bobinator said:

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We're not going to be able to fix those problems right now, so the offense is what it is. Now again, against a team like Yale we can probably do all kinds of stuff we normally can't. Taylor and Phelps are going to be able to blow by their defenders, Garcia can probably take his man off the dribble. Wilcher and Hefner will be able to get more open, etc.

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We'll definitely get better flow just because it's Yale, but I think we should also prepare to run a few new sets that can help us down the road. It might even make sense to tinker at the start of the game to see how Yale reacts and to see how we can keep improving our scoring.

Eh, I wouldn't break out anything new at all against Yale unless it looks like we have to.

The answer isn't "do more of the things we aren't good at."

You want us to pass more? Prepare for more turnovers, which means we are more likely to lose the battle of FG attempts.

Even if we could pass more without turning it over, we don't put enough lineups on the floor with guys who can shoot.

The number one thing that this team can improve on right now is avoiding turnovers.

When we avoid turnovers, we can use our offensive rebounding prowess to full advantage and we actually are a fairly efficient offense even if ugly. Avoiding turnovers, especially loose ball turnovers outside the paint, also greatly improves our defense. That's the way this team can go on a deep run.

I think we have to do what we can do and not try to do what we can't. Examples:

Solo - Can't shoot outside 12', BUT other teams sag so much that he can get inside 12' without much resistance. He actually shoots this mid-range pretty good AND it creates a softer rebound.

Manny - Along with Wilcher and Wade, he may be one of our best open (non-contested) outside shooters. He should be one of the kick-out options or play it like Solo and work for the mid-range. What he CAN'T do is dribble for 20 seconds and then force his way into traffic.

Garcia - Needs to handle the ball a decent percentage of the time. When he does, we need to maintain better spacing and not crowd him.

Phelps - Can and should beat his man, but needs to embrace the mid-range and reduce the over-penetration. Again, softer more predictable rebounds.

Henry and Payne - these guys need to be on the glass. It would be great to get Payne some pure post-ups, but we suck at the entry pass and only have a couple of guys that are respected enough on the perimeter to actually create entry space. I do like Henry (and Garcia) to get the high-post look from time to time.

Our absolute primary objective should be to reduce ball handling turnovers at all costs. That means lower percentage shots, more mid-range; that's fine.

The turnovers thing is true as a blanket statement but there are some things we're probably just going to have to live with. One of them is certain types of turnovers from Taylor.

If they're turnovers where he's trying to draw a foul or something and the refs don't give it to him, he's going to have a few of those a game as he gets a feel for how the officials are going to call the game. Against Texas he had some of these but he also ended up going to the line 18 times, so you can live with that.

What we don't need are the ones where he tries to move the ball up the court too fast or tries some fancy pass to someone who's never once caught a pass in that situation. Just make the simple plays.

Get a coach to teach free throws.
Like they do in high school.