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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 2808370, member: 837"] Excellent post, as usual, and it spawned a good discussion in the thread. Enjoyable. I'll add a couple of my observations for whatever they're worth: -- Think OSU is in good hands with Holtman. Thought it was interesting defensive strategy but they were really active and confident against the zone early. Also, that team was 6-0 and I agree, there wasn't a whole lot of talent there. But generally well-coached. Didn't realize that dude makes $7M a year. Pretty good gig if you can get it. -- Love what Jalen Carey brings to this team. Still trying to figure it out, as you point out, but he plays at a completely different pace and this team will desperately need that at times this year. As impressive as the one-on-one move and dish was (and I'm not trying to downplay it b/c we don't see plays like that a lot), the quick pass ahead to Hughes for the and-one layup was a beautiful look. Just the quick counter-attack was awesome and the fact that he alone generated two easy looks is noteworthy. -- Still think our offensive approach is woeful. I love JB. Huge apologist for the guy and think he's going to be very difficult to replace. But, that said, we play slow and we lack any sort of imagination or, in some ways, general offensive tendency. This offense is almost all high ball-screen stuff and we just go on long runs of stagnant, empty offensive possessions. Needs to improve for us to reach our potential (which I agree is considerable). -- People hate Dakich so I know this won't be popular, but I actually think he's pretty decent. He unfortunately does what a lot of the ESPN dudes do, which is get too caught up in being a personality and showing off his sense of humor. But he mixes in a lot of good basketball analysis (IMO). Really did a nice job of quickly and concisely breaking down how OSU was attacking the SU zone early, which I thought was excellent. He made a nice point about Hughes trying to attack off the bounce straight up as opposed to coming off a curl or spotting up (basically saying beating a guy one-on-one isn't his thing, which is fair). Pointed out the difference when we go inside-out with the ball, which is a huge thing for us IMO. Thought he really provided some pretty intriguing insight, even if there is a lot of fluff and kind of annoying old white guy banter to go with it. -- We don't look good rebounding with Dolezaj on the floor but the tough thing with Chukwu is that, at least with him being injured, he really hurts on the offensive end. He sets screens but can't roll, catch and go to the basket or find a teammate and he certainly can't pick and pop. Sidibe battled but he's clearly not close to healthy, IMO, so there are limitations there as well. The bottom line for me, at least as long as Chuckwu is hurt but maybe even when he's healthy, is that we need to be able to battle and play for stretches with Dolezaj at the 5 b/c we are literally probably 30% better offensively with him out there. Overall, and you made this point so this is redundant, but the best JB teams always fit together well. Having Howard back really helps this team in terms of fitting together, especially while Carey is trying to figure it out. That said, there is still a ton of work to do here. Need to get healthy and figure our roles and rotations. Agree that OSU is better than you initially gave them credit for (70-ish range) but ultimately not a great team. Still a lot of work to do, but certainly a nice win. [/QUOTE]

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