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Olympic Basketball Observations

Fred C. Dobbs

Freshman
Aug 19, 2002
518
249
43
Atlanta, GA
I enjoyed watching Olympic basketball, especially the U.S. men’s and woman’s teams. Here are a few observations that in some cases apply to IU basketball.
  • Watching players that don’t crush one’s soul by missing critical free throws is a real pleasure. If U.S women can shoot 80-90%, why can’t IU players, many of whom come from a shooting state (Indiana), learn to shoot better?
  • Watching the U.S. women, I posed the following question to myself. If I were a coach choosing first when picking sides, who would I choose? A world class center (Griner)? A power forward who can shoot, defend, run and rebound (Wilson)? A shooting forward who did everything and played every meaningful minute (Stewart)? I decided to follow the teachings of Tom Izzo, “playing without a point guard is like a root canal”. The team played so much better when Sue Bird was on the court than when she was off. She ran the offense, distributed the ball, hit the kick out, played defense and rebounded. A 41 year old point guard is my first pick.
  • Recalling that the NBA switches on everything, I took note of the way France used Rudy Golbert. He set a high pick on the point guard’s defender in the center of the court and then immediately posted up in the paint, defended by a switched guard. I asked myself whether this tactic could be used by TJD and whomever is playing point. I realize that B1G teams hedge, get over the top and try to defend without switching. I also understand that this tactic requires a point guard that can shoot.
  • A measure of how the NBA has changed is that Kevin Durant, who functions as a point forward, guarded the opponent’s center. I think the U.S. men had a 7-foot center that never got off the bench.
  • I noticed how frequently announcers and analysts referred to deflections. Maybe Tom Crean is on to something.
  • Were the Japanese women running a motion offense?
  • The fact that international players play in the NBA and WNBA in large numbers certainly reduces the shock and awe of lining up against the men’s and women’s teams. U.S. opponents now believe that they are underdogs that can take us down. Before they believed that a 30 point blow out was par.
 
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Never understood the criticism of Crean's "deflection" stat. A deflection is a disruption of what the offense is trying to do. Isn't that a good thing and worthy of tracking?
 
Never understood the criticism of Crean's "deflection" stat. A deflection is a disruption of what the offense is trying to do. Isn't that a good thing and worthy of tracking?
Crean is a basketball outsider because he never played. Making a “deflection” is always a good thing on D. The problem is staying in front of your man and being solid vs gambling all the time for a stat is way more important. It’s an extension of playing fast without personnel to do so.

Besides, Creans definition of a “deflection” is not entirely what you think. I’m not going to look it up, but he had some bizarre set of rules to track it. Why? Because he’s “Tommy basketball, because he thinks he invented the game.” -Bo Ryan

Crean is effectively one of the biggest imposters the college hoops coaching world has ever seen. I give him credit for reaching his ceiling. He seems like a good person for the most part fwiw.
 
Never understood the criticism of Crean's "deflection" stat. A deflection is a disruption of what the offense is trying to do. Isn't that a good thing and worthy of tracking?
This is true you don't.

It's not his. It was used by Hubbie Brown and borrowed by Rick Pitino and others . and it didn't matter how many deflections IU or any team had the defense still sucked. You can have 18 deflections on one possession and still allow the other team to score .. Does that mean it was good defense? Disrupting an offense is great, stopping them from scoring is much better. Crean was a weirdo using what he thought was another magic wand to hide his incompetence.
 
Never understood the criticism of Crean's "deflection" stat. A deflection is a disruption of what the offense is trying to do. Isn't that a good thing and worthy of tracking?
Delflections is a legit stat and positive. the problem for Crean was his defense sucked and he kepr referring to them. Knowledgeablr fans got sick of it and it got a bad rap.
 
Crean is effectively one of the biggest imposters the college hoops coaching world has ever seen.
It's because he lacks inherent talent, which is needed when someone gets to the highest level. Hard work can only get someone so far, once you reach the top it's about the gifts you were born with.

It's why he searches for the next gimmick. I know guitar players than are very much like Crean. They know a lot, they study a lot, they try every new gimmicky method hoping it's the +5 magic wand of competence.... and like him they just don't have it and never will. the ceiling has been reached and it's fairly low.

Plus the fake tan is a sure sign he's fake ..
 
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