coming into the season i thought fran was a good coach but that he had 2 weaknesses as a coach. 1) defense and 2) rotation. i will say that i think those 2 things are not totally solved but i am seeing that they are getting much better as we see this team take shape and both should be improved next year.
1) defense - i have come to the conclusion that it has taken last year up until now for the players to physically be able to play fran's style of defense and because of this it was easy to mistake it for a lack of defense. we were not in shape enough to play the physical and tenacious defense he was teaching and it is looking a lot better. in the lick system youu use the offensive clock as part of your defense so you dont have to expend as much energy. but in fran's you must limit the quality shots because you arent milking thr clock. obviously fran's is the harder one and the players are finally in shape for it.
2) rotation - we didnt seem to have very defined rotation last year and early this year as fran was still trying to figure these guys out. this is because many werent fully his because even though he rerecruited them he didnt have time to fully understand their games. now he knows exactly what he can ask each to do and what he can ask those coming in to do. we can question who starts or not but it is really about the rotation of players in a system that is so up and down (as in running the court).
what i used to see as weaknesses of fran's coaching i am starting to see fully come into shape and though things will still be tweeked and adjusted i see just why this guy was able to turn program after program around. year 3 and 4 should tell us even more but i cant wait to see it. all this comes down to controlling tempo and when we do that we will have a shot. msu and osu controlled tempo, no shot without the right athletes. well in 1 or 2 more years we will be able to athletically match teams in the halfcourt and beat them up and down. i see the picture and it looks grand.
