by OrangeBandit.
OrangeBandit is a former college player and current high school basketball coach. His take on the season was written prior to the announcement yesterday that Noel Johnson was transferring.
Here is our problems.
1. At the top of the list is the poor play of Devin Booker and Noel Johnson. Honestly I never anticipated this. I thought Booker would average around 10 PPG and 6-7 RPG. At this level of play, Booker isn't going to get close to that points average. I knew he'd struggle some because his basketball IQ isn't the highest. He is the typical monster athlete that has survived totally on his size and athleticism. I heard that Noel Johnson had a great offseason, but that was obviously incorrect. Noel still has absolutely no clue what he's doing on defense and offensively, he's still a catch and shoot guy and that's it. He's actually developed 0% since last year. Let that resonate for just a second.
2. Our defense was supposed to carry us early on. I actually predicted that we might have a top three defense in the conference. I still see players making awful fundamental mistakes and made a bad prediction that Brownell would be able to work it out of this quickly. I watched time after time players defending the man in the corner the same way they did under Oliver Purnell, which was to force him to one side (that part is OK) and at the same time give them a straight line drive to the basket (this part is as awful as most 9th grade players I see). When did staying between your man and the basket EVER get confusing? I will say at least we're trying to help each other on dribble penetration. It's just both sad and pathetic how little OP ever taught in this regard because returning players should be having zero problems with dribble drive rotations by this point in their collegiate careers and I still don't see backside wings dropping to the open men in the corner on the drive and kick scenarios and the help scrambling to cover the man they left. That's something I teach to my kids at the HS level and if they can actually execute that better than CU's players.
3. It's obvious as to why Brad Brownell gave up the NCAA allowed team practice time to focus on individual development. We've got exactly ONE player who can consistently beat his man 1 on 1 in Demontez Stitt and even he's not used to doing it this much and is struggling at times because of the saddle that we have hitched to his back. Again, Devin Booker is the most physical imposing specimen on the floor on most any night and even if he doesn't know where to go what to do, he can at the bare minimum be aggressive on the offensive boards AND stop being a weak in the block and fading away instead of attacking the chest of the post defender. Honestly, I can totally tell he's missing the "leadership", aka pressure, given to him by the presence of his brother, Trevor Booker, last year. He didn't know much last year but at least he played hard. I haven't seen him play hard one single game this season which is inexcusable. Personally, I'd sit him and start Milton Jennings who is much weaker and needs more development, but is at least producing more and send the message to Booker before we get into conference play.
4. Corey Stanton who is 5'9" is outperforming Noel Johnson and maybe Tanner Smith in games against quality competition. How's that for analysis? Noel and Tanner are killing me/us.
5. Offensively we're actually getting better at moving. However, we're so small and non-explosive off the dribble that good help defensive teams give us fits. Young and Stanton are solid players, but can be limited by longer athletes which leads me to my last point.......... The only thing that truly is going to fix our problems is recruiting.
Our only hope right now is that Devin Booker and Noel Johnson finally get their headsinto the game, while Tanner somehow figures out a way to keep from having 5 negative plays in a 7 play span like he did against Michigan. While the game was on the line I might add. Those 3 players have much simpler fixes to their games that they could do that would at least make them positive contributors instead of albatrosses. Most of which is mental which has to be driving Brownell crazy.
We also have to bear in mind how little overall time Brownell has had with the team. This is a MASSIVE retooling of a program that survived for 6 years on a gimmicky scheme and a bunch of hustle and effort. We're switching to a much more cerebral approach by players who haven't ever been trained on how to think and then react. They've just been asked to react. They'll get there, but it's apparent now it's going to take longer than originally anticipated due to certain key players not developing at an acceptable rate and that the cupboard was pretty bare to begin with. A walk-on was playing actual minutes last night in a 10 point ball game with Michigan. If that's not an indictment on the talent Brownell is having to play with then I don't know what else to say.
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