Braun preferred to walk it up and ran a series of half-court set plays that he called. For high bball IQ players with lots of experience, this worked rather well. (The Sweet 16 team with Randy Duck, Anwar, Yogi, Ed Gray or the Shipp/Wethers senior year team.)

For guys who were better athletes than actual players, this didn’t go so well. It’s probably the main reason Donte Smith never got meaningful minutes, why Ayinde never really fulfilled his potential as one of the more touted HS PG prospects we’ve ever had, why McGuire and Kately left, and why Randle struggled so much early in his career. My cousin was one of the student managers during the Powe/Ubaka/McGuire/Kately year(s) and told me that the guys either didn’t listen to Braun, or couldn’t remember the sets. That’s how we lost to Cal Poly – Kately completely blew the inbounds play near the end and turned it over instead.

Ironically, I’d bet that group would have done better under “just go get the ball and score” Bozeman.