bigappleram wrote:superfly take a joke, and thx ATP for helping him understand the obvious.
in the 5 PC games i have seen recently no one would classify their brand of basketball as uptempo. they have pressed out of necessity, and when they have it has appeared to work very well. maybe they got picked apart a bit by a good passing Pitt team, but i dont think anyone is confusing Cooley's Friars with Pitino's Friars. The latter style I believe would yield much greater success than the mid tempo game Cooley seems to employ now. you are 2-7 in your last 9 and have scored over 70 1 time. not sure where you see a team trying to force tempo and run. Perhaps Cooley doesn't think he has the guns to play that style, but I disagree.
Joke taken, well played.
Like I said, PC had played zone for a majority of their games out of necessity. They started game 1 in man, and Vincent Council gets injured. Then they go into Puerto Rico with 6 scholarship players, so they start playing more zone to stay rested. Because they had to play 6 scholarship guys for most of the season, they did play a TON of zone, and didn't play it really poorly outside of stretches in the URI game (and then went to man). Game 1 Council comes back, and Cotton is out with his knee from Mississippi St. So there have been a lot of injuries and a lot of moving pieces and they just are getting healthy now.
The game where it became apparent PC could not match up zone for long spurts was DePaul - but they also had Council, Cotton, and Dunn all collectively at about 80% in that game. Thank goodness, PC out of necessity being down 21 points went to the full-court man trap which worked, and they have played that mostly exclusive ever since. They crushed Seton Hall with it, as well as Villanova. Unfortunately, they couldn't turn Pitt over, but they played a full-court man most of the game. As PC has gotten healthy, thus has increased their ability to play a pressure defense and get out and run a little on offense. Unfortunately, when your opponent shoots 51%, you grab only 15 defensive rebounds, and you can't turn them over and good spots, it limits your ability to get out and run. Pitt is also a very good defensive team, FWIW.
As far as running, PC does honestly try to run all the time, just not enough weapons. They aren't "big" and the bigs aren't athletic down the court. Council, Cotton, and Dunn all provide the ability to get out and run, but they are patient and don't try to run it through some of the athletes the Big East has to offer. Not sure if you watched the 'Nova game, PC ran most of the game and forced a ton of turnovers, but they struggle finishing and hitting shots. That's a killer, and they don't force many turnovers in the halfcourt defense. When there is a seam though, they take it to the hole, they just don't force it, something I appreciate. However, I do agree that the half-court sets do need work, because of the lack of size inside for the most part they tend to go laterally too much. As Council has gotten healthy (and he's finally about 95%), he's been able to get to the hoop and create for others, as well as Dunn, so things have improved slowly on that end.
And for the record, those kids (Still and Lacy) deserved more, and thank goodness the Keno era is over.
