For months and months, I've been harping on our main problems being that our offense is bad, and that we aren't capable of stopping good opposing wings. I now think its much more widespread and foundational than that. I think the individual talents that X provided, that a fully healthy TJD provided, that Race provided, masked some of the foundational issues in our program. And now that a couple of those guys are out completely, and TJD is now a little less explosive, the true issues are becoming more clear.
I think Woodson is coaching from a reactive position right now, instead of establishing things in his program that will allow his teams to dictate, instead of react.
Defensively...we're now scrambling and running zones, and presses. Gone are the high ball pressure man to man days we've seen more than we haven't since he arrived. That tells me that it was more of a product of player personnel, and gameday talking points, than it was a foundational thing that he drilled into his players early and often. So we're reacting to our situation and to our opponents, instead of having something galvanizing to rely on. I played college ball nearly 30 years ago...and to this day, I still remember, hear, feel the words "no middle" when I watch basketball games at any level. Watching my son play HS ball, is actually uncomfortable at times, because their program emphasizes funneling people middle, so they put their low legs up when defending on the wing. So almost every time my son is defending someone on the wing, I have the gut reaction that he's doing it wrong. Every single practice, every workout, every game of my college career, not getting beat middle was demanded. We did shell drills, 1 on 1 and 2 on 2 checkout drills, we ran for it, we got kicked out of practices for it, we were benched because of it. As a result, we rarely ever got beat middle. We dictated where the other teams were able to run their offense. And we were nearly always ranked in the top 10 percent nationally in most defensive stats. I see absolutely zero tenets in IU's defensive efforts that show any "no middle" type foundational things being taught. And obviously it doesn't have to be "no middle". My sons team is actually pretty solid defensively. They have more help in the middle of the court, they're good at packing the help lines and forcing other teams into turnovers and shooting from the perimeter. Syracuse famously runs a 2-3 zone. Bad 2-3 zones, that are thrown out there by coaches that are REACTING to other teams, are about the worst defense you can possibly run. You can't rebound out of them well, you give up tons of open looks, etc... But when you recruit to it, practice it every day, demand that its played correctly...well we've all seen what it can do. It ends up dictating how the other team plays offense.
Offensively...I just can't stomach our main offense being what we inevitably end up running as games come down the stretch. We've seen different things from game to game, I often reference the Nebraska game, as an example. We even see dramatic differences within games. Again...this leads me to think we don't have a set offense, or set groups of plays that Woody works on, relentlessly, every single day. Referencing my college days again, I can still vividly remember our 3 out/2 in, high low oriented offense. We had the base offense, and we had a series of odd and even numbered plays that we'd run. I could diagram all of them still to this day. And we were all so versed in them, that most of us knew what versions of the offense we were going to run before our coach even called anything, based off how the game was going. My point from the references to my college days, obviously, is not to compare myself to IU players. In fact, we were about as far from that as a team could get. Our tallest starter was 6'5, and he was a wing. Our post players were both 6'3. Yet we won over 60% of our games, basically being smaller, and often times less athletic, at most positions. We dictated how the game was going to be played. As evidenced by losing nearly 40% of the time, it didn't always equal a win. But against the teams that were far bigger and just better, we rarely ever got blown out, and beat a good amount of them on a regular basis. And we rarely, if ever, lost to teams that were similar to us size/talent wise.
I don't think Woody is doing anything like this at IU. I think really good programs, that are solid year in and year out, are doing these sorts of things. And almost invariably, it shows up as games go on. Most teams end up dictating offensively and defensively to us how the game is going to be played. And our talent isn't elite enough to overcome it. So while our talent level allows for flashes of brilliant play, basically without fail, we end up regressing back. Even in the Xavier and UNC games, we didn't put either of those teams away, despite playing really well for a good chunk of those games. And those are our two shining examples of what we can be, when playing our "best". Outside those games, are there ANY games during Woody's tenure that we were good start to finish?
He's not teaching them anything they can rely on when times get tough. And it shows. And it sucks, because we got some tough times ahead.
I think Woodson is coaching from a reactive position right now, instead of establishing things in his program that will allow his teams to dictate, instead of react.
Defensively...we're now scrambling and running zones, and presses. Gone are the high ball pressure man to man days we've seen more than we haven't since he arrived. That tells me that it was more of a product of player personnel, and gameday talking points, than it was a foundational thing that he drilled into his players early and often. So we're reacting to our situation and to our opponents, instead of having something galvanizing to rely on. I played college ball nearly 30 years ago...and to this day, I still remember, hear, feel the words "no middle" when I watch basketball games at any level. Watching my son play HS ball, is actually uncomfortable at times, because their program emphasizes funneling people middle, so they put their low legs up when defending on the wing. So almost every time my son is defending someone on the wing, I have the gut reaction that he's doing it wrong. Every single practice, every workout, every game of my college career, not getting beat middle was demanded. We did shell drills, 1 on 1 and 2 on 2 checkout drills, we ran for it, we got kicked out of practices for it, we were benched because of it. As a result, we rarely ever got beat middle. We dictated where the other teams were able to run their offense. And we were nearly always ranked in the top 10 percent nationally in most defensive stats. I see absolutely zero tenets in IU's defensive efforts that show any "no middle" type foundational things being taught. And obviously it doesn't have to be "no middle". My sons team is actually pretty solid defensively. They have more help in the middle of the court, they're good at packing the help lines and forcing other teams into turnovers and shooting from the perimeter. Syracuse famously runs a 2-3 zone. Bad 2-3 zones, that are thrown out there by coaches that are REACTING to other teams, are about the worst defense you can possibly run. You can't rebound out of them well, you give up tons of open looks, etc... But when you recruit to it, practice it every day, demand that its played correctly...well we've all seen what it can do. It ends up dictating how the other team plays offense.
Offensively...I just can't stomach our main offense being what we inevitably end up running as games come down the stretch. We've seen different things from game to game, I often reference the Nebraska game, as an example. We even see dramatic differences within games. Again...this leads me to think we don't have a set offense, or set groups of plays that Woody works on, relentlessly, every single day. Referencing my college days again, I can still vividly remember our 3 out/2 in, high low oriented offense. We had the base offense, and we had a series of odd and even numbered plays that we'd run. I could diagram all of them still to this day. And we were all so versed in them, that most of us knew what versions of the offense we were going to run before our coach even called anything, based off how the game was going. My point from the references to my college days, obviously, is not to compare myself to IU players. In fact, we were about as far from that as a team could get. Our tallest starter was 6'5, and he was a wing. Our post players were both 6'3. Yet we won over 60% of our games, basically being smaller, and often times less athletic, at most positions. We dictated how the game was going to be played. As evidenced by losing nearly 40% of the time, it didn't always equal a win. But against the teams that were far bigger and just better, we rarely ever got blown out, and beat a good amount of them on a regular basis. And we rarely, if ever, lost to teams that were similar to us size/talent wise.
I don't think Woody is doing anything like this at IU. I think really good programs, that are solid year in and year out, are doing these sorts of things. And almost invariably, it shows up as games go on. Most teams end up dictating offensively and defensively to us how the game is going to be played. And our talent isn't elite enough to overcome it. So while our talent level allows for flashes of brilliant play, basically without fail, we end up regressing back. Even in the Xavier and UNC games, we didn't put either of those teams away, despite playing really well for a good chunk of those games. And those are our two shining examples of what we can be, when playing our "best". Outside those games, are there ANY games during Woody's tenure that we were good start to finish?
He's not teaching them anything they can rely on when times get tough. And it shows. And it sucks, because we got some tough times ahead.
