re: UA Basketball (16-15, 8-10)

It's not even an attitude/culture thing to me. Oats just has a very clear style of play that they are starting to get accustomed to. Grant had it on defense but not on offense. Avery had neither. So oftentimes those teams would never get better throughout the season because there was no clear framework of a system for them to become more proficient in. Expecting a player to learn how to shoot 3s or improve his conditioning during the season isn't very realistic. Most individual development occurs during the offseason. So when your offense relies almost exclusively on hero ball tactics you need multiple elite players or one guy who is so good he would have been a good NBA starter if not for the 1 and done rule. If you have a system that, if run correctly, creates open looks for players who can't necessarily create them on their own then you will get better as your players get more comfortable operating within the structure of that system.

All that being said, our lack of overall depth and our poor frontcourt defense will likely end up hindering us throughout the season.

Also - conference play will be really interesting for a bunch of reasons, but a big one is how different our style will be compared to a lot of SEC teams. So far we've played a lot of teams that are on the faster end of the spectrum.

As of today, 10 of the 13 most slow paced teams on our schedule we have yet to play. We've already played 6 of the 8 fastest tempo teams.

Avg Possession Length (National Rank) (Bold teams have not been played)

#15 Iowa State (L)
#22 Samford (W)
#28 Georgia
#35 South Carolina
#38 Penn St (L)
#48 Rhode Island (L)
#50 Belmont (W)
#52 North Carolina (L)
#54 Auburn
#66 LSU
#78 SFA (W)
#105 Penn (L)
#142 FAU (W)
#143 Arkansas
#149 Kansas St
#154 Ole Miss
#156 Kentucky
#169 Richmond (W)
#177 Vanderbilt
#210 Furman (W)
#212 Florida
#215 Tennessee
#269 Missouri
#292 Southern Miss (W)
#296 Mississippi St
#299 Texas A&M

quote:

---

We are #11 in average possession length (14.9 seconds).........but we also #13 in average defensive possession length (15.8 seconds).

---

If you add those together, how we would we compare with the rest of the country? I would assume we would be higher than everyone on our schedule.

quote:

---

A quick scan tells me the only school with a lower NET possession length is Houston Baptist

---

Houston Baptist would not have been my first guess.

quote:

---

And of course our game with Iowa State was 104-89

---

The UGA game will be very interesting. Sucks it’s not a home game.

quote:

---

They've given up
113 to Samford
112 to Houston
111 to Michigan
107 to New Mexico
103 to Texas Tech
99 to Dayton
96 to SFA
96 to Rice
95 to Oral Roberts

---

Holy moly

The thing I find the most interesting between Avery's last year and Oat's first year so far is the non-steal TO%.

Although the turnovers are higher under Oats currently (expected with a change in pace/style). Your team is playing cleaner in regards to less unforced Turnovers. IMO as a fan I can live with giving up a steal because you are playing fast and aggressive but the most frustrating thing is watching a player throw it out of bounds with no pressure or something that was totally unforced.

Another cool stat is that we are 3rd in the country in three pointers made per game.

The SEC has some good OOC wins, Arky has a couple, Kentucky over Louisville and Mich St was big, South Carolina beat Virginia at Virginia. Mizzou beat Illinois @Illinois the other day. I think people may be underrating the SEC a bit this year.