I never realized inbounding was so hard until I watched our team.
This is like having a bad kicking game in football. You just don’t realize how much the little things matter until they hurt.
In that Northwestern game, the easiest inbounds they had was when they walked around in a circle instead of standing and waiting. Irvin was able to get the pass pretty easily
This team struggles mightily at getting the ball in. And it is embarrassing. But to say that Beilein should scrap his out of bounds plays doesn't strike me as the right answer. We just need a better passer over 6 ft tall and for the guys to execute. Am I wrong in remembering us scoring out of timeouts often the last two years? I remember announcers talking about it being a strength of Beilein's. And there was the great end of game winner by Robinson last year at Purdue. I question some of coach's thoughts on fouling, etc. but I have confidence in his play calling coming off timeouts.Either way, its on JB. If you can’t find a better passer over 6ft tall, then either you need to improve recruiting or develop guys to the extent they have the ability to complete an inbound pass. Obviously a coach can only do so much development when the roster is so young, but I don’t think its too much to ask a coach to develop a team to properly inbound the ball without issue regardless of youth/inexperience this late in the season. We always talk about JB being a great fundamental teacher, and rightfully so, but it seems we have struggled mightily in several fundamental skills this year…inbounds passing, screens, boxing out.
I’m impressed that you were able to slip a “recruit better” jab into a discussion on inbounding. While we could use better recruiting for most other aspects of the game, our current players should be more than adequate to get the damn ball inbounds.
Inbounding from your opponent’s baseline, especially when you can run the baseline, should not be this difficult. And I mainly fault JB for our struggles here, although the players bear some blame.
First, he needs to trust someone other than Spike to inbound the ball. Spike is too short, so his passing lanes are very limited. Also, Spike is our best and probably our most clutch FT shooter. I want him receiving the ball in that situation.
Also, it seems like we typically just bunch 4 players near the free throw line and send the same 2 guards towards the ball (or the corner, unfortunately). It’s predictable, allows for too many defenders in the area, and limits the space the defenders have to cover. We had success last night when we started our two guards by themselves at the 3-point line. The area was less clogged and the defenders had more area to defend. I think we only utilized that set once.
We could also run the 4-across play that is run successfully at all levels of basketball. You can send one guy deep, one or two toward the baseline, etc. spacing is improved and the defenders don’t know if their man is going to release deep or toward the inbounder.
I don’t ever recall seeing a team struggle so much to inbound the ball. It very nearly cost us in the tournament against Tennessee last year, and has hurt us several times this year.
I don’t recall this ever being a big issue the first few years with Beilein. It seems to have been a bigger issue the past 3 years or so. Is there a particular reason for this? It can’t be the players on the roster unless guys like Sims, Harris, Douglass, Novak were better at it than others?
I hope Beilein adjusts though this is the second time this year inbounding the ball has cost the team a game. Before that I can’t single out a game it cost them maybe now that it’s hurting the team something will be done to address it.
Key word is your post is *should*...........but if the current personnel can't, then it is the coach's job to find someone that can since, as you say, it shouldn't be that hard.
Could we recruit the walking boot off either or both of Caris and Derrick, because if we could, there would be plenty of people available whom we have recruited and signed.
I get the recruiting shots–we have lost a lot of battles in the last 2 years, and we have to recruit well in '16. I do not understand how it is considered a recruiting failure when you have 3 guys on your roster who are very capable of inbounding and the ball (the normal number of guys used by any team to do so on a regular basis), and 2 of them are out with injuries.
We struggled inbounding the ball with those 2 guys healthy. We have struggled inbounding the ball JB’s entire tenure. This is something that should have received far more attention than it has the past couple of weeks.
We struggled inbounding the ball with those 2 guys healthy. We have struggled inbounding the ball JB's entire tenure. This is something that should have received far more attention than it has the past couple of weeks.
For all those 'struggles;" we led the Big Ten last year in points per possession on inbounds plays. And when those guys were healthy early on, I don’t remember those same “struggles”–we executed a beautiful over the top play to Donnal against 'Nova (he then bricked the front end of the one and one, but that didn’t have anything to do with the out-of-bounds play), ran several nice plays at the end of the Syracuse game, and then, even after Derrick was hurt but still playing, executed inbounds plays very well against Minnesota and Illinois in early Big Ten games. Perhaps you can refresh my memory as to games this year with our three best players playing where we couldn’t inbound the ball against pressure with a late game lead.
I never realized inbounding was so hard until I watched our team.This is like having a bad kicking game in football. You just don’t realize how much the little things matter until they hurt.
Much like the analogy I used for the football team prior to the season…winning masks a lot of defects for a given team. Denard was able to do so for Hoke, and once he left the poor coaching was exponentially exposed. I think that analogy is applicable here. Although Coach B is much better than Hoke, our tremendous success the past 2 years made it easy for the inbound plays to get brushed to the side. Winning has the effect of turning a blind eye to a lot of issues.
We struggled inbounding the ball with those 2 guys healthy. We have struggled inbounding the ball JB's entire tenure. This is something that should have received far more attention than it has the past couple of weeks.
Not this year but how about as someone alluded to last year against Tennessee when guys like Walton and Levert were on the court and they still had issues? Also for the sake of clarity I think people are referring to end of game situations protecting a lead and inbounding the ball as opposed to just running out of bounds sets with 13:25 left in the 1st half. Like I posted earlier I am not sure why there are these issues but these need to be solved cost them 2 games and quite possible the ability to play more this year in the NIT.
We struggled inbounding the ball with those 2 guys healthy. We have struggled inbounding the ball JB's entire tenure. This is something that should have received far more attention than it has the past couple of weeks.For all those 'struggles;" we led the Big Ten last year in points per possession on inbounds plays. And when those guys were healthy early on, I don’t remember those same “struggles”–we executed a beautiful over the top play to Donnal against 'Nova (he then bricked the front end of the one and one, but that didn’t have anything to do with the out-of-bounds play), ran several nice plays at the end of the Syracuse game, and then, even after Derrick was hurt but still playing, executed inbounds plays very well against Minnesota and Illinois in early Big Ten games. Perhaps you can refresh my memory as to games this year with our three best players playing where we couldn’t inbound the ball against pressure with a late game lead.
When it’s crunch time and the other team face guarding, we have always struggled. I remember complaining about it 5 years ago and every year since.
Agree totally with the struggles of the inbound plays. Citing a couple successful plays does not make up for the many times they can’t execute.
And some of the plays mentioned previously here, well, I’m pretty sure were drawn up in huddle of a time out. And followed by a super athletic player making an athletic play.
Then there’s the one he drew up at the end with Max inbounding the ball and he threw it out of bounds. You can’t tell me they practice that everyday. AND THEY SHOULD! That is simply a timing play. If they practiced it repeatedly he would not have thrown it SO late and THEN out of bounds.
Bottom line is they should be spending a lot more time practicing these situations.
JB does a great job coaching his players, too keep them improving their games. Time to look in the mirror Jon and see how you can keep improving as a coach.
To be fair, Beilein has mentioned all season how they are practicing things they should be practicing in September because of how many new players they have. I think that frustrates him as much as anything, but I’m not sure what else you can really expect given the situation at this point.
To be fair, surely he can come up with 5 minutes a practice to work on inbounding the ball. Help Defense, properly running off screens, making the right read on offense etc are all things that take time. Inbounding the basketball is a skill-set every incoming D1 recruit should have no problem adjusting to with just 5 minutes of practice time each day.
There’s no excuse for how bad this team is at it.
Was referring more to the baseball pass set they ran after Northwestern tied it in regulation. I hate that play (it didn’t work against Villanova either) and Max isn’t good at making that pass.
The turnover on the inbound was frustrating because the same play had worked the last two possessions. Just like Irvin missing the front end was frustrating because he had just buried four straight.