In Reply to: UCLA's offense vs. defense posted by KirklandBruin on January 10, 2025 at 12:14:47
The O end has been the speedbump that has hampered CMC thruout his career in terms of his being able to take the final step to joining the top tier programs in Div 1. To his credit, his elite D has kept him Dance-worthy, albeit surpassing the S16 only once in his 22-yr career. It's a critical area for remediation, but yet CMC has mustered up little in the way of set plays to enhance his O.
What you too largely see is going to isos (read Mack) and perimeter weaves. Over the course of 40 mins, there are obvious occasional exceptions. But, aside from Bazz going 1:on:3 into the paint, screens set for Bilodeau ON THE PERIMETER (becuz for the 100th time Tyler The Beaver is and always has been a PF and Mara at present can't compete in the BI0), and quick cross-court darts by Lazar INSIDE the arc, I have basically not seen a set play run by CMC out of his O halfcourt sets. The key here is that it gives a notable edge to opposition D coordinators game-planning against UCLA's "O". And, no, I don't agree with the CYA contention that UCLA has had a slew of "open" shots relative to other Dance-worthy teams. *
* UCLA ranks 10th (out of 355 Div 1 teams, less than half of which are basically Dance relevant) in D, but 167th!!! in O (which is awful in terms of the rankings of relevant Div 1 teams as well as ranking among the very worst in the 18-team B10).