Bucknutin' But Net

I find the coaching strategy of "start hitting some shots" to be a bit lacking.

We are pretty much looking at a crapshoot in the NCAAs. Maybe we get the hot hand, some luck, and do something. But more than likely, it looks like we will be bowing out in a similar game to what we saw tonight with 25% shooting or something.

Do you remember last year, Aaron Craft was one of the reasons why they were so damn good. He was that spark for them. They need him to be that spark again. Aaron Craft needs to take over a game and start making more offensive plays. Because right now, this offense is cold. Michigan??? really???

It seems to me that Craft is best suited to be the leader on the court, as he's the basketball equivalent of a QB.

Well last year you had Diebler and Lighty who couldn't be left open or they'd hit the shots. This year they not only don't have those guys but you also don't have their leadership on the floor. This year Buford is the only senior and it seems like his style of leadership is to shoot the ball whenever he feels like it, usually taking a bad shot.

I do agree that it appears as if this team has gotten worse as the season has gone by. I blame that on Matta. I've always thought Matta was too much of a "watchmaker" coach. Just wind them up, put them on the floor and sit back and watch. He doesn't appear to make any adjustments EVER and he doesn't punish players who take bad shots by sitting them down. As long as those guys can do whatever they want on the floor while Matta sits on his thumb you're going to have games where they look like they couldn't beat an AAU team. Against MSU Thomas was burned continually on defense. I watched a little bit of the scUM game last night and when I was watching it looked like one team was a top 25 team (scUM) and the other wasn't (OSU). I don't see them getting far in the tournament because when you have a bad shooting night (which is 80% of the games for this team) you go home. They can kiss a #1 seed goodbye that's for sure.

I'd like to see Matta tell the players that if anyone gets more shots in a game than Sullinger then they won't play in the next game. Also, if they can't get someone else to step up and score some points, then why would other teams even consider guarding them. I think Craft has had a bad year on the offensive side of the ball (he's 9-22 for games in February but is 71-148 for the year--48%). Buford is shooting 42.6% from the field for the year. You wouldn't expect that from a senior, especially a senior who thinks he's going to play in the NBA. If you were an NBA team would you really want to draft a guy who takes bad shots, even when he's on a pretty good team, and is shooting 42.6% from the floor? It's not like he's a post player. Outside shooters who shoot 40% from the floor usually don't get drafted by NBA teams. Buford has some good games where he plays great but he's either great or he stinks. You can't have your only senior going 2-12 against MSU and 3-12 against Michigan and really expect to have a chance to win. You also can't expect to win when you shoot 38.8% against ANY team not to mention one that's dangerous like scUM. I'm sure Matta is sitting around doing nothing to correct any of these mistakes. I liked Matta but I don't see him taking any team to the next level. Until he starts making adjustments during the games and sitting players down for lackluster effort, matador defense or bad shots, they will continue to do those things because they can. Do you think Coach K would put up with that? I doubt it.

All this means OSU loses on the first weekend of the tournament...sad to say it but it's true.

I agree that this team looked better at the start of the season, but then again most of those games were against cream puffs. This team looks tired to me. They are also very predictable. 1.) Throw it in to Sully. Sully gets hammered, fouls are called only half the time, rest of the players try to rebound in order to get their shots. 2.) Somebody decides to jack it up from 3 point land. When option 2 has the shots falling then option 1 becomes much more open and Sully also looks great. When option 2 does not work...we have a mess like last nite at scUM. The fix is beyond this season as nobody has been developed who will be coming off the bench to help fix a bad shooting nite by the starters. Most of the guys who come off the bench acts as if they've been told not to shoot or they won't be playing for long. So whenever Buford, Smith and Thomas cannot hit anything from 3 point land we're essentially screwed. Against lessor teams we only needed one guy to get hot. Against the better teams we need them all to contribute. We could get hot for the Big Ten tournament and possibly even the NCAA...but I don't see us staying hot long enough to get to the finals.