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I used to lecture to folks on the football board about football (a sport I've coached at the high school level for over a decade) being a simple game because people love to talk about schemes and play calling. Generally, those are not nearly as relevant as people think. The two most important things in football are:
1. Winning the line of scrimmage on offense and defense
2. Winning the turnover battle.
If you do those things, you'll win 999 out of 1000 games.
Basketball is simple too. It's about two things:
1. Making shots
2. Stopping the other team from making shots
There are definitely a lot of a stat variations that lead to those two things, but the bottom line in our three losses of late:
1. Trojan shooting: 71-181, 39.2%, 14-49, 28.6% from 3 PT, 39-61, 63.9% from the line
2. Opponent shooting: 81-177, 45.8%, 29-54, 53.7% from 3 PT, 41-47, 87% from the line.
It's not hard to see why we got our asses kicked in these games. Meanwhile in the Oregon game we won.
1. Trojan shooting: 49.1%, 47.6%from 3 PT, 61.5% from the line
2. Oregon shooting: 40.4%, 41.2% from 3 Pt, 55.6% from the line
That's it. End of story. Your shooting on any given night will go up and down, but the bottom line is that we've sucked on defense the last two week, especially at defending the three. Do I think that's coaching? Not really. I think we've done a good job on defense for most of the year, and that our energy level was too low for the last two weeks. It needs to get better.
I'm not willing to throw this season overboard. We still have a decent chance to win the conference since UCLA lost, and I think this team has as much basketball talent as the team that went to the round of eight. That team was razor thin, their best NBA talent was Scalabrine, they had consistency issues at point guard, and had a star that was an undersized 4. It would be interesting if we ended up a six seed. The Elite Eight team was a six seed.
But the bottom line is that we're gonna have to ratchet up our defensive intensity, and we're gonna have to make shots. If we do that, we will win some more games. If we don't, it will be back to the disappointment of being a Trojan fan.
1. Winning the line of scrimmage on offense and defense
2. Winning the turnover battle.
If you do those things, you'll win 999 out of 1000 games.
Basketball is simple too. It's about two things:
1. Making shots
2. Stopping the other team from making shots
There are definitely a lot of a stat variations that lead to those two things, but the bottom line in our three losses of late:
1. Trojan shooting: 71-181, 39.2%, 14-49, 28.6% from 3 PT, 39-61, 63.9% from the line
2. Opponent shooting: 81-177, 45.8%, 29-54, 53.7% from 3 PT, 41-47, 87% from the line.
It's not hard to see why we got our asses kicked in these games. Meanwhile in the Oregon game we won.
1. Trojan shooting: 49.1%, 47.6%from 3 PT, 61.5% from the line
2. Oregon shooting: 40.4%, 41.2% from 3 Pt, 55.6% from the line
That's it. End of story. Your shooting on any given night will go up and down, but the bottom line is that we've sucked on defense the last two week, especially at defending the three. Do I think that's coaching? Not really. I think we've done a good job on defense for most of the year, and that our energy level was too low for the last two weeks. It needs to get better.
I'm not willing to throw this season overboard. We still have a decent chance to win the conference since UCLA lost, and I think this team has as much basketball talent as the team that went to the round of eight. That team was razor thin, their best NBA talent was Scalabrine, they had consistency issues at point guard, and had a star that was an undersized 4. It would be interesting if we ended up a six seed. The Elite Eight team was a six seed.
But the bottom line is that we're gonna have to ratchet up our defensive intensity, and we're gonna have to make shots. If we do that, we will win some more games. If we don't, it will be back to the disappointment of being a Trojan fan.
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