From: gln@cs.arizona.edu (Gary L. Newell)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: Arizona thoughts
Date: 5 Jan 93 19:52:13 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson


OK - the non-conference games are done, the cats are at 5-2 and gearing up
to start conference play this week against UCLA and USC. I figured I would
give my impressions at this point in the season.

 First off as many of you know, I am not a big Lute Olson fan. I have
become less of one in recent weeks. After watching the cats these first 7
games I am convinced that Olson's coaching ability is even worse than I
believed. It is my opinion that he

1) Can't coach a bigman. Sean Rooks, Brian Williams, Ed Stokes - all
"under-achievers" none ever increased or expanded his skills while
here at Arizona. Rooks came in with a strong nose for the basket and
unable to rebound and he left the same way. Stokes was big on the defensive
end of the court but unable to finish on the offensive end and excluding his
last game against a much smaller Rhode Island team he is still the same.
Williams was no better off when he left than when he showed up at Arizona.
IMHO McAndrews (the bigman coach) is partly to blame as he has yet to show
that he can turn the potential into anything but Olson is to blame for 
selecting an asst. who seems unable to do the job.

2) Simply has no clue how to use his team's talent. This team is without a
doubt the most talented Arizona has ever had from top to bottom. Sure there
have been individual players such as Elliott who may have been better 
players than any single player on this team but when you have the 11-deep
talent that this team has it seems to me you could do more with it than
we've seen so far this season. Time and time again I've watched kids come
into Arizona with loads of raw talent and emotion and leave 4 years later
having learned to play without emotion and to never dare try anything
flashy or daring. People around here continue to criticize the team for
its lack of emotion, the fans at McKale for their lack of emotion but
nobody points to the obvious - that Olson - the man sooooo damn concerned
with his reputation and appearence - leads this team and that players and
fans alike follow his lead - in short - unemotional. As my buddy Mike Dukakis
once said - "A fish rots from the head". 

3) Let's his ego dominate his interactions with fans, players and the media.
Olson is quick to blame the players for losses and to take full credit for
wins - I can't count how many times I've heard "we can get them to the
foul line but we can't make the free-throw for them" or "we can get them the
shot but we can't sink it for them" or "he needs to learn to play both ends of
the court" or "he needs to learn to be aggressive on the boards" as if none
of this was Lute or his staff's responsibility. He had Sean Rooks for 5 years.
Everyone knew from day #1 that Sean was a weak rebounder - what was Lute's
approach? Constant criticism - that's it - nothing else. I guess Olson
takes the r.s.bb.pro approach that some people have a genetic predisposition
to rebounding and offensive skills and that he simply needs to point out the
weakness and it will be healed....

4) Seems to have a problem relating to some players on the team. I won't
rehash the racial charges that some have mentioned from time to time but it
does seem to me that Lute is much more capable of dealing with a Matt
Muehlbach, Jud Beuchler, or Joe MaClean than he is dealing with Khalid
Reeves, Derron Johnson, Sean Rooks, Ed Stokes and others... I do not believe 
this to be a conscious thing but more of a weakness on his part that he
should have taken care of by now. If you find yourself unable to deal with
a sizable group of your players then you need to address the issue and attempt
to improve the situation - I am unaware of any such attempts.

5) Seems to have absolutely no plan for the offense this season. He talks about
speed and running but really seems to have another half-court team except 
this season there do not appear to be many half-court plays. If Lute wants to
run then he needs to consider sitting Stokes or developing an offense which
uses Ed in such a way that he does not slow the team down. If he wants to
play a game where the cats run when the opportunity arises but play the half
court game otherwise, then he had better do something about getting back to
a systematic half-court offense where the cats look inside to either Stokes
or Mills instead of just passing it around and throwing up the outside shot.

 Now with that said I have been impressed with some of the things Olson has
seen fit to try of late. First off he has made it clear that players will
sit unless they perform. He made it a point to say that reputation would
have no impact on the decision - whether your name is Chris Mills or
Khalid Reeves, if you do not perform then you will sit and someone else
will have their chance. Stoudamire, Reeves, Owes and Stokes have all seen 
bench time to make room for Blair, Geary , MaClean and others who have
been working hard in both practice and the games.

 I was impressed to see Lute decide to play Joe MaClean after announcing that
he would red-shirt. It seems that Joe played very well in practice and made it
clear that he thought he could help the team. Olson not only played him against
Rhode Island (where MaCLean went on to spark the cats and was instrumental
in their victory) but he played him 14 of the last 15 minutes when Joe scored
11 points and had key rebounds. This was very strange for Lute who rarely seems
able to make such an adjustment - of course it could simply have been
dumb-luck.


 The cats do not seem ready for pac-10 play yet. The Atlantic ten teams (West 
Virginia and Rhode Island) were very good defensive teams and should help
in the preparation for Pac-10 play but Arizona has been less than stellar so 
far this season. They look unorganized on the offensive end, pretty solid
inside on the defensive end but weak outside. They give up far too many open
outside shots and their man-to-man defense is as poor as it has been for 
quite sometime. The zones have been very good but it seems that the zone is
not going to cut it in the NCAA much longer if they do not move the 3-point
line out a bit. Too many teams can hit the easy threes now and the zone is just
not designed to adjust to preventing the outside shot. 

 


			gln

 
Lines: 21