Hey Everyone,
Did anyone catch that CP mens basketball scrimmage earlier today at Hancock College in Santa Maria? It was interesting, and somewhat gave a bit me a bit of hope for the team's upcoming season. They didn't shoot many (if any) errant threes, as was the case during the Bromley regime, and it appeared they made a concerted effort to move the ball to players with better opportunities to score. I spoke with one of the assistant coaches and he mentioned that a couple of the points of emphasis that the team was focusing on included lessening turnovers and taking higher percentage shots. He also said that no starting line up has been set as of yet, and may not be set for some time. The team as a whole looks more athletic and more disciplined. There were more aggressive and decisive cuts to the basket, and more effective use of screens all over the floor. Kyle Odister looked better than I expected, but looks like he'll be coming off the bench, as Justin Brown seemed like he handled ball pressure well and did a decent job at creating his own shot. I don't think we should be overly worried about size issues down low either, as I think we have just enough size and strength down there to hold off the big men of at least Big West teams.
The main thing that's a little disconcerting is that the team seems to run a constant matchup zone and not much else. I believe the teams of the Big West may stretch them out to open up more holes to drive through or take advantage of open threes, if man to man defense is never played. This also tends to slow up the game and I'm not sure it'll open up many easy fast break opportunities for us. I think there may have been only 2 or 3 fast breaks during the entire scrimmage (the ones that included lobs to Shawn Lewis were quite exciting). There is definitely a good amount of room for improvement on both offense and defense, but there always is at any level of the game.
Did anyone catch that CP mens basketball scrimmage earlier today at Hancock College in Santa Maria? It was interesting, and somewhat gave a bit me a bit of hope for the team's upcoming season. They didn't shoot many (if any) errant threes, as was the case during the Bromley regime, and it appeared they made a concerted effort to move the ball to players with better opportunities to score. I spoke with one of the assistant coaches and he mentioned that a couple of the points of emphasis that the team was focusing on included lessening turnovers and taking higher percentage shots. He also said that no starting line up has been set as of yet, and may not be set for some time. The team as a whole looks more athletic and more disciplined. There were more aggressive and decisive cuts to the basket, and more effective use of screens all over the floor. Kyle Odister looked better than I expected, but looks like he'll be coming off the bench, as Justin Brown seemed like he handled ball pressure well and did a decent job at creating his own shot. I don't think we should be overly worried about size issues down low either, as I think we have just enough size and strength down there to hold off the big men of at least Big West teams.
The main thing that's a little disconcerting is that the team seems to run a constant matchup zone and not much else. I believe the teams of the Big West may stretch them out to open up more holes to drive through or take advantage of open threes, if man to man defense is never played. This also tends to slow up the game and I'm not sure it'll open up many easy fast break opportunities for us. I think there may have been only 2 or 3 fast breaks during the entire scrimmage (the ones that included lobs to Shawn Lewis were quite exciting). There is definitely a good amount of room for improvement on both offense and defense, but there always is at any level of the game.
