UNT game

[SisyphusMiner]

UTEP was well represented as always, with lots of orange shirts and good loudness on "Defense" chants.

It seemed to me like we didn't play all that bad.  UNT had clearly watched game film on us.  They knew by fronting Williams they would take us out of our offense for at least a half.  They also had plays that broke us down defensively for multiple dunks.  I thought our guys were rotating appropriately, it was just a well designed play that we couldn't adjust to.

Hawkins > Lathon offensively, but he made a couple mistakes including one really stupid pass against the press and CRT sat him the rest of the game.  Lathon can't shoot from the outside, and treats the 3 pt line like an impenetrable barrier when he beats his man on the dribble.

CRT wiil not call timeouts when momentum starts swinging to the other team, but called one when we were in the middle of a run.

Odigie was there but did not play.  He seemed to have a pretty positive attitude.

it's not easy to tell from the stands and without replay, but the officiating looked really really bad.  One time we blocked a shot down low.  The official two feet away doesn't blow his whistle but the official clear out by the 3 pt line calls a foul.  The opposing coach runs out to in front of our bench to complain about something and no technical.  This was probably the worst officiating since the Hawaii game.

I absolutely hate the offense we run.  It is so one-dimensional it's ridiculous.  And our guards do not know how to use the ball screens we set all over the place.  We might as well not set them at all, I haven't seen it work once all season.

I may have seen a little bit of the personality thing with Lathon.  Near the end of the game, UNT was shooting free throws.  Lathon lines up on the low blocks.  Vila comes over to take the low block and move Lathon to the top block where he belongs.  Lathon flat refused to move.  Coach eventually yells at Lathon to move and he got a look on his face and finally moved.  This is petty and stupid on his part.

Edit to add:  Oh yes, and CRT yelled at a UTEP fan to shut up.  He yelled something about "you come down here and try it".  I don't know what the fan initially yelled, but why would you engage?  Your team is sucking and you are interacting with fans?

[Chanson]

Yup. Not our year. CRT is well aware of the teams & his coaching limitations. He's not a young up & coming coach. He is in his early 50s trying one last push before he needs to take a back seat to the young smarter coaches. I'm not saying he's not smart, I'm saying he is not an Xs & Os guy. Being able to recruit talent and not follow up with teaching versatility with smarts & athleticism is like you said, "one dimensional."
That being said, the man's defense is sound, but only having a few plays on offense and pushing to be a perimeter shooting team when the talent cant shoot is ridiculous.
I hope the COACHES can do better next year.

[SisyphusMiner]

I did notice one positive thing.  At the end Terry started bringing Williams up top to get the ball in his hands.  He took it and drove the lane a few times.  This is an indication that Terry is capable of modifying his offense.

Defenses are now fronting Williams.  The obvious response to that is for him to post them up from the rear and lob over the top.  But the defenses are sagging off the man in the opposite corner out at the 3 in order to provide backside defense to Williams.  This sagging also makes it harder for our guards to drive.  Obviously hitting the 3 is a classic way to break them out of that.  Since we don't hit 3s, then what?

Terry rotating him up top is not too bad, but might be better options.
Terry could put Efe down low and move Williams out to the 4 spot on his 4 out 1 in offense. 
Someone could set picks specifically to break Williams open.  We haven't seen that yet.

Something else I think might be worth trying -- play Boum at point.  Early on he was picking up the ball every time he got pressured.  He is now playing with confidence, and he is the one player that I think might be able to score out of the point position.  Having the ball in his hands more might also carry over into more consistent shooting.  He is the best at penetrating and either scoring or drawing the foul.