Kentucky's awful assist rate
- Thread starter akaukswoosh
- Start date
And everyones initial response to this is its because the players are selfish etc and wont share the ball. There s some of that but the main problem is because we have NO offense to create passing opportunities. We have no spacing at all so there are no driving lanes to draw defenders for kickouts and shots, and on our pick and rolls there so much congestion in the lane same thing. The reason we seem to get stuck with one guy trying to dribble himself into a shot is because there's literally no place to go. You're not going go get any assists dribbling around in one place then passing it sideways for someone else to do the same.
I just dont understand what happened to the offesne Pope used to hand his hat on last year and before that was build on spacing the floor and creating cutting lanes and passing lanes. Why did this suddenly go away with no explanation????!!!! Did he scrap it??? Are the players just refusing to run it???? It doesnt make sense.
Alabama's offense is built on spreading the floor so that guys can drive and kick and move the defense out of postion until they get a layup or kickout or a threee. By spreading it puts presssureon the defense to guard the ball because they are spaced too far out for help defense to help.
Our offense is so congested they dont even need help defense, our own guys drag their own men in our way. Just doesnt make sense
I just dont understand what happened to the offesne Pope used to hand his hat on last year and before that was build on spacing the floor and creating cutting lanes and passing lanes. Why did this suddenly go away with no explanation????!!!! Did he scrap it??? Are the players just refusing to run it???? It doesnt make sense.
Alabama's offense is built on spreading the floor so that guys can drive and kick and move the defense out of postion until they get a layup or kickout or a threee. By spreading it puts presssureon the defense to guard the ball because they are spaced too far out for help defense to help.
Our offense is so congested they dont even need help defense, our own guys drag their own men in our way. Just doesnt make sense
^^^THIS^^^
And we haven't even touched on our real problem, which is defense.
Ya that’s the confusing part - we watched a great offense last year. It’s just a complete all systems collapse this year and it seems to me to be stemming from talent evaluation. Could you pick a worse guard to run a spread offense than Aberdeen? A worse 4 than Mo or Garrison or JQ? Lowe and Moreno and Williams are the only guys that even make sense being on this roster with the way Pope likes to play.
Makes me wonder what the heck are they doing in practice?
Practice?
Must be all conditioning?
(Joking)
Must be working on defense? Nah!!
Must be ball handling? Nah!
I know, it’s game planning and motivation!!
Nah, can’t be that!
Individual instruction? Nah!
Good question!
What are they working on in practice?
Don’t tell pope that. King of analytics. lol go be a professor
This x 100. I could understand if our offense created shots and we missed them, but we're not running last years flowing offense at all. This question demands an answer more than any other right now IMO.
Imagine that same team with all that length and size playing a much more aggressive defensive scheme. We are so good in transition —- why aren’t we trying to create even more opportunities there. I’m not the “let’s press like it’s 1996” type. I am very well aware that modern CBB has too many quality ballhandlers at every position to do that as a defensive philosophy. But why are we not trapping when teams have the ball baseline, near Halfcourt, near the sideline etc. We could at least create some havoc using those lines as extra defenders. Why not hold individual defenders responsible to check their assignment, rather than converging on drives versus a team that only wants layups and 3s? I love Mark Pope but he’s coaching like a doofus right now.
You are very good at watching with an analytic eye and then describing what you see.
What are we trying to do on offense and what are we doing instead?
Half the time I have no idea.. it’s that bad.
We are trying to put Lowe in as many pick and rolls as we can, and that makes sense if we aren’t generating offense from the zoom action. Lowe had high efficiencies as a PnR handler last year. I still contend shooting really matters. Fans are frustrated and rightfully so watching the offense, but I want you to think about as though you are the opposing coach for a moment.
Say Kentucky puts out a lineup of Aberdeen, Oweh, Williams, Dioubate and Moreno. Is there any combination of a zoom set where you wouldn’t simply instruct your defender to blow it up by going under?
Aberdeen, Oweh —> Go Under
Williams, Dioubate —-> Go Under
No matter what combination you put together from that group, the answer is the same — go under. For offense to work, you have to be a threat. Aberdeen and Oweh can both make jumpers, but neither are dead eye shooters that can make consistently against contests. That means defenders know they have the time to go under, be ready to cut off drives and late contest if they shoot from the outside. Copy and paste what I just said to just about everybody on the team.
The short of it, zoom action is almost entirely nullified. When we run the sets, we are generating nothing out of them, because zoom works best when the defense has to account for this type of dynamic threat:
- DHO receiver may step behind the action for a 3
- DHO receiver may curl the action for a cut
- DHO receiver may receive and drive
- DHO handler may shoot
- DHO handler may drive
- DHO handler may handoff
- DHO handler may pass to someone outside the zoom due to collapsing, helping, rotating defense
^ Pretty easy to see how having 7+ options on a single zoom action can create a lethal threat for defenses to have to account for. However, let’s try that same exercise with Oweh as DHO receiver and Dioubate as DHO handler.
- DHO receiver (Oweh) is not a concern to step behind the action for a 3. Late contest is good enough.
^ Action isn’t effective
- DHO receiver (Oweh) may curl the action for a cut. Simply go under and get defender into position to stay between man and rim.
^ Action isn’t effective due to “going under” the action.
- DHO receiver (Oweh) may receive and drive. Simply going under will allow defender to cut off driving lane.
^ Action isn’t effective due to “going under” the action.
- DHO handler (Dioubate) may shoot.
^ Action isn’t effective due to handler cannot shoot.
- DHO handler (Dioubate) may drive
^ Because the defender assigned to handler doesn’t have to worry about shooting threat, they aren’t as attached. Gap cuts off handler’s driving lane.
- DHO handler may handoff
^ Handler almost certainly will handoff, due to lack of options.
- DHO handler may pass to someone outside the zoom due to collapsing, helping, rotating defense
^ Handler is a good passer but because the action itself can be contained by going under, the defense doesn’t have to cheat in for extra help AKA the action has no gravity. Also, the other players on the floor aren’t making shots with high efficiency anyway.
^^^^ This is all a hypothetical scenario that helps you understand why we are getting NOTHING out of zoom. Pope realizes this and that’s why we are now running basic PnR with Lowe almost exclusively while he’s in the game. His speed and craftiness at least forces attention in PnR because he can easily get by his man and create what Pope calls “power plays”, which is where an additional help defender is engaged. Most teams have been content to make Lowe beat them, so we haven’t seen a whole lot of overhelp yet by opposing defenses. When that begins to happen, Lowe’s assist numbers will pick up. Until then, he has no choice but attempt to score as much as he can.
What can change everything — simply, some guys have to make some shots so that we can earn gravity and go back to running more zoom.
That’s a lot of detail. Thanks!
I worked hard on it for you, bro. If you have any questions let me know, but that’s exactly how my eyes are seeing it when we are running last year’s offense and why we look totally different now.
Seriously, I appreciate it. I’m looking at it a little differently after you posted that than I was while watching it live and pissed off.
Lots of excellent passers on last year's team. Not so this year. That is a key difference alluded to by Oats after the game. That is not fixable nor is inconsistent shooting. For that reason, not much hope to make a deep run. Pope will have to hope he can re-tool via the portal but his track record so far may make that tough. I think he makes it to a third year but 10 losses in 26/27 will likely cost him his job.
Honestly, this team does nothing well.
As horrid as the offensive and defensive execution has been, the most damning is the entire team has quit on Mark.
Correct. A team’s bad habits are very often a reflection of what the coach permits.
Example, first play of the game, Moreno gets a duck-in and successfully has a defender pinned under the basket with a stretched arm calling for the ball. Aberdeen looked right at him and didn’t feed the post. Pope should have called a timeout right that second and chewed his *** out. I’d bet you next time, the player will respond and if they don’t, here’s the bench. Who wants to come into the game and run the play I called?
I still remember when he said garrison is our most efficient player based on analytics.
Lol
That works if you have one or two not buying in. Only one thing to do when the team doesn’t trust or believe in the coach.
I'm not even sure what kind of offense we run. The players don't look any less confused than I do. Saw JQ handling at the top like Amari did last year, but not every time down, and he didn't do anything with the ball when he was there. I just can't excuse Pope for the state of what is on the floor. It's pathetic. He has to come up with some kind of steady offense if he expects anyone to score.
Remember when Tubby played Brandon Stockton over Rondo because he graded higher in practice?
That statement is like that.
Aberdeen and Mo were bench players and Pope that that he could make stars out of them...and paid them ridiculous money! The biggest problem with this team is personnel. I do no see anything in Aberdeen and like it or not, Oweh is a role player. Pope made a big mistake by bringing in a bunch of overprized potentials instead of spending his money to get a couple of studs. I would rather have 2 stud players with a bunch of solid decent players than bringing in a bunch of mediocre players hoping that they may gel as a team. You've got to have a couple of studs. We need to throw the bank at Stokes and either Smith or Holt. If we don't, you think that this year is bad...