good points. the talent/ht edge is definitely exacerbating the situation.

The first thing you have to define is what does the system "working" mean. Relative to what it would have looked like otherwise I think it worked this year . What does that look like long term? I think it looks like making the tourney 3 of every 5 yrs and advancing several rounds + in 1 or 2 of those years .

I enjoyed watching the progression this yr and I believe when he gets more of a chance to customize the roster to what he wants to achieve in points per possession scored and allowed it will steadily improve from here .

Just producing a competitive team this year that is still in the hunt for the tourney with a week to go considering how late in the cycle Bucky was hired is ahead of schedule imo.

I think it's clear from a size and athletic ability standpoint we are a bottom half SEC team . We basically have no one that can simply get on a roll and not be stopped and we also don't have stoppers to counter other teams alphas like say an Acuff for Arky or pick one of several bigs for Florida or Phylon for Bama as examples.

Bucky's system doesn't work if you're not making a significant percentage of 3s. I'm not even sure if what we've seen lately qualifies as Buckyball.

Ozamataz Buckshank 01 said:

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The Lost said:

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It's way more of a talent issue/match up issue with current roster. Teams that could bully us inside, take advantage of it. We won't know if it'll work or not until he's had more time to recruit his own guys (and who can he recruit to play in the system)

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Will.top tier talent want to do full court press for an entire game? It feels like a gimmick that won't work on the big stage.

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That's the multi million dollar question. Tune in this off season to find out

Trev rolled dice on Bucky based on what he saw as a good gamble. Which is strangely appropriate.

I hope what we saw this year can be expanded in both the near future and long term. No one can predict the future. But we have a coach that can play the odds like a pro.

I'm not on premium anymore so who are we getting that will improve our roster? I know Mbako will be back but Agee and most of the guards are playing their last season of eligibility.

I think a lot of good answers above, and yes, better height and talent will make a difference. For me though, the question still remains whether the deeper 3 pt line presents a barrier. I guess not if you are talented enough to go deep in your lineup and keep everyone fresh.

Yes, we ARE being guarded more closely appears, but I think a lot of that is due to our fatigue, and we are DEFINITELY passing up shot opportunities when they ARE there- pop, lane, griffin, dominguez- all of them. I don't think it would take college basketball 2/3 of a season to make an adjustment like

"hey, I know. let's start guarding them closer at the perimeter and make them go to their 6' 6" big man. I think there is both kinds of fatigue that's set in.

I also don't think a couple of feet makes a significant difference.

I buy the fatigue thing with a couple of guys. Namely Agee and Dominguez. Agee banging against guys bigger than him for 30 minutes a game is definitely taking a toll. Dominguez playing a much more physical game than he's used to and also playing way more minutes.

It's about big guys and we don't have any. We are tired and that we have won this many is a testament to his ability to coach and kids believing. Now it's simple we are shorter and have to work twice as hard to get shots off, rebound, etc.

NyAggie said:

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It's pretty simple what's happened:

Teams are overplaying the 3 point shots and taking their chances with our tiny guards and undersized front court inside, which is resulting in less open looks from deep and lots of blocked and altered/difficult shots down low

The book IS out on this year's team because of roster limitations, but when we get more size on the floor that strategy won't work as well

3 pointers aren't falling because we are being guarded much tighter outside

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This looks to be the case but we still need to at least hit some of the 3s we get. Outside of that, it seems like mid-range jumpers could pull the defense away from the basket but we rarely shoot them and the defensive big is allowed to camp out right at the rim. tu certainly took advantage of that shot selection.

Defense and Ruben have fallen off badly.

Just a matter of playing good competition and damaged confidence. We were never as good as the start of SEC made us look.

While teams are definitely extending out to defend the 3 more, from casual watching the last 3-4 games it seems like we're passing up a LOT of looks from 3.

Seems like we should be shifting from "if you get a clean look from 3, take it" to "if you get a decent look from 3, take it" -- as trying to run any inside game is not going to work well for us against anybody.

I went back and watched one of my favorite teams of all time - the 90-92 UNLV teams. I know we likely don't get that kind of talent all assembled here (without really paying up), but that team was playing a very similar system to ours on the defensive end. Our full court press is not producing TOs in the last few games. Why? IMO, Agee's legs are a liability and we don't have a legit shot blocker at the dunkers spot. If we had more guard size, I suspect we could speed up the press a little more, but we need an athletic 4 and a shot blocker at the 5 to really create chaos. We have the right system, just not quite athletic enough and we don't have great on ball defenders once it gets to half court game.

One criticism I have of the system on the press, is the lack of the double team with a corner entry pass. We seem to want to create TOs on the entry pass, and if the timing is right perhaps a 10 second violation, but I think we are missing the opportunity to really create TOs on that second pass. Bucky knows way more than me, but I would be doubling that corner entry hard, and swing that rotating defender to the entry receivers closest player. I get that if we miss that pass, they can swing down court and get an easy dunk, but I think we would create more havoc and TOs (and easy baskets) if we pressed a little more (not less).

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One criticism I have of the system on the press, is the lack of the double team with a corner entry pass. We seem to want to create TOs on the entry pass, and if the timing is right perhaps a 10 second violation, but I think we are missing the opportunity to really create TOs on that second pass. Bucky knows way more than me, but I would be doubling that corner entry hard, and swing that rotating defender to the entry receivers closest player. I get that if we miss that pass, they can swing down court and get an easy dunk, but I think we would create more havoc and TOs (and easy baskets) if we pressed a little more (not less).

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We do this at least like seven times a game. We even did get a couple of turnovers on it Saturday. One where Dibba missed the layup, another time I think they stepped out of bounds.

Texas_Ag11 said:

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I went back and watched one of my favorite teams of all time - the 90-92 UNLV teams. I know we likely don't get that kind of talent all assembled here (without really paying up), but that team was playing a very similar system to ours on the defensive end. Our full court press is not producing TOs in the last few games. Why? IMO, Agee's legs are a liability and we don't have a legit shot blocker at the dunkers spot. If we had more guard size, I suspect we could speed up the press a little more, but we need an athletic 4 and a shot blocker at the 5 to really create chaos. We have the right system, just not quite athletic enough and we don't have great on ball defenders once it gets to half court game.

One criticism I have of the system on the press, is the lack of the double team with a corner entry pass. We seem to want to create TOs on the entry pass, and if the timing is right perhaps a 10 second violation, but I think we are missing the opportunity to really create TOs on that second pass. Bucky knows way more than me, but I would be doubling that corner entry hard, and swing that rotating defender to the entry receivers closest player. I get that if we miss that pass, they can swing down court and get an easy dunk, but I think we would create more havoc and TOs (and easy baskets) if we pressed a little more (not less).

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I agree on the press

I'm always scratching my head at why the closest player to the player in the corner is left open for the easy press break

When that pass goes into the corner there's no way that guy is hitting a deep man do bring a guy up on the next closest player

Nolan Richardson says hi.

AggieEP said:

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NyAggie said:

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It's pretty simple what's happened:

Teams are overplaying the 3 point shots and taking their chances with our tiny guards and undersized front court inside, which is resulting in less open looks from deep and lots of blocked and altered/difficult shots down low

The book IS out on this year's team because of roster limitations, but when we get more size on the floor that strategy won't work as well

3 pointers aren't falling because we are being guarded much tighter outside

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This is the answer. When you look at the Texas game, we only shot 19 3's total. Agee shot 6 of those and Texas was freely giving up that shot. Vinson shot two... also a pure give up. So that means in 40 minutes of basketball we only got up 11 threes from our designed shooters. Of those, I think 2 were late heaves by Pop and 2 were wildish heaves from Dominguez.

Clemence who had been red hot only got one three up.

Teams have rightly adjusted to what we do really well and decided that we are not allowed to do that thing. The natural adjustment is to punish them at the rim, but outside of Hill and Agee we don't have anyone that can finish at the rim.

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Great post, perfect answer. The book is out on our initial "punch" and teams are countering. We don't have a roster that can offer a succinct counter-punch. Someone else said it, but even when we get those back cuts or go inside, our guards aren't finishing at the rim AT ALL, which does nothing to affect the defense on the next play.

We are a one-trick pony due to roster limitations.

I was a little disappointed Saturday to not see ANY changes or urgency offensively as the game went on. Lane/Griffin/Dibba/Domingez/Holloway gave us ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the entire game offensively, yet it didn't seem like any of them made adjustments or showed any sense of urgency.

As others have said, we have got to not only shoot the ball better, but just shoot the damn ball period. Its like we aren't aggressively attacking the 3pt line with the idea of "Im going to shoot and nobody is going to stop me."

I agree, so why aren't we there every time. Again, perhaps Bucky is watching matchups, or he is picking his spots. But why not pressure that way all game long. It's odd.

bobinator said:

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Quote:

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One criticism I have of the system on the press, is the lack of the double team with a corner entry pass. We seem to want to create TOs on the entry pass, and if the timing is right perhaps a 10 second violation, but I think we are missing the opportunity to really create TOs on that second pass. Bucky knows way more than me, but I would be doubling that corner entry hard, and swing that rotating defender to the entry receivers closest player. I get that if we miss that pass, they can swing down court and get an easy dunk, but I think we would create more havoc and TOs (and easy baskets) if we pressed a little more (not less).

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We do this at least like seven times a game. We even did get a couple of turnovers on it Saturday. One where Dibba missed the layup, another time I think they stepped out of bounds.

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I actually think the Dibba TO where he blew the layup was stealing the inbound (can't really remember), but sure proves my point. Why go away from it.

I think we just pick our spots depending on who's on the court. If the guy the other team has catching the ball there is a 6-5 wing player than a trap of Lane and Hill isn't going to be very effective and it's just going to cause a 4 on 3 at the other end.

But we do this fairly consistently. Especially off made baskets. If anything some teams have started using it against us. Missouri just ripped us apart any time we tried it.

But I think any defensive scheme conversation is just hard to have because we're so incredibly outgunned athletically by most SEC teams. We're very small and we're pretty slow too. We can't cover 94 feet of court for 40 minutes so we're trying to pick our spots.

Interesting on the size gap of the inbound receiver. I don't track it that way in my brain, but it would really make sense if that's the case. As I started the post, the length on that UNLV team (and the Razorbacks team that everyone keeps referencing) is just not here. To say this is a team of runts, is a HUGE (ironically) understatement. I am watching the portal and recruiting this next class closely on length and athleticism. I would give up some of the three point scoring for that length.

We've also tried putting some bigger guys up there like Clemence and Federiko but it hasn't worked particularly well and when you do that you're even shorter on the back end.

True. Clemence is not bad, bc his wingspan can be helpful on the inbounder, but he and Fede are not fast enough to recover to the receiver to force the double, but I would prefer that the inbound defender rotate to the second pass. Again, but neither are fast enough to make up the ground. Boil it all down, we need length/athleticism on the wings to operate this. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to get an Augmon clone in here.

Yeah, we need some wings/forwards who can finish at the rim and help us cover more ground on defense. They don't need to be like all-world players. We just need some slashers. A big would be great but it's not absolutely necessary to field a good team.

I can probably think of 8-10 players from the last 20 years or so that would make this team a couple of wins better but weren't all-conference caliber players or anything.