Turning It On...

[HoustonCuse]

Blue Curtain - even if we accept your premise as true, then one has to assume the proper thing is to abandon the zone and go man. Well, we have seen that JB isn't very good at getting his guys to play man. So maybe even for the people like you, who feel JB is a substandard coach, zone is the best strategy. Maybe he isn't using it to cover for less athletic players, but is using it to cover his lack of coaching talent? Either way - anyone who thinks he is a subpar coach would agree that zone is the best answer.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

JB has never had a deep enough bench prior to this year to depart from the zone. I think we see more man press this year as the season progresses.

I encounter this sentiment all the time and frankly it is absolute bullshit. There are a significant number of teams in Division I basketball that play exclusive man with little depth. This idea that you need a deep bench to play man is a concept that does not exist beyond this board.

And this is not a comment about whether we should play more man or keep going zone...

 

[BlueCurtain]

I encounter this sentiment all the time and frankly it is absolute bullshit. There are a significant number of teams in Division I basketball that play exclusive man with little depth. This idea that you need a deep bench to play man is a concept that does not exist beyond this board.

It does speak to the gullibility of a certain segment of the fan base. They don't believe anything they read in the paper... yet they DO believe the spin that JB spews every year about why his team can't do certain things. It's always the players who cannot execute. Never the system.

 

[AZOrange]

The problem the last 2 games hasnt been defense...it has been offense. If you actually listened to what the HOFer says after games you might get clued in.

 

[44cuse]

If you know halfcourt offense is a weakness, a reasonable approach is to strategically minimize its importance - and you do that by dictating tempo, not letting the other team slow it down (which is what the zone concedes). You don't win 6 straight in March waiting until the last minutes of a game to let the horses out of the stable.

Actually, you can dictate without sacrificing the zone. You press all game long and sub like crazy. That's one way to do it and you fall back into the zone.

44cuse

 

[EastBayCuse]

I encounter this sentiment all the time and frankly it is absolute bullshit. There are a significant number of teams in Division I basketball that play exclusive man with little depth. This idea that you need a deep bench to play man is a concept that does not exist beyond this board.

And this is not a comment about whether we should play more man or keep going zone...

The issue is not playing man-to-man, it is playing a great deal of man-to-man PRESS w/o a deep bench. If this is BS how many teams can you name in D1 major b-ball conferences with who spend a lot of time in man-to-man press who have done better than 'Cuse? Facts would be welcome - if there are a significant number, who are they?