Trending the wrong way?

[Bearcat_NTS]

Think about this. All we need to do is a better job offensively. A better job...not a fantastic job...a better job.

Troy has been bad shooting. Jacob has not been himself. Cumberland has not been aggressive. Just a marginal improvement from all 3 would do wonders or even a substantial improvement from any of them.

My preference of course is for Troy to do well since he has the ball in his hands the most. He could have an effect on all 3. I have seen him play much better basketball. Come on Troy...finish your career in style!!

Caupain is shooting 5/29 on 3PT since the Xavier game. A blistering 17.2%.

 

[waterhead]

Cincinnati played 10 Tier A games last year (in the regular season) and finished 3-7. This year, we only will have played 6 Tier A games and are currently 3-2 with 1 to go. How can you "rebuttal" that. The schedule was clearly much more difficult last season.

How many games would last years team be underdogs in using this year's schedule? Most likely @Butler, @Iowa State, @Houston and @SMU. So essentially one additional game compared to this season (we were favored @Houston).

Not sure how you could rebuttal anything I've said. I'd like to see your thoughts though.

It would seem you have made the rebuttal for him. 3-7 vs 3-2. That is .4 vs 1.5 wins.

 

[waterhead]

Caupain is shooting 5/29 on 3PT since the Xavier game. A blistering 17.2%.

Not good...but obviously not his career % either. I think we can all reasonably expect better results than 17%...no?

 

[cincyguy13]

Caupain is shooting 5/29 on 3PT since the Xavier game. A blistering 17.2%.

Wish he would try to drive move when he struggling. I know he not that quick but should be able to beat his man more than he does

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

It would seem you have made the rebuttal for him. 3-7 vs 3-2. That is .4 vs 1.5 wins.

On what planet does it mean that?

 

[waterhead]

Wish he would try to drive move when he struggling. I know he not that quick but should be able to beat his man more than he does

That was our go to plan in late game or late clock situations last year and part of this year. I don't understand why we can't incorporate this into our regular offense more. I think it would help his confidence.

 

[waterhead]

On what planet does it mean that?

On the planet of better win % in tier A games??

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

On the planet of better win % in tier A games??

So 1-0 is better than 10-1 by your logic?

 

[waterhead]

So 1-0 is better than 10-1 by your logic?

NO...what are you talking about? 3-2 is better than 3-7 on any planet in tier A games.

 

[waterhead]

NO...what are you talking about? 3-2 is better than 3-7 on any planet in tier A games.

Are you saying if we played 5 more we would lose all 5?

 

[waterhead]

Are you saying if we played 5 more we would lose all 5?

Because our win % in tier A games would suggest we would end up 6-4 vs 3-7 if we played 5 more of them. I guess I am totally missing your point or you haven't completely thought through it.

 

[UCalum08]

Caupain is shooting 5/29 on 3PT since the Xavier game. A blistering 17.2%.

Well, good news is he is due for some improvement these final 5 games. ����

 

[UCBearcats]

Some of you are so worried about being "right" about Mick Cronin that you're failing to realize the merit behind what NTS is posting.

I've been happy with this season, and I was dead wrong in my predictions about how this season would go. To this point the team has taken care of every team they should beat and we reached our climax during the 2nd half of that Xavier game. Since then things have gone downhill a little bit. We've played arguably two of our worst offensive games of the season against Tulsa and SMU. We were extremely lucky to escape Tulsa with the win and we let a big opportunity slip through our fingers against SMU. This trend is concerning, and hopefully we can get back to peak come March.

It seems to me that despite the overwhelming evidence to support the fact that when this time finds a way to score the basketball we win, we're still not putting enough focus on the offensive side of the court. I was a little worried in the post game after UConn when Mick was fired up about deflections and defense that we were taking the focus away from what was working. IMO that UConn game was one of our most impressive of the season. If this team can score points they will win games, period.

What's concerning is that our offense has struggled as of late and when you really examine our body of work it's not that impressive. We struggled through Iowa State and were lucky to win, same with Tulsa. We've lost to SMU, Rhode Island and Butler. The only real impressive win we have on our resume where the team looked good against tough competition is Xavier and a lot of people can question how good Xavier really is this season. We played well in the first SMU game but it never should have gotten as close as it did, the offense went AWOL in the second half and we had a nice final 2 minutes to seal the W.

This team wins when it scores points, we're very tough to beat if we can put 75 on the board. That should be the goal EVERY night, score 75 and play tough defense. If we focus on and execute those things we'll be dangerous come March, if the offense goes back into a shell we're going to disappoint again.

Mick's done a great job this year, I think it really all boils down to better recruiting as of late and a roster that's better situated to score. Mick got away from the long athletes and more into the bigger guards who can shoot. That change has been very valuable for him and the post of Clark and Washington has been a great compliment. Bottom line for me is if the team keeps winning I won't complain, this is the season I've wanted for a long time. I'm cautiously optimistic of what we can accomplish come March.

 

[cincyguy13]

Some of you are so worried about being "right" about Mick Cronin that you're failing to realize the merit behind what NTS is posting.

I've been happy with this season, and I was dead wrong in my predictions about how this season would go. To this point the team has taken care of every team they should beat and we reached our climax during the 2nd half of that Xavier game. Since then things have gone downhill a little bit. We've played arguably two of our worst offensive games of the season against Tulsa and SMU. We were extremely lucky to escape Tulsa with the win and we let a big opportunity slip through our fingers against SMU. This trend is concerning, and hopefully we can get back to peak come March.

It seems to me that despite the overwhelming evidence to support the fact that when this time finds a way to score the basketball we win, we're still not putting enough focus on the offensive side of the court. I was a little worried in the post game after UConn when Mick was fired up about deflections and defense that we were taking the focus away from what was working. IMO that UConn game was one of our most impressive of the season. If this team can score points they will win games, period.

What's concerning is that our offense has struggled as of late and when you really examine our body of work it's not that impressive. We struggled through Iowa State and were lucky to win, same with Tulsa. We've lost to SMU, Rhode Island and Butler. The only real impressive win we have on our resume where the team looked good against tough competition is Xavier and a lot of people can question how good Xavier really is this season. We played well in the first SMU game but it never should have gotten as close as it did, the offense went AWOL in the second half and we had a nice final 2 minutes to seal the W.

This team wins when it scores points, we're very tough to beat if we can put 75 on the board. That should be the goal EVERY night, score 75 and play tough defense. If we focus on and execute those things we'll be dangerous come March, if the offense goes back into a shell we're going to disappoint again.

Mick's done a great job this year, I think it really all boils down to better recruiting as of late and a roster that's better situated to score. Mick got away from the long athletes and more into the bigger guards who can shoot. That change has been very valuable for him and the post of Clark and Washington has been a great compliment. Bottom line for me is if the team keeps winning I won't complain, this is the season I've wanted for a long time. I'm cautiously optimistic of what we can accomplish come March.

I feel like the uconn game was when we fell in love with the 3. If it goes in, it's looks great, but if you are counting on it going in every game, you will be in trouble. I think that was mick's overall point that game.

 

[UCBearcats]

I feel like the uconn game was when we fell in love with the 3. If it goes in, it's looks great, but if you are counting on it going in every game, you will be in trouble. I think that was mick's overall point that game.

We hit a lot of 3's in that game but we also ran the court and pushed the tempo on offense. Many of those 3's we pulled up on could have been 2's but we were hot so we let the shots fly. I thought we played well in that game and should have celebrated the efficiency of our offense, Mick saw it another way. That concerns me............

 

[cincyguy13]

We hit a lot of 3's in that game but we also ran the court and pushed the tempo on offense. Many of those 3's we pulled up on could have been 2's but we were hot so we let the shots fly. I thought we played well in that game and should have celebrated the efficiency of our offense, Mick saw it another way. That concerns me............

I wish we would push tempo more. I think we are good in a more up tempo game. Would help get an easy bucket when we need it Or a foul

 

[jacobkdoyle]

I wish we would push tempo more. I think we are good in a more up tempo game. Would help get an easy bucket when we need it Or a foul

Over the course of the past few years, I've personally decided that I think it's a Caupain thing more than a Cronin thing (not 100%). Caupain too often seems content to just let the game go by without him being overly concerned about being assertive and making sure we're in a position to get easy shots. He has come up in big moments plenty of times but over the 40 minutes game he for whatever reason shows no interest in keeping his foot on the gas.

 

[Bearcat22]

On what planet does it mean that?

If you discover that planet, I would strongly advocate to move next year's home games there.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

We hit a lot of 3's in that game but we also ran the court and pushed the tempo on offense. Many of those 3's we pulled up on could have been 2's but we were hot so we let the shots fly. I thought we played well in that game and should have celebrated the efficiency of our offense, Mick saw it another way. That concerns me............

I totally get what you're saying. But it's tricky for me bc at the beginning of the year, Coach pretty much told the guys to ONLY worry about deflections. We were scoring like no one's business then. So is it as simple as feeling pressure coming down the stretch, more than the message from the coach? Bc I agree it concerns me when I hear "We know we'll win scoring 80, but we gotta win when we score 60." It feels as if it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just hang around at 50-50 for 35 minutes, then try to close it out. That's what I hear, and that's why it makes me nervous. But the message itself isn't all that different from our normal M.O. So why only now is it more concerning? Bc of our recent scoring outputs? Obviously yes...but I just don't know for certain that we're correctly identifying the reason for the "change", if there even is one. It feels like an intangible thing, to an extent. Almost like a form of PTSD, where we so fully expect the past to repeat itself that we'll search high and low to confirm our beliefs. Not saying it's right or wrong, just another way of looking at it.

Also, not sure if they track this, but are we taking g longer per possession lately? We have to be, right? Lots of shot clock violations. It could be a simple fix to point at that and put an emphasis on getting into the offense as early into the clock as possible.

 

[UCBearcats]

I totally get what you're saying. But it's tricky for me bc at the beginning of the year, Coach pretty much told the guys to ONLY worry about deflections. We were scoring like no one's business then. So is it as simple as feeling pressure coming down the stretch, more than the message from the coach? Bc I agree it concerns me when I hear "We know we'll win scoring 80, but we gotta win when we score 60." It feels as if it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just hang around at 50-50 for 35 minutes, then try to close it out. That's what I hear, and that's why it makes me nervous. But the message itself isn't all that different from our normal M.O. So why only now is it more concerning? Bc of our recent scoring outputs? Obviously yes...but I just don't know for certain that we're correctly identifying the reason for the "change", if there even is one. It feels like an intangible thing, to an extent. Almost like a form of PTSD, where we so fully expect the past to repeat itself that we'll search high and low to confirm our beliefs. Not saying it's right or wrong, just another way of looking at it.

Also, not sure if they track this, but are we taking g longer per possession lately? We have to be, right? Lots of shot clock violations. It could be a simple fix to point at that and put an emphasis on getting into the offense as early into the clock as possible.

I think it's concerning now because we're into the grind of the season and we know that the competition is only going to increase come March.

I would expect that we'd be growing as a team and improving based on the successes we've had early on but lately it seems like we've taken a few (albeit minor) steps backwards.

I'm not looking to place the blame on anyone and I remain optimistic that we'll figure it out. My knock on Cronin for years has been his complete refusal to put importance on offense, there hasn't been much to complain about this season as the offense has been good because the talent is better. Mick is a terrific defensive coach and I think what this year has taught me is that if we keep recruiting better we can be very good with Mick at the helm. Mick himself has said this season that he hasn't done anything differently, guys are just making shots. As Mick (hopefully) continues to improve his recruiting and adds scorers and shooters I think we become dangerous even if Mick never changes his offensive mindset. To me the bottom line is still always about scoring, if we can score with Mick's defense we're a very dangerous team. If we don't score we're very beatable.

What kind of concerns me about this season is that minus the Xavier game we've haven't looked great on offense against the better competition we've played and I know that rock fights don't win with consistency come March. If we can bottle up some of that Xavier magic and figure out a way to score even if the outside shots aren't falling then we're built for a run in March.