No disagreement in most offenses the PG is the floor leader and plays a major factor in the efficiency of the offense. And while missing Ona Embo likely has had an affect on this team, to what degree is really debatable. We have 2 years of evidence of Ona Embo running MD's offense and it produced a 8-28 conference record. Last year, he had two NBA prospects surrounding him and they didn't finish above .500 and had just 5 conference wins. The Dunleavy system does not appear to be based on guard penetration which is the value a good point guard brings. Hell, against zone defenses they just swing the ball around the 3 point line. So even if you put a really good PG on the floor, having him run this MD offensive scheme probably doesn't equate to much. But that is also debatable.anEngineer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:06 am
You also haven't seen this team playing with a point guard all year. I'm upset too, but it's not insignificant to have a bunch of freshmen out there with no one running the offense at all. Even as a redshirt freshman, Barrett should be better, but he is not and there are NO OTHER OPTIONS. You can't just go get a new guy like the pros do. You can fault Dunleavy for getting into this situation, but I don't think this proves that he will or should be fired after this year. I agree that you are just wasting your breaths (not a totally unusual thing on this forum).
What is not debatable is the other side of the floor. Defensively, the have no help defense principles, are not coached to minimize transition buckets and give up easy looks nearly every possession. Supposedly Ona Embo is a good defender but while he looks good at times putting pressure on the ball, the problem is that once he gets beat, which happens because he's being aggressive, it leads to a layup-fest, Again because we have no help defense.
Possibly we don't lose to Alabama A&M with Ona Embo on the floor. Maybe SE LA is a win. But we have 2 years of proof that an Ona Embo led, Dunleavy coached eam will get us a .323 winning percentage, This year is just the nail in the coffin (hopefully)..
And yes, it is on Dunleavy for not recruiting a backup PG. But honestly, it doesn't even matter who's PG.
For the record I'm not insulting or blaming Ona Embo at all for this fiasco. I think he's a good player. But he's setup to fail in this system as is every other player. It's all on MD.