10 Points in 3 minutes

[arxpert]

Title says it all. The team started hot and Tommy just watched as the tires deflated all the way down the highway without adjusting.

Scoring about 45pts over 37 minutes or so is unacceptable. Duke is not that good to the extent that we couldn't even make a real Run at any point.

I think this season will be a very humbling year for Tommy if he refuses to make the necessary changes before it is too late. Carter Bryant clearly doesn't have enough leash to succeed in this system and tonight was an opportunity for him to get off 10 or 12 shots, carrying us to a win, but instead he had to stand around watching Love go 1-9 from 3 while Duke had multiple players taking 3's at a more efficient clip spreading the opportunities around.

Made all the difference in an otherwise closely contested game.

Just another year with a Kerr and Boswell watching Love stymie everyone else in boom or bust games.

Do better Tommy. This is a team that has no identity at the moment. The coaching is terrible.

[arxpert]

I will add that I don't think Tommy has a roster that is truly capable of Show Time Run and Gun like a NBA style team with pace and analytics. He has a slow team that would be much better mixing in styles where we can play out in transition, but also need to be able to slow it down and run actual plays in half court sets. I wonder if Tommy will make the adjustments before it is too late.

[FOOS]

Title says it all. The team started hot and Tommy just watched as the tires deflated all the way down the highway without adjusting.

Scoring about 45pts over 37 minutes or so is unacceptable. Duke is not that good to the extent that we couldn't even make a real Run at any point.

I think this season will be a very humbling year for Tommy if he refuses to make the necessary changes before it is too late. Carter Bryant clearly doesn't have enough leash to succeed in this system and tonight was an opportunity for him to get off 10 or 12 shots, carrying us to a win, but instead he had to stand around watching Love go 1-9 from 3 while Duke had multiple players taking 3's at a more efficient clip spreading the opportunities around.

Made all the difference in an otherwise closely contested game.

Just another year with a Kerr and Boswell watching Love stymie everyone else in boom or bust games.

Do better Tommy. This is a team that has no identity at the moment. The coaching is terrible.

100%. We don't have a guard that shoot and defend.  Wiscy's and Duke's guards destroyed us

[KansasCityCats]

I respectfully disagree. Besides Dook's two starting bigs, they shot 37% from the floor and 31% from distance. Our D wasn't bad but outside of Bradley, we couldn't create plays on offense.

Every wisconsin player dominated our defense but their team still shot a lower percentage than Arizona has averaged over the past few SEASONS. Free throws and ugly officiating obviously made a major impact.

Love and Dell'Orzo's consistencies from deep are the biggest question marks from our backcourt. Otherwise, I think we're pretty well-rounded.

[mvpreed2]

Just another year with a Kerr and Boswell watching Love stymie everyone else in boom or bust games.

Do better Tommy. This is a team that has no identity at the moment. The coaching is terrible.

The notion of "addition by subtraction" is why I did not want Love to come back this season.
Without him, there would be no ball-dominate scorer on this team.
That also means the ball should not stick, and you SHOULD be able to coach this team to the ball until you find a mismatch, or the defense gives you a wide open shot.

I really like the idea of what this offense could look like with this lineup:

Bradley
Lewis
Bryant
Townsend
Krivas

Awaka
Veesaar
Dell'Orso

Instead, we have to sit and watch this team look to Love for scoring in the clutch.
I do not like what I see when he has the ball in his hands at the end of the shot clock.
The idea of attacking the basket, making the defense collapse, and creating something off of the defensive scrambling because of the amount of spacing/versatility on the floor.
#BearDown

[arxpert]

I respectfully disagree. Besides Dook's two starting bigs, they shot 37% from the floor and 31% from distance. Our D wasn't bad but outside of Bradley, we couldn't create plays on offense.

Every wisconsin player dominated our defense but their team still shot a lower percentage than Arizona has averaged over the past few SEASONS. Free throws and ugly officiating obviously made a major impact.

Love and Dell'Orzo's consistencies from deep are the biggest question marks from our backcourt. Otherwise, I think we're pretty well-rounded.

Maybe you are misinterpreting here. I never said we played bad defense. We played solid and they played Better. Although when you speak to these %'s, you are realistically not reflecting on the Tone and Context of the game.

If Caleb Love didn't play like Kerr or Boswell with the 1-9 3pt ball hog approach, then maybe we still lose, but we lose as a team that played a good basketball game. If Love doesn't play at all, we maybe even win. There is a Value over Replacement to consider here which is something Tommy has refused to look at his entire tenure.

The "Team" played better than the scoring output, the individuals played horribly. I am always on the side of Players are on the court so they are the ones responsible, but this was 37 minutes of poor play. At some reasonable point I need to look at why and it wasn't because Duke is the 85 Bears or 2000 Ravens on Defense. It is because Tommy refused to adjust. He also refused to even play our Bigs.

That is a coaching problem when it is just 1 player imploding.

I have established that this was a closely contested game with a bad final score.

If you were to blindly look at the box score without looking at the Points section nor attempts, you would see it was pretty close in all categories other than Duke out rebounding us by around 13 I believe and having around 7 more offensive rebounds.

There were about equal FTA, TO, AST, STL, and BLK on both sides. In fact, we had less fouls than Duke by around 25% less. We played disciplined enough Defense. They fouled us 19 times and we only shot 11 Free Throws (making only 7 - still a plague for Tommy's Boys). The strategy of intelligent fouling came into play in this game for Duke. We fouled Duke 14 times and they shot 13 FT (making 8 - Hostile road environment, not great on their behalf either). All foul shots were spread around. Scheyer outsmarted Tommy and got him to avoid playing "Arizona Basketball" in our own house.

If you calculate the extra possessions Duke got from the rebounding alone, the final score makes complete sense. We could have scored a little bit more had Love hit 2 or 3 more 3's and still lost the game, but we were not in any position at any point to make a Run nor Win the game after the first 3 minutes. That is unacceptable.

So, how do you play 37 Ineffective Minutes without making any adjustments to stylistically throw something different at Duke in your own house Home Court? The Fans realistically should have been Boo-ing the team. That was not a good product on the floor.

This is my issue with the Coaching. People who watched the game know that Tommy just went down with the ship. A very Common Tommy thing to do.

Even Awaka - as you would highlight as the GrEaTeSt ReBoUnDeR barely got any usage. 12 Minutes? For a guy who is amongst the Best Rebounder in the NATION? In a game where Rebounding was the ultimate differentiator... as the late great Doobie Bill Walton would say... "Please."

No, not Love's Kerr and Boswellian meltdown, but the lack of about 8-10 extra possessions/attempts because... why? Literally why? Is Awaka hurt? Henri played 13 minutes. Is he hurt? Krivas played 21 Minutes... that is just about his Limit whether he is 100% healthy or not. He doesn't have the motor for 30+ Minutes.

In terms of Defense, the Percentages by large are lying to you here.

Tommy effectively tried to play Small Ball and got abused by Flagg and the big Sudanese kid. Baited into that strategy? Not sure. That looked more like the "Game Plan" to me. So that is called Bad Coaching Strategy. He allowed Duke to play Their game on Their terms and I am going to chew him out for it.

Why did Tommy think that playing into Duke's hands, playing their style and allowing Flagg to take 22 shots from the field unchecked? Basically 1/3 of their whole offense was Flagg and around 1/4 of ours was Love.

So if anything, make Flagg earn the points on the foul line in a hostile road environment. Especially when facing the Student Section. Nope. Good ole Mr. Nice Guy just allowed it all to happen. No resistance at all. This doesn't speak at all to our Offensive game plan being piss poor.

Duke didn't have to play defense when Love is just going 1/9 basically chucking a turnover on like 8 out of 13 shots. Allowing Love to shoot was/is an effective Defense against Arizona. Also putting us on the FT line is an effective defense as well. Tommy needs to figure out how to get more players a respectable amount of shots and also the Correct players to the FT Line such that these strategies can't be used against us.

This was more about Duke's "defense" than our lack of offense. These are becoming notable strategies aka "Trends". We are witnessing another year of Kerr and Boswell in Love currently and Tommy isn't going to adjust at all to it as we know ---> Or maybe this year he will adjust.

These types of posts are soon to become about Caleb Love if nothing changes just like last year they became about Boswell and the years before Kerr.

Overall, this game was Reffed like a true March Madness game. They let the kids play. That is an indictment on our Toughness and Toughness is a product of Coaching. If that is how the game is being called, then it is on the Coach to recognize that and play more Bully Ball until the refs start calling more offensive fouls/over the back's.

Tommy aka Mr. Nice Guy doesn't view the game that way. He would prefer to fold his arms wholesomely and stand there watching 1 player Chuck away the game. That is a consistent thing we see in every Arizona loss no matter how much success / how few losses Tommy's teams had in the first few seasons. Toughness was never a priority for him and this is the first season that he has his own guys that are capable of playing with that Edge.

I know that this group has the Edge. I know it has the talent. I know it has the swag. It just needs to be harnessed and coached appropriately.

This is a PRIME example of my version and definition of how Tommy begins to lose the locker room.

I refuse to sit around this whole season idle and watch the Caleb Love Draft Stock Improvement Show. We have a Team and I want to see it make noise in the Big12 and then March if possible. This Big12 is going to be PRIME TIME TV every single week. Marquee matchups galore. I don't want to see Arizona Basketball suffer the fate of Arizona Football.

Onward and UP!

Beardown.

[Keithjacksontucson]

Hate to say it but, but I agree with you more and more, exspecially about Love . Maybe Lloyd with continue to start love and sneak in more minutes for Bryant. But he should forbid live from shooting threes

[Keithjacksontucson]

Also agree about Kerr and Boswell, but for those guys, no real plan b. Kerr definitely became a liability

[Naterade]

I think Loves issues so far is trying to play within the offense as opposed to the perception last year of jacking up too many shots off the dribble. All his three point shots were good looks within the flow and they just didn't drop. The dude has played big in the biggest games and was an all American.  Just my opinion. I think he will find a rhythm here in the Bahamas. On another note- they keep saying Krivas is coming off an injury, but he looks fine to me, still can't make a quick post move and can't hang onto the ball. Not sure why he's looked at as an NBA player. I like the energy and speed Vesar has shown, he's not afraid to dribble and looks way more mobile than I thought he was. I'd like to see Tommy give him some time to get a couple shots up and shake off some jitters, I think he could have a breakout game if given the chance.

[KansasCityCats]

Arx, I wasn't referencing your post either r defensive comments. I like that we have the versatility to play small-ball AND big ball, although our jigs need to defend the perimeter better, specifically off the high screens.

Henri barely had kore minutes than Awaka, so Lloyd did his best to put the best matchup on the court...but the players just couldn't hit shots. Based on the last three seasons, I'm confident that we won't have many games, if any, like this on offense again.

I was the first disappointed fan when Love opted to return. He's an amazing talent that hustles on every play. Unfortunately, he's a liability because he has the Alpha mindset.  His confidence leads to aggressive shooting, which is unnecessary when we have a deep frontcourt. Lloyd couldn't say "no" when the Pac-12 POY announced his comeback, so we're stuck with him. Somebody else made the Trier comparison...and it's perfectly imperfect. Hopefully, he becomes more of a distributor as the season progresses.