Great post moark777. I agree with everything you said.
You can ask me directly. I haven’t been to any of his practices. They aren’t open to the public like Coach Richardson’s were. As far as soft, maybe too strong a word, but I don’t see a Corey Beck in the whole bunch.
There isn’t too many Corey Beck’s on any team (including the NBA).
Unfortunately, you are right.
Running them 20 miles a day isn’t going to help a team that has a lot of bad shooters.
Maybe soft isn’t the right word. I used the word selfish. Maybe that’s unfair also. But there is something lacking, and there’s something to be said for running Cleveland hill and dying together as a team. It’s not all physical. Same for having open practices for the public to scrutinize. You have to wonder what the media would’ve been saying if they were attending our practices from the beginning while we had a ridiculous top ten ranking. But we have a bunch of top transfer portal recruits who starred on previous teams getting exposed now. As far as we know they didn’t get exposed to Cleveland hill or public scrutiny in practices. And I don’t think it’s about physical ability or toughness. It’s about mental toughness, buy in, and teamwork. Curating social media “branding” and NIL deals and slick advertising about recruiting and pre season rankings just doesn’t seem to do as much for “togetherness” and “discipline” on the court as some of the more “old school” team building. To be fair to muss I’m not sure how much he was allowed to do in the offseason. He could do more individual skills work but our players seem to be good with that (I’m sure they shoot lights out in the practice gym). Our problem is playing together as a team under the bright lights of competition. So if muss is going fix this then right now is the opportunity to do it. But he’s been saying this bunch is hard to coach. I wonder why?
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Would it help with improved foot movement on defense … to at least attempt to slow down dribble penetration?
That would help immensely.
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Trust me when I say tough practices are not the problem.
Running hills and or wind sprints won’t fix our problems. We can’t shoot, we don’t defend the 3, we don’t play together and we don’t have a point guard.
The shooting can’t be fixed this year, nobody on the team is going to become a point guard but we can learn how to play together and hopefully we can learn how to defend the three.
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Good post razorblack! I agree.
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Great point. Also, Nolan’s teams, for the 6 consecutive year period of "89/90 through "94/95, won more basketball games than any other school in the country. In everybody’s world, that is the definition of a dynasty. Nolan can never get too much credit for creating that Razorback basketball dynasty period.
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He took Eddie’s great leap and expanded on it. It was a glorious time for Hog basketball. Nolan knocked down a few doors and changed the face of college basketball. He was a fearless pioneer. I believe his decision to remain in NW Arkansas has had a powerful positive impact on our program, school and state.
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You nailed it razorblack! Great post!
When I watch this team, I am reminded of something Coach Richardson always said, “be quick, but don’t hurry.” This team DOES play hard, but they don’t play smart. Devo, especially, looks like he is in a hurry. They say you get really good in sports when the game slows down for you. These guys need to stop thinking so much and just play basketball…and guard the 3.
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I’m gonna stand by my view that running Cleveland hill and any number of other old school team building exercises is exactly what this team needs and would definitely make them 1.play together 2.defend the three with more effort. 3.make game shots/ im certain they light it up in practice. How many leading scorers from former teams did we have transfer in? Our problem is not individual skill. Size maybe. Passing and directing the offense maybe. Shooting no! Shot selection, team work, patience, unselfishness, effort, poise etc etc etc it’s a bad team. they should be out running that damn hill right now instead of shooting unguarded three pointers in their luxurious 24 hr practice facility.
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I get your point tho razorblack, nobody on this team is clutch. And if you didn’t recruit it it’s a real hard thing to teach. It’s certainly not gonna happen overnight shooting 500 three pointers. We need discipline and camaraderie, u know, the intangibles. It’s our only hope. Cause there sure as heck ain’t no Todd Day walking through the door this year.
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I coached high school basketball for 20 years. The best teams I had were when I had 7 players that were definitely better than the others. They got all the playing time as long as the game was close. Those on the bench knew they were better and accepted their role. The worst year was when I had 10 players all about the same. You just can’t play 10 players and get much of a rhythm going. But if you finally decide on the best combination those who played less became disgruntled. I tried the platoon system and it was not good for beating better teams.
What I see with Arkansas and bringing in transfers is that it creates the exact scenario I found to be difficult to handle. You have people coming in who are used to a lot of playing time and in some cases being THE guy. They don’t adapt well to sharing their playing time. Then you have the players who were here last year and expected to play more this year. It is difficult for them to sit on the bench and watch transfers in their spot. So I believe 100 percent the main issue is team chemistry regardless how they may act publicly.
Somehow 7 or 8 players need to separate themselves as being the best combination. Because the coaches are trying to find that combination and so far have not found it. It can turn around quickly if found. In fact that is exactly what happened last year. They found a combination and substitute pattern that worked and stayed with it. If can still happen because individual talent is there.
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Good post moark!
Thanks for your input. It makes a lot of sense when you break it down and look at it. Players are human, not automatons and it is a difficult task for the coaching staff.
I love it when insights are shared from real coaches that have had their jobs on the line. Post more often. I would love to hear your thoughts on Devo Davis and Khalen Robinson.
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Same bad-mouthing I heard towards the football team early on in '21.
Some fans (supposedly), seem to feel they aren’t contributing UNLESS they’re mouthing off about how bad we are.
Possibly they were Rice alums in another life? * Nothing against Rice * go owls!
Great insight Moark! A good example is Duke. Coach K rarely plays over 7 players. There is always a bunch of kids at the end of the bench that have jeans on under their warm ups…lol
Next year, if I was Muss, I would lay off the transfers unless there is just a beast that wants to come. What worries me is how many of our players transfer out. Then you would have to take some in for numbers sake.
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