It appears we have forgotten about Woody recently. I think it would help us if we played through him a little more. He is an excellent passer. The game becomes easier when played through a big.
Play through Woody
- Thread starter Bearhawk0505
- Start date
Actually it's a great idea.. Teams were forced to collapse the D and Iowa was making 41% of their threes due to being open. Now we don't even look inside so they have no reason to collapse.. Shooting 32% from deep last 5 games
Hard to play through the post when teams don't even guard Gessell. Look at Uthoff in the post tonight. Barely scored off of post ups. Penn State was immediately doubling Uthoff in the post and sometimes tripling him.
PSU seemed to play through Woody tonight. He was slow flat footed. They drove by him and made shots over his late help all night. His pick and roll D is costing us big right now and I expect him to see a heavy dose of that going forward. We need him to play better to make a run in the tourney this year.
I thought the moment Adam stepped on campus we would run the offense through him. You rarely see big men his size with his level of passing skill. I used to write on here all the time that Fran doesn't utilize Woodbury properly. We did feed the post earlier in the season as you say when we played better but look totally out of sync offensively now not getting the ball inside. I have found this one of the oddities of Fran's coaching.
Woodbury is so poor offensively that if we feed him every time that would help the other team. He has no moves to get a bucket. No mid range jumper, he is a layup guy off of feeds to him. He isnt a real threat with the ball so there is no need for other teams to double team him.
Woodbury is going to lose the ball 10% of the time--he's a big and that is not unusual to have suspect hands. Sure he is good passer, but without any post moves and downside of turning the ball over, I don't see how Woody is the answer.
Fran knows more B-ball than anyone posting here. If things were so simple, they would get done.
Opponents don't have to guard Gesell and Clemmons is not much threat..Woody can only score off offensive rebounds or if he gets open when you double team Uthoff or Jok.
Fran knows more B-ball than anyone posting here. If things were so simple, they would get done.
Opponents don't have to guard Gesell and Clemmons is not much threat..Woody can only score off offensive rebounds or if he gets open when you double team Uthoff or Jok.
"Big"? He doesnt play big at all. His best move underneath is catch, pivot, find nothin then pass it back out. Not sure bout the "excellent passer" comment. I'd rather our 8 ft center be a physical finisher &/or shot blocker or how about rebounder. I think it would benefit the team to get Wagner more minutes. He needs more confidence thats all. He a little bit smaller but he's way more athletic & physical. Couldn't hurt, cant play any worse.
Playing through Woody doesn't mean he needs 10 shots.. It just means he needs 2-3 moves to the bucket a game (where he was drawing fouls earlier this year) to keep the defense honest in the post.. Think what you want but you wonder why we're not getting open 3 looks anymore.. No need to sink in the paint defensively
Woodbury does a lot of nice things, but scoring the ball isn't one of them. Catching off a screen and roll and going reverse layup and a 10 foot jumper is the extent of his arsenal. With that being said, I would rather see Woodbury taking 8-10 footers than Uthoff taking crazy off balance shots with a 5% chance of going in. Ultimately awful 3 point shooting and Donovan Jack playing the game of his life did us in.
The OP said to play through Woodbury, not ask him to score 20 per game......big difference. The concept is to get the ball into the middle (either high or low post) and then let him hit open guys so they can shoot easier. Have you watched Uthoff and Jok shoot last few games? They are changing their shots just to get them off as the defense is all over them. That's because we just pass them the ball and expect them to go 1 on 1 which is not their strengths. We need more ball movement, more screens, and with the floor spread, more drives and open shooters letting it fly. Finally, hit the boards. All these lead to higher paced game as well.
Love the idea, wrote about it in another thread. Woody does have some moves and doesn't need to score a lot, just some. Draw help to him and kick it out if he doesn't have a bucket. He will lose his share but Jok loses his share as does Uthoff. We need another offensive option and running thru Woody makes sense to me.
This summarizes my thoughts well. Good post. The offense was stagnant last night with too many low percentage looks.
You are right. We definitely need to involve Woody more on the offensive end. He shoots free throws well and is a good passer, and he won't force shots. We seem to have fallen in love with the perimeter jump shot lately.
