ball screens and no post play in this offense.

 

[TheLongHaul]

Here are the first half point totals for the last six games:

Marshall - 29
Xavier - 22
Wright State - 22
New Mexico - 26
Pitt - 26
SJU - 21

Sorry, but that is atrocious. This is on Cronin. I'm tired of hearing a lack of rebounding and/or missed shots. If you are consistently scoring that few of points, something is fundamentally wrong with the offense....Tonight Cronin talked about transition D (which was very valid) and a lack of offensive rebounding. Never once talked about how inefficient the offense is. The obvious reason is he can probably fix rebounding and defense but he has no answers for offense....Man, and I really thought Cronin was going to bring an exciting offense when he came from Murray St.

 

[Hicks' Guns]

Long Haul. I think you're right. I love Mick but I'm getting worried about the lack of evolvement in this offense. It is not working and if the point is dribble drive, and pick and role, we don't have bigs that are athletic enough and put the ball in the basket consistenly to make that work. Cronin's quotes in his press conference are concerning...there's a generally theme that the offense is not a problem. He can say that all he wants but he knew St. John's was going to play zone, we didn't get good shots inside the 3 and our D held them to 53 points. Our half court offense is struggling immensely and despite that, here's what we hear:

“Three things win games: defense. We gave up 34 points in the paint and only got 18. We got outrebounded and turnovers. We had 11 in the first half and we dug a hole. Those are the things that matter.”

On Sean Kilpatrick:
“His shooting is not the problem. The problem is he’s playing too many minutes, and he doesn’t play the defense he needs to be playing.”

On UC offensive rebounding:
“The problem is Cashmere Wright is our leading offensive rebounder with three. The problem is I have Justin (Jackson), Cheikh (Mbodj), David (Nyrasuk) and Shaq (Thomas) combine for two offensive rebounds. Cashmere Wright has three. That’s the problem.

On St. John’s zone:
“When you throw it to the one-foot marker and can’t get it in the basket, that’s a concern. I don’t know what else to do. When you get the ball to the one-foot mark, you have to get fouled or get to the basket. Or play somebody else that can get fouled or get a basket. It’s a problem. We were 32 percent from the two-point range. Not a lot of those were pull-up jump shots.”

“We don’t have anyone going in the first round of the NBA draft with all due respect to my players, I love them. Other people may do, but even those teams get beat if they don’t play hard. Duke probably has three NBA guys. Other than that, I don’t know. Welcome to college basketball. Teams that play really hard, defend and rebound are probably going to win. That’s the reality. I love my team and that is our reality. We better become a really good defensive team again and a really good rebounding team or we will be in trouble Monday night (against Notre Dame).”

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Lets be brutally honest.

Our offense has sucked. It has always sucked under Mick. Mick schemes offensively are just plain awful.

Mick is a defensive guru, he loves it and he does well at it... Offensively he is lost.

You have a long athletic team and slow things down. Tempo is everything when you dont have a good offense. We need to force the tempo all game.

I am not dissapointed with this teams record... However the games we have played in offer up some serious concerns.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

It took 35+ minutes into the SJU game to even run a competent on ball screen.

 

[mplebanon]

Mick is running the offense his Dad ran in high school. It's a pathetic high school offense.

While I realize we've lost 2 games by only 1 point each, scoring less than 60 points every game isn't going to do anything for attendance or recruiting. It's boring, if not frustrating.

I was offered free tickets to the game and chose to stay home. Glad I did.

If this is Mick's best team to date, we're in trouble. They are borderline top 25. After Monday Night, they will be falling out of it.

With Cash gone next year, this team will struggle big time. No bigs. No PG. You think attendance is bad this year?

 

[ralph1950]

UC has won 13 games and lost 2 one point games. The sky is now falling?

 

[bearcat jeff]

I can agree with some of the offensive stuff, but what is concerning to me is the players lack of motivation and effort. Guyn has played 23 minutes going back to Wright State. SK has been terrible shooting the ball and gets way to deep into the defense when driving instead of pulling up for a short jumper. The bigs don't finish strong and instead try to put in lazy layups.

Ball screening has never been good under Mick and I agree they need to push, push, push, but they are at times going to have to operate in the half court. You can't build a bench by not playing guys and uptempo would allow UC to do that. I wish JD3 was available because he can shoot. I'd like to see less of JJ (Jackson is giving us nothing on the boards or offensively) and more of Rubles and Thomas and yes, I'm going to say it, more of Gaines. He at least brings energy, strength and effort and I'd like to see him get 8-10 minutes a game.

No I don't believe the sky is falling but the truth is this team is in a funk mentally. Shake it up and make guys earn something on the court. It seems each year they hit a wall, as most teams do in early January. Mick needs to either make some changes, or get back to an uptempo attack. There also has to be some player leadership.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Just concerned because the expectation of this team as a #8 or #14 isn't supposed to lose or even play close to unranked teams.

 

[bearcat jeff]

Just concerned because the expectation of this team as a #8 or #14 isn't supposed to lose or even play close to unranked teams.

In league you're gonna have close games, especially in this league, but UC should have won this game by 15.

 

[Hicks' Guns]

UC has won 13 games and lost 2 one point games. The sky is now falling?

I really was just asking what our whole strategy is on offseason. That still remains unclear to me. The suggestion of dribble-drive makes sense to me but it is NOT effective. Whether it's Mick or the kids, it needs to be fixed.

I wouldn't say the sky is failling. In each of the last two seasons, there were moments of panic (that I think were merited). Mick and the team reacted to them well to have good seasons. We need the kids to bounce back hard.

 

[david aka the TYZ]

I thought UC actually did a better job last night of getting high percentage shots than in most games. St. John's is a very good shot blocking team and with our horrible shooting bigs that will spell danger. I think they lured us into the bigs some because that is their best defense. Mick needs to have Mbodj and Nyarsuk shooting hours worth of layups being hit with football pads. They just flick the ball up down there. Neither of them are really soft either so I'm not sure why they shoot so soft. Kilpatrick has been off lately. If Mick says he's playing too many minutes then spell him some. He brought nothing to the game yesterday and now he'll still be tired for our game two days later. Not sure why Guyn didn't see time. I know he had a jammed finger or something a few weeks ago, but he's played since then.

There's no way around it, yesterday was a horrible loss. You lost at home to a team you had no business losing to. Yeah teams are gonna have off nights, but what's worse is St. John's wasn't exactly lighting it up. They got way to many uncontested shots at the basket. We got a short turnaround so hopefully we can put it behind us and move forward.

 

[ready2go]

I tried to give us a heads up early in the season even when we were putting up 90. We were hitting 3's with no ball movement or few passing. Things were all good then to most. For e and others it was frustrating to watch this team settle for uncontested shots with zero effort to get the looks. That did nothing for us offensively except give this team bad habbits.

I even said we were going to lose some games with the lack of half court offense. Ralphie and others said that we rely on defense and offensive rebounding. Well you should never lose a game when you only five up 53pts.

Lets get it together. Hopefully they have learned. Its not going to happen over night but we can atleast see baby steps. How about a transition dunk for once this season. Or an easy give and go to the basket. Or quick passing. Or ball screens to get Kila or Parker shots

 

[ralph1950]

If Titus Rubles makes 5 of 6 free throws instead of 3 of 6 free throws, UC wins the game by 1 point.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Me and Ready have said for YEARS Mick cant coach offense... Everyone said it was a talent issue, everyone said next year... Well this is Micks "best" team to date, and our offense blows...

 

[bearcat jeff]

Watch the players and they just stand still. I was screaming at the television yesterday for players to move. Kept waiting for a screen on the last shot for Cash to drive and dish, none came. Parker and SK camped on the baseline and never moved. The bigs camped on the block.

UC had many point blank shots. They don't go up strong or with purpose. You go into shot blockers and create contact to get to the line if you don't score. Our guys have just been trying to jump 6" off the ground and throwing the ball up. Even with poor ft shooting 1 point is better than 0. Little movement, no passing and too much dribbling.

 

[ready2go]

Me and Ready have said for YEARS Mick cant coach offense... Everyone said it was a talent issue, everyone said next year... Well this is Micks "best" team to date, and our offense blows...

So True LL

If we cant get offense and thats not Micks style then they had better get motivated to play each game. They can atleast still hustle or be taught a lesson.

We are who we have been under Mick, regardless who the players are. And Mick himself needs to realize that cuz Im tired each season of getting my hopes up. He spoke of having veterans and guard play and how this offense would be uptempo. ITS THE SAME DAMN OFFENSE AS WHEN WE HAD LANCE, remember when "Lance" was the reason our offense sucked