Bison Basketball Team ISSUES

[silkamilkamonico]

That is a silly statement. SDSU had a new coach on a team that lost its top 4 guards. They made the NCAA tourney and he has solidly recruited. Would you rather have a team who started slow, struggled and figured it out to finish strong or a team that played well, struggled down the stretch and got ousted early against an inferior opponent.

You are under estimating the program down south and that is a dangerous things to do --- ever.

I don't know, if the rumors are true that he was forced to change back to a man defense from his preferred zone defense, you really have to wonder about the situation. That team really came together nicely though.

[Rock]

You people are all looking in the wrong place for answers on this.

It was a foregone conclusion that the BB team was going to crap the bed as soon as they unveiled those hideous black..................oh, excuse me.........."anthracite" uniforms!

Can we just get back to being the "green & gold" again?

'member that ESPN announcer, I think Pat Hill- used to coach at Fresno, who called the sdsu NDSU football playoff game with the legendowski end zone fade?

Kept repeating "TRADITION" during the comeback.

Side note, he also repeated "Lead G" which is now my self given rap/r&b name. But I liked the tradition comments a bunch.


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[wcb_sas]

I don't know, if the rumors are true that he was forced to change back to a man defense from his preferred zone defense, you really have to wonder about the situation. That team really came together nicely though.

I'm not sure he prefers a zone defense ... I think he simply didn't have guys good enough to defend M-to-M.

Biggest changes he (the coach) made during the season was:
1. Letting Daum roam the court, rather than insist he's a back-to-the-basket post player. Daum's game against UNO in the championship highlighted his shooting ability!
2. Living and dying with Orris as his PG. Frankly he is a below average PG but he played consistently enough for them to be efficient enough offensively.
3. Getting his players to buy in defensively ... coming out of their zone only defensive concepts.

I think (1) and (2) were important enough to improve them offensively whereby they didn't have to win games on the defensive end.

It is very rare a team with a new coach with as much roster turnover they had to be as successful as they were. Otzelberger is known as a recruiter. If he does get a pipeline into Brookings then they may be a force for a while!

[THEsocalledfan]

Interesting thread. I'd like to offer my 2 cents.

1) Paul Miller - best player absolutely. Does he "need" to be a leader no. Should he be a leader? Absolutely. Your best player HAS TO be at least in some way a leader. In fact you could argue he's the opposite, too selfish.

2) Deng Geu - your most athletic player and he's being yo-yo'd in and out of the lineup. Young players make mistakes. Sometimes you have to live with those mistakes. I think Richman has used him incorrectly.

3) Richman - wonderful coach good re euiter but maybe too much of a control do it my way individual. He may need to change, let go and be accepting of fluid situations that involve young men.

Folks may want to hear it, but while i think he is a little harsh on PM, much truth in this.

[Rational-Rabbit]

I'm not sure he prefers a zone defense ... I think he simply didn't have guys good enough to defend M-to-M.

Biggest changes he (the coach) made during the season was:
1. Letting Daum roam the court, rather than insist he's a back-to-the-basket post player. Daum's game against UNO in the championship highlighted his shooting ability!
2. Living and dying with Orris as his PG. Frankly he is a below average PG but he played consistently enough for them to be efficient enough offensively.
3. Getting his players to buy in defensively ... coming out of their zone only defensive concepts.

I think (1) and (2) were important enough to improve them offensively whereby they didn't have to win games on the defensive end.

It is very rare a team with a new coach with as much roster turnover they had to be as successful as they were. Otzelberger is known as a recruiter. If he does get a pipeline into Brookings then they may be a force for a while!

Some thoughts on SDSU and NDSU, from an outsider's perspective.

SDSU
Coach Otz couldn't be more different than Coach Nagy and I think that took the fanbase some time to adjust, especially with how long Nagy was coaching at SDSU. Nagy held a disdain for zone defense so when Otz started using it, the fanbase went nuts.

The big issues with the SDSU team early in the season was the amount of roster turnover meant that Otz had to try alot of different lineups/looks to find something that would work. Otz, like his mentor Fred Hoiberg, wants to play space and pace and have shooters to spread the floor, but he just didn't have the roster to do it. Zone wasn't something Otz preferred, it was just that his preferred lineup of shooters couldn't play man defense. Once he switched to it, it worked with the team winning 6 of next 7. But then league play started and we got our asses kicked. The big change for SDSU is when they went away from pace and space shooters (Andre Wallace & AJ Hess) and started playing more defensive minded players that attack the basket (Chris Howell, Tevin King, Lane Severyn). This meant they couldn't run Coach Otz's preferred offensive style, but it gave the team the best chance to win. (Otz wasn't to my knowledge "forced" to stop running zone. Daum was also playing inside-out all season. Part of the reason for zone was to keep Daum out of foul trouble too. Orris runs the point because we literally didn't have anybody better. A JUCO is coming in next year to run point.)

Very few thought these team was talented enough to win the Summit, so Otz has won over a large chunk of the fanbase and has a very respected recruiting class coming in next year.

NDSU
I watched four games this year and thought Werner was the best player because of his 2-way potential. He played great against SDSU. Paul Miller is tough to stop when he's hot, not sure why he gets so much flack on this board (and also not sure what caused the suspension last year), but when on the court he plays hard and with passion and is very competitive. That alone brings a "lead by example" attitude.

AJ Jacobsen can hit the corner 3 at a very high rate and does a good job in the post against smaller players. Seems limited athletically but does the best with what he has. I like seeing him and SDSU's Telly duel. A couple intriguing young players in Ward and Samuelson. Samuelson has a sweet stroke, Ward has good size/athleticism. Deng Geu doesn't do much for me. Seems like a low floor, high ceiling player that will tease Bison fans with highlight plays.

Again, only saw around 4 games so I may be off.

[EC8CH]

Again, only saw around 4 games so I may be off.

Reasonable assessment I would say.

[NDSUstudent]

Interesting thread. I'd like to offer my 2 cents.

1) Paul Miller - best player absolutely. Does he "need" to be a leader no. Should he be a leader? Absolutely. Your best player HAS TO be at least in some way a leader. In fact you could argue he's the opposite, too selfish.

2) Deng Geu - your most athletic player and he's being yo-yo'd in and out of the lineup. Young players make mistakes. Sometimes you have to live with those mistakes. I think Richman has used him incorrectly.

3) Richman - wonderful coach good re euiter but maybe too much of a control do it my way individual. He may need to change, let go and be accepting of fluid situations that involve young men.

Not sure I really agree with stuff about Miller at all, thought he was a great player in all aspects for most of the year and especially during conference play. He was even having an impact when his shot was off in a few games.

I felt like he really turned the corner this year.

[Professor Chaos]

I think whoever said AJ is who he is at this point said it best. He's not going to be the dominant scorer in the Summit League many of us hoped he would become after a promising freshman year. That said this team doesn't really need that. They have plenty of scoring with Paul Miller, Khy Khabellis, and Tyson Ward (who should be even better next year). This team needs AJ to be a post defender, rebounder, and leader. Think mini-Chris Kading but with the ability to hit 3s. That's his role at this point.

To me the key to whether this program trends up or down in 2017-2018 is Dylan Miller and Deng Geu. Those two were maddeningly inconsistent all year and they didn't get enough minutes to ever really get comfortable IMO. They're going to have to play more minutes next year and they need to give the Bison a frontline presence that they're losing with Dex graduating.

To those frustrated with Geu I'll say this; Dex played a total of 43 minutes his redshirt freshman season and he turned out pretty good. There's a lot of basketball in front of Mr Geu. Regardless of how he was handled this year he's got plenty of time still to grow into a great player.

[td577]

I don't know, if the rumors are true that he was forced to change back to a man defense from his preferred zone defense, you really have to wonder about the situation. That team really came together nicely though.

You can't play zone if you can't play man. Having a team play a good zone defense is exponentially harder than playing man to man. It is more exhausting, you need much more awareness of where everyone else is on the court, and you have to be quick. There are very few teams that can play an effective zone defense against anyone with a couple of athletic guys who can hit gaps hard. Playing zone the right way is brutal 3 nights a week. The teams you see doing these days are very deep. They are rotating guys in like it is a hockey game. That being said, you have to switch into it once in a while simply because of matchup issues and to throw the offense off, but you really need some very special players to pull it off as your bread and butter every night.

[silkamilkamonico]

I'm not sure why people still hating on Paul Miller. He was terrific since the start of conference and the rest of the year. Everything fans bagged on him about was pretty much non-existent during conference play and the last second of the conference tournament. He quit pouting, he checked his body language, he played his ass off defensively.

If that in itself doesn't speak of some type of leadership than I don't know what people are expecting in a leader.