What’s still on our “needs improvement” list?

[Windy City Cat Fan]

What ever your opinion is of the situation I'm not sure what is accomplished by bringing it up in message board discussions. It is, what it is, and we all realize that

 

[thewildcat2011]

What ever your opinion is of the situation I'm not sure what is accomplished by bringing it up in message board discussions. It is, what it is, and we all realize that

Apparently not all of us.

 

[ricko654321]

Simply put, we need a true star with an NBA future--at any position--to ascend to the next level. In my 25 years following NU hoops, we have never had the kind of depth that we have now. We are truly solid 7-8 guys deep with legitimately good college basketball players this season. (No offense to Ash and Benson, but I only see them as borderline serviceable at this point in their careers. And Brown is also still figuring things out.) And it's crazy that we have two 4-star recruits sitting out the season with injuries--not to mention that we only have two seniors on the squad!

I was certainly a Carmody fan, but his teams always depended on 3 or so main guys really clicking and not being injured. And there were always a few guys on the bench who had no business even being on scholarship at a B1G school.

I love the personality that this team is developing. We have a defensive identity and a cast of guys that can get it done. I believe that this team will figure out how to win in crunch time this season. Add some continuity in recruiting and a true star to this team and we are fighting for B1G Championships--not just an NCAA berth.

Late to the party here, but good topic. My input...

1) Agree with those who have discussed our late game options / strategy. I do think we tend to slow down and stop executing our normal offense too early, and settle for iso 1v1 looks too easily. We don't have someone like Tre this year, and I'm not sure that was the best approach even when we did. I get the idea of having BMac control the ball and drive to the hoop - he's clearly our best passer and does a good job of keeping his head up for whoever is open. But I don't think we should kill 20+ seconds of clock doing essentially nothing until then. And I'd also like to vary it up a bit more depending on matchups- there are days BMac is playing well / has a good matchup and that approach makes sense, or we are able to switch him into that with a high ball screen. But there are days he isn't. And Lindsey seems to have developed into a decent 1v1 scorer too, maybe give him some touches, or possibly Law, or maybe get Skelly (or another shooter) involved with a screen where he can slide to open space.

2) I think our biggest weakness is the lack of a post scorer. This was already the case with Pardon, as we rarely looked to get him dedicated touches down low, but now it is worse. I like that we try to get Benson ~2 touches a game down there, and Skelly & Sanjay have done some nice things in the high post (passing especially) to bring some variety to our offense. However, having a scorer down there who can draw extra defenders or at least bend the defense would help significantly. I'd like to see us try posting Law up occasionally, especially when he gets a smaller Guard switched onto him. He doesn't have any post moves yet really, but have Coach James spend a bit with him, and even without that he's long and athletic enough that if it's a G he can just turn and rise and shoot a ~10 footer right over the guy.

3) I love BMac and he's a great player, but it seems he has 1-2x a game where he just makes very avoidable bad plays - not even wrong decisions, more just like lazy dribbling or ball handling where he is too casual and it gets poked away. I would just like him to be a bit stronger and more careful with the ball. I don't mind turnovers where is he is trying to find an open player or a crease, it's the ones where he's almost trying to show off how the pressure isn't affecting him then whoops there it goes. You could say the same for Brown, though for him it's more when he makes the decision to go 1 on 2 or 3. By now he needs to realize that this isn't HS, he doesn't need to do everything himself, if they overplay you keep your eyes up and find the open Wildcat.

So TLDR- 1) keep the offense running, use more variety in play design at end of game; 2) develop post scoring options, especially w Pardon hurt; 3) more careful ball handling by our guards
(and lack of big man depth is a glaring issue, especially with Dererk's hand injury, but it was close enough to #2 and my post was long enough that I am just lumping it in with that)