Another integral part of Oats offense that is missing on this team is the lob to the dunker off the drive. Remember how often we scored off that with Cliff O., Mo D., Nelson, Pringle, Clowney, Bediako and Herb Jones? Gave us another option to add to the kick out off the drive; we don't have those guys on this team.
Yep! This is the worst "dunking" team CNO has put on the court. Jemison my be our best dunker, but in traffic he doesn't finish well. For a 7 footer, Sherrell doesn't get off the floor very well either. And that is a HUGE part of our offense. It was never more evident in the few games Beds was available.
They shot 53%, well above their average.
We shot 39%, well below our average.
Catchings had a career night.
It's true sometimes you just get "out-shot" but we have a tendency on defense to allow guys to have career nights.
Acuff, the Arkansas guard, scored 49 against us. BTW, that was the second highest scoring game of anybody in college basketball this season!
We are 200ish. But still are out rebounding opponents YTD.
Over all...on the season?
Rebounding is important But for this offense it’s like brakes on a Ferrari. You aren’t buying it for the brakes. And the brakes aren’t what gets you a friend in the passenger seat.
Good analogy, except a Ferrari needs brakes too.
And, what good is it if we outrebound teams that are our easiest opponents, but always get badly outrebounded against the tougher, bigger teams we struggle to beat?
The goal isn't to get more rebounds annually, the goal is to beat the teams we have trouble beating.
And if CNO is concerned about getting owned on the boards against teams we struggle to beat, why should we act like it doesn't matter?
If we can't hold our own against poor rebounding teams like Georgia, who are going to score well and play almost as fast as us, we are in big time trouble. We're already going to struggle against the big, physical teams inside. I thought we were going to handle Georgia because it was a good matchup for us; they do what we do, we just do it better. But to allow them to shoot for such a high percentage and get dominated on the boards by a weak rebounding team is very troubling.
On point! We WILL get eliminated from the Dance by a team that outrebounds us. It is our Achilles heel and it is just a matter of time.
Unless we go on an unprecedented shooting spree during the Dance, our inability to play against bigger, stronger teams this will take us down!
Never heard a basketball coach say rebounding was not very important; no matter what kind of offense you run.
Coach Oats post game after Georgia; "our rebounding issue is killing us right now, with our leading rebounders Wrightsell and Sherrill with 5 each it's going to be hard to win games"
Sherrell has the type of body that ought to excell at rebounding. But who is our leading rebounder this year? True freshman Amari Allen, who is averaging 7.1 rebounds a game to Sherrell's 6.1.
As others keep saying, it's about "want to" and when a true freshman who is a 3 on your team is your leading rebounder, you are NOT a good rebounding team.
