Iona coach on state of college basketball

[MrRamsDen76]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/sport ... .html?_r=0

[Optimistic]

I appreciate what he is saying and what's he doing on offense, but their defense is what stinks, not the state of college basketball. Can't wait until their gimmick offense meets a real defense tomorrow night.

[PlayMikeMotenMore]

He's 100% correct. College basketball coaches are control freaks more than ever...and the offenses have become stoic and imaginative. That's why watching Davidson and Iona is so refreshing. As I've commented before, if coaches spent the same amount of time on offense as they did defense, the game would be better off.

College basketball is becoming a tough watch during the regular season. URI's style doesn't help the casual fan. I'm a die-hard fan so I'll watch no matter what. But others, not so much.

[TruePoint]

I love our players and our coach and so I've accepted and even started to enjoy our style, but truth be told I would much rather watch an offensive team like Davidson than a defensive one. Probably why I didn't amount to a lot as a player, but I always thought offense was fun and defense was something you had to do while you weren't playing offense. As a fan, its the same thing. Offense is entertaining; defense is something you can stomach if your team does it well.

[ClassOf2017]

Stick with the old Saying- "A great defense leads to a great offense". Offense is entertaining but boy do I love Hassan Martins blocks. But I do agree with all of you, better offense/ "entertaining offense" would be perfect with our complex defense.

[rhodylaw]

I love watching our D - the offense makes me want to puke but I think it has more to with execution than anything else. No one on this team is a reliable shooter. Have some guys hitting threes regularly and everything else would open up.

[bressler3south]

The debate that is offered here reminds me of people looking at high-end cars: I want the most expensive car there is, but I only have so much money to spend, spends it, and is never really satisfied….Ever. "This is wrong, that's wrong. I paid this much to be so pissed-off, etc.,"
Then there's the person who has "X amount of money," who wants high-performance, style, etc., bang for the buck.
The second buyer gets it, is going to be more satisfied.

My point is this: You can play stifling defense URI-style, and have a great offense such as Davidson and/or Iona. The two facets of the game aren't mutually exclusive.
URI plays the way it does because the players' offensive skill-sets are limited. The staff puts them in the best position to win. The team plays hard, wins more often than not, and will look forward to better offensive-production by recruiting better student-athletes.
Once the team gets better-skilled players, "The Eye Game" will be better for all.
Oh, yeah: URI fans have been through the "Offensively Entertaining" that didn't play a lick of defense, got to an NIT-Semifinal in a decade's time, spent a strangulating, exorbitant lease, and had a board-full of pissed-off customers, and are still paying to get out of the deal.
Three years in, I'm a happy buyer.

[Blue Man]

The debate that is offered here reminds me of people looking at high-end cars: I want the most expensive car there is, but I only have so much money to spend, spends it, and is never really satisfied….Ever. "This is wrong, that's wrong. I paid this much to be so pissed-off, etc.,"
Then there's the person who has "X amount of money," who wants high-performance, style, etc., bang for the buck.
The second buyer gets it, is going to be more satisfied.

My point is this: You can play stifling defense URI-style, and have a great offense such as Davidson and/or Iona. The two facets of the game aren't mutually exclusive.
URI plays the way it does because the players' offensive skill-sets are limited. The staff puts them in the best position to win. The team plays hard, wins more often than not, and will look forward to better offensive-production by recruiting better student-athletes.
Once the team gets better-skilled players, "The Eye Game" will be better for all.
Oh, yeah: URI fans have been through the "Offensively Entertaining" that didn't play a lick of defense, got to an NIT-Semifinal in a decade's time, spent a strangulating, exorbitant lease, and had a board-full of pissed-off customers, and are still paying to get out of the deal.
Three years in, I'm a happy buyer.

all of this.

[Ram1019]

The debate that is offered here reminds me of people looking at high-end cars: I want the most expensive car there is, but I only have so much money to spend, spends it, and is never really satisfied….Ever. "This is wrong, that's wrong. I paid this much to be so pissed-off, etc.,"
Then there's the person who has "X amount of money," who wants high-performance, style, etc., bang for the buck.
The second buyer gets it, is going to be more satisfied.

My point is this: You can play stifling defense URI-style, and have a great offense such as Davidson and/or Iona. The two facets of the game aren't mutually exclusive.
URI plays the way it does because the players' offensive skill-sets are limited. The staff puts them in the best position to win. The team plays hard, wins more often than not, and will look forward to better offensive-production by recruiting better student-athletes.
Once the team gets better-skilled players, "The Eye Game" will be better for all.
Oh, yeah: URI fans have been through the "Offensively Entertaining" that didn't play a lick of defense, got to an NIT-Semifinal in a decade's time, spent a strangulating, exorbitant lease, and had a board-full of pissed-off customers, and are still paying to get out of the deal.
Three years in, I'm a happy buyer.

Couldn't agree more. Well said. I'd much rather see ugly wins than pretty losses.

[ace]

I think bressler has it right, as well. The staff has been pretty clear that, when they looked at this collection of players that they have, working to have an elite defense was their best chance to win. A Dan Hurley team will always be defensive minded, but the offense, when looking at where they want it to be, is evolving. It was still good enough for a 13-5 conference record and a second place finish.

Sure this team has some offensive gaps, and you could simply say, well why didn't they get better players? The counter to that, of course, is that with two full recruiting classes (hard to count that '12 one that started in April), a collection of Matthews, Martin, Butler, Watson, Terrell, and Garrett is very good. It moves to extraordinary when you consider the limitations of recruiting to this program at the time those classes were brought in.

A fan always has preferences for what type of game in any sport is his or her favorite, but winning- however it's done- is what elevates a program.

[TruePoint]

I actually don't totally agree you can do both things great. That would obviously be ideal, but you have to prioritize one philosophically, from the way you recruit to the way you gameplan. We can and will be better offensively, but that wasn't even my point. I don't think we are intentionally not a good offensive team because we want to be good on defense, it's just a matter of priorities.

I don't care what we do as long as we win. I'm just saying what my preferences are, not that they matter.

[rodfromcranston]

Cluess is 100% right.
Watch Iowa State, or BYU, or Gonzaga, and tell me you'd rather watch a boring grind 'em out
55-52 game.
Guess what? Theu win lots of games, too!
I want to think we play the game we do, because of the offensive limitations
of our team, not because that's how it will always be.
It's not fan friendly. People want to see offense.
You want to stop the decline in attendance inn college basketball, do something
to help the offense, beyond the minor changes proposed.
The idea that a team can't play defense and have a watchable offense is absurd.
It's not an either/or proposition, and taking one side over the other, because that's the style your team
currently plays, is equally absurd. Knee jerk defense of the status quo loses credibility when faced
with an objective question.
You can have both.

[Ram1019]

I don't think anyone here is disagreeing that we should also have a good offense too. Of course we want both. The point is that staff is doing what it can to win games right now.

[rodfromcranston]

Exactly!
Which is why I wrote,
"I want to think we play the game we do, because of the offensive limitations
of our team, not because that's how it will always be."

[PlayMikeMotenMore]

True Point: "I don't care what we do, as long as we win."

I hear you. Most fans of their team would say the same thing. "Just win, baby." Right? But what Rod, Cluess, I, and others are arguing is that in a broader context that the game of college basketball is hurting as a product. The casual basketball fan doesn't want to watch Georgia St./Georgia Southern 38-36, or Albany win 51-50. Sure they're close games and a shot wins it at the buzzer...but we're sitting thru 39 minutes of brick laying. It's not good for the fans. And if fans aren't go to games or watching these eye-sores of games, then you have a problem.

So if you care about the game of college basketball game, then you should care about what you're watching at URI and elsewhere...and how it impacts others.

[TruePoint]

I do get that it is a little NIMBY-ish to say that college basketball overall should be played more a certain way, but I just want my team to do whatever it needs to do to win. However, I wouldn't want my team to disadvantage itself in order to better the game for everyone else. The changes that need to occur are institutional. Until then, every team should be doing what it can to win even if that results in an ugly game overall.

[Gonebarongone]

The reality is that college hoops is so much worse than it was 20 years ago. It's like the neutral zone trap in the mid/late 90s in the NHL. Sure, you can win a lot of games with it but it becomes a terrible product. Let's be honest. If this was minor league hoops without any affiliation to the college you love for whatever reason, no one would ever watch. But, you would absolutely go see the games from the 80s/90s. A lot of it is that the really good players are gone. How about Anthony Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Andre Drummond, Brad Beal, Kelly Olynyk, Wiggins, Parker, Embiid, Marcus Smart, Randle, Vonleh still in the tournament? Coaches are paid to win so I get it but the NCAA can do things to improve product. Shorten shot clock, widen lane, take timeouts away from crazy coaches. There will always be a demand for the game. People love college athletics but look at the attendance and ratings. The game is losing a generation.

[TruePoint]

Agree with all of that. Specifically on the timeout thing, it might not help scoring, but it would definitely make the game more watchable.

[theblueram]

Forgot getting rid of the jackass officials......

[ace]

As we were saying...

While the Gaels are not a great defensive team, Hurley said it could be a sign of things to come for his squad: "I think it's a sign of maybe how we're going to try and play in the future offensively. This year, we've been so great defensively and we've tried to grind out games because that's what this roster has had to. I think you'll see us playing at a much faster pace moving forward, beyond this year."

[adam914]

As we were saying...

While the Gaels are not a great defensive team, Hurley said it could be a sign of things to come for his squad: "I think it's a sign of maybe how we're going to try and play in the future offensively. This year, we've been so great defensively and we've tried to grind out games because that's what this roster has had to. I think you'll see us playing at a much faster pace moving forward, beyond this year."

Fantastic!

[RhowdyRam02]

Tim Cluess should spend less time bemoaning defense taking over college basketball and spend more time maybe trying to coach a little defense. Basketball is more than three point and dunk contests and his team was embarrassing defensively.

[TruePoint]

As we were saying...

While the Gaels are not a great defensive team, Hurley said it could be a sign of things to come for his squad: "I think it's a sign of maybe how we're going to try and play in the future offensively. This year, we've been so great defensively and we've tried to grind out games because that's what this roster has had to. I think you'll see us playing at a much faster pace moving forward, beyond this year."

From Dan's mouth to God's ears.

Also, I do think it is fair to criticize Iona for not even pretending to care about defense. As I said earlier, I'm not totally convinced that you can be a great offensive team and a great defensive team because I think at some point you have to prioritize one or the other. But, I do think you can be great at one and still representative at the other. You definitely would prefer to be a little more balanced than we were this year, and certainly more balanced than what Iona was.

[ace]

From the game article- this might be the most diplomatic thing Dan has ever said... talking about Iona's "style of defense"-

“We felt like we would get great opportunities to score because of their style of defense,” URI coach Dan Hurley said. “We wanted to take advantage of open opportunities early in the shot clock. This is just a sign of how we’re going to try to play in the future offensively.”

[rambone 78]

I get the feeling that most of the players on the team would prefer to play more uptempo.

We have the athleticism. We can see how good Garrett and even Biggie are in that style.

Same for Terrell and EC. The less we stand around, the better.

More depth and good health next season makes it happen.

Dan's Wagner teams played uptempo. Bobby's team plays the same way.

[rodfromcranston]

All kids want to play up tempo.
Ever see an AAU game at a snail's pace?
It's all run and gun.
Even CFL got better players when he went to rip and run.
His only problem was, he forgot to play the defense
that was what was best about his earlier teams.

[rambone 78]

Well, Dan's not going to forget about defense, that's for sure.

[rodfromcranston]

As I've said, it's not an either/or proposition.
Maybe CFL thought it was?

[ATPTourFan]

From the game article- this might be the most diplomatic thing Dan has ever said... talking about Iona's "style of defense"-

“We felt like we would get great opportunities to score because of their style of defense,” URI coach Dan Hurley said. “We wanted to take advantage of open opportunities early in the shot clock. This is just a sign of how we’re going to try to play in the future offensively.”

Loved that quote as well, Ace. Thx for highlighting here. "...because of their style of defense" Haha. Like lack of defense.

[Ramulous]

It's easier to run and gun if you make the other team miss their shots.....and you rebound.....we gave up too many offensive rebounds against Iona or the margin would have been +20....

[PlayMikeMotenMore]

You can play at a good pace, have a relatively high scoring offense, and still be a hard nosed defensive team.

Look at Indiana teams under Bob Knight...had great motion offenses and hard-nosed man-to-man defense. Even the good URI teams (Penders/Skinner/Harrick) were good offensively, scoring at a good clip, and solid defensively.

Right now, URI is Viriginia-"lite".

[URI_IEP]

From the game article- this might be the most diplomatic thing Dan has ever said... talking about Iona's "style of defense"-

“We felt like we would get great opportunities to score because of their style of defense,” URI coach Dan Hurley said. “We wanted to take advantage of open opportunities early in the shot clock. This is just a sign of how we’re going to try to play in the future offensively.”

Loved that quote as well, Ace. Thx for highlighting here. "...because of their style of defense" Haha. Like lack of defense.

I guess bad can be a style...