We Are No Longer Guard U

Last night’s loss, which IS the worst loss in the history of the Jay Wright era, illustrated the biggest problem we currently face as a program.  We are no longer guard u.  This does not have to be a problem, as programs tend to ebb and shift over time, but it is a problem because we, ahem Jay, refuses to adjust our offensive game plan.  What you saw last night was a combination of untimely poor shooting, inexperience, awful defending but more glaringly a lack of creative penetrating guard play.  The one required component needed in our offense.

Since 2005, every single year without fail, we have had exactly 2 players who have played more than 40% of available minutes while also assisting (ARate) on at least 20% of their teammates baskets.

Name	Year	%Min	Arate	Torate
Foye	2005	79.9	21.5	15.9
Nardi	2005	77.4	20.0	22.5
Foye	2006	86.1	21.3	12.6
Lowry	2006	72.7	25.9	19.6
Scottie	2007	74.1	30.6	22.3
Nardi	2007	74.3	27.5	18.5
Scottie	2008	81.4	20.8	21.5
Fisher	2008	53.1	25.8	20.5
Scottie	2009	80.2	20.4	19.3
Fisher	2009	60.7	22.6	19.7
Scottie	2010	75.2	21.8	18.0
Fisher	2010	67.1	27.5	17.3
Fisher	2011	83.1	32.0	15.8
Wayns	2011	75.0	32.4	19.8
Wayns	2012	75.0	32.5	18.9
Johnson	2012	43.6	21.7	35.8
Arcidiacono	2013	81.8	31.1	23.4
Chennault	2013	43.0	18.6	10.7

Let’s take this one step further.  If we assume that 1 of these 2 players MUST be on the court at all times, we can then figure out the maximum % of minutes possible for these players to be on the court together.  The point is to illustrate that we need to creators on the court together a good chunk of the time for our offense to run efficiently.  Below is the graph which shows the possible % of minutes our 2 playmakers could have been on the floor together each year since ’05.

Look at 2012.  We could have played a total of ONLY 18.6% of minutes with two ball handlers on the floor.  Let me also take a moment to point out just how awful Johnson was last year; did you see that TORate from the earlier list?  It is a whole 12% points WORSE than the next guy, who unfortunately happens to be Arcidiacono.  Translation: Wayns was forced to create way too many shots and opportunities for his teammates while at the same time trying to create for himself because Johnson should be playing DIII.

Over the years, the beauty of our offense HAS been that we have had multiple ball handlers and creators on the court at the same time.  It is what has allowed to us play a rather loose and seemingly unorganized offensive game that at the same time has performed at an above average rate.  As this graph adequately illustrates, that is not the case anymore.  Currently, we have only ONE guy who can be labeled a creator and he is a true Freshmen.  I don’t think you need me to explain anything more.

Wait, what’s that you say?  What about Hilliard, he can play the point can’t he?  NO HE CAN’T, well at least he’s shown he doesn’t want to.  Last year Hilliard was third in ARate with 10.8.  This year, when we could use another creator, Hilliard currently ranks 6^th on the team.  Yeah that’s right, 6^th as he is only ahead of Ochefu, Yarou and Sutton and his ARate is down at 8.2.  It’s so low it’s insulting.  And I’m not even mentally prepared to talk about how bad Chennault is.  He stinks, end of story.  The guy played 75% of his teams minutes last year, took over 20% of the shots while he was on the floor, and shot 43% from 2 and 25% from 3.  Even Cheek was better than that.

I’m at a loss for any positive takeaways from this post or from the game last night.  However, I do believe Hilliard CAN be an OK creative ball handler, but either Jay doesn’t want him to or he doesn’t want to.  At the end of the day, we have to do something different if we are going to have only one creator, and so far Jay has not been able to answer that question.  Let’s hope he can because frankly, I can’t keep caring this much when we suck so badly.