In Reply to: This team’s issues (IMO) go well beyond an O scheme … posted by mikeo on January 11, 2025 at 09:52:27
Unless you're Stevie Wonder, gratuitously refusing to admit the obvious, namely, that UCLA's O and UCLA's D is a veritable Tale of Two Cities, is a weaksauce fantasy.
Here's the very 1st question from Stevie: "did MI have a superior halfcourt O game plan"?
Golly, it's like Captain Obvious made a guest shot on BZ. MI has an elite O game plan that manifests a basic format of speeding up the game, leading to a slew of open shots which notably exceeds the related risk of MI TOs. A Top 5% Div 1 scoring machine. You don't want to know where UCLA ranks ~ you really don't!
MI dictates pace while UCLA's O system resembles a game of 5-man blind man's bluff, wherein the shot clock ticks down to a characteristic rushed iso shot and/or a higher-degree-of-difficulty chuck off of a perimeter weave which makes UCLA much easier to defend. Meanwhile, MI displayed an outstanding tutorial in players moving with or without the ball, keying a vastly superior designed inside-out game. MI had a beyond efficacious post-up game, while UCLA was unable to even remotely execute the same.
But, it's clear that: "there's nothing wrong with Cronin's O game plan", out of UCLA's predominant halfcourt sets (since an achingly minimal amount of transition play characterizes UCLA's overall "O").
I better stop there, as I don't want to be the cause of a mental breakdown.