Can always count on you to rile things up. Do you honestly think that all our problems this season (or even this loss) can attributed to Damon or just poor coaching?
All of the problems? No. But a lot of them yes. Injuries hurt, but the players we are missing aren't what people make them out to be. People were talking about Reeves like he is in contention for our best player. By potential maybe, but he's a senior. Potential doesn't mean much. This year he is giving us 9.3 and 2.5 on 39/28/60 shooting. Last year 9.8/4 on 42/38/84 shooting. Solid role player, but he also only scored in double digits in 7 of the 21 games against ACC teams last year. 2 points against UGA, 3 points against Cinci. Unfortunately he's not the answer to our problems. He'd help add some depth, but we have a lot more wrong than just wing depth. Obrien is similar. The hope is he could combine the rebounding/defense of his junior year and then shooting efficiency of his senior year to give us a great 3 and d type of piece. Unfortunately neither of those have proven to be true. His rebounding and defense are nothing to write home about and his #% is just 32%.
Are we better healthy? Yes. All teams are. Is there a reason to believe that explains the level of play we see? IMO not even close. Our offense is not well designed and is overly reliant on winning individual match ups. It's a big reason why when we have teams that we have a talent advantage against we are in the 80s and 90s, but against quality competition we struggle to get to 70 and are often in the 50s. We also have a tendency to start slow. We were healthy when we lost to UNF (8-9 overall. They aren't the mid major darling people thought after they beat Scar) by 12 at home. We were mostly healthy when we lost to Cinci (0-4 in the Big 12) by 23 at home. McCollum got hurt in this game, but played most of the first half and we were down by 16 at the half already. We were missing just Reeves when we got beat by 11 against Northwestern (1-4 in the big ten). And that score is closer than the game actually was. The injuries hurt, but we have serious problems outside of them.
A big reason for where we are is roster composition. This team very easily, imo, could have had the following.
Jalon Moore - 17.4/6 in 28.5 mpg for OU on 51/43/84 shooting. Wanted to stay, but told by CDS that he might only be playing 5 minutes some games, something you don't tell a player who was in the position Moore was if you want them to stay. I know some have their head in the sand about this but that was about as clear a case of running off a player as you're going to get.
Deivon Smith - 13.3 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 7.1 apg last year on 47/41/68 shooting for Utah and 10.8/5.7/4.4 on 45/41/73 shooting this year along with great defense. He transferred without knowing if he'd even be able to play last year, and it cost him about 10 games.
Miles Kelly - averaged 14.4/3.4 for us on 41/38/90 shooting as a sophomore. Stayed one year, saw his efficiency plummet due to worse shot selection in this offense, gets thrown under the bus and clearly seen as not one of CDS "guys". Transfers to Auburn and is putting up 10.4/3.4 on 44/44/86 shooting. And most of the reduction in raw stats is due to less minutes, as his per 40 scoring is only down 1 compared to last year but on significantly higher efficiency.
Those 3 + Terry would make for a great core, and the opportunity was there for instant success, at least to some degree, if CDS could bring in a couple of complimentary pieces and utilize them well. But it is clear to me he had little interest in coaching players who weren't his guys and overestimated his ability to attract instant impact transfers/recruits. He also hasn't shown the ability to get anywhere close to most out of his players and it seems the team as a whole is less than the sum of its parts to me.
To me, he doesn't seem to be a particularly strong xs and os coach (I think it's pointedly a weakness for him). He doesn't seem to be a particularly strong development coach (I don't think Baye,Nate, or Kowaci are improved compared to last year) although jury is still out to some degree. He doesn't seem to be a particularly strong player connection coach (Abram and Onwucheckwa along with the numerous transfers as well as his comments throwing players under the bus) again Jury out to some degree. About the only strength he has shown that I can see is recruiting, but it is "good enough to be competitive combined with competent coach" good. Not "we will talent our way to the NCAAT despite mediocre coaching" good.
