Coach Steele

[GoMuskies]

If he can't get the job done with the group of young, sought after, assistant coaches he has...then he shouldn't be coaching.

In addition to the sought after guys, he also has Dante Jackson.

[nuts4xu]

. Our options were our two worst defensive players (Tandy & Freemantle) or James, who very recently fouled a 3 point shooter with 0.2 left on the clock at the end of a half.

Quentin fouled a 3 point shooter in the second half. He has been awful defensively the past several weeks. Only reason I see to play him any minutes at all is when Scruggs or another guard is hurt.

[SM#24]

Quentin fouled a 3 point shooter in the second half. He has been awful defensively the past several weeks. Only reason I see to play him any minutes at all is when Scruggs or another guard is hurt.

And that's the only reason he was on the court. Yes, he fouled a 3pt shooter but not with 0.2 at the end of the half, which is more egregious. Besides, we made the free throw, we were able to set up our defense and had the players on the court we wanted as Butler had a smallish lineup out there with Baldwin, Thompson, Tucker, McDermott and Nze.

[Masterofreality]

Butler had 8.9 seconds left. That's a fair amount of time. Baldwin used 4.4 of that just to get to half court. Here's what I wouldn't have wanted my players to do, foul (unless it was a layup); we were only up two. Token pressure would not have denied Baldwin the ball, would have perhaps maybe chewed up a full second at the most; token pressure is just that, token, not real. Full or moderate pressure could very well turn it into a transition situation. I do believe Baldwin is more than capable of blowing by Naji with 1/2 the court to work with. Then you could get into an odd man situation and now they are attacking the basket...a layup, a foul or both.

We're the 17th best defensive team in the nation primarily predicated on our half court defense. To me the plan was sound, go over the screen, which Nze made easy by backing up, and hedging to force a trap on Baldwin. It was not executed. Whose fault is that, two veteran players for not remembering or the staff for not practicing it enough, or both ?

Also, subbing in, for who ? On the court we had Naji, Jones, Carter, Moore and Goodin; I'm pretty sure that's who we wanted on the court. Our options were our two worst defensive players (Tandy & Freemantle) or James, who very recently fouled a 3 point shooter with 0.2 left on the clock at the end of a half.

We’re just going to disagree completely on this. We have 5 guys on the court. They (taking away the inbounder) have 4.
We have an extra guy who can play free safety. That free safety could have been Naji near mid court with Bryce Moore as the guy hounding Baldwin. I doubt Baldwin “blows by” Moore, and even if he did get by him A) You’ve sped him up making him rush, B) Naji is the safety who picks him up. Everyone else on the court is still covered and even making Baldwin take 1.5 more seconds the clock would run out. Win.
We did none of that. Aaaand, if you did want to make sure you were set, subbing Free for Carter was a wash and you buy the extra time to set.
Still bad coaching and prep all the way around- especially if that set up WAS practiced on Friday. That’s as bad as the offense has been.

[scoscox]

Why are so many people concerned about giving up the 2? Giving up the 2 would’ve been fine. The only thing you can’t do is give up a 3.

[SM#24]

We’re just going to disagree completely on this. We have 5 guys on the court. They (taking away the inbounder) have 4.
We have an extra guy who can play free safety. That free safety could have been Naji near mid court with Bryce Moore as the guy hounding Baldwin. I doubt Baldwin “blows by” Moore, and even if he did get by him A) You’ve sped him up making him rush, B) Naji is the safety who picks him up. Everyone else on the court is still covered and even making Baldwin take 1.5 more seconds the clock would run out. Win.
We did none of that. Aaaand, if you did want to make sure you were set, subbing Free for Carter was a wash and you buy the extra time to set.
Still bad coaching and prep all the way around- especially if that set up WAS practiced on Friday. That’s as bad as the offense has been.

You're right, we're going to completely disagree. Shot was taken with 2.5 seconds, so we would have had to burn that much. Moore (our 2nd best defender on the court) was guarding McDermott, who is just as much a threat as Baldwin in a "don't get beat by a 3" situation. Goodin was on Tucker, also a threat. Carter was our free safety and was protecting the paint; we left Thompson open. What we did was just not executed properly, just as what you're suggesting has as much risk of not being executed properly. We didn't need to sub, because we were set for what we were trying to do. A good hedge and trap would have forced Baldwin sideways and rushed at the moment of truth as opposed to speeding him up across half court.
So Moore hounds him into Naji and with Tyrique on Nze, you're going to have 3 guarding two and no paint protection. Maybe Baldwin goes hero or maybe he makes a quick pass when he sees the numbers and now it's 3v2 with two good 3 point shooters and the lane wide open.
Why did Naji retreat behind the pick instead of going over the top ? Why did Tyrique completely retreat instead of hedging ? I'm pretty sure they were not coached to do that.
The whole time I was watching the game, I had way more issues with the players than our coaching. Why did Naji sleepwalk through 30 minutes of the game ? I'm pretty sure nobody on the coaching staff wanted those late 3s chucked by Naji and Moore, especially Moore's which was about as selfish a play as I've seen all year.

[Xavier]

I think MOR has been a little over the top on his criticism of Steele- because I think he is in general overestimating the talent on the team- but subbing in a player to get the team under control and set D would've been great coaching. It absolutely felt like the plan was to watch and hope they missed. It felt like coach got caught up in the craziness and was watching with the rest of us.

It was also a brilliant moving screen by butler. Ref isn't calling that and he effectively took both Marshal and Jones out of the play.

[SM#24]

Except if you watch the play, we were set for what we were trying to do. Jones took himself out of the play by continually backing up.

[Masterofreality]

You're right, we're going to completely disagree. Shot was taken with 2.5 seconds, so we would have had to burn that much. Moore (our 2nd best defender on the court) was guarding McDermott, who is just as much a threat as Baldwin in a "don't get beat by a 3" situation. Goodin was on Tucker, also a threat. Carter was our free safety and was protecting the paint; we left Thompson open. What we did was just not executed properly, just as what you're suggesting has as much risk of not being executed properly. We didn't need to sub, because we were set for what we were trying to do. A good hedge and trap would have forced Baldwin sideways and rushed at the moment of truth as opposed to speeding him up across half court.
So Moore hounds him into Naji and with Tyrique on Nze, you're going to have 3 guarding two and no paint protection. Maybe Baldwin goes hero or maybe he makes a quick pass when he sees the numbers and now it's 3v2 with two good 3 point shooters and the lane wide open.
Why did Naji retreat behind the pick instead of going over the top ? Why did Tyrique completely retreat instead of hedging ? I'm pretty sure they were not coached to do that.
The whole time I was watching the game, I had way more issues with the players than our coaching. Why did Naji sleepwalk through 30 minutes of the game ? I'm pretty sure nobody on the coaching staff wanted those late 3s chucked by Naji and Moore, especially Moore's which was about as selfish a play as I've seen all year.

A). If Baldwin would have been defended it would have taken more time plus rushed him away from his preferred spot.
B)Why was Moore, who is 6:0 guarding McDermott who is 6:7?
C)Why was Carter guarding the paint as a "free safety". He's useless there.
D) You couldn't hedge and trap at that position on the court. You could at the top of the key tho, which is where Baldwin would have elected to go if hounded.
E) We apparently were not "set' in what we were trying to do. Obviously confusion reigned.
F) If Carter was only supposed to be a safety valve paint protector, then Free could have been subbed in to play that role as well thereby giving precious extra time to set up.
G) "Lane wide open", "No Paint Protection"? I thought you said Carter was there. He was allegedly unassigned.
H) Even then. Naji didn't go 'under the pick". He was bully boyed back by a borderline moving screen that no ref will ever call in that situation. He should have never been put in that position, and then called out for it, by a coach deflecting blame for a flawed plan.
Every one of your points is easily countered, with better points.

[D-West & PO-Z]

Naji def went under the screen. The problem was the screen was set for Baldwin to go left and when Naji went under he was then on the wrong side because Baldwin went right. Tyrique was ready to hedge but again on the wrong side and when the Butler player rolled he blocked Naji off more and Tyrique was just in a bad position. I just watched again and it was a briliant play by Baldwin to do what he did. Hat off to him really. Naji and Tyrique looked like they were going to do the right thing if Baldwin used the screen to the left but he went right. Naji's biggest mistake was he went under the screen way before Baldwin ever go to the screener an when Baldwin saw that he just went to the right. Naji jumped the gun (probably bc he was worried if he went over Baldwin would go by him) and picked the wrong way. He just assumed Baldwin was going right and he was done after that.

All that being said it was a massive mistake to not pick Baldwin up earlier or even force them to inbound to someone else. I think Steele thought Jones and Naji would execute the pick but it just went way wrong.