I went back and watched a lot of extended highlights and some game tape of both the Tennessee and Vandy games and a few things stood out to me, thought others could offer some more insight and answer some questions ...

1) Missed shots from 3. Its really that simple, especially against Tennessee. Even I banged the drum in the days after the UT game about not taking so many 3s when we are bad at it, recognizing we are off and doing something else, etc ... but damn, we just could not hit the broad side of the barn in either of those games. Especially against Tennessee, of the 3s that I saw on replay (and I didn't watch every single one of them), I think maybe there were 3 or 4 that you would classify as "bad shots" for us. The vast majority of the 3s we've been shooting have been pretty damn good looks (at least for us), and they just aren't going in. Period. Its wildly frustrating.

2) Solo at the 3 vs Solo at the 4. I know its not unique to these 2 games, but I cannot believe we are still playing even a single minute with Solo at the 3. Its blowing my mind. Its like watching 2 completely different offensive players. At the 3, he's stuck in a corner and literally doesn't move. Multiple possessions in each game, just in the highlights, the defender closest to him has his back to Solo the ENTIRE POSSESSION and didn't have to even pretend to guard him. When Solo is at the 4, its a completely different story. He's active, he's in the paint for offensive rebounds, he gets the ball on the elbow and can dribble a little bit, etc. Him playing with two of Andy/Payne/Coleman has to stop. Either that, or he has to run the baseline back and forth without the ball ... he'd be open for 6-7 lobs per game based on how he is defended,

3) Defensive lack of court awareness? I know we have a "team defense" scheme, but Tyler Nickel and Chaz Lanier are both shooting 40+% from 3 on the year ... I just don't understand how any scouting report or defensive plan when those guys are in the game doesn't start with "don't leave that guy ever." Here are 2 clips, 1 from each game (for some reason I can't get them to embed with the YouTube player):

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxfGFM6iM4rJL1Bm2T-EJy4LhRf_Qwcqzz?si=eRc2chB7AmL9ScG2

This is Nickel's first 3. In this clip, Hefner does a decent job closing out on their small guard in the corner, forcing him baseline. At that moment, Phelps is on the back side almost in the paint, while Nickel is on the wing, about to rotate toward the ball and BEG for it. When the guard "penetrates" directly into help defense (Andy) and starts to pass it out to Nickel, who has gone from the back side wing to the ball side wing, we have FOUR GUYS BELOW THE FT LINE and Hefner trailing the ball, with one of the conference's best 3pt shooters (who is 6ft 7in) left alone on the wing.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxZ18JTQ-EEeDcT3GoDPI90qa0llw56Hpo?si=n1H_c2VVl3GPsDfU

Even worse here against Tennessee for Lanier's first 3. Pause it at the 4 second mark and you'll see Lanier in the corner with the ball on the same side of the floor. Wade Taylor is standing with a foot in the paint at the FT line as the ball MOVES TOWARD LANIER, and he doesn't even make an attempt to get over there until the ball has already been passed to Lanier. Thats so damn easy.

This can't be how we've be doing things all season, is it? I know Goodine torched us against OU twice, but as its been mentioned, that guy is the 3rd or 4th option at that team, and we took away the first couple, I get that. But Nickel and Lanier (especially Lanier) ... those guys are big parts of their teams. They aren't the 3rd or 4th options when on the court. How is part of the plan not making sure someone is within arms length of those guys on the perimeter at all times?

4) It feels like Wade Taylor is killing us on defense. Look, I'm not an expert, so I could be wrong on this, or maybe this is all by design and the math is just upside down on us right now, but much of the time it looks to me like we are playing 4-5 on defense with Wade in the game, especially as the ball gets moved around the perimeter or if Wade gets matched up with someone in the corner.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3yQrvoBZ0_gjyySHuxsNYyPnbJnNJY55?si=uplbbL9sNV3EKM6A

This happened at least 3 times in the closing minutes of the Tennessee game, but this one jumped out at me the most. Wade is "defending" a guard in the corner, and that guy runs through to the other side and Wade "passes him off" as he does and then Wade just stands there.

At that same moment, Payne is at the top guarding Zeigler with the ball (yikes ... wtf?) on the same side that Wade's guy vacated. Zeigler penetrates towards the middle of the floor, and when he picks up his dribble at the FT line, there are then 5 UT players on one side of the floor and only 4 A&M guys, with Wade in no-mans land on the other side by the baseline.

3 shooters on that side for Tennessee and its just "pick your man" for Zeigler. Solo can't close out on them both, and when he moves to the guy in the corner, Zeigler picks his other teammate on the wing for a 5 foot pass and a wide open 3.

And maybe I'm wrong on this, maybe thats exactly what Wade is supposed to do, but if thats the case, then the plan is seriously flawed. If all you have to do is move from one corner to the other to completely unbalance and confuse our defense, thats ridiculous. If Wade isn't going to follow, shouldn't he have rotated down, taken Phelp's spot and allowed Phelps to rotate out? Or, sh*t, do something else! Go up and trap Zeigler with Payne, force him to pick up his dribble! Instead he just stood there = easy look for Tennessee.

I swear that happened a bunch of times in these 2 games (although not always with Wade).

I don't know what real conclusions I can draw from all that I saw.

On re-watch/view I feel a little better about what we are doing offensively ... we are just in a stretch of 3-4 games where nothing wants to go in. On top of the 3s not falling, even Phelps and Manny have missed multiple bunnies at the rim in transition or on penetration that they finish the vast majority of the time. Solo at the 3 is really bad though.

Defensively, I don't know if its overall intensity, if its confusion, if its a single guy not doing his job on any given play, or what, but its really bad at times, and those times seem to be in the most important stretches of the game.

And maybe its partly who we've played and certain matchup, but I think my re-watch solidifies in my mind my personal answer to Bobinator's question the other day - we've got to stop helping so much, especially on penetration, especially with help from the perimeter. Ironically, when a guard penetrates and gets to the rim, if he actually gets to the hoop and shoots, we are doing a really good job of altering/blocking the shot and getting the rebound. Its when a guard penetrates, we collapse and its an easy move of the ball to an open 3.

- On the first three pointer, I don't think it was lack of court awareness, it was a missed switch. And that's what I was talking about on another thread is teams are using our switches against us off the ball. Phelps thinks he has the backside forward because he thinks Manny is going to pick up the guy coming down from Coleman. but Coleman stays with that guy and by the time Coleman realizes that Nickel has moved over the top he can't recover. Now Phelps actually sees this happen but by the time he's sprinting toward Nickel, Coleman is in the way.

The second is also a miscommunication I think, Taylor is trying to tell Solo to get off the big and move over to Lanier in the corner, I think this because he points toward Lanier and then takes two steps toward Milicic. But Solo other doesn't or can't because he's being held. A similar thing happens multiple times where Tennessee uses their spacing to force an awkward switch. This is the kind of a thing a team with a week to prepare can do to us but that most teams probably can't.

- I like the big lineup, but it does limit us offensively. It's better defensively because then we can play without Carter/Hefner/Wilcher/Manny, but like you said Solo needs to be much more active on offense and at least help get other guys open or flash to the basket or something.

Per EvanMiya our best two man lineup is Solo and Garcia, so there's something to them being on the court together, but we can't do it when Taylor and Phelps are struggling offensively.

- But the last one is definitely true. Taylor's defense has been absolutely terrible lately. And it's compounded because Phelps' hasn't been as good. We can sort of hide Taylor in this defense, but we can't hide both of them. That's what happened with Taylor and Boots last year. At least one of them needs to be able to play in front of the ball.

But a lot of this is just a long way of saying that Phelps has to play better. When he's bad, it puts us in a REALLY bad spot. Taylor's defense needs to be a little better and some other guys need to make some minor improvements, but Phelps just has to be play better than he has lately.