became immediately evident. First, you can teach people to play defense. TB has proven that. He takes kids with no knowledge of the pack line, and coaches them to the point of great execution.
On the other hand, you can't teach scoring. Whether it's learned in the YMCA, high school, or on the street, certain players are shooters certain players are scorers, and some are both. You can correct form, correct release point, etc., but that doesn't mean you can create a scorer.
We won when we had Guy, Jerome and Hunter who could all score. They were taught the defense needed to supplement that, and win a national championship. I don't believe you can be regularly successful putting so much emphasis on defense that you don'r recruit offense, or you recruit it and don't play it (under the guise they haven't learned the defense).
No matter what anyone says, you can't expect to play good teams, score 13 points in a half, and win games without guys who can score. There are only so many possessions per half, and 20 points is too large a deficit to overcome with virtually no one who can score, and a slow down offense. What we needed to win last night was offense, and TB refused to try any players who might have provided that. We stuck with Franklin, who was cold, Kehei, who was out of control, Beekman who didn't want to score, and substituted in the embarassing Stattman, who was his normal abysmal self.
I hope that TB learns something from this and nest year uses those players that can best help us win. Watching VPI showed how important it is to have a guy like Aluma who scored at will, and others who could light it up from the outside. If they collapse of Aluma, the 3 point shooters take control, or another big man takes a quick pass from Aluma for a dunk. When the opponents cover Gardner, we have no regularly viable options, since our other "scorers" are streaky at best. In some ways, it's hard to believe we won so many games.
On the other hand, you can't teach scoring. Whether it's learned in the YMCA, high school, or on the street, certain players are shooters certain players are scorers, and some are both. You can correct form, correct release point, etc., but that doesn't mean you can create a scorer.
We won when we had Guy, Jerome and Hunter who could all score. They were taught the defense needed to supplement that, and win a national championship. I don't believe you can be regularly successful putting so much emphasis on defense that you don'r recruit offense, or you recruit it and don't play it (under the guise they haven't learned the defense).
No matter what anyone says, you can't expect to play good teams, score 13 points in a half, and win games without guys who can score. There are only so many possessions per half, and 20 points is too large a deficit to overcome with virtually no one who can score, and a slow down offense. What we needed to win last night was offense, and TB refused to try any players who might have provided that. We stuck with Franklin, who was cold, Kehei, who was out of control, Beekman who didn't want to score, and substituted in the embarassing Stattman, who was his normal abysmal self.
I hope that TB learns something from this and nest year uses those players that can best help us win. Watching VPI showed how important it is to have a guy like Aluma who scored at will, and others who could light it up from the outside. If they collapse of Aluma, the 3 point shooters take control, or another big man takes a quick pass from Aluma for a dunk. When the opponents cover Gardner, we have no regularly viable options, since our other "scorers" are streaky at best. In some ways, it's hard to believe we won so many games.
