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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 1702845, member: 40"] The offense wasn't "fine" between 2013 - 2015 primarily due to guard struggles. In 2013, MCW was a good passer, but was offensively challenged, and that team went through lengthy stretches of the season where they collectively struggled to put the ball in the hoop. Part of that was due to inconsistency [Southerland], part of it was due to poorly subpar three point shooting from both MCW / Triche [who regressed to something like 29% as a senior]. But that team was anemic offensively, and just happened to get hot at the right time of year, with our guards suddenly taking it up a notch offensively. 2014 -- don't get me started. Ennis's greatest strengths was in avoiding turnovers. I'm a big fan of Ennis--he was a solid player [good scorer, nice passer, decent three point shooter, very good innate feel for the game]. But objectively speaking, he had holes in many other facets of his game, including pushing the ball in transition, which might have helped that scoring challenged squad get a few more easy buckets. And the slowdown pace that he employed took its toll on our players, enabling lesser teams to hang around. It also didn't help matters that like Triche the previous year, leading scorer CJ Fair plummeted to something like 29% from three point range, a precipitous decline from the previous year, when he shot nearly 50% from trifecta. It is revisionist history to suggest that the point guard play was "fine" either of those years, or in 2015. In 2015, we had Rakim Christmas as you point out, who had an all american type of year. We had Gbinije finally coming into his own as a scorer after beginning the season on the bench. But let's look at the guards: we had the usual inconsistency from Cooney, and got virtually NOTHING from starting point Joseph and only marginal contributions from McCullough [for a month] and Roberson. In many games last year, we couldn't throw the ball into the ocean. There were sporadic occasions where Joseph was a difference maker [namely, the Villanova and Michigan road games], but by and large he was a non-factor. The issues the last three years have been personnel based. All three years, it has been a combination of generally subpar PG play to varying levels, and generally poor three point shooting. We need a point guard who can handle pressure, break things down off the dribble when our half court offensive sets bog down, get into the lane to create easy scoring opportunities, and create for both himself and his teammates off of the bounce. This year's squad does not have that type of player. As terrific as G has been, he's limited as a point. Howard MIGHT develop into that player [I like what I'm seeing this last quarter of the season]. Improve the situation at point guard, and [U]many of the other issues--which are symptoms of the problem, not the actual problem itself--will improve[/U]. [/QUOTE]

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