Bear Down Wildcats

To be sure, Miller's style will not allow for many of Lute’s early tourney exits. His teams play hard, tough, smart and do not beat themselves. The Wildcats dominate defensively and on the glass. Their practices focus on fundamentals and tempo among their points of emphasis.

Defensively, Miller essentially runs the "pack-line" whereby his team rarely extends beyond the 3-point line, but limits penetration and rules the boards while forcing opponents to take contested jump shots with good depth and excellent length.

It's the offensive philosophy that could determine whether this team raises a banner in Indy, or even gets there. Will Arizona ever use its athletes on both ends to expose athletic mismatches? Will Miller let all those athletes get out and run? Does the Wildcats' defensive style limit their ceiling?

Miller's offensive style is straight out of the 80s and 90s with classic motion that either isolates the post, uses high-low action or opens the lane so centers can back-screen passers in order to create driving angles, post-ups and mismatches. Arizona is meat and potatoes. Occasionally they'll run a play for an alley-oop or a 3-point shot, but motion offense, man-to-man defense and "we are tougher and better than you" is the name of the game.

In many ways that style is the same one I've questioned with Syracuse over the years. Sure the Cuse is unique with its 2-3 zone, which is undeniably effective but can also be counterproductive as teams can slow the pace against the Orange. Syracuse has better athletes than 75 percent of its competition, yet uses a defense designed for inferior athletes. The same is true in many ways with Arizona.

Arizona should want more possessions, not fewer, as it has far more talent than most of its opponents, yet doesn't shoot the ball that well in the halfcourt. Picking up full court, engaging the offense closer to the midcourt line and installing a traditional secondary-break offense would all be smart uses of the Wildcats' prodigious speed and length. Even if you miss a quick shot, a likely starting lineup including Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Stanley Johnson or Gabe York, Brandon Ashley and Kaleb Tarczewski would get a whole lot of second shot opportunities anyway.

Merkin wrote:Offense is fine, players just need to buy into it for 40 minutes.

NYCat wrote:Precursor: think the cats will still win by a comfortable margin, didn't want to post this after a loss.

Is horrific and always has been. And at some point he's going to have to change his old style of offense.

It's what cost a Final Four opportunity last year vs Wisconsin, and it's just looks like it will continue again this year.

I mean we have at minimum 4 NBA draftable players and its frusting to watch them do nothing. And its boring, idk if that's the word - maybe not entertaining is the phrase. I mean we have RHJ, Stanley, & Ashley and they're aren't fun to watch at all in this offense. Neither was last year with Gordon & Nick aside from any dunks they had.

Nothing has improved, Tarc still puts the ball on the floor, FTs suck, no one can shoot, still don't feed the ball down low (when they have a clear advantage there) routinely, don't take advantage of the size and clear athleticism this team possess, no intensity, no energy, etc.

I hate knowing that Another Fucking Slow Start, offensive droughts, huge portions of not scoring (5-7+ mins. like last year), barely scoring above 50 like a shitty B1G team, are for sure going to happen and will cost this team in March.

Please put a little more time in practice to practice offense, defense gives you an opportunity to compete for championships but offense wins you it - just look at last year as an example.

Its early and an exhibition game but I feel like melting down.

NYCat wrote:

Merkin wrote:Offense is fine, players just need to buy into it for 40 minutes.

Miller lost/cant control his team if they're not buying in. /S

Last year Gordon & Nick were all in, offense still sucked.

NYCat wrote:Precursor: think the cats will still win by a comfortable margin, didn't want to post this after a loss.

Is horrific and always has been. And at some point he's going to have to change his old style of offense.

It's what cost a Final Four opportunity last year vs Wisconsin, and it's just looks like it will continue again this year.

I mean we have at minimum 4 NBA draftable players and its frusting to watch them do nothing. And its boring, idk if that's the word - maybe not entertaining is the phrase. I mean we have RHJ, Stanley, & Ashley and they're aren't fun to watch at all in this offense. Neither was last year with Gordon & Nick aside from any dunks they had.

Nothing has improved, Tarc still puts the ball on the floor, FTs suck, no one can shoot, still don't feed the ball down low (when they have a clear advantage there) routinely, don't take advantage of the size and clear athleticism this team possess, no intensity, no energy, etc.

I hate knowing that Another Fucking Slow Start, offensive droughts, huge portions of not scoring (5-7+ mins. like last year), barely scoring above 50 like a shitty B1G team, are for sure going to happen and will cost this team in March.

Please put a little more time in practice to practice offense, defense gives you an opportunity to compete for championships but offense wins you it - just look at last year as an example.

Its early and an exhibition game but I feel like melting down.

It's the offensive philosophy that could determine whether this team raises a banner in Indy, or even gets there. Will Arizona ever use its athletes on both ends to expose athletic mismatches? Will Miller let all those athletes get out and run? Does the Wildcats' defensive style limit their offensive ceiling?

3goggles wrote: Your right he has lost his team! Fuck it we better cancel the season! I thought it was just the football team but you are just negative nancy!

loomer wrote:Offense looked like it picked up where it left off from last year, but it's early

NYCat wrote:I'm not complaining about the games vs the Mount St Mary's, Cal Poly Pomona, Oregon St, UNLV, Washington State's (etc) of the world; but when games actually matter in March just like last year vs Wisconsin. This team will win the PAC 12, win 30+, #1 seed that's pretty obvious. All I'm saying is I want Sean Miller to drop his 1980s offense. Defense is there, the wear down is there, size & athleticism for the D is there - maybe spend more time on offense in practice (?!).

Hate to even quote him, but I agree.

It's the offensive philosophy that could determine whether this team raises a banner in Indy, or even gets there. Will Arizona ever use its athletes on both ends to expose athletic mismatches? Will Miller let all those athletes get out and run? Does the Wildcats' defensive style limit their offensive ceiling?

__

3goggles wrote: Your right he has lost his team! Fuck it we better cancel the season! I thought it was just the football team but you are just negative nancy!

The /s for sarcasm is there for a reason

97cats wrote:i thought the team looked great -- excellent rebounding and assists to FG's

i also thought Stanley Johnson was fantastic, i hope he plays more

Miller's offensive style is straight out of the 80s and 90s with classic motion that either isolates the post, uses high-low action or opens the lane so centers can back-screen passers in order to create driving angles, post-ups and mismatches. Arizona is meat and potatoes. Occasionally they'll run a play for an alley-oop or a 3-point shot, but motion offense, man-to-man defense and "we are tougher and better than you" is the name of the game.

In many ways that style is the same one I've questioned with Syracuse over the years. Sure the Cuse is unique with its 2-3 zone, which is undeniably effective but can also be counterproductive as teams can slow the pace against the Orange. Syracuse has better athletes than 75 percent of its competition, yet uses a defense designed for inferior athletes. The same is true in many ways with Arizona

elriop20 wrote:I missed the game... Who started today??

cats101 wrote:I at least thought we would make it to the first real game before a meltdown.

catgrad97 wrote: I still see there's no shortage of insightful fans out there who think constructive criticism makes us big meanies towards the basketball and football programs though. Must be nice to think that 18- to 22-year-olds are still kids in this country.

loomer wrote:Heck, Duke won a title with the packline in 2010 but guess where their offense was ranked? #1. K completely changed his philosophy with that team because they didn't have the athletes to play his signature man-man pressure. He adapted to his personnel. Wisconsin had the #49 defense but went to the FF because they had the #4 offense. The highly ranked packline teams that had elite offenses have gone far in the tourney, while the elite defenses (Arizona, Virgina) have not in recent years.

PieceOfMeat wrote:Should I do a quick summation of the points that people who hate this thread will make?

Miller can't make their free throws for them. That's mental.
Miller can't make open shots for them.
The players need to step up and make shots.
Miller's offense gets them the looks, the players need to make them.
Miller's recruiting isn't an issue, these guys were good shooters in high school.

Can't think of other ones at the moment. But basically, the gist will be "this isn't on Miller". Oh, thought of another. "Let's see how this season goes before we declare his offense is an issue".

NYCat wrote:I'm not complaining about the games vs the Mount St Mary's, Cal Poly Pomona, Oregon St, UNLV, Washington State's (etc) of the world; but when games actually matter in March just like last year vs Wisconsin. This team will win the PAC 12, win 30+, #1 seed that's pretty obvious.

cats101 wrote:"Its early and an exhibition game but I feel like melting down."

loomer wrote:Heck, Duke won a title with the packline in 2010 but guess where their offense was ranked? #1. K completely changed his philosophy with that team because they didn't have the athletes to play his signature man-man pressure. He adapted to his personnel. Wisconsin had the #49 defense but went to the FF because they had the #4 offense. The highly ranked packline teams that had elite offenses have gone far in the tourney, while the elite defenses (Arizona, Virgina) have not in recent years.

Zero wrote:And it begins.

Merkin wrote:Offense is fine, players just need to buy into it for 40 minutes.

salim'sheadband wrote:I am responding in earnest to the OP, no sarcasm, but this isn't rocket science. As I've said before and will continue to say throughout the season, the players just need to make shots. If you actually look at our metrics when we do that compared to other teams with so-called "good" offenses there's basically no difference. We need to make about 50% of our total field goals, 37% of our 3s, and 75% of our free throws. If we can do that we will have a top-20 (aka elite) offense - as Miller has had three previous times in his ten year career. Miller couldn't "make" Gordon make shots or free throws, or TJ, or anyone else. We just didn't have good offensive players last year. Say what you will about the "scheme" but if it were that easy to get guys open for layups all the time everyone would do it, and honestly, that's the point of the motion offense anyway.

And as someone else said, if you're going off of the "eye test" I can't help you there; I don't know how to measure subjective expectations, but I will repeat the words of Coach Wooden and remind you not to confuse activity with achievement.