NYCat wrote:I don't think I could do it anymore. Love Miller but it has been highly infuriating since the end of the 2015 team.
Miller doesn't recruit for HIS system. Instead, he makes one and done types talent learn this convoluted system that's hard to grasp. It is for teams with less talent (mid majors and high majors). With this amount of roster turnover it's no surprise that we haven't had a good defense since 2015. BTW, he has only had good defensive teams for two years. During those two years (2014 & 2015) he had talented defenders, several who were NBA caliber. That doesn't even prove that the packline worked but that Sean had great defenders. I think pretty much every team Miller has had besides those two McConnell teams were better off playing in a more wide open offense, because they didn't have the right personnel for the defense/packline.
It's very clear one of the two has to change. The players or the system. If you want to play your system your way, fine recruit for that, guys that are long, athletic, tough, multi year, defensive minded, etc. If Sean wants to keep recruiting with the big boys, adapt and play to the strengths of the team - which almost certainly won't be a slow half court motion offense and the packline.
Because right now we have the worst of both worlds, high talent that isn't playing to it's strengths. Which btw the talent isn't as good as what Duke & Kentucky are pulling in every year, the talent isn't even worth it. Also infuriates me that Miller insists on playing big, this isn't a winning strategy anymore
But I know Sean, he won't change either his recruiting strategy or his system.
I hardly paid attention to the 2015 team because I knew the offense wasn't good enough (similar to the '14 team, but Wisconsin got hot that day), the 2016 team because ugh. The 2017 sucked me in after they beat @UCLA unfortunately, should've stayed away. I already know how this season will end. Gotta go back to being a casual fan, won't mean more when we do reach a F4 anyway. We're going to continue to win pac 12 titles.
Packline is terrible for a team with this amount of roster turnover from recruiting and transfers.
The worst part is the teams are so fucking soft it's unbelievable. Nastiness hasn't been required in a long time.
Elite Eight isn't Sean Miller's ceiling, Miller's actual ceiling is the packline, which I thought would be his cornerstone.
I certainly don't want to get rid of the guy, that's stupid. But which is more likely. Finding a better coach than Sean or Miller adjusting his coaching style on offense/defense to adapt to his personnel?
I think you are confusing the packline defense itself with culture. Miller demands excellence on that side of the ball and he is working with young kids who have never had that before and/or aren't so far ahead of their peers anymore like they were in high school where they could afford to cheat/be lazy/take plays off. The defensive scheme itself means very little in my opinion. Michigan State is another elite tier program that uses pack line and Bennett has had quite a few very successful teams with it, so I dont agree that it is a mid-major defense. There is a significant amount of things this team does wrong that crosses over to any other defense we could possibly run. Use Trier and Randolph's crappy closeouts on shooters last night. The packline demands a nice hard, balanced and timely closeout with your hands up. You also need that in a traditional man-to-man, and while you may be in a better position to closeout in that traditional M2M when the ball swings to your man, if Randolph and Trier do that in trad m2m, their guy goes right around them and we are starting to worry about foul trouble for guys like Ayton, easy buckets, etc. Ristic's inconsistency (or laziness) with ball denial down low being another example.
I don't agree that the defense does not match Miller's personnel. If everyone does their job and focuses for the full 30 seconds, I'm all for teams playing hot potato around the perimeter and forcing teams to make contested, low percentage shots over our length. Thats what we do at Arizona and if you watch guys like Solomon Hill, Stanley, Aaron Gordon, Rondae, and TJ, the principals and culture Miller translates to any defense. That is why you see those guys are generally the best or among the better defenders on their respective teams. That is why NBA execs, scouts and head coaches have vocally expressed their appreciation for how ready Miller gets his guys for the NBA. There are no short cuts at Arizona. You are shown the right way to play defense and are expected to get there, knowing full well there will be struggles and growing pains in the fall and winter.
Lastly, you are nuts if you think last year's team was not tough... No Ray Smith, no Trier for more than half the season, injuries and illness to PJC and Kadeem, and what did that team still accomplish? In a season when you had two other Pac 12 teams who were top 10 teams too.