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...or "Brandon Johnson vs. the entire Gonzaga Team" 

I attended the sold out USD vs. Gonzaga basketball game tonight. Basketball is my first sport, so I got into the game a little more than I expected. And I was disappointed by what I saw. Not justbecause USD lost by four points in a pretty low scoring game, but for how far away from successful basketball strategy the team stayed during the game.

The beauty of the team sport of basketball is the integration of the five players on the floor. One star player cannot consistently win games for the whole team. The team that puts together the best integration wins. Openings to the basket appear, there are rebounders under the basket when someone shoots, the baseline always gets covered, nobody gets double teamed without an outlet, fastbreaks always have both lanes filled in time, the other team never has more people down court than your team has defenders.

I thought the example championship runs of John Wooden's UCLA teams and more recently the San Antonio Spurs would make it obvious that team play dominates. The failure of our star-laden Olympics teams prove the case in reverse, losing games as five individuals and not a team.

USD's strategy seemed to be to dribble the ball at the top of the key while the forwards on both sides of the key, stood waiting. The game clock would run down until the guard tried either a 3 pointer or to drive the basket as a lone warrior against the other team. A physically draining approach, that doesn't win games.

Seeing the first half, I had hopes the Coach Grier would shift from this puzzling strategy to something winning.

No such luck.

The only shift I could see was that Brandon Johnson - who spent much of the first half doing that dribbling at the top of the key - set up low on the weak side and watched; engaging now and then like a forward and only later in the half to get the ball back to do more dribbling. He was crushed under the baske, he's no forward.  The only thing I could think of for this was to draw Gonzaga's Gray away from the basket.

Painfully, USD had no play makers, only some good individual effort. Playmaker is a central role, they read the defense and choose the side to start the play, if the flow gets stuck, he moves to bring it back out and restarts the flow.   Johnson occupied that position in the first half, but brought the ball barely over the center line and stopped, dribbled a lot and then tried to penetrate for that grinding try for the basket.

The ball travels faster than anyone can run. As the inbounding guard brings the ball across the center line, one of the forwards should start moving toward him for the first pass. If it goes in at the weak side (opposite where center and another forward setup) the strong side forward should be moving either to the baseline or the free throw line looking to either screen or receive a pass. If it goes strong side, the center should check for a screen opportunity, finding none, he should clear to screen for the weak side forward and look for a pass as he crosses the paint. And so on. Think of it as a weave, like a chess player with the first move who never relinquishes the advantage, you eventually push the defense back, corrupting its flow and open a path to the basket or clear someone for a 3 pointer.

The evidence of the game played like USD did tonight was how few bounce passes there were, how many dribbles;  the number of failed lane drives; the lack of shooting accuracy overall and the absence of assists.  This all goes to coaching. Center Pomare was woefully underused, doing a good job most of his playing time getting inside his man on offense ready for an inside pass, but didn't get even one.

As this is Coach Grier's first year, let's hope he's got an idea for how to integrate this team soon.