Time: 3 PM PST/6 PM EST
TV: CSN California
Radio: KFRC 1550 AM
Streams: Post links in comments
Preview: Golden Bears vs Ducks
Missing Barry, being his usual Poindexterish self, provided a pretty good comment about how a basketball game works as opposed to a football game.
Basketball is very different from football. With football, you spend a week preparing for your opponent, watching film, coming up with a game plan and the plays ahead of time, and on gameday it comes down to executing the gameplan, adapting it based on what the opposition is doing….basically, the point I’m making, is if this was football, that would be a fair headline. Not so in basketball. Basketball coaching is all about teaching players to properly read and react within the offense, there’s much less gameplanning, much less tailoring your strategy to your opponent. You don’t spend a week watching film, preparing a gameplan, practicing certain plays….you might spend a couple of days, but the majority of coaching in basketball is about preparing your players to play the right way in the flow of the game, regardless of the opponent, and regardless of what straetgy the opponent is losing.
You can’t really get outcoached for a game in basketball, and that’s the issue I take with the headline. It’s a very football-oriented view to say that. If Cal was outcoached, it was because Monty hasn’t done a good job of preparing them to play zone offense – but that’s not a coaching job for one game, that’s something he hasn’t prepared them well for in general. It’s like if the offensive line in football isn’t using proper technique and consistently gets beat in a game because of it – it’s not the coaches are being outcoached for a game, it’s that the players aren’t properly prepared to use the right technique to be effective and so aren’t as good – that’s more along the lines of what basketball coaching is like.
As I said, I didn’t watch the game, but sounds like OSU was playing zone….dunno why every team doesn’t zone up Cal, every time I’ve watched them play against a zone, it’s been a struggle for their offense. Nobody but Randle penetrates effectively, their team passing leaves a lot to be desired, they don’t have a post presence to collapse the zone….it just might be that they either aren’t coached well to play the zone or just aren’t talented enough to beat it as well as we’d like….
So yeah, I probably overreacted again. But you know, I'm really stupid. There's a reason I write for this blog all the time instead of spending it writing research papers, helping children get off the streets or getting laid.
Analysis for the game: Just win.