First, thanks to SD for starting the thread. One of the better hoops threads of the season, IMO.
I've given the whole Bone/Kent style of play, coaching, recruiting, etc. thing a lot of thought, as I'm sure many of you have, also.
Here is my $0.02. Much of this echoes some of the other posters.
First, Bone was clearly a better evaluator of talent than we recognized. Look at how many shooters Ernie has discovered on his roster! And Bone was on Hawkinson really early. Sure, he knew the family, but the family were no strangers to Romar, either, and they tried to get UW's attention. You could say some of the same about Lacy. Bone could identify talent and then use his nice guy approach to recruit it, and those really good kids that he got were due to early identification and long term recruiting effort. I don't think we can argue about that a whole bunch.
Second, Ernie has pretty much done more with the kids that it seems likely that Bone could have done. I don't know what else to say on that point.
Third, Ernie is not a "no defense" coach. Westhead was mentioned in the thread, and that pretty much defines the term. One CEK example I'll note is that you almost never see Ernie's guards follow their shot. Most often they are on their way back the other direction before the rebound is secured. That is not a "no defense" coach's approach. We can argue about how effectively his team works a half court D, but there is no doubt that Ernie wants to defend the transition, and is willing to give up some potential offensive rebounds to do so.
Fourth, Ernie was recently quoted (I think it was a Brand X article) as being frustrated that he has been trying to teach his team his version of the match up zone all season, and they still don't fully get it. That, gentlemen, is more on the coaching than the kids. Make all the excuses you want about Ernie's version of a match up being more complex than many zones…if you can't teach kids at this level how to execute your D in a full season, it isn't all on the kids. You can teach rocket science in less time than that. So although Ernie and staff are not the type to blow off D, it is also clear that they are not D gurus…or at least, they are not D teaching gurus.
Finally, I think our weakest link this year has been point guard play. Not too surprising, with a So and Fr filling that role. When we have gone non compis mentis for extended periods it has usually revolved around poor PG play and the resulting turnovers, and that has cost us more games than anything else. More than poor defense, more than cold shooting, and more than giving up offensive second chances. We've gotten better over the course of the season, and it looks from the cheap seats as though that trend will continue. Certainly, a year of experience will help our PG play next year.
This post was edited on 3/7 9:32 AM by cr8zyncalif
