Tristan Enaruna minutes
- Thread starter cyclones12321
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I feel like TJs "outworking the other team" comments are being misconstrued by people on here after reading that article.No commitment, but TJ asked directly if TE would play more against TCU.
"We don't have that margin for error," T.J. Otzelberger previews this week for the Cyclones
Iowa State suffered their fourth straight defeat Saturday, but have an opportunity for a quick turnaround Tuesday as the Cyclones take on TCU. Earlier this season, Iowa247sports.com
I can go out there and work hard, but I'm not going to score any points, get any rebound, will get the ball stolen from me and will get blown by on defense but I will foul someone hard enough that they don't get the "and 1".
Is that starter material?
If I understand you correctly, regarding that article (and perhaps other coach postgame comments), fans are misinterpreting "outwork" as "working hard"?
That is (paraphrasing)
* We have to match opponent physicality and out-hustle.
vs.
* We have to work harder and give better effort. (i.e., not what he means)
I'll admit I've probably made that assumption, too, and I don't claim he's made reference to Option 2 above at other points.
Yeah that's how I'm reading it. I also read it as outworking by executing.
This is the section I'm referring to:
"There is also such a thing as, in this league, there are more physical bodies, there are bigger bodies. There are teams with more depth, specifically on the front lines. So, all those things become factors. When I say ‘our guys need to want to win more,’ when there are nine minutes to go and we are up 58-48, and all of a sudden, there are four minutes to go and we are down 60-58, it wasn’t a bang-bang-bang change of fate. It was, essentially, they got to a couple loose ball and offensive rebounds quicker, and converted to those to points. We had five turnovers in eight possessions, and those were turning into points. So, it wasn’t a lack of wanting to as much as it was demanding it. And, physicality isn’t just in terms of blocking out and hitting people; physicality is also catching the ball where we want, and, you know, what happened on Saturday is that they sensed that we were a little tentative. They sensed that our confidence was a little fragile during that stretch, so now, McGuirl plays a passing lane. Now, Nowell plays a passing lane, because, we were not demanding it as much as we had done in times previously. So, I think our guys want to win, I think our guys care about our team winning. We have really good guys on our team, but there has got to be a level of stubbornness to do everything correctly. Because the truth of the matter is we don’t have that margin for error. We don’t have, we’ve got to be so good at every part, and so good at every margin, you know to be able to come out with wins in this league. But, we’ve shown we can do that, early in league play we did that a few times, and we’ve just got to be so intentional. "
Cool.
It's possible his wording previously was easy to misconstrue, and he did a better job clarifying with that quote ... "KSU wanted it more" does sound bad compared to "didn't do enough in the details to make sure we sealed it."
Edit: Still comes down to getting the team to DO those things consistently, of course.
I get what he is saying, the problem is they just don't have the guys to out execute teams. Everyone one in this league defends and a lot defend at an elite level. On top of that a lot of teams have better offensive talent and better coaches. So it just extremely difficult to win when you are as offensively challenged as ISU. It is going to take a bit of luck to win any of the remaining games.
Yeah I can definitely see how it can be viewed the other way. Yeah and part of that is on TJ to put them in a position to be successful and part of that is on the players to make smart plays.
I think that is the frustrating and confusing thing for us as fans. We just have no idea what is happening in practice or why TJ does some of the things he does. Rationally, I understand that. But emotionally, it's a huge WTF IS HAPPENING thing. And we can only speculate.
Also, Grill needs to get his footwork sorted out, imho. His stroke seems ok (better than 1-12 anyway) but it seemed like his feet were never in the same place twice...
Winning on effort is hard. probably every team in this league has more overall talent than us.
Many on here questioned the sustainability of our effort early in the year. We’re they correct? Maybe. I think it has more to do with everybody in the league has us very well scouted. It’s not like we have many offensive threats.
Our offense hasn’t evolved at all, TH is hitting the wall that pretty much every non-1 and done freshman starter hits, our two tallest players are below average and bordering on terrible. All kinds of tape out there now. Recipe for what we see are seeing now. Just have to keep grinding and hope for some off nights from our opponents (which doesn’t happen often in this league).
I still think it's kind of ********, but whatever. It will be interesting to see if he continues to harp on that when he (hopefully) has a more talented team. Sometimes focusing on effort and details makes it seem like you don't know what the problem really is.
For example, I'm a stupid fan. And if given the chance to tell you what was wrong with a particular team, I wouldn't be able to point at a scheme or a philosophy. But I'd talk about some ******** effort and heart.
Also winning on effort doesn't work in the ncaa tournament without some coherent game plan
Two things about the scouting report viewpoint on ISU. First, this is an OLD team, and other than TH, this team has a ton of minutes played, all but Grill and Jones on power conference teams. Then consider that turnover is the norm in college basketball. Between that and guys' roles evolving from one year to the next, there are VERY few power conference teams that come into the season with a meaningful scouting report at the team level, so I don't think this was some significant advantage ISU had early on relative to anybody else. Certainly you get into conference play, especially in the second game against an opponent and you see what teams similar in talent can do against a team, their players' roles are usually well defined, etc. But I don't think relative to most P6 teams ISU presenting anything too out of the norm in terms of scouting.
With that said, personally I think the most important turning point in the season was the TTU game at Hilton. Adams just decided that F it, they are going to overplay everything and see if ISU can make them pay. Not only did ISU not make them pay, they gave up live ball turnovers that led to easy buckets. Now this is just what everyone does, and while there have been some better offensive games, mostly it's been retreating and laboring to catch a pass 25' from the rim, lots of tough shots, and quite a few live ball turnovers leading to runouts. Basically our offense allows the defense to have it's cake and eat it too. Create TOs by extending and denying, yet still not getting burned. Actually the K State game was one of the better games of actual creation of good shots ISU has had in a while. I would not say it was good - there were still too high a percentage of tough shots, but it was actually better. The live ball TO disaster continued, though.
Again about those turnovers.....telegraphed passes when the opponent is overplaying and still throwing it there as many times as they did was so frustrating. I think I watched 4 or 5 college games Sat/Sun and 98% of the time, the offenses were not being challenged like that in the passing lanes at all. But all those teams also had an inside game threat so while I think the offense looks good at times, and may be our best choice with our talent, our players should know by now to use more back doors and FAKES/w dribble drives to make them pay! Sometimes they are so determined to pass so quickly and move so fast to reverse the ball (which I get) to create movement, that they don't even look at what the defense is doing. But because of the way we play aggressive defense ourselves, you would think the overplaying would occur in practice and they could work on it there to make adjustments.
But perhaps many of our players are just not quick to adjust or aren't equipped to be complete basketball players. I refuse to believe that the effort is just not there.
IMO Caleb played a ton of minutes, even though his shooting stunk, because K-State played 4 guards most of the game (179 of 225 minutes). They only had 3 players over 6'5" play on Saturday: Masoud (22min), Linguard (9min) and Bradford (15min).
Not sure where TJ was going to turn for minutes. Tre & Jaden played 16 minutes and scored zero points (going 0-1). I doubt TJ told them not-to-shoot. With a team as limited as ISU is on offense, it would have been difficult to sit Caleb. Basically, playing 4 on 5 on the offensive end of the court.
Caleb is tough to figure. He was ISU's bright spot against WVU going 4-6 from 3 pt. My guess is the staff was hoping he would eventually make shots.
There are lots of ways to attack over playing. While too much unproductive dribbling is an issue with some teams, there are so many times where guards will catch a pass and the overplay should trigger an attack off the dribble. Now you’ve got opportunities. Backdoor cuts, dives off the weave. Easier said than done, but the way teams are playing ISU is screaming for a heavy dose of this stuff.
The gospel on how to react to heavy on-ball pressure is you've got to beat your guy off the dribble. However, this really isn't a very good ball-handling team.
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Definitely agree. Gabe is better when he attacks w/the dribble. Kunc needs to do more. Grill hardly ever does. Others need to do it more. But I guess we tend to turn it over more when we do, too. Or they just arent good enough ball handlers or strong with the ball. But again, I don't see practice. Our coaches do.
I am afraid Enaruna will be gone after this year. TH is obviously mixing up rotations (see starting Jones over GC and then starting Jaz). To go as ice cold as they did And not bring Enaruna off the bench for even one minute spells trouble. I don’t know what kind but it can’t be good. Sad because the guy has as much upside as anyone on the team that may return other than Hunter. Gabe has peaked, Rob and Tre and Jaz are what they are, Grill might become more effective in time (namely if his forty percent from three wasn’t 80% one night snd then 0 the next). Tre King will be an upgrade but really unsure of this incoming class. Think they all will be decent players but going to take awhile to develop. TJ desperately needs an impact transfer and probably two if Enaruna leaves.
Before everyone here roasts me for saying that I’m not spreading rumors. I just don’t think in today’s transfer portal era a guy like that is going to ride the bench for a borderline tournament team and be satisfied. He could play a bigger role at a smaller school or get backup minutes with better programs.
Before everyone here roasts me for saying that I’m not spreading rumors. I just don’t think in today’s transfer portal era a guy like that is going to ride the bench for a borderline tournament team and be satisfied. He could play a bigger role at a smaller school or get backup minutes with better programs.