Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLongHaul
Nolley is one of the few positives of this season so far. Davenport's minutes should have been reduced early on and Wes screwed that up and is still screwing it up.
Hensley should play on this team. There is a reason he came from UNCG. Skillings needs to play more and they need to run the offense through Nolley and Vik. Why Wes continually allows the team to take horrible off the dribble 3 pointers blows my mind.
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Yet Davenport continues to lead this team in +/-, both in EvanMiya and most nights, so he must be doing something right.
Using EvanMiya to find +/- per possession, Skillings leads us (+0.21), followed by Davenport, Ody and Vik (+0.16), than MAW (+0.13) and Nolley (0.1). DDJ as was also a theme last year is one of the worst (+0.05) in front of only Reed (0.04) and Hensley (0.03).
The biggest issue I see is that we don't have defensive energy or leadership. Pretty much every Bearcats team prior to Brannen had a couple of guys who might not be great on offense, but they were going to give it their all on defense and at rebounding and demand that other guys do the same. The coach would sub them in for anyone who wasn't giving their all.
Brannen didn't recruit those guys, Miller hasn't recruited those guys (with the exception of Newman).
Nolley has been a positive on offense, but he's not a good defender, he's a bad rebounder and he definitely not a defensive leader. Much like Davenport and DDJ (though DDJ has been stepping up his defensive game lately).
Miller doesn't demand high level defense/rebounding and even if he did, he doesn't have anyone on the bench who brings it anyway. Skillings/Ody are the closest. Hensley is great defensively but horrible at rebounding.
Early in the season I wanted Miller to establish intensity at defense/rebounding as a high priority. Bench Davenport and/or Nolley (our two worst in that regard) and give other guys (Skllings, Reed, Hensley) minutes, even if it made us a worse team to prove the point that energy, defense and rebounding get you minutes.
Miller has been content with poor defense, poor rebounding and just an overall lack of effort on that end of the court. Against competent teams, that means we have to be very good to great on offense to make up for it. We can't afford an off night on offense. But we are going to have off nights (especially on the road it seems).
It doesn't help that our leaders (mostly DDJ and Davenport, less often Nolley) have a tendency to start playing hero ball when things start going poorly.
I'm not sure what the solution for this season (or if there is one). It seems like we are who we are and will be fighting to make the NIT. Miller better start emphasizing rebounding and defense in recruiting though or fans aren't going to be happy with him.