Hearing about lack of effort is starting to get tiresome. Reminds me of how Crean used to beg for "edge" and playing like "your hair is on fire"
There was no level of effort that would have saved that game yesterday imo. Michigan executed a game plan much better than IU on both ends of the floor. It's the far superior execution that makes the effort stats look so bad.
Take rebounding as an example. Michigan got 11 more defensive boards than IU, and 3 more offensive boards. Well IU missed 10 more fg attempts and 2 more ft attempts. Those extra misses are going to go to the defensive team 70 to 80 percent of the time, and ft misses are probably more like 90 percent.
So, disparity in defensive boards is almost all explained by the differential in shot quality the two teams had yesterday. It wasn't like the players just didn't give proper effort on the glass. No amount of increased rebounding effort would have made a tangible difference on the stat sheet. Far superior execution and game planning on both ends of the floor is what was needed.
Michigan did get about 3 offensive boards more than expected on 23 missed fg attempts, but it happens all the time when the offense has the defense scrambling the whole game.
Anyway, my point is (and I may just be wrong) that when I hear coaches blame effort over and over again... I start to think preparation and gameplan more and more.
There was no level of effort that would have saved that game yesterday imo. Michigan executed a game plan much better than IU on both ends of the floor. It's the far superior execution that makes the effort stats look so bad.
Take rebounding as an example. Michigan got 11 more defensive boards than IU, and 3 more offensive boards. Well IU missed 10 more fg attempts and 2 more ft attempts. Those extra misses are going to go to the defensive team 70 to 80 percent of the time, and ft misses are probably more like 90 percent.
So, disparity in defensive boards is almost all explained by the differential in shot quality the two teams had yesterday. It wasn't like the players just didn't give proper effort on the glass. No amount of increased rebounding effort would have made a tangible difference on the stat sheet. Far superior execution and game planning on both ends of the floor is what was needed.
Michigan did get about 3 offensive boards more than expected on 23 missed fg attempts, but it happens all the time when the offense has the defense scrambling the whole game.
Anyway, my point is (and I may just be wrong) that when I hear coaches blame effort over and over again... I start to think preparation and gameplan more and more.