Coach Steele

[AviatorX]

If it’s so easy....then why do so many people fail at it? Are they all idiots? I’m sure each and everyone of us here would LOVE to be paid like these coaches are paid, and do what they are doing. Steele spent FIFTEEN YEARS as an ASSISTANT before he got the chance to be a head coach. Maybe it’s just me, but I figure he must have learned SOMETHING along the way. Something you can’t learn by just watching TV, reading message boards, or playing on a HS team.

You could rewrite XVille's post to read something like "if you're a high major d1 coach playing against a team that only has two guys who can shoot and you let those guys take the majority of the other team's perimeter shots, then you have no business being a major d1 coach."

There's obviously a middle ground. Identifying the changes that need to be made is easy. Implementing them successfully considering the scope of this team's limitations and the talent they're going to face the rest of the way is another story. This is before we consider any potential non-physical limitations like Travis sliding over a chair when the upperclassman see his as #2, etc. Travis better figure it out.

I personally do not care at all what coaches say in press conferences/to the media so I'm not going to get worked up if Steele isn't firm enough in how he talks about identifying the obvious issues, though I understand why some would like him to show it a bit more. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on that one (for now). He has 14 BE games to work on the second part of the equation.

I also think people throw around the terms "draw something up" and "design plays" way too frequently. This isn't middle school ball. You're never going to be a good offensive team that has a chance to make a deep run running a high percentage of called sets as opposed to a read and react system. That said, there comes a point where you throw in the towel and start to micro manage (Travis has alluded to doing this last year to some success), even if the ceiling will never be as high. We are for sure at (or past) that point.

[XUGRAD80]

XUGrad80- You left out & disregarded the off season work that Coaches are supposed to do breaking down tape, closely reviewing what players can and can’t do well, then tailoring the scheme to fit them. If people change then you change where needed. Not sure this scheme fits these players like it did guys like Tre & JP

No, I don’t think I disregarded that. Remember this team had several practices before a trip overseas, and then several more practices before the first game. They are currently 12-5 for the year. So they have had SOME success. Are they where they need to be right now? NO! Does that mean you tear things up start from scratch, as some seem to be suggesting? Or that you write the rest of the season off and use it to prepare for next year? I don’t think so. It also doesn’t mean that the players can not improve between now and March, either. They NEED to improve. But changing the scheme is no guarantee that the results will improve, either. At this point though it would only add complexity and doubt to the players. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is to make players stop and THINK. They need to just play, without looking over their shoulders and without having to stop and think what they need to do next. If these players have the talent that most seem to think they have, they don’t need to change the schemes. And if they don’t have the talent, then changing the schemes probably isn’t going to help much and might even make it worse.

[Xville]

No, I don’t think I disregarded that. Remember this team had several practices before a trip overseas, and then several more practices before the first game. They are currently 12-5 for the year. So they have had SOME success. Are they where they need to be right now? NO! Does that mean you tear things up start from scratch, as some seem to be suggesting? Or that you write the rest of the season off and use it to prepare for next year? I don’t think so. It also doesn’t mean that the players can not improve between now and March, either. They NEED to improve. But changing the scheme is no guarantee that the results will improve, either. At this point though it would only add complexity and doubt to the players. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is to make players stop and THINK. They need to just play, without looking over their shoulders and without having to stop and think what they need to do next. If these players have the talent that most seem to think they have, they don’t need to change the schemes. And if they don’t have the talent, then changing the schemes probably isn’t going to help much and might even make it worse.

Yeah instead we should just let q and the other terrible shooters on this team shoot as many threes as they want and pray they start to fall instead.

Coachs fail for several reasons but a big one is that some have too big of egos to admit that what they are doing isnt working. I'm hoping this isnt the case with travis, but not acknowledging that the offense is a freaking trainwreck, and instead saying how they just need to get better defensively is highly concerning. Should they be better on defense? Absolutely, but to act a bit smug about honest questions surrounding this teams offense is really disconcerting.

I'm not even talking about overhauling the entire offense, I'm talking about wrinkles to get Paul and kyky some looks....which, if they start making them, would open the game up a ton for everyone else. Put your players in the best positions to win the game...carter and q shooting 3s is not the answer

[noteggs]

Something you can’t learn by just watching TV, reading message boards, or playing on a HS team.

Damn! There goes my whole resume...

[XUGRAD80]

Damn! There goes my whole resume...

The same can be said for 99% of the people here. LOL

[IM4X]

I have seen so many Xavier teams over the years make some giant leaps during the holiday break. I have seen teams come together, gain cohesiveness, and figure things out. I hoped to see that type of improvement, but so far, the break hasn't been fruitful.

The season is a lifetime, and there is a lot of quality scalps left on our schedule. We need to do things differently, most notably, score more points than our opponents. We do that, i like our chances in March.

You mean “The season is a marathon.”

At least that’s what Travis keeps tells the media after each mile marker he and the team drop even further off the pace needed to reach their goal of an NCAA tournament birth.”

Some might say that “It’s only a few losses to good BE teams,” and while that’s technically true, they were double digit losses on our home court... which means next time around those teams are going to be even tougher to beat. We’re digging ourselves into a hole.

Not saying it is panic time, but everyone (including Travis) is looking just a little toO comfortable about the situation.

If we buy into Steele’s narrative that “The season is a marathon,” then he needs to wake up to that reality and understand that more than half of the ”regular season marathon” is finished... that he and his team have fallen behind and that they are fading fast.

[IM4X]

Greetings guys!
I was at the game Saturday, and I have a lot of thoughts....but I'm going to hold most of them until the next game or two is played. Mostly about how this staff is handling things. But the one thing I will say right now is this.
We always used to jump all over (and rightly so) The Yellow Toothed Gnome for not ever taking accountability and throwing his players under the bus. Steele isn't at that level...yet, but his Press Conference answers after direct questions about specific things are extremely disappointing. I have lots of examples, but a couple stood out to me:
I think it was Andy Katz that asked him a direct question about the offense. Then I think Shannon asked about the bad rebounding.Steele gave a blowoff answer to both questions- "We gotta be better"...and "We gotta fix it". (Uh, OK...and..). But then he immediately defaulted back to talking about defense. Everything is about defense, when his offense is a dumpster fire (for a lot of reasons, some on scheme, some on the players). He then made the statement that "Our defense was tied to our offense after the first 15 minutes." Welp, not really when you watch the tape. Creighton had 7 wide ass open 3 point looks in the first 12 minutes and had them rim out or just miss. After that, they did what they do..make them. Our defense was no better, or worse, in the first 15 minutes than the second half, and guys didn't stop trying. Creighton just made the shots that they always do.
See, this is a guy deflecting a shortcoming, just like Cronin used to do. You're offensive scheme sucks so you deflect and blame losses on defense, because that is an easy deflect. People can see clearly when you can't put the ball in the basket, but they have a lot harder time seeing a defensive issue so it's easy to take the heat off yourself as a coach by outwardly or surreptitiously blaming the players for bad D. Creighton scored exactly what they have been averaging all year- 77 points. No worse, no better. What they do. Somebody else asked Steele why KyKy wasn't in there earlier in the second half, but Moore was when we obviously needed offense. Steele's answer? (Of course)- Tandy's defense kept him out. Uhhh, I "checked the tape". KyKy gave up only one basket to his man, and that was off a mismatch that McDermott engineered with Jefferson who is 4 inched taller than KyKy and bully boyed him to the hoop. Other than that, KyKy was solid, but he couldn't get on the floor, while Moore, who gave up some drive to the hoop baskets, could? OooooooooooKkkkkkkkkkk.
I'm just gonna say that here we are in effectively (counting Spain) Game 21, and probably at least 60 practices and we have the same issues every freaking game. There has been an entire Holiday Season to "fix things" with no school and lots of practices, but, yeah, the same issues.
Oh, one last thing. Cintas was pretty apprehensive and sedate Saturday. Our fans know basketball, and there was little confidence in the crowd that we were going to win that game. Maybe because most of the students weren't there, but I'm afraid this collective team (including coaches) is losing the faithful.
Ok, I'm done, for now.

I hate to be a yes-man... I really do... but I can’t find one damn thing you wrote here that I disagree with.

[muethibp]

I generally like Travis and think there's a chance he ends up okay. But he's overwhelmed at the moment. Willard and McDermott against him the last two games is just not a fair fight and the results showed it.

[noteggs]

I generally like Travis and think there's a chance he ends up okay. But he's overwhelmed at the moment. Willard and McDermott against him the last two games is just not a fair fight and the results showed it.

Agree and history tells us this is not the first time. Attached is a nice look back on Miller’s and Mack’s early resume from Joel at Banners (guy who posts here from time to time).

Of course doesn’t answer the questions we have this year, but nice perspective.

https://www.bannersontheparkway.com/...-travis-steele

[boozehound]

I have some thoughts.

First of all, I think it's hard to run an offense with a team that sucks at shooting. It's not impossible, but would require a shift in philosophy with likely a lot more complex movement off the ball to get open lanes and looks. This team doesn't seem like it has a super-high basketball IQ so that may not be an option for this group.

Second, this is our first coaching change in the Big East. The margin for error is smaller. Miller had some early struggles. Mack had some struggles as well, although his first 2 seasons were pretty solid due to the fact that he inherited a phenomenal point guard in Tu Holloway. Hopefully Travis gets it figured out. If he doesn't, hopefully we have the courage to move on quickly.