Last night, Cat had 7 assists, to go along with his 26 points.
There has been a lot of talk on this forum about Cat passing it more, doing a better job of finding open players. Obviously, he was a bit more focused on that last night.
Maybe he should not have been. Frankly, on a good team, he should have had at least 5 more assists. He easily had at least three passes to players near the rim that should have been give-mes that were blown, and a couple of kicks to wide, wide open 3-point shooters who missed.
IMO, the key possession of the game came a minute or two after we had taken the second half lead, Wake had gone back up by 4, and Cat broke his man down, delivered the ball to a seemingly wide-open Anya under the goal, only to see Anya be so slow collecting himself that the D recovered, and then not go up strong enough with the recovered D, that he blew what for 80 percent of college post players would have been an guaranteed layup. Barber, meanwhile, on that play, could have easily gotten off a 10-12-foot pull-up. After that play, Wake scored immediately in transition, and quickly had a 10-point lead again.
In my mind, that play in a nutshell, raises the questions, why should Barber ever pass the ball to the post, and, in particular, why should he ever pass it to Anya?
There has been a lot of talk on this forum about Cat passing it more, doing a better job of finding open players. Obviously, he was a bit more focused on that last night.
Maybe he should not have been. Frankly, on a good team, he should have had at least 5 more assists. He easily had at least three passes to players near the rim that should have been give-mes that were blown, and a couple of kicks to wide, wide open 3-point shooters who missed.
IMO, the key possession of the game came a minute or two after we had taken the second half lead, Wake had gone back up by 4, and Cat broke his man down, delivered the ball to a seemingly wide-open Anya under the goal, only to see Anya be so slow collecting himself that the D recovered, and then not go up strong enough with the recovered D, that he blew what for 80 percent of college post players would have been an guaranteed layup. Barber, meanwhile, on that play, could have easily gotten off a 10-12-foot pull-up. After that play, Wake scored immediately in transition, and quickly had a 10-point lead again.
In my mind, that play in a nutshell, raises the questions, why should Barber ever pass the ball to the post, and, in particular, why should he ever pass it to Anya?
