It’s obvious he is a excellent practice coach.
That team last night was moving away from the ball, hustling for rebound position on both ends of the court, working for open high percentage shots, playing good team defense and were unselfish—things that don’t make the stat sheet or the highlight reel, but things that win games...just like Eddie Sutton’s teams did.
He can get team ready to beat anybody but he has trouble with the in game strategy on the fly.
Did we watch the same game? Cade hit at least 3 18+ foot jump shots over defenders in the 1st half that were the result of him being a phenomenal talent at 6’8”. Those are 50/50 at best and not the result of anything generated from a half court set. In addition some of them were early in the shot clock. I’ll give Boynton credit in that he looked at the KSU stat sheet and said “Holy ____! I’ve got the best player in the league and he only took 3 shots.” Those early shots by Cade had to be a result of this. Fast fwd to the 2nd half. We extended the lead by good D and push aheads. Then we unexplicably changed D out of a timeout up by 15 (Ice’s ft pushed it to 16). Then we gave up easy looks at the rim and panicked. Hard to push ahead when they make easy buckets. Yanked 3s early in the clock. Remember the one Williams shot from Dizgwa range that about broke the backboard. And Rondel (who I think might end up being one of my all time favorites) shot 2 flat footed from the right side.
As for rebounding if it wasn’t for Cade and Ice we would be the worst rebounding team in the big 12. Moncrief tries to get position but watch what happens most of the time when the shot goes up. Most times we turn and run to the rim. Rewatch the WV and KU games at how their bigs moved into position and boxed out our defenders. Last night McCormick moved right past his man a lot. Even when he squared up from 10 & shot.
Our turnovers for the most part are mental that are easily fixed. Stop the one handed passes. That is 1st grade fundamental. If you are 6’2” and weigh slightly more than a biscuit quit driving into a zone all the way to the rim. We didn’t do it last night but usually twice per game we try to make an entry pass to the block from the point. If we cut our turnovers in just these areas by 1/3 or 1/2 and stop yanking bad 3s early in a possession we easily add 2-3 conf wins a yr which gets us in the tourney. Throw in the talent he is getting and you’ve got a ton of upside.
Boynton does a good job of recruiting and getting them to play hard. It’s also apparent he loves these kids. But so did Ford.