Florida State falls to Duke 70-56
by Bud Elliott on Jan 28, 2010 3:43 AM EST
in FSU Basketball
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The 'Noles lost on the scoreboard. But FSU won elsewhere. Vegas expected them to lose by 12 or 13. The margin was 14. But FSU won in other areas. Most importantly, the 'Noles did not need a win in Cameron Indoor to reach their goal of a 9-7 season in the ACC. Further, FSU didn't suffer any injuries. And the 'Noles gained valuable game experience in a hostile environment. And perhaps the loss will help keep the team focused throughout the stretch run.
So, aside from the fact that Duke is a better team than FSU, why did the 'Noles lose the game? Did Duke dominate every facet of the game? What can we learn from FSU's performance? Did the same issues that have plagued FSU all season resurface? Or did FSU develop some new weakness? Let's use the chart
- Both teams had a similar effective field goal percentage. The game wasn't lost here.
- Neither team did a good job getting to and scoring points from the foul line. FSU has a 26% free-throw rate and Duke posted a 29% rate. FSU was better at getting to the line but slightly worse at sinking the free throws. The refs called a balanced game. A few calls were missed on both sides but overall the officiating was good. There are games in which the refs can be blamed. Last night was not one of those games.
- Considering the opponent, FSU had one of its best rebounding games of the year. The 'Noles snagged offensive rebounds on 44% of missed shots while allowing Duke to do the same on only 30% of their misses.
- But even with the two relative stalemates and the large rebounding advantage, FSU's turnover performance was embarrassing. While the 'Noles turned Duke over on 18% of their possessions (a decent defensive performance), FSU saw 33% of its possessions end in turnovers. It's almost impossible to win when a third of possessions aren't even ending in a shot attempt!
Coach Hamilton can recruit. And he's a very good defensive coach. But he has to address this turnover situation. Part of it is that this team does not have a point guard. Derwin Kitchen is more of a two-guard. If FSU did have a point guard, they would easily be one of the best 10-15 teams in the country. That is not correctable this season and FSU does have a stud guard recruit on the way by the name of Ian Miller.
But another part of the turnover situation is correctable. Turnovers come from poor ball handling and from poor passing. And it is the second part that is frustrating because it should be correctable. Passing requires accurate delivery of the ball and proper reception of the ball. That said, one way to improve both of those elements is to have guys get open. That doesn't happen if they all stand around. Unfortunately for FSU, that is exactly what is happening. The offense lacks flow. Hamilton says that FSU runs a motion offense, but there is no motion to be seen! Other teams play with purpose, conviction, and understanding. FSU plays with passion but it seems clear by all of the standing around that the players do not understand what they are being asked to do or do not care. Neither result is acceptable. Motion offense requires motion. Without motion, a motion offense is a huge cluster. And that's basically what FSU's looks like right now.
FSU's next game is Saturday at Boston College. It will be a tossup game according to the experts.
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our efg% still kind of sucks
as a team you want to have a efg% somewhere over 50%. As a defensive you want your opponent to have an efg% of 50% or less.
We did enough to keep Duke right at 50 (and its only that high because of the volume of 3’s they made) but our efg% being at 46.3 is basically scoring 92.6 points per 100 possessions. That is terrible. good offensive teams want to be around 103-105 points per 100 possessions which would entail a 51.5%-52.5% efg%
actually i might have done that wrong
either way we need to be more efficient with the ball
Everybody is talking about Ian Miller but really the PG is not the problem IMO. I agree that we don’t have an ACC caliber one on the roster but it doesn’t matter if you don’t get open like FSUn said. We’ll still run the stand still motion offense and, not shockingly, we’ll see the same results.
I hate to be a downer here because I would like to Ham to succeed but I just don’t see it.
Disagree completely
Now I am not a basketball expert, so I could be wrong, but I thought the key to a “motion offense” is the PG. He needs to create off the dribble and if the defense collaspes, have the ability to read it and kick out to and open shooter.
Also, there are people open. I saw a lot of shooters left open and big men left open last night. Kitchen makes the safe passes and has started to not turn the ball over, which is great. BUT, he doesn’t have the ability to throw those entry passes into flashing big men, through defenders’ arms, like Loucks does. I am not advocating for Loucks to play more by any means, but he made a few passes last night that you’ll never see Kitchen be able to make. If those 2 players could somehow merge together, we would be fine.
We were set up for failure by not having an able true PG on this team. Period. We won’t make it anywhere without one.
I think you are describing DDM
Dribble Drive Motion
by Bud Elliott on Jan 28, 2010 11:36 AM EST up reply actions
yeah..actually a motion offense should take some of teh burdn off the point guard to create offense..
it enables everyone to be both a playmaker and/or finisher..
we need a piece explaining (if it is even possible) what sort of motion offense we "run"
Saying that we run a “motion offense” is kind of like saying UF and Texas Tech run a “spread” offense.
Ask and you will receive...sort of.
Wrote this piece last year about offensive sets.
www.Tomahawknation.com
I thought you had done something on this...perhaps we can update it, as the interest in our O style seems to be increasing
TC on last year’s Motion Offense
So what do we do? I have only been able to see two games on tv so its hard to say with any certainty. But it seems that Hamilton would like to play a hybrid motion/dribble drive motion offense. We have been sluggish on offense so far this year as we have been “figuring” it out. We’re getting used to moving off the ball and knowing where players will end up. Our tempo is slow, which is characteristic of a motion offense. I think with the increased playing time of Kitchen our offense will develop into a more dribble drive like offense, particularly with Singleton on the wing. It will allow Douglas to get to his spots and shoot rather than being the one driving. Part of our problem has been the limited experience of ouf guards and not hammering the ball inside to Alabi. In our last game he had significantly more touches and tore it up. He needs the ball on a regular basis, even if he doesn’t shoot. It helps to increase the spacing on the floor as it draws the defense to the middle as he receives the ball.
Phew…did you make it all the way to the end? Let me know your thoughts. Was this helpful? Wanting more? I’m happy to break down more offenses and defenses as well. Next week I’ll have a post up about player development under Hamilton.
Go NOLES!
Ah, I see.
Yeah, I was definitely describing “dribble drive motion”. Thanks for the explanation/link guys – Its a lot of help because, as I mentioned, I’m by no means a basketball expert. This is exactly why I love this site; I get to bounce ideas off you guys and learn as much as possible (and hopefully I contribute worthwhile information some of the time).
People helping people – its a beautiful thing.
one of the main problems i see is we are stuck to only a few different sets
duke kept pressuring that initial pass to the left wing. to get the ball our guy would have to run 10 feet past the 3pt line to get it. We force that pass and then spend about 20 seconds fiddling around with the ball before actually figuring out what to do with the ball.
or
we find a guy partially open and jack up a shot 9 seconds in to the shot clock.
what we need to do is try to initiate an offense. if they cut off the first pass then have that guy set a screen for the guy in the corner. If they cut off that pass have our bigman set up a high screen and run the pick and roll. If that doesn’t work call a new set.
if the first pass works try and hit our guys in the paint or penetrate and kick.
its not that hard to create a basic offensive set. we just run an nba type of motion offense which basically revolves around swinging the ball and cutting through to the basket to take your man to the other side of the court to create unbalance in the defense and hopefully a driving lane. That doesn’t work in college.
Singleton needs to develop a pre-shot routine for his free throws
One half-assed dribble is not a pre-shot routine.
This is something that isn’t just my anecdotal observation. The value of a pre-shot routine has been studied extensively by sports psychologists.
What I don’t understand is why our coaches haven’t worked with him to develop a routine that allows him to clear his head, relax, block out distractions, block out previous attempts, and allow him to let his mechanics and muscle memory take over.
That is all I could think about after the game is how poorly we shoot FT
It's a beautiful day in Tallahassee
We were down 9 or so late in the game...
And they brought up the graphic with 5-13 FTs. We had a chance there in the last quarter of the game, but this definitely put us out of reach. Very disappointing.
Also sad that this is one area where we can feel pretty confident the coaches (i.e., Enfield) are doing everything they can do. But for whatever reason, the coin has not dropped, the light has not come on, etc., etc. for the person that appears to be the most important player for us in this regard, this season — Singleton. The best way to defend FSU right now is to play hack-a-Chris, get away with as much as you can, force turnovers to pile up, and not even worry about it if you actually get called for the foul.
Before anyone misinterprets this as me whining about officiating, I want to clarify that I am not saying he gets a raw deal from officiating, at all. I am saying the refs can only be expected to catch so much, and when he doesn’t punish the opposition for getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar, it makes aggressive D on him a LOW risk-HIGH reward proposition. It’s a no brainer.
There isnt much of a set offense
Watching last night, it just didnt seem like the guys had any set offense. I know they are running a motion type offense, but it really didnt seem well ran. You addressed this, and I agree a true PG will help out a lot, but a better offensive game plan is still needed.
I concur with Evenflow58. If we want, we can certainly delude ourselves with
the same head-in-the-sand mentality we had with the football team, buying variations of the "wait ‘till next year excuse" from now until 2025 or so when Coach Ham turns 80 and reaches Florida State Mandatory Retirement Age via the Bobby Bowden Rule, or we can realize now that the problems on this team are not going to go away because they come in a package with the current coach and his obvious recruiting skill.
This is not Breaking News: under Coach Ham, this team has ALWAYS had a problem with self-inflicted wounds, namely in the form of dumfounding turnovers. There are other here, such as tricknole, who have pointed it out: it doesn’t matter what new recruit we have coming in next year, or the year after that, or the year after that. No matter how good he looks on video from high school or summer games, the reality when he hits the floor in Tallahassee will be the same: an underachieving team that MIGHT have enough blue-chip athleticism to overcome its own mistakes and sneak into the NCAA Tourney. This will not change.
To me, the signature play from last night was the one play after Duke went into the zone and we lost the ball near half-court, Singleton awkwardly falling down, totally at a loss concerning what to do with the ball, a team befuddled into incoherence by a switch in defense. Its not a matter of not adjusting well, its how BAD they looked. They looked like an uncoached team on that play.
There are probably multiple coaches we could get NEXT YEAR that would put this team in the tourney immediately.
There is no way to peace; peace is the way.
Since 2004, our highest rank in turnover % has been #182 in the country (out of 340+ teams) in 2007.
There’s no denying we lack something in this regard.
That said, and consistent with a lot of other observations, why can’t we have our cake and eat it, too? The positives that Ham brings — elite defense, increasingly better talent, very high character kids, good effort, etc. — don’t come cheap. And I think pretending this situation is anything parallel to the football situation does not seem to be a reasonable perspective, to me. Hamilton is a competent professional, and if you ever listen to him speak, he is entirely aware of our shortcomings.
Do we have to toss all of this out and start over? We struggled with free throws and shooting and brought in Enfield. Problem has essentially been fixed, aside from our youth this year, and it helped us make a big leap forward in competitiveness (along with steadily improving talent). Why can’t we bring in an assistant that will specifically work on valuing the ball? We can bring in a guy that is comfortable working within our current motion offense but is able to coach our guys on some key areas to improve our efficiency.
I am not completely convinced that our turnovers are directly related to, or an inevitable offshoot of, an offense that is completely stagnant and hopeless. We get good looks pretty frequently, but just seem to be prone to bone-headed mistakes. To (begrudgingly) steal a line from our president, are we sure this problems don’t warrant a scalpel, as opposed to a hatchet?
Hmmm... I met the guy very briefly
Rubbed me the wrong way. I think his professionalism is very NBA-like and has a hard time translating to his kids.
To me, he runs his teams like an NBA team and the one area that shoots him in the foot constantly is the lack of structure in his offense. In the NBA, that works. In college, it can be your biggest pitfall.
I think it's clear his interactions with "outsiders" are very different than with the team.
As an outsider myself, this is speculation, but if anything is consistent about the team, I believe you always hear about a family mentality. And his success in recruiting would also convey that he does build close relationships with the players. We’ve heard about Toney Douglas staying in touch with the staff as an illustration of this. I think he really invests in the players (non-basketball) lives and this shows. This is a quality I really value in his overall product, at least in terms of my external perception. I hope it’s actually what it appears to be.
Maybe I’ve partially misconstrued your point, though, because as it relates to the on-the-court product of the offense, that seems to be an apt description of what is going on. A lot of these players need more hand-holding, I guess is what you are saying? And that’s what I’m talking about relative to bringing in assistant help — someone that will specifically work with our players, particularly the backcourt, about what they can do to drive the offense.
I am with you on this issue
I am not much of a basketball fan and don’t claim to understand the game that well but it seems that Hamilton has done an excellent job of recruiting and teaching our players how to defend. However it is painfully obvious that our Offense has no identity and I don’t believe Hamilton has the ability to make adjustments on that side of the ball to fix them. In my opinion as arrdub mentioned what we do need is an assistant coach to focus on establishing an offensive identity to fit our players, sort of like a new offensive coordinator if you will. If we could keep the recruiting and defensive ability that coach Hamilton has shown to have and add someone on staff to help with our offense this team could end up being extremely good.
I don’t think anybody is calling for Ham’s head but at the same time Ham needs to hire an offensive person at some point to save his job. I think Ham is a good coach. I would like to keep him on but there has to be some sort of staff shake up because I fear we are beginning to plateau. I don’t know if that has to be done this year either. This is, after all, FSU so it’s not like there’s pressure on the team to produce.
at what point
do players have to play? I don’t think LH is the greatest coach. He’s like MA (football) in that he simply doesn’t gameplan and so loses games for that reason. My biggest problem in this game wasn’t O. It was letting duke shoot 3s when you know that is what they do. You have to take that away. The TOs are mainly immature players (and mostly CS and MS, not PGs) and you can’t really coach that up. Granted the offense isn’t innovative but even a boring O doesn’t have to have the TOs we have. That is on the players. Indeed, as big a prob as the TOs was missing makeable shots.
Duke isn't nearly as athletic as we are
However, they are always in just as good or better shape and they generally bring a lot more fundamental skill with them into their games. There is a reason Coach K is able to have a 5* basketball program at relatively tough school to get into; he teaches the game well.
That being said, motion offenses are funny because they are notorious for having next to no motion. Where a motion offense has motion is in the actual moving of the ball around the key. With that quick sort of passing you are generally able to penetrate gaps on the weakside of the defense that can usually be exploited by the skip pass. If you were take this away, the only motion that you would see is inside as the big men are usually taught to make triangles in the key.
In the years that we have we relied on some great physical guard play combined with just monster athleticism in Al Thornton; Duke was also in a slump.
I don’t think the issue is in relation to poor ball handling. I believe the issue is a lack of physicality among the guards in their play. For LH’s game plan to work you need physical guards; good ball handling is just a plus.
Point Guard situation
Does anyone else here feel like Derwin isn’t shooting the rock nearly as much as he should be? I dont feel like its his fault but in my opinion I really think that either Loucks or Snaer should be our PG for this season because as much as I love Derwin he’s just doesnt fit the role of PG. I know Snaer is only a Freshman and may struggle at times but I feel like he is our next Toney Douglas, except Snaer will have 4 years to run it if he starts now.
I also think Loucks, being the excellent ball handler that he is, fits the PG position as well and is able to get out of traps and double teams pretty easily… what do you guys think?
by Watch out, 5 0 comin (E Sims) on Jan 28, 2010 9:25 AM EST reply actions
For the first time EVER, I am defending Kitchen
My big problem with Kitchen all year has been that he’d rather take the dumb shot than pass the ball inside. When you’ve got very talented big men, the most important thing is getting it into them by the basket for a high % shot. In many games this year, Kitchen would have 0 or 1 assists and 3 TOs. In this game though, Kitchen basically shut down his shot and just passed the ball. He had 10 assists as a result, with 7 rebounds too due to his ability to get it inside and then focus getting into position on defense. He had 3 TOs, but I’ll take a 10:3 Assist/TO ratio any day. My biggest problem with Kitchen’s passing in this game was that he often mistimed the pass inside and caught the big man out of position, too far from the basket. Due to this, Alabi had 4 TOs, Reid had 2 TOs, and Gibson had 2 TOs, as a result of them handling the ball too long and trying to push to the hoop.
Michael Snaer had 5 TOs and Chris Singleton had 4 TOs. My guess is that this happened due to agile slashing moves to the basket (Singleton finally stopped taking outside shots! Woo!). Not too many drills can fix this; it will most likely have to come with experience. Oh, and someone needs to tell Loucks to stop putting up shots now. He is out there to pass or steal the ball – that is it. You’d think that after going 0 for 5, he wouldn’t have put up another shot.
Point Guard
Surely would trade one of those big guys for a reliable point guard. It is our Achilles Heel this year.
by Nole_Fan_Til_I_Die on Jan 28, 2010 9:44 AM EST reply actions
Lack of flow
That’s one thing that has me conflicted on Hamiltion. The offense has never really had a flow. Unless he has Tim Picket or Dougles out there, the offense often seems confused and stagnate. They seem to lack a go to guy. Hopefully Snear will develop into that.
agreed
I really hope that Snaer will be that next “Pickett or Douglas” but right now he’s not really being given the chance to run the offense. Honestly with how slow our offense is, we could set a combination of 2 of Snaer, Kitchen, Loucks, or Dulkys out on the wings to fire up 3’s while a combination of 3 of Solomon, Xavier, Reid, and Singleton crash the boards all day.
But really Snaer needs to develop into a true PG like TD was with the ability to make any shot at any time. When you see our offense this year just sitting around passing all day trying to find an open guy (only to turn it over), that is what we lost with TD because he would just come down the court and drain a jumper and get us going. If Snaer could do that we would be fine, even if he missed half the time since our rebounding is so good
by Watch out, 5 0 comin (E Sims) on Jan 28, 2010 10:27 AM EST up reply actions
FYI-We actually had Toney Douglas last year, as a Senior.
Result? Turnover Percentage ranked #291 in the country:
http://kenpom.com/team.php?team=Florida%20St.&y=2009
Cold hard truth: as long as Hamilton is in Tally, it doesn’t matter who is on the floor. A turnover-prone, self-destructive offense will be what we get.
There is no way to peace; peace is the way.
Yup. Our offense isn't going to get better with better recruits.
We already have 3 5* stars and 5 4* stars. You really can’t get much better than that. We are using 11 scholarships. The other 3 players are 3* and only DeMercy consistently gets any meaningful minutes.
This is one of the most frustrating teams to watch.
We don’t play motion offense, we play “streetball” offense. I’ve seen better offenses run on playgrounds. Is Hamilton JB part deux?
We don’t set good picks or screens (except for the one at half court where Napoleon Dynamite got laid out). On the other side, Duke players set amazing picks. FSU has slightly better athletes, but the overall fundamentals of these two teams isn’t even close.
The turnovers are completely embarrassing. Trying to throw a pass from the baseline to the other side of the top of the key is just dumb and is something that you learn not to do in junior high basketball. I agree that we don’t have a true point guard. However, the terrible passing afflicts our entire team.
Also, there’s a lot of really bad mental mistakes like stepping out of bounds when you dribble the baseline (Singleton), trying to dunk the ball when the ball is already in the basket, etc. This indicates a lack of focus.
If this team didn’t shoot itself in the foot so often, it could be really good. So much talent and size, yet such poor basketball.
Motion offense is just a fancy term for streetball
In case you weren’t aware
It actually is a hard offense to grasp and requires a high basketball IQ when run properly since it has no set plays or isolations per se. It is necessary to understand spacing and also where, how, and when to set screens. All of those things are lacking in our offense and I’m not sure that Coach Ham fully understands how to run this offense so it is hard to expect the players to be able to. Motion offense, when run correctly is a beautiful thing to watch.
I really dont think having miller is going to do that much good.
While he is a solid player, he is not (imo) an immediate solution. He will need time to develop and become a more physical player. It is frustrating to watch this team because they shoot themselves in the foot so often. Players aren’t really put in the right position to flourish. There is no way that a player with Singleton’s size and ability should be so inconsistent. Our big men should be the focal point of the whole O. Think UNC’s offense (I know the coaching is not equal). They know they aren’t a great perimeter team so they pound it to their abundance of big guys.
It seems like once the first pass from Derwin goes to the wing, all bets are off. We need an actual game plan, a game plan that will be enforced.
I disagree, Miller may very well be the missing piece
This article boosted my opinion of him significantly, along with reports coming out of the GSK Holiday Invitational: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/story/1125092.html
He may very well be a McDonald’s All-American by year’s end.
Disagree about Miller
He certainly won’t be “the guy” as a freshman, but he’ll give us two guards that can penetrate (Miller and Snaer, assuming Snaer stops traveling while initiating half his drive attempts). In this offense that goes a long way.
by norcal_nole on Jan 28, 2010 12:30 PM EST up reply actions
I agree with you.
Our offense was garbage with Douglas. Why anyone expects it to be good with Miller is beyond me. I do expect Miller to be a god player, but we seem to always have better parts than the whole.
Based on that picture of Hamilton,
if they ever do a movie about him, he’d have to be played by Chi McBride.
Sorry if this has been discussed before.
2010 ~ The Year of the Spear
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