That's not something you "figure out". It's just random luck when you peak.
Jon Rothstein Tweets
- Thread starter bogeyman
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That's not something you "figure out". It's just random luck when you peak.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
I completely disagree with this statement. Almost every year you hear about how Tom Izzo gets his teams to "peak" at the right time. There is defitnely a skill to this. Other coaches are good at this as well.
Do I think the collapse last year was entirely on Fran? No, but he played his part in it.
I knew Izzo would come up when I posted that. I would argue Izzo doesn't have his team's ready to play at the beginning of the year so they underachieve. I think for the most part, Fran's teams get better as the year goes on. The two years that didn't happen, they happened to be playing out of their minds earlier to the point it was unsustainable. What are you supposed to do, purposely sabotage them when that happens just so they are "peaking at the right time"?
Peaking at the right time is just making sure your team gets better as the season goes on. It's not luck at all and the great coaches do it most years
If they have the personnel. I'm interested to see if Izzo can pull it off with the injuries he's had to bigs this year.
Yeah the great coaches usually recruit well too
Sapp and Gesell combined to average 17 ppg and 10 assists per game last year. We're going to miss their defense more than their offense though
I had a long drawn out post typed up but decided to delete it and just say this. A team can be at is best but for whatever reason it doesn't show up in wins. Also, Fran is 4 out of 6 in having his teams looking their best at the end of the year.
Except for end of game situations .
I put that more on Fran than Mike. Mike was never clutch and it was obvious early on, why Fran kept giving him the ball late never made sense to me. I think that's why people have such a poor opinion on Mike but I think that will change this year because he was a big piece to our success the last few years
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
I think there is a lot more that goes into Izzo led teams peaking at the end of the year than just he doesn't have his guys ready at the beginning of the year.
Don't take my post as a knock on Fran though. I'm a big Fran supporter and think a handful of things went into our collapses. Plus as you've said we've peaked at the end of the year with Fran more times than not. I have noticed that our zone and press defenses tend to get exposed mightily at the end of the year, when offenses are operating much more efficiently.
Here are a couple things I thought led to the collapse last year and what I think Fran could have possibly done to fix it:
1. JU got lazy on defense. I think Fran could have pulled JU a couple times when he started playing lazy defensively, especially early in the season. It doesn't matter if he's our best player, sit him down give him a talking to and get him back in there. Players tend to learn from their mistakes if they take them out of the game. (Bo Ryan & Izzo both are masters of this)
2. MG's lack of outside shot and unwillingness to shoot it hurt our offense mightily. Same concept here, if I saw MG turn down a wide open 3, I'd pull him out of the game.
3. Lastly our bench really fell off towards the end of the year. I'm not sure what the best way to fix this would have been but there are certainly things you can do.
Man it sure felt that way to me too. It was weird how Uhls play really fell off and Baer seemed to hit the rookie wall I guess... By that time in the year they were really being relied upon and it was noticeable when their production dropped off that's for sure.
I was talking about his defense, not his offense. As far as Fran giving the ball to Mike goes, Mike started with the ball and 4 other players looked like they were trying NOT to get open. Even when they did get he ball, they would just throw it right back to Mike. I don't blame Mike or Fran for the end of game debacles. I blame the other 4 guys.
I disagree with you there. Fun is not the first word that comes to mind
You're saying Mike wasn't a good defender at the end of games? Mike and Sapp were both great defenders
I just think so much of winning and losing is due to momentum. A coach can control if a team gets better throughout the year. But he can't control when they get and lose momentum. It's not like the team regressed at the end of last year. They just lost momentum. That's my opinion anyway.
Not at the end of games he wasn't. Practically every big shot hit in the end of games was over mike.
Like which ones?