Either recruit the right players for your system or change the system to match your players.
Issues at Hand: Stats per ESPN
DaMonte and his offense are not one of them, Griffin or whomever off the bench in place of anyone else is not one of them....simply put the stats don't lie! Through 8 games played:
Illinois Steals as a team...tied with such powerhouses as Tennessee Tech, Northern Arizona, South Carolina Upstate @ 6.0 per game- 241 Nationally
Illinois Blocks as a team... tied with such powerhouses as Purdue Ft Wayne, S. Illinois, Clemson, Appl. St. @ 20 total -256 Nationally
Illinois Assists as a team...tied with such powerhouses as Utah St., Iowa St. Richmond, ahead of Gonzaga @ 17 per game - 24 Nationally
Illinois FG% as a team...following right behind Indiana and Louisville @ 512% and 8th Nationally
Illinois PtsGame...Tied with Arizona for 2-4 Nationally
Our issue as discussed @ nauseam....defense is killing us. We over commit trying to pressure and create steals, we just are bad at creating them. Without fouling, the steals are minimal when giving up layups/short jumpers or leaving best opposing players wide open time and again. Blocks are extremely low for us having, what one could argue would be a top notch front court if used effectively?
Offensively, BU has gotten this team to the exact point that he wanted and we wanted...88 Pts per game. Now that said, we may not like the way we get to 88 Pts per game, and that number is inflated against inferior opponents, BUT we are still scoring nearly 88 Pts per game. Someone else HAS to get a defense that works?
Zone I am afraid is the best option for us....hell Syracuse makes it work every single year, one or two years for us should not be an issue until better athletes can start playing for us to play havoc ball the way he wants to do on defense as well?
Man to Man is killing us, quit over committing BU, play sound defense and push offense from there. Kofi and Giorgi stay down low then and our chances for success will go up short term at least.