TO v assists - needing a new offense

[jaymOU]

I have seen Emig's tweet and the thread below - this stat suprised, disappointed me - OU has 15 more TOs this season than assists! That includes the exhibition game, but I was shocked to see that.

21 TOs to 6 assists in the Wisc. game alone. OUCH.

Some of this is Woodard's fault, but some of this falls on the shoulders of Lon's three-man weave offense - one that seems to be predicated on getting one of OU's guards in a good match-up and getting them to take their man off the dribble. Lot's of one-on-one moves.

Much of basketball is kinda of headed that way - mirroring what the NBA does. I hate what the Thunder does on offense, but, unfortunately, it's sort of repeated in a smaller scale in Norman. Even on the HS team my son plays for the coaches are always saying "go make a play".

When I played, albiet when peach baskets hung from the rafters, we really emphasized running sets and looking for certain shots for certain players.

Maybe I am just old, but, I am hopeful hearing Lon at least talk about changing the offense

 

[BoomSoon]

These guys don't need an overhaul. Thinking the ball needs to move a bit more on the outside and I'm sure LK will want them to work inside out more as well. Never had this option last year and didn't know TT was a real option until hours before the season started. The guards need to understand this.

The offense looked bad at times in Bahamas and we still beat two good teams by double digits. Correctable issues. Love where this team is at right now because of its defense. Offense will improve.

 

[Stikboy]

I have seen Emig's tweet and the thread below - this stat suprised, disappointed me - OU has 15 more TOs this season than assists! That includes the exhibition game, but I was shocked to see that.

21 TOs to 6 assists in the Wisc. game alone. OUCH.

Some of this is Woodard's fault, but some of this falls on the shoulders of Lon's three-man weave offense - one that seems to be predicated on getting one of OU's guards in a good match-up and getting them to take their man off the dribble. Lot's of one-on-one moves.

Much of basketball is kinda of headed that way - mirroring what the NBA does. I hate what the Thunder does on offense, but, unfortunately, it's sort of repeated in a smaller scale in Norman. Even on the HS team my son plays for the coaches are always saying "go make a play".

When I played, albiet when peach baskets hung from the rafters, we really emphasized running sets and looking for certain shots for certain players.

Maybe I am just old, but, I am hopeful hearing Lon at least talk about changing the offense

Thanks for this post. Since watching the team up close I've been wondering alot about what OU's half court offense is trying to accomplish. The "three man weave" offense is a great description of what I saw. It seemed like there were lots of picks by the bigs at the top of the key, and efforts at the guards driving. Lots of times those drives would end up in one of our guards getting fairly deep but getting stopped with nothing to do with the ball but fire it back out... So they are trying to drive out of that, or drive and kick? It seemed like that offense renders Thomas and Spangler, or whoever the bigs are in the game at the time, useless, besides going to the offensive glass... Doesn't seem to be a great recruiting tool if we're trying to sign good bigs, either. I hope Lon means, when he mentions changes, running more offense through the post. I know Lon has forgotten more basketball than all of us on this board know combined, but man I was getting sick of that weave, especially when they settled for outside shots most of the time and missed, or found themselves caught inside with no where to pass it. With Lon's Xs and Os acumen it's gotta get better than that....

 

[KBaden145]

The turnovers I have seen have almost nothing to do with what Kruger is asking them to do on offense. This is all about carelessness and miscommunications between players. What they run is fine. Worked great last season without a real post threat. Now they adjust to having that post threat and stepping into shots instead if creating them. Made baskets WILL go up and TOs WILL go down but are completely independent of what they are running. These players must execute. The offensive struggles and TOs aren't on the coaches; it's on the players.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Postman77]

I have seen Emig's tweet and the thread below - this stat suprised, disappointed me - OU has 15 more TOs this season than assists! That includes the exhibition game, but I was shocked to see that.

21 TOs to 6 assists in the Wisc. game alone. OUCH.

Some of this is Woodard's fault, but some of this falls on the shoulders of Lon's three-man weave offense - one that seems to be predicated on getting one of OU's guards in a good match-up and getting them to take their man off the dribble. Lot's of one-on-one moves.

Much of basketball is kinda of headed that way - mirroring what the NBA does. I hate what the Thunder does on offense, but, unfortunately, it's sort of repeated in a smaller scale in Norman. Even on the HS team my son plays for the coaches are always saying "go make a play".

When I played, albiet when peach baskets hung from the rafters, we really emphasized running sets and looking for certain shots for certain players.

Maybe I am just old, but, I am hopeful hearing Lon at least talk about changing the offense

I realize you only said some of this is Woodard's fault, but you realize he is the only player on the team with a positive ratio don't you? I'm amazed at people being upset with his play...Buddy and Isaiah are consistently making terrible offensive basketball decisions. Jordan hasn't been great, but he is the only guy on this team that consistently looks to make plays for OTHERS. OU needs for their guards to gain a little humility. Start focusing on making plays for others, and then those looks free up for Isaiah and Buddy and corp.

 

[allday92]

Woodard's assist to TO ratio is 25 to 19. Not what you want from your starting point guard. Also, Woodard is shooting 10 for 40, 25% from the field. It's time he got benched for Walker. Walker is the better talent, better shooter/scorer, and more than capable of running the offense.

 

[Postman77]

Woodard's assist to TO ratio is 25 to 19. Not what you want from your starting point guard. Also, Woodard is shooting 10 for 40, 25% from the field. It's time he got benched for Walker. Walker is the better talent, better shooter/scorer, and more than capable of running the offense.

I'm sure you base this wisdom on Walker's 7 assist to 8 turnover ratio? Walker is a better scorer...no doubt, but as a leader of an offense playing 30 minutes a night? No thanks...glad LK runs the show and not you. How much sense does it make to bench a guy for assist ratio for a guy with a worse one? We don't need another perimeter player hunting shots, we simply need our wings to make better basketball decisions. Also, if you have watched the games, at least 5 of Woodards turns have come off offensive breakdowns (ie. Buddy and others running the wrong read on inbound plays). Woodard needs to shoot better, and will. But he is the right guy to run the show.

 

[thegreyghost]

3 games in 3 days

 

[DenverSooner]

Woodard's assist to TO ratio is 25 to 19. Not what you want from your starting point guard. Also, Woodard is shooting 10 for 40, 25% from the field. It's time he got benched for Walker. Walker is the better talent, better shooter/scorer, and more than capable of running the offense.

A lot of coaching is psychology. What would you accomplish with this decision?

You could crush Woodard and disrupt chemistry. Just take some minutes.

 

[stormspencer]

I realize you only said some of this is Woodard's fault, but you realize he is the only player on the team with a positive ratio don't you? I'm amazed at people being upset with his play...Buddy and Isaiah are consistently making terrible offensive basketball decisions. Jordan hasn't been great, but he is the only guy on this team that consistently looks to make plays for OTHERS. OU needs for their guards to gain a little humility. Start focusing on making plays for others, and then those looks free up for Isaiah and Buddy and corp.

This is the dirty little secret that is rarely mentioned. They both have been below average with respect to taking care of the ball and neither one, it seems, knows how to gauge and execute an entry pass into the post. I was at the Creighton game and counted three times where Isaiah had a good lane to pass and didn't get the ball to Spangler....and Spangler had his man pinned on the block all three times. It was very frustrating. Buddy needs to improve his ballhandling and/or dribbling fundamentals. Unless he is in the open court in transition, I cringe when he is trying to create in the halfcourt. I'm sure we will see some new looks on offense this Friday....hopefully more of an emphasis will be put on running the offense through the low block.

 

[usedtobe1]

I think Woodard is playing a lot better this year. I really do. I think he's slimmed down and playing better defense. I think his jump shot looks much better.

However, take a closer look at his stats. 16 of his 25 assists came against SE Louisiana and Northwestern State (2 marginal Southland Conference teams). In the 4 games against "good" D1 teams (mid-level or above), he has 9 assists and 11 turnovers. He is 6-26 from the field in those 4 games (less than 25%).

He had 5 assists in the 3 Bahama games, 7 turnovers, and went 5-21 from the field. I think it's fair that he should be expected to play a lot better for OU to have a chance to reach their season goals (conference standings and post-season). If I were giving him a grade so far, it would probably be a C-.

It's still early so I think he will continue to get better. I just hope it's a lot better.

 

[NickZepp]

I expected more out of Woodard and he just isn't doing that well so far. Hield and Cousins just don't protect the ball well enough to be dribble driving as much as they do. I don't ever want to see Buddy dribbling into traffic, that's an automatic turnover. We do need to see better movement without the ball from our guards and maybe try some more post up to the big guys. It's hard against bigger teams like Wisconsin and UCLA but we may face just a couple teams with that type of size the rest of the year.

 

[thebigabd]

I almost wish this team didn't play anybody worth a damn for 6-7 games. Start out 7-0, gel with Thomas, get Walker worked in, etc.

 

[WTSooner]

Woodard's assist to TO ratio is 25 to 19. Not what you want from your starting point guard. Also, Woodard is shooting 10 for 40, 25% from the field. It's time he got benched for Walker. Walker is the better talent, better shooter/scorer, and more than capable of running the offense.

What are you basing Walker being the better shooter on?

Last year, Walker shot 39.5% from three against JUCO defenses.

Last year, Woodard shot 37% from three against D1 and Big 12 defenses.

Some of you really need to learn about small sample sizes.

 

[j2d2]

Three guard weave offense? Shows you what I know. It seems to me that both he and Sherri like a motion offense. Isnt it kind of a Bobby Knight offense? (I am NOT knowledgeable about basketball as you can plainly see.) Neither team is moving aggressively and constantly.

 

[CoachTalk]

Woodard will be fine. Players struggle sometimes...

 

[AdaSooner]

Three guard weave offense? Shows you what I know. It seems to me that both he and Sherri like a motion offense. Isnt it kind of a Bobby Knight offense? (I am NOT knowledgeable about basketball as you can plainly see.) Neither team is moving aggressively and constantly.

There were a lot more screens and backdoor cuts in Knight's offense. The motion offense he ran had a purpose. It was more team oriented than the so-called three guard weave. OU is not the only team to run the weave, so it must work for most of them.

Part of the problem is that our guards aren't getting everyone on the team involved. The weave is designed to create shots or scoring opportunities for the three guards who run it. When that fails, it can lead to a poor shot selection. I'm hoping that will change with the "tweaks" to our offense LK talked about.

I think most of us agree that Thomas and Spangler need to see the ball more. Personally, I would like to see Thomas touch the ball on nearly every possession. He's a lot more skilled than a few posters on this board seem to think. It's true he can be more effective on the low block. But I have no problem at all with seeing him move out to fifteen feet and in to receive the ball. He has the ability to turn, face up and shoot a short range jumper. He can also drive on the defender to get a shot in close, or pass it back out to create a better shot for a teammate. He is just not getting the ball nearly enough.

 

[allday92]

What are you basing Walker being the better shooter on?

Last year, Walker shot 39.5% from three against JUCO defenses.

Last year, Woodard shot 37% from three against D1 and Big 12 defenses.

Some of you really need to learn about small sample sizes.

Even though the sample size is small, Walker has a quicker more fluid release. Just a better looking shot.