Notre Dame is a worse defensive team than we are, and scoring 29 points in the second half was inexcusable. Poor shot selection continues to be a glaring problem for every Gottfried team. It’s only masked by the fact that his offense generally generates good shots–for somebody, mind you. The selling point for the UCLA high post, particularly to 18 year olds, is that it generates shots for everybody. That’s nice. But the problem is that everybody doesn’t need the same touches or shots. When you have a star player like Warren last year, we made a concerted effort for him to get more shots, but he was also very active and highly efficient on his own. IMO, Gottfried doesn’t exploit mismatches in man-to-man situations nearly enough. He used Buckets wisely last year, but hell, who couldn’t? With this bunch, we definitely settle to much for jumpshots, too little penetration, and there’s too little cutting and activity by the bigs and wings.
Gottfried is repeating his Bama performances, albeit it, with better talent and depth, and in a better league. I still say his best option is run out 9-10 a game, play with a 20-25 second shot clock, press, trap, and run, run, run. Score in the 80s-90s, not the low 70s. You don’t need 35 seconds to run the UCLA high post. That’s my biggest issue, we say we’ll outscore you, but we don’t really appear committed to the scheme that will create more possessions, or bait teams into taking quicker shots, creating turnovers, or lessening the effect of our bad halfcourt defense.
