BOL Round Table

Madonna Thompson, and she's already in TTown at Shelton State! That's just one that comes to mind!

Not calling for CAG to be fired, but he needs to address the offensive scheme of the team. It is diverse from aggressive defensive pressure to slow methodical offensive possessions. Hard to speed up and slow down like that during a game.

This is a thread I started but figured I would put it here also:

I think it would be hard for UA to fire Grant this year unless we pretty much go in the tank the rest of the year. If they did and he has a winning record in the SEC (despite how bad it is), that would make it harder to find a good coach or more expensive. I will give him a pass early on since he did get into a bad program and roster.

I will further say that if we were to hire someone like Prohm, if Grant is gone, I will stick it out with Grant for 1 more year. Prohm could be a great coach, but considering the job one would have at Alabama which we have struggled for consistency now for over 5 years (the previous 2 years were pretty good with the glaring problem of offense and a swoon in December) I don't want a guy that is completely an unknown. He has been a HC for 1.5 years now. He took over a good roster and one lead by a superstar guard (Caan sp?) and older squad. I want to see what he can do as far as his own program for a while.

All this said, I have said I will make a call on Grant at the end of the year instead of snap judgments after each game like many do on both sides of this.

That said, no matter what you feel Grant has a problem coaching offense. The best we have been ranked in scoring in the SEC under Grant has been 9th. We talk in football all the time you can't with 1 side of the ball. We said that about Texas Tech with Leech. We saw it happen at UA in 2004 when the QB spot was killed and the offense could barely get to 17 points with a very good defense on the other side. Well we are trying to do in basketball because his defense is always good.

Looking at this year there are no roster excuses because this is Grant's roster. Sure we lost the Swede, but he isn't exactly like when we lost Chuck Davis. And considering the roster, we should not have this much of a problem scoring the basket. Which is why if we keep him (and I think we will unless the tank occurs) I would love to see Grant bring in a offensive assistant who is good at that role. Sure it might be tough to do that since he will be on the hot seat next year, but we sure as hell better try considering this offense isn't working and hasn't worked in year 4.

Take a look at these numbers: Since SEC play (9 games) we have only scored 70 points or above 1 time (MSU). The last time we scored 70+ was MSU and that was 1/16/13. Prior to that we have broke 70 the last time against Dayton in a loss on 12/5. In SEC play we have averaged 59.88 points per game, If we scored exactly 70.0 per game on average we would be ranked 113th in the country in scoring. (out of 345). That would make a HUGE difference if with our defense. As it stands now we are 257th in the country in scoring at 63.9 per game (NCAA stats page is through the weekend games i.e. not AU). You think 6 points aren't much? If we added 6 points to each loss this season we flip 4 games with 2 or 3 other games being close to being flipped to a win.

Also on the offense in relation to the rest of the SEC look at how our scoring is relative to the rest of the SEC over the years starting with this year and going back (according to ESPN with more up to date stats hence a different average from the NCAA stats):

62.7 per game--11th in the SEC
64.9-9th
66.7-10th
68.5-11th
73.4-8th (last year of CMG)
75.3-5th

So obviously our defense got better when we went to Grant and different style of play. But what is troubling is that we haven't been higher then 9th in the SEC in scoring and that we are moving DOWN as far as points per game. That is a 6 point drop off from year 1 to now. That is not a good trend. Hence why I say we have to get better on offense and we need a new assistant at least coaching it.