I want to give my perspective on why it seems like both our ceiling and floor have come down a level since the OT loss at Minnesota. There are two main culprits I'll lay out below. Then I'll explain how and why both our floor and ceiling can be raised again within the next 3 weeks. It'll be long, for me at least.
Why this doesn't spell doom for our chances in the NCAA Tournament:
- Roddy Gayle.No surprise here. Starting at Minnesota, he has regressed offensively to a degree I did not think was possible for any player at any level. I almost want to be lied to and Dusty come out and say he's battling an injury or some rare disease that messes with your equilibrium. At least we would be able to point to something and say "ahhh, okay that makes sense." As it stands, his offensive game makes zero sense and he's bringing the entire team down.
- I'm not knocking his effort. This kid plays hard and he's clearly grinding out there knowing he's in a funk.
- The stats back up your eyes: Starting at Minnesota he is 29/100 putting him at a dismal 29% from the floor. 1/22 from 3 putting him at 5% from behind the arch (It's actually worse if you go back another 3 games, where he's 1/26). We have a guard averaging 28min a game in that stretch who is essentially nonexistent offensively. Dusty cannot run his style of offense with a guard that doesn't require on or off the ball pressure for spacing.
- What the stats don't capture is his basketball IQ, which is low. He consistently makes the wrong pass or waits to long too make the right pass. He lacks the body awareness or control to be a consistent slasher too, but it doesn't stop him from doing it (not always a bad thing, but more often than not, a bad thing with him.)
- Tre Donaldson. Dusty has ran Tre into the ground, starting at Minnesota. Tre has played 31+ minutes in 11 of our last 13 games. He's played 33+ minutes in 7 of those games. So now we have Gayle ghosting on offense and Tre physically being kept from his ceiling. Not ideal at at the moment, but not the end of the world. We'll discuss this soon.
- For Context, Izzo plays 4 guards 20+ minutes a game. Only 1 of those 4 guards will play 30+ minutes a game and who that guard is rotates depending on matchups and performance. The other three will hover around 20-25 min. Richardson played 33 min vs us, Akins, Fears and Holloman hovered between 20-25min. Fast forward to Wisconsin and Akins played 31 minutes while Richardson, Fears and Holloman hovered around 20min per game. Michigan State guards look noticeably more explosive and refreshed compared to ours. Izzo has been very intentional with this throughout the year. (Izzo also has the luxury of doing this with the emergence of Richardson, May not-so-much)
- May made the mistake of pivoting away from developing Cason after the Wisconsin game. He made the decision to invest in Pippen which has not panned out. 8-12min a game for Cason throughout conference play, and with Jones also spelling at the point, would have allowed Tre to play around 25-28min a game. We'd be better for it now, but would our record be? I see the case for both sides of that answer. I think if you asked May behind closed doors and off the record, he'd admit, he'd like to have that one back.
- Strategic Timeouts - Juwan also struggled with this when depth was an issue. If you are going to make the decision to ride your PG 31+ min a game and especially in games your playing him 35+, you have to use your timeouts in correlation to the TV timeouts. Jay Wright was the best at this. He'd have 6 or 7 man rotations consistently at Nova and would use 2 timeouts a game around the TV timeouts for extended rest. He knew he had to steal minutes to rest his players and he was a master at it. This is a spot for Dusty to grow as a coach.
Why this doesn't spell doom for our chances in the NCAA Tournament:
- If we can go 1-1 at worst to close out the regular season, we are all but guaranteed a 4 or better seed and a two game bye for the conference tournament. We should be able to overwhelm the mid major program we get matched up against, with our twin towers.
- We are a matchup nightmare for any team in the country on 1 days prep. The two man game with Wolf and Vlad hasn't produced the results it did to start the year, but that's due to tape and prep. Our opponent will have but a couple of hours to study film and no time to prep.
- This may be controversial but I believe it's needed in order to reset Gayle and Tre. A double bye and then losing your first game in the conference tournament gives this team a chance to rest and reset. We can't be any more rusty offensively than we have been lately, so I'm not worried about that. Give me the rest and a full 2 week's worth of shooting drills. That's the medicine we need prescribed.
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