Originally posted by kyjeff1:
I agree, basketball is an inside out game but, in my opinion, we had 4 good to great three point shooters on our team but we never saw what they could truly do. They were never unleashed.
I'm not saying Cal should allow 30 threes per game but I am saying they should have shot 20 per game with the shooters we had. I think it was a huge coaching mistake all season that didn't rear it's ugly head until the end when we ran into, like I said earlier, one of the 3 or 4 teams that can beat you. Our guys just overpowered everyone else because they could.
We knew the offense was questionable all season, we labored to score when refs didn't call fouls but had we used the three point shot as a true weapon nobody could beat them and our bigs would have scored more ppg due to the spread out defenses.
Yeah it's real easy from my recliner chair I know but I don't think I'm being out of line with this train of thinking. I just don't think we ever saw what this team could truly be once conference play started. And don't bring up the wva game, we were just an awful matchup for them.
Could those 4 guys be on the floor at the same time?
No, so how about 3? Yes, but then what happens to the defense? Do we hit more threes and score more points, but also give up more at the defensive end?
Yes, probably. So do we still go 38-0 or lose a couple of higher scoring games?
Those four good three point shooter look like 3 second round picks and 1 first round pick. Good players, but it's not like we could have trotted out Klay Thompson and Steph Curry.
I'll go back to what I said earlier - our three best overall players were Towns, WCS, and Lyles. Play those three guys together, and our 3 point shooting will suffer.
All year long, we played tremendous defense and crashed the glass to overcome our shooting deficiencies. Yes, we could have played differently. But there would have necessarily been a tradeoff that could have been better or worse.
Cal's main premise is this - stop the other team from hitting threes and you greatly reduce the risk of being upset in a one and done tournament format. For the season, we did this better than anyone, holding teams to 27%. Wisconsin shot 41%.
So all year we played a big lineup and rebounded well on offense. Wisconsin held us off the offensive boards. All year, we played defense to stop the three. Wisconsin hit a high percentage from three.
You could argue that Cal should have known this was going to happen. He could have played 3 guards more and gotten into a shootout. But we did what we did all year, and were still up 2 with 2:41 to play when Wisconsin was given a free basket.
Listen, I'm as sorry we lost as anybody. Sometimes that's just the way it goes. We could have done some things differently, but what we did all year actually worked pretty well.