re: Tide Hoops | 25-12 (13-5)

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Nate Oats is a top 5 coach in the country right now in my opinion, and I will never have as smart of a basketball mind as he has. Having said that, I'd really like to see him switch up defensive strategies with this group. His defensive philosophy involves high ball-pressure and a lot of help defense as a result, but the over-helping this year with this group has caused us an enormous amount of problems. So many times every game we have perimeter defenders leaving their man prematurely to help out before the POA defender is even beat. Just the attempt at driving past their man collapsed our entire defense last night.

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Completely agree. Love Nate and love our style, it makes us unique and marketable. But I do cringe a little when after every bad game defensively Nate says we "need to play harder". Sears and Estrada are crafty offensive guards, excellent ball handlers and they understand leverage, but they specialize in some "dad moves" because they aren't superior athletes. I love that about them, they can manufacture points with basketball IQ. You throw in the inexperience of Stevenson and we have three pretty pretty flawed defenders. The effort is often times there, but when the switches come, we are a step behind and it's either a foul or getting beat.