It is what it is

[CusefanATL]

half court offense is not about creating your own shots . . . it's about running your stuff. Arinze never created his own shot, but he was the foundation of the great half court offense in 2010. He probably won't be as effective as was AO, but I have very high hopes about DC giving us a similar, consistent low post threat by mid season.

dc has very little shot to be AO this season.

 

[CusefanATL]

Hard to agree with you after tonight. CJ, Tyler,Trevor and to a degree Jerami all created their own shot tonight. But more to the point, there was good flow in the half court, we attacked the rim and we followed our misses. Excellent offensive performance tonight. And mostly in the half court.

easy to say that after tonight.

There was good flow because we hit 23/24 ft's, cooney made 5 3's, and Cal was more concerned with beating us down the court off of a rebound than they were about playing defense for 35 seconds.

Offense was excellent in 2nd half for sure. but its going to be inconsistent all season.

 

[CusefanATL]

Tyler Ennis can create his own shot.

he did tonight. hopefully he can get the ball in the hoop like he did tonight. will certainly open things up for everyone else.

 

[longislandcuse]

Going off of what ive seen thus far this season:

Ennis going 1 for 9 and not scoring much is way more of a fluke than the game he had tonight.

Grant being invisible is much more of a fluke than the Grant we saw tonight.

Cooney being off from 3 is more of a fluke than him being on.

All of this combined with Fair still searching for his role in the offense and the big men being all over the place. I'd say this team has WAY more offensive potential than last year.

 

[jordoo]

hope so.

Of course you do you are a true fan !I I've never questions that. Just take a sip of the coolaid, imagine the D getting solid and Ennis at his best being a regular thing.

 

[llandz]

The zone progresses throughout the season. Our defense always seems to come together sometime in Jan. early Feb. where it becomes the stifling 2/3 we all know. It gels then for the rest of the season. Not that it is bad before, but it seems to grow with the season.

 

[SaltLakeOrange]

easy to say that after tonight.

There was good flow because we hit 23/24 ft's, cooney made 5 3's, and Cal was more concerned with beating us down the court off of a rebound than they were about playing defense for 35 seconds.

Offense was excellent in 2nd half for sure. but its going to be inconsistent all season.

I guess we'll see how inconsistent or how hard that inconsistency makes it for us. You are forgetting one thing though...For the first four games of the season Tyler Ennis struggled. If he struggles, the whole team will struggle. His ability to make a couple of shots opens things up for everyone else. These two games in Maui saw Ennis take a big step forward.

And, just to be sure, the flow wasn't because we made our free throws. The flow allowed us to get to the rim against a very well coached team and then to the line. And Cooney will hit more than he misses when wide open.

The glass isn't always half empty.

 

[CusefanATL]

I guess we'll see how inconsistent or how hard that inconsistency makes it for us. You are forgetting one thing though...For the first four games of the season Tyler Ennis struggled. If he struggles, the whole team will struggle. His ability to make a couple of shots opens things up for everyone else. These two games in Maui saw Ennis take a big step forward.

And, just to be sure, the flow wasn't because we made our free throws. The flow allowed us to get to the rim against a very well coached team and then to the line. And Cooney will hit more than he misses when wide open.

The glass isn't always half empty.

right now my glass is completely full. we played a great offensive game last night.

but it doesn't erase the 1st 5 games. we certainly arent the offensive juggernaut we saw last night. i sincerely hope you realize that.

 

[Widget24]

This is a strange year so far, for sure. The last few seasons we have been a huge defensive force, but our scoring (particularly our halfcourt offense) has left a lot to be desired. We've had to focus on fast break opportunities to make up for it. And as usual, our FT shooting has sucked.

This year seems to be the exact opposite. Our defense looks awful so far and our guards look slow at the top of the zone. We don't seem to have any fastbreak points, but our halfcourt scoring looks to have a lot more potential, and our FT shooting has been crazy the last two games.

 

[SaltLakeOrange]

right now my glass is completely full. we played a great offensive game last night.

but it doesn't erase the 1st 5 games. we certainly arent the offensive juggernaut we saw last night. i sincerely hope you realize that.

In the 2000's we won games on offense more times than not. From around 2010 till now our defense drove our offense. Who knows what's going to happen moving forward, but if Ennis can get in the lane and make things happen, I think we'll be better offensively than we've been in quite a while. Juggernaut? Maybe not...Very good, definitely.

 

[OttosBestFriend]

our 1/2 court offense is atrocious.

nobody can create their own shot.

i know it sounds weird to say after a game like this, but its the truth until proven otherwise.

Fair can't create his own shot? Really?

Ennis didn't drive the lane at least 4-5 times last night for a layup in traffic?

Cooney can't take it to the hole off a pump fake? He also can't bounce off a screen for a lightning quick three?

Grant didn't hit a few 12-15 footers last night and he didn't take his man one-on-one when isolated?

Keita didn't have two AMAZING hi-low passes to cutting guards for easy layups.

Even DaJaun Coleman can work quite in the half court offense when he isn't riding the pine for defensive errors.

Not sure what game you watched last night, but 'Cuse was in the white jerseys... And they did a better job in the half court offense than at any point in the entire final four season of 2012-'13.

 

[RF2044]

our 1/2 court offense is atrocious.

nobody can create their own shot.

i know it sounds weird to say after a game like this, but its the truth until proven otherwise.

LOL.

 

[CusefanATL]

In the 2000's we won games on offense more times than not. From around 2010 till now our defense drove our offense. Who knows what's going to happen moving forward, but if Ennis can get in the lane and make things happen, I think we'll be better offensively than we've been in quite a while. Juggernaut? Maybe not...Very good, definitely.

If ennis can do what he did last night, our offense very well can be great.

He certainly played terrific last night.

 

[CusefanATL]

Fair can't create his own shot? Really?

Ennis didn't drive the lane at least 4-5 times last night for a layup in traffic?

Cooney can't take it to the hole off a pump fake? He also can't bounce off a screen for a lightning quick three?

Grant didn't hit a few 12-15 footers last night and he didn't take his man one-on-one when isolated?

Keita didn't have two AMAZING hi-low passes to cutting guards for easy layups.

Even DaJaun Coleman can work quite in the half court offense when he isn't riding the pine for defensive errors.

Not sure what game you watched last night, but 'Cuse was in the white jerseys... And they did a better job in the half court offense than at any point in the entire final four season of 2012-'13.

My God, I didn't mean that we were playing with blind 5 year old girls.

Yes... our 4 and 5 star recruits can score some points on their own.

I shouldn't have used atrocious, OK. Our lack of a consistent cohesive half court offense is going to cause us troubles if we are planning on being a top 10 team. Better?

 

[HoustonCuse]

Some good points in this thread. I have found myself bewildered by our defense at times so far this season. It is a great reminder that we had gotten spoiled by last year's defense. We have to remember, the defense we played in the NCAA tournament was the best anybody has ever played in that tournament. We broke all sorts of records with that defense. Ennis is simply not tall enough to create the type of defense we had last year - that is not going to change, and I think our bigs (strangely including Baye) have not been great on D so far - maybe adjusting to the different personnel up top is harder for them than we thought. Coleman is still terrible but is probably 33% better than last year so there is hope. If we can generate some offense like we did last night, we will not need to repeat last year's historically good D in order to win.

 

[Consigliere]

On the surface so far certainly looks like we are better offensively this yr, but not nearly as good on d. Anyone see it differently? Go CUSE!

Cue up the tape of the St. Francis game, wait 90 minutes then re-think the "better than last year" part. Too early to determine of that game or last night's were the anomalies. And without 90%+ free throw shooting we may be warming up to play Chaminade right now.