Villanova dismantled a shorthanded Providence group on Friday night, taking an 87-73 win and holding firm in third place in the Big East with a 7-3 mark.
Hate to say it, KE might be our best option. He does need to grow as a coach for sure, but starting over could be along road for PC Hoops. This is a talented (albeit thin and small) group of kids that play hard most of the time. They just need to play with more joy, confidence, and killer instinct. If KE has the humility to learn and grow, I say we get behind him as painful as this year has been.
There's no way he's the best option. And I've given him the benefit of the doubt as long as anyone has. He's not a boy wonder--I hoped he was but we have enough evidence at this point to tell us he's not. Look at his "luck" rate: #348 in 2022, #356 last year and #364 this year. The Marquette game wasn't a bug--I have come to realize--it's a feature.
Most glaring: he doesn't know what his scheme is--he just dramatically reinvented himself this year and nobody--I mean nobody--does that a third year into a successful tenure. He then blame-shifts away from the schematic problems that he has installed and focuses on technical, execution issues on the players' behalf that may be true, but are not the material factors to losses. The last presser had yet more focus on "two feet", as if a single Duncan Powell missed layup is a more material problem than our persistant late rotations to 3's. The problem is scheme and personnel, not effort. It's might feel good to yell at the TV and blame the players for not playing defense (I do it myself!) because now we have an easy scapegoat, but doing so can divert our eyes from what is really broken--and what really the fix should be.
What IS ACTUALLY happening is that when we try to defend the perimeter in the way an Oats-Style defense is designed to--our personnel shortcomings down low are exposed and we overcompensate in a way that ultimately gets exploited. This is why we were backdoored to death at Butler, for instance. Motta saw us zigging, so he zagged. Fundamentally we don't have the length at the wing and the ability alter shots without fouling once things are funneled inside. So we overcompensate and get tighter and quicker on the rotations into the paint area for help--which opens up the spacing for the 3s again. Pick your poison. We just don't have the personnel to execute this strategy on defense. Hence the 38% given up on 3's. We don't have the length, we don't have the quickness, and our bigs can't defend without fouling.
I'd argue that we do have talent to be more competitive with a different approach--but 22 games into the season, how on earth do you credibly switch your approach? You don't. The fact that he's gotten us to this point means he's still a work in progress, still finding himself, and he's not ready for a premier job like this. Doesn't mean he won't be in time...but not at this time.
IMHO, people (understandably) get focused on the wrong things and making incorrect diagnosis's; it's tempting to get frustrated and say "We got burned on 3's because our players don't want it enough." But I think something else is blame besides hustle and effort. I think we just don't quite have the pieces and parts to effectively run the defensive side of the coin to the approach he has adopted this year. Things like a lower steal rate? It's designed. It's not because the players aren't out aren't trying hard and lack a killer instinct. This defense is designed to push teams into low quality shots - not to create steals - because when done right, the math of the risk / reward on pushing bad shots and higher rebound rates trumps the math that extra steals give you. But we simply don't have the personal to execute. We don't get those rebounds after all, so the math doesn't math.
Kevin put a picture that is worth a thousand words at the top of this article - here's another images of the same value: look at Hargrove's face immediately after his third foul in four minutes and then when he gets yanked. He wishes he never came here. This is not how he wanted his senior year to go. He's been a healthy scratch for four games in a row because he can't stop fouling and when he get's put in--he commits 3 fouls in four minutes? He has six fouls in his last 10 minutes and thats coming on the heels of 16 fouls in a 41 minute stretch. Is Hargrove really that bad? Is it possible that an all conference defender in the CAA last year would set a Guinness book of world records mark for fouls because the jump to the BE is just that great? Or is the scheme just putting him--and his teammates--in an absolute no-win scenario? A scheme which English has never been part of as a coach or a player. Look at the KenPom pace of play stats for his entire career from Missou / Colorado / Tulsa / Tenn / Providence. He has zero experience with this. He guinea pigged it and it didn't work.
Would he get better next year, having learned from his mistakes and given the clean slate a of new season? Perhaps, but I don't know that's a given. I also don't really think that the tenure of a BE coach is about learning how to coach. I think you do that say, at a Buffalo (like Nate Oats did) or somewhere similar.
Kim English hopes that doing same every year will get different results. He has not changed his style of coaching in the last 3yrs. Same Gun and Run offense, tons of injuries, no game plans. Hope is not a strategy. KE has failed the Friar fans and Alumni. He has a 10 mill NIL budget and is last in BE. Time for him to go!
I respectfully disagree. English has radically changed his style this year - to the degree that I can't think of a comparable mid-tenure pivot of a style like this at a power conference school in 20 years. His switch to a Nate-Oats pace and space scheme hasn't worked--for a few important reasons (none of those reasons being Edwards, btw), and he got the team to an unproductive spot in the middle of the ocean by the middle of the season were it was too late to go back, and too unproductive to go forward. Also, a question: since NIL budgets aren't published, where are you getting your $10M from? I've looked for years and have never been able to find any hard evidence of any number, and I also wonder if people are estimating the multi-year value of a player's deal with single year values and mixing apples and oranges, with some of those fruit being completely imagined anyway. Can you help me understand where you got $10M from?
All that being said, it's time for him to go. His dramatic schematic shift this year without recruiting personnel to execute on it is a double whammy. He's making things up on the fly, and that's what you do in lower levels earlier in your career as you carve out an identify for yourself as a coach. It's not the type of thing you can do at the helm of a respectable BE team.
Well, that I can trust and I am glad I have it as an anchor point. I am trying to figure out what our relative position of strength is and I want something semi-firm. So thanks. Gives me a good deal of optimism, frankly.
Many seem bullish on letting KE go, and I get it, I'm pissed as a fan and there would be something cathartic about showing him the door. But can we afford to do so? As in literally, afford to buy him out? Not to mention, then go on a search and start from scratch with another "prospect coach"? I've been encouraged by some of the talent he's brought in the door, most of all by Jones -- whom I hope stays for a Sophomore campaign.
Why do you think Edwards would be out for good if he doesn't play Wednesday? He's got a legit foot problems and 7-8 games left in his career. He'll never play in front of 10,000 people again. Why would he forgo that?
Hate to say it, KE might be our best option. He does need to grow as a coach for sure, but starting over could be along road for PC Hoops. This is a talented (albeit thin and small) group of kids that play hard most of the time. They just need to play with more joy, confidence, and killer instinct. If KE has the humility to learn and grow, I say we get behind him as painful as this year has been.
There's no way he's the best option. And I've given him the benefit of the doubt as long as anyone has. He's not a boy wonder--I hoped he was but we have enough evidence at this point to tell us he's not. Look at his "luck" rate: #348 in 2022, #356 last year and #364 this year. The Marquette game wasn't a bug--I have come to realize--it's a feature.
Most glaring: he doesn't know what his scheme is--he just dramatically reinvented himself this year and nobody--I mean nobody--does that a third year into a successful tenure. He then blame-shifts away from the schematic problems that he has installed and focuses on technical, execution issues on the players' behalf that may be true, but are not the material factors to losses. The last presser had yet more focus on "two feet", as if a single Duncan Powell missed layup is a more material problem than our persistant late rotations to 3's. The problem is scheme and personnel, not effort. It's might feel good to yell at the TV and blame the players for not playing defense (I do it myself!) because now we have an easy scapegoat, but doing so can divert our eyes from what is really broken--and what really the fix should be.
What IS ACTUALLY happening is that when we try to defend the perimeter in the way an Oats-Style defense is designed to--our personnel shortcomings down low are exposed and we overcompensate in a way that ultimately gets exploited. This is why we were backdoored to death at Butler, for instance. Motta saw us zigging, so he zagged. Fundamentally we don't have the length at the wing and the ability alter shots without fouling once things are funneled inside. So we overcompensate and get tighter and quicker on the rotations into the paint area for help--which opens up the spacing for the 3s again. Pick your poison. We just don't have the personnel to execute this strategy on defense. Hence the 38% given up on 3's. We don't have the length, we don't have the quickness, and our bigs can't defend without fouling.
I'd argue that we do have talent to be more competitive with a different approach--but 22 games into the season, how on earth do you credibly switch your approach? You don't. The fact that he's gotten us to this point means he's still a work in progress, still finding himself, and he's not ready for a premier job like this. Doesn't mean he won't be in time...but not at this time.
IMHO, people (understandably) get focused on the wrong things and making incorrect diagnosis's; it's tempting to get frustrated and say "We got burned on 3's because our players don't want it enough." But I think something else is blame besides hustle and effort. I think we just don't quite have the pieces and parts to effectively run the defensive side of the coin to the approach he has adopted this year. Things like a lower steal rate? It's designed. It's not because the players aren't out aren't trying hard and lack a killer instinct. This defense is designed to push teams into low quality shots - not to create steals - because when done right, the math of the risk / reward on pushing bad shots and higher rebound rates trumps the math that extra steals give you. But we simply don't have the personal to execute. We don't get those rebounds after all, so the math doesn't math.
Kevin put a picture that is worth a thousand words at the top of this article - here's another images of the same value: look at Hargrove's face immediately after his third foul in four minutes and then when he gets yanked. He wishes he never came here. This is not how he wanted his senior year to go. He's been a healthy scratch for four games in a row because he can't stop fouling and when he get's put in--he commits 3 fouls in four minutes? He has six fouls in his last 10 minutes and thats coming on the heels of 16 fouls in a 41 minute stretch. Is Hargrove really that bad? Is it possible that an all conference defender in the CAA last year would set a Guinness book of world records mark for fouls because the jump to the BE is just that great? Or is the scheme just putting him--and his teammates--in an absolute no-win scenario? A scheme which English has never been part of as a coach or a player. Look at the KenPom pace of play stats for his entire career from Missou / Colorado / Tulsa / Tenn / Providence. He has zero experience with this. He guinea pigged it and it didn't work.
Would he get better next year, having learned from his mistakes and given the clean slate a of new season? Perhaps, but I don't know that's a given. I also don't really think that the tenure of a BE coach is about learning how to coach. I think you do that say, at a Buffalo (like Nate Oats did) or somewhere similar.
Kim English hopes that doing same every year will get different results. He has not changed his style of coaching in the last 3yrs. Same Gun and Run offense, tons of injuries, no game plans. Hope is not a strategy. KE has failed the Friar fans and Alumni. He has a 10 mill NIL budget and is last in BE. Time for him to go!
I respectfully disagree. English has radically changed his style this year - to the degree that I can't think of a comparable mid-tenure pivot of a style like this at a power conference school in 20 years. His switch to a Nate-Oats pace and space scheme hasn't worked--for a few important reasons (none of those reasons being Edwards, btw), and he got the team to an unproductive spot in the middle of the ocean by the middle of the season were it was too late to go back, and too unproductive to go forward. Also, a question: since NIL budgets aren't published, where are you getting your $10M from? I've looked for years and have never been able to find any hard evidence of any number, and I also wonder if people are estimating the multi-year value of a player's deal with single year values and mixing apples and oranges, with some of those fruit being completely imagined anyway. Can you help me understand where you got $10M from?
All that being said, it's time for him to go. His dramatic schematic shift this year without recruiting personnel to execute on it is a double whammy. He's making things up on the fly, and that's what you do in lower levels earlier in your career as you carve out an identify for yourself as a coach. It's not the type of thing you can do at the helm of a respectable BE team.
Terrific insights. Really enjoyed it.
The 10M came from my reporting. I firmly stand by it.
Well, that I can trust and I am glad I have it as an anchor point. I am trying to figure out what our relative position of strength is and I want something semi-firm. So thanks. Gives me a good deal of optimism, frankly.
Hope you’re right GT, but I don’t see any improvement or consistency from this group. Two years is enough time for coach to make adjustments.
Same old same old. Sick and tired of it. Get a coach who knows how to coach defense. Go Friars!
Many seem bullish on letting KE go, and I get it, I'm pissed as a fan and there would be something cathartic about showing him the door. But can we afford to do so? As in literally, afford to buy him out? Not to mention, then go on a search and start from scratch with another "prospect coach"? I've been encouraged by some of the talent he's brought in the door, most of all by Jones -- whom I hope stays for a Sophomore campaign.
3-18 in last 21 BE games
Why do you think Edwards would be out for good if he doesn't play Wednesday? He's got a legit foot problems and 7-8 games left in his career. He'll never play in front of 10,000 people again. Why would he forgo that?