This was not intended to be a full analysis, rather something fun to look at and talk about. I looked up the average players of top seven contributors. last year: Hannahs 14.4, Macon 13.4, Barford 12.8, Kingsley 12.0, Beard 7.2, Watkins 6.0, Thomas 5.3—This year: Barford 18.8, Macon 17.3, Gafford 11.00, Beard 9.7, Jones 7.0, Hall 5.2, Thomas 4.9. Last years added to 71.1 and this year’s add to 73.9. Looking at the top three scores: last year 40.6; this year 47.1. Clearly, the higher score is coming from higher production from Macon and Barford. Last year Hannahs carried most of the load. Now If you look at the top 4 scores, you get 52.6 for last year, and 56.8 for this year. Gafford and Bear did not produce as much as Barford and Kingsley. The conclusion I draw is that even though the difference of points last year to this is only 3 points (71-74, rounded), clearly last years team was more balanced when it came to scoring, while this year we are depended on two to carry the load. In my view that makes us more vulnerable offensively.
Neither team rebounded very well. This team lacks leadership and lacks the grit. Last year the team played better ball!
The real issue is this team can score at times but fails so bad on defense they need to score 100 to win. As a team they are dead last in free throw shooting in the SEC. You don’t win like that. Good 3 point percentage just don’t attempt enough to win. This team fails to feed the post and the big man fails to throw out of double and triple teams so it’s like not using the big man on offense. The hogs fail to show up too play every game. Too much trash talk and not enough playing ball!
[quote=“ArmyHog”]
Neither team rebounded very well. This team lacks leadership and lacks the grit. Last year the team played better ball!
The real issue is this team can score at times but fails so bad on defense they need to score 100 to win. As a team they are dead last in free throw shooting in the SEC. You don’t win like that. Good 3 point percentage just don’t attempt enough to win. This team fails to feed the post and the big man fails to throw out of double and triple teams so it’s like not using the big man on offense. The hogs fail to show up too play every game. Too much trash talk and not enough playing ball![/quote
You mentioned Defense, Free throws, threes and play off the post. All valid suggestions. Let’s see what shows tomorrow. I am not expecting much changes. The main problem with this team: depth of quality players.
We don’t have enough good depth at Guard, so the trapping style affects our season worse than it did last year. Mike changed to more match up Zone for USCe as expected. The trapping and bad switches of this style in today’s rules and environment are killing us…unless we use traps and switches in moderation. The trapping is especially ineffective if we don’t have solid guard depth. The team fell apart last year and it was the vandy game that served as a pitch fork moment that forced Mike to change his defense to much more match up Zone.