Huggins is overthinking on offense.

[michigancat]

I think Huggins recognizes the teams lack of talent, and is trying to compensate by making the sets too complicated and making too many adjustments in an effort to get easy buckets.

I think a simple 4 out, 1 in offense that spreads the floor and has perimeter screens, post feeds, kickouts, and drives would work much better for this team.  Incredibly, their basketball IQ may be worse than their talent. 

Stripping down the offense and letting Hoskins make plays may be just what we need...I think the pick and roll for Hoskins offense we ran for part of the second half was a good example of keeping it simple helping us.  It got us back into the game.

[ksu_FAN]

I think once he knew Bill was coming he built an offense around him, both for this year and last year.  Then he gets hurt.  He acknowledged its not an excuse, but for Huggs to mention as much means something.  Last night he seemed to be inserting Hoskins into Walker's spot which may turn out okay if we can get the other guys on board.

[pissclams]

Before Walker's injury I wanted the offense to run through Walker and Hoskins interchangably.

Now I want to run it though Martin and Hoskins, switching between high-low sets and Hoskins' iso's.

Huggins can't ignore the contribution that Martin can bring to this team anymore.

Secondly, Huggs needs to look past getting this team on board and start getting Bennett, Colon, and Delivez, more minutes, IF he sees them being contributors next year.  Beyond next year's #1 recruiting class, we still need depth beyond the large group of incoming freshmen and can't expect them to contribute without getting meaningful minutes on the court.

[catzacker]

I liked that idea.  I'm not sure what offense works best as our best player/scorer (Hoskns) works better in a more “free flowing” style offense, but the others seem to have to work better when they move to a spot and don't really have to create their own shot.  We're just in need of a secondary scorer out of Cartier, Akeem, Lance.  Cartier, even though he took some bad shots, had some good looks and just missed.  I don't think Lance even tried to score and Akeem gets infatuated with 17 footers in transition instead of going to the rim.  

[michigancat]

I think he wants Yearby gone.

[pissclams]

I think he wants Yearby gone.

LOL WTF, Huggins, that you??   

[ksu_FAN]

Bennett and Colon yes.  Surge is gone and I suspect Delviz will be also.  Don't know anything, but I would think it would be tough to stay when you get less minutes than the walkons.

Its an excuse, but frankly Texas Tech makes a lot of teams look bad on offense.  We had to work really hard last night to score and just couldn't knock down enough of the open looks we did get.  

[catzacker]

I think he wants Yearby gone.

Huggins needs to get Ron to clean out Yearby's locker.  

[sys]

yearby has to be gone.  patzwald has more minutes.   i´ll be interested to see if colon stays.  i think there is a decent chance he is moved out as well.

[Skycat]

yearby has to be gone.  patzwald has more minutes.   i´ll be interested to see if colon stays.  i think there is a decent chance he is moved out as well.

Really?

Is it because of his attitude, or do you not think he's as talented as the staff thought he was?

[pissclams]

Colon will be here next year.

[sys]

Is it because of his attitude, or do you not think he's as talented as the staff thought he was?

i don´t think the staff had any illusions about his talent level...

right now, he sucks, but i do think he could develop into a solid player, not quickly, but eventually.

he won´t be driven off, but if he has thoughts of leaving (and were i him, i would be wondering when i would be getting any minutes at ksu over the next 3 years), i don´t think the staff will lose any sleep about replacing him with a juco big.

[WildCatzPhreak]

Actually I think Colon has improved leaps and bounds since the beginning of the year.  He's probably our best post in the offensive sets.  He can hit the jumper, he doesn't drop the ball when he goes up for a layup or dunk, and he can catch passes.

Bennett is also getting a LOT better.  The idea of him catching passes from the football machine is a great idea.  Now he just needs to learn how to hold onto the ball when going up to the basket and he could be a much more complete player and valuable asset to our team.

[ksu_FAN]

Couple things to add when thinking about offense.

1) We were playing Tech with basically a day and half to prep.  Bob Knight is a defensive genious and he's got enough players to have a darn good defensive team this year.
2) We were playing our first game without Walker in an offense being built around Walker.

Its harder to track Huggs' offense as well b/c we run more different sets than one set pattern offense.  Tech did a great job taking away Hoskins or Martin at the high post/top of the key so we had to resort to lots of different ways to initiate the offense as the game went along.  We then had to run a lot of dribble weaves around the perimeter to even get the ball swung and it was simply hard to get shots.  Eventually when we made our little run we isolated Hoskins at the top of the key and let him drive, reminded me of the Anthony Beane offense where we'd run down the shot clock (then 45 seconds) until the 10 second mark, go 1-4 set and let Beane create and score or dish.  However, Tech was able to take that away with a little help and Hoskins is improved but not the greatest ballhandler.

Tech did a great job scouting us and their switches combined with their always good ball pressure and help defense made it a rough night for us.  Add onto that our inability to hit the open looks we did get and we had to work really hard to get any bucket.  When the rest of the team besides one guy shoots less than 25% its going to be hard to beat anyone.

[WilliamTheWildcat]

Couple things to add when thinking about offense.

1) We were playing Tech with basically a day and half to prep.  Bob Knight is a defensive genious and he's got enough players to have a darn good defensive team this year.

They had the same turnaround time we did.  They came to play, because in all, honesty, Knight would shred them if they didn't.

[ksu_FAN]

I understand that, but I can think of other opponents I'd rather play with a day and half prep after building your offense around a player that is suddenly lost for the season.  Tech takes a lot of teams out of their offense when they are at full strength.  I'm not saying this is an excuse for this team, but this might not be the game we want to use to measure our offense by.  This was a game we needed to find a way to grind out a win in and we were unable to do so.

[WilliamTheWildcat]

I understand you weren't making excuses.  They have better players than KSU.  They JJ and Zeno.  We have nobody that plays like those guys.