This offense sickens me.

[maxduck]

Isn't Loyd still wearing a fairly heavy wrap around the base of the thumb on his shooting hand? His confidence was already shaken and the injury can't help.

[northbeachsf]

Yes. That is part of the issue. He has basically zero chance of making a shot right now with that injury.

[OregonFan4Life]

Loyd can't shoot right now, no doubt about that. Kazemi and Loyd shouldn't be on the floor much at the same time, Carter doesn't score much either though so Altman needs to put a SF at PF or find a scoring PF somewhere. I don't get why Kazemi can't score outside of 2 foot especially when he's good at free throws. It's annoying to see him left open at the elbow and nothing happen.

[greenyellow]

Isn't Loyd still wearing a fairly heavy wrap around the base of the thumb on his shooting hand? His confidence was already shaken and the injury can't help.

It seemed like any time he made contact with another player or deflecting a ball, he was shaking his hand and wincing so he was still feeling the injury. Have no doubt that was affecting his play quite a bit.

[duckfan96]

Never knew he was a good shooter pre injury. I mean loyd must be a ok player he is on a d1 team. But damn he looks awful at times. The coach cant make shots, that is on the players.

[oregontrack]

i was going to go through this thread point-for-point, but there's just too much crazy. some highlights:

1. tony woods is not as open as you think he is. since we can't shoot a lick right now teams are packing it down low. woods is almost always met with a double team, which leads to (in descending order): a terrible shot attempt, a turnover, or a pass right back out. since woods is more or less a black hole on offense (which isn't necessary a negative term if you're good enough -- woods isn't) and he lacks a consistent, go-to move you can't force feed him the ball. you just can't. no good will come of it. altman has fed the post more in 2.5 years than ernie kent did in 13. that comparison was LAUGHABLE. right now, with the way this team is constructed w/o artis, altman is WISELY not running the offense through his big men. woods just needs to focus on constantly reminding himself he's 6'11, and rebound the damn basketball. know what would have helped us win the game last night? getting a rebound, and not allowing colorado so many easy offensive put backs. like the last shot of the game.

2. loyd is terrible in ANY offense. he's not built for running the show in the halfcourt, he's not good (or smart) enough to run a fast, pace-pushing offense. have you seen him on the break? turnover, turnover, turnover. i've said this a dozen times over the past two weeks, so i apologize for being repetitive, but: loyd plays MUCH faster than he can process the game around him. that's not a good thing, and that does not AT ALL speak for him being able to play in a fastbreak offense. he couldn't. he can't score, he can't pass on the move, he can't see a fastbreak develop in front of him, he can't see passing lanes. altman making the offense go faster would only lead to even more turnovers. as if that were even possible. this isn't ernie kent slowing down aaron brooks for NO REASON early in brooks' career. THAT was bad coaching.

3. this losing streak is fairly easy to explain, and it has nothing to do with altman turning into simple jack. he hasn't. the players haven't suddenly all turned awful, unless they already were awful, like my boy johnny basketball. this team has been full of complementary players all season, but they were balanced and they were pretty good at everything (though never dominant in any one area). what did that get us? a 7-0 conference record, where EVERY SINGLE GAME was contested/close. we were in a very good rhythm there, but we were winning a LOT of close games. did everyone forget that? we were ranked #10, but we were never one of the ten best basketball teams in this great country of ours. c'mon. take away artis, with his 10 points per game/handful of assists/and his general command of the floor, and suddenly we're losing a bunch of close games -- STOP THE PRESSES! we had no one on this team capable of taking over a game before artis got hurt, and we still don't. take our away the balance artis gave us, and replace him with THE WORST POINT GUARD IN THE COUNTRY, and yeah. suddenly instead of winning all those close games, we start losing them. it's not rocket science. what would 10 extra points a game get us the last two games? wins over cal and colorado. who gives us 10 points a game? artis. who gives us zilch? johnny basketball.

4. i get being angry at the coach. i was calling for ernie's firing in 2003, not even a year removed from the first elite 8 team. i saw a team that needed to win the pac-12 tournament in order to guarantee themselves a spot in the big dance, despite having two nba lottery picks on the team and a bunch of returnees from the year before. everyone thought i was crazy for wanting ernie gone at that point. but i know bad coaching when i see it. altman is not a bad coach. there just isn't an easy answer to the problems we're seeing right now. we're not an overly talented basketball team; there is not a single nba player on the roster right now. tony woods? come the **** on. teams without great talent need to do things like shoot the ball well (we can't) and play smart basketball (we can't) to win games. you can only mask so many problems... there are a ton of really smart basketball minds and plenty of really good coaches coaching bad teams right now because the talent on hand can only do so much.

[OregonFan4Life]

I've already expressed my opinion on here enough and I know there are those that disagree with me. However, for those calling Loyd "the worst PG in the nation" and other things like that, if he was so bad, and if Altman is such a good coach, why is Loyd playing so much? Part of being a really good coach is recognizing talent. So if he has the worst PG in the nation and plays him good minutes as a backup on a fully healthy team, wouldn't you think the coach is dumb for playing him so much?

[duckgrad99]

i was going to go through this thread point-for-point, but there's just too much crazy. some highlights:

1. tony woods is not as open as you think he is. since we can't shoot a lick right now teams are packing it down low. woods is almost always met with a double team, which leads to (in descending order): a terrible shot attempt, a turnover, or a pass right back out. since woods is more or less a black hole on offense (which isn't necessary a negative term if you're good enough -- woods isn't) and he lacks a consistent, go-to move you can't force feed him the ball. you just can't. no good will come of it. altman has fed the post more in 2.5 years than ernie kent did in 13. that comparison was LAUGHABLE. right now, with the way this team is constructed w/o artis, altman is WISELY not running the offense through his big men. woods just needs to focus on constantly reminding himself he's 6'11, and rebound the damn basketball. know what would have helped us win the game last night? getting a rebound, and not allowing colorado so many easy offensive put backs. like the last shot of the game.

2. loyd is terrible in ANY offense. he's not built for running the show in the halfcourt, he's not good (or smart) enough to run a fast, pace-pushing offense. have you seen him on the break? turnover, turnover, turnover. i've said this a dozen times over the past two weeks, so i apologize for being repetitive, but: loyd plays MUCH faster than he can process the game around him. that's not a good thing, and that does not AT ALL speak for him being able to play in a fastbreak offense. he couldn't. he can't score, he can't pass on the move, he can't see a fastbreak develop in front of him, he can't see passing lanes. altman making the offense go faster would only lead to even more turnovers. as if that were even possible. this isn't ernie kent slowing down aaron brooks for NO REASON early in brooks' career. THAT was bad coaching.

3. this losing streak is fairly easy to explain, and it has nothing to do with altman turning into simple jack. he hasn't. the players haven't suddenly all turned awful, unless they already were awful, like my boy johnny basketball. this team has been full of complementary players all season, but they were balanced and they were pretty good at everything (though never dominant in any one area). what did that get us? a 7-0 conference record, where EVERY SINGLE GAME was contested/close. we were in a very good rhythm there, but we were winning a LOT of close games. did everyone forget that? we were ranked #10, but we were never one of the ten best basketball teams in this great country of ours. c'mon. take away artis, with his 10 points per game/handful of assists/and his general command of the floor, and suddenly we're losing a bunch of close games -- STOP THE PRESSES! we had no one on this team capable of taking over a game before artis got hurt, and we still don't. take our away the balance artis gave us, and replace him with THE WORST POINT GUARD IN THE COUNTRY, and yeah. suddenly instead of winning all those close games, we start losing them. it's not rocket science. what would 10 extra points a game get us the last two games? wins over cal and colorado. who gives us 10 points a game? artis. who gives us zilch? johnny basketball.

4. i get being angry at the coach. i was calling for ernie's firing in 2003, not even a year removed from the first elite 8 team. i saw a team that needed to win the pac-12 tournament in order to guarantee themselves a spot in the big dance, despite having two nba lottery picks on the team and a bunch of returnees from the year before. everyone thought i was crazy for wanting ernie gone at that point. but i know bad coaching when i see it. altman is not a bad coach. there just isn't an easy answer to the problems we're seeing right now. we're not an overly talented basketball team; there is not a single nba player on the roster right now. tony woods? come the **** on. teams without great talent need to do things like shoot the ball well (we can't) and play smart basketball (we can't) to win games. you can only mask so many problems... there are a ton of really smart basketball minds and plenty of really good coaches coaching bad teams right now because the talent on hand can only do so much.

Great analysis. Just like with Oregon baseball, you certainly know your stuff.

[duckgrad99]

I've already expressed my opinion on here enough and I know there are those that disagree with me. However, for those calling Loyd "the worst PG in the nation" and other things like that, if he was so bad, and if Altman is such a good coach, why is Loyd playing so much? Part of being a really good coach is recognizing talent. So if he has the worst PG in the nation and plays him good minutes as a backup on a fully healthy team, wouldn't you think the coach is dumb for playing him so much?

Because other than Willie Moore, we literally have nobody else. Someone suggested a starting 5 of Singler, Dotson, Woods, Emory and Kazemi with EJ playing the point. I have no idea if that would work, but it's got to be better than Loyd. If Artis doesn't come back, we really might not win another game as long as Loyd is starting and playing 30+ minutes.

[oregontrack]

I've already expressed my opinion on here enough and I know there are those that disagree with me. However, for those calling Loyd "the worst PG in the nation" and other things like that, if he was so bad, and if Altman is such a good coach, why is Loyd playing so much? Part of being a really good coach is recognizing talent. So if he has the worst PG in the nation and plays him good minutes as a backup on a fully healthy team, wouldn't you think the coach is dumb for playing him so much?

no. it means that there is no other alternative. it means artis is good, but not derrick rose/john wall-level good. it means artis can't play 40 minutes a game.

i'm convinced altman could have michael jordan on his team and he'd only play him 30 minutes a game. he's a big believer in depth.

[rentdodger1]

i was going to go through this thread point-for-point, but there's just too much crazy. some highlights:

1. tony woods is not as open as you think he is. since we can't shoot a lick right now teams are packing it down low. woods is almost always met with a double team, which leads to (in descending order): a terrible shot attempt, a turnover, or a pass right back out. since woods is more or less a black hole on offense (which isn't necessary a negative term if you're good enough -- woods isn't) and he lacks a consistent, go-to move you can't force feed him the ball. you just can't. no good will come of it. altman has fed the post more in 2.5 years than ernie kent did in 13. that comparison was LAUGHABLE. right now, with the way this team is constructed w/o artis, altman is WISELY not running the offense through his big men. woods just needs to focus on constantly reminding himself he's 6'11, and rebound the damn basketball. know what would have helped us win the game last night? getting a rebound, and not allowing colorado so many easy offensive put backs. like the last shot of the game.

2. loyd is terrible in ANY offense. he's not built for running the show in the halfcourt, he's not good (or smart) enough to run a fast, pace-pushing offense. have you seen him on the break? turnover, turnover, turnover. i've said this a dozen times over the past two weeks, so i apologize for being repetitive, but: loyd plays MUCH faster than he can process the game around him. that's not a good thing, and that does not AT ALL speak for him being able to play in a fastbreak offense. he couldn't. he can't score, he can't pass on the move, he can't see a fastbreak develop in front of him, he can't see passing lanes. altman making the offense go faster would only lead to even more turnovers. as if that were even possible. this isn't ernie kent slowing down aaron brooks for NO REASON early in brooks' career. THAT was bad coaching.

3. this losing streak is fairly easy to explain, and it has nothing to do with altman turning into simple jack. he hasn't. the players haven't suddenly all turned awful, unless they already were awful, like my boy johnny basketball. this team has been full of complementary players all season, but they were balanced and they were pretty good at everything (though never dominant in any one area). what did that get us? a 7-0 conference record, where EVERY SINGLE GAME was contested/close. we were in a very good rhythm there, but we were winning a LOT of close games. did everyone forget that? we were ranked #10, but we were never one of the ten best basketball teams in this great country of ours. c'mon. take away artis, with his 10 points per game/handful of assists/and his general command of the floor, and suddenly we're losing a bunch of close games -- STOP THE PRESSES! we had no one on this team capable of taking over a game before artis got hurt, and we still don't. take our away the balance artis gave us, and replace him with THE WORST POINT GUARD IN THE COUNTRY, and yeah. suddenly instead of winning all those close games, we start losing them. it's not rocket science. what would 10 extra points a game get us the last two games? wins over cal and colorado. who gives us 10 points a game? artis. who gives us zilch? johnny basketball.

4. i get being angry at the coach. i was calling for ernie's firing in 2003, not even a year removed from the first elite 8 team. i saw a team that needed to win the pac-12 tournament in order to guarantee themselves a spot in the big dance, despite having two nba lottery picks on the team and a bunch of returnees from the year before. everyone thought i was crazy for wanting ernie gone at that point. but i know bad coaching when i see it. altman is not a bad coach. there just isn't an easy answer to the problems we're seeing right now. we're not an overly talented basketball team; there is not a single nba player on the roster right now. tony woods? come the **** on. teams without great talent need to do things like shoot the ball well (we can't) and play smart basketball (we can't) to win games. you can only mask so many problems... there are a ton of really smart basketball minds and plenty of really good coaches coaching bad teams right now because the talent on hand can only do so much.

Pretty Much spot on.......Altman has done outstanding with what he had to deal with when he took over. There isn't NBA talent on this team or really even top Pac-12 talent, lots of role players. Altman has had to mix transfers and freshman to try and put a competitive team on the floor and for the most part been successful. Kent left him a mess and a 5 year rebuild with all the players that initially transferred out. Altman will and is getting his guys.

As bad as the offense was, that team played defense Thursday night better than any team Kent ever put on the floor. That is a result of good coaching.

Loyd is the only option Altman has and it just is not an effective one.

[rockthief]

So there were no other players who wanted on the team? I don't understand why we have someone like Loyd. Tell me what I am missing. Thanks.

[Wayne Pesek]

Oh, boy. Where to begin?

There is nothing wrong with the offense! Miles Simon (who likely knows just a bit more about basketball than any of us on this message board) was actually quite complimentary of the offense when he gave a demonstration of it at halftime.

There is something wrong with the execution of the offense. For one, this team does not value the basketball. They haven't all year long. With the number of turnovers per game they commit, they have won more games than they should have. The law of averages is catching up to them. The frustrating part is that most of the turnovers are from carelessness. Some of them are from trying to be too aggressive, and that I can live with. Most are just plain careless, or trying to make plays they aren't capable of making. If you listen to Altman long enough, you will hear him constantly telling the players to make "simple plays". This team seems to get excited and make passes that are impossible to complete, or moves that they aren't skilled enough to accomplish. They actually played under control for most of the game last night. Only 12 turnovers was remarkable for them, but it seems like a couple of them came within the last 3 or 4 possessions of the game. A complete meltdown, and I don't know why. The second-guesser in me would like to see Dotson as the crunch time "closer," but even he doesn't yet have the experience or skill as someone like Devoe Joseph. The second-guesser in me also would like to see more of the full-court press, as that would have maybe made a difference. Hard to say. Hindsight is 20/20.

For once and for all, Loyd is not the worst PG in D1 basketball. Hyperbolic statements like that automatically reduce any credibility that might have otherwise been contained in the post. Is he a great shooter? No. Is he a good shooter? Sometimes, but not very often. Can the same be said for every other player on the team? Yes! There isn't a consistently good 3-point shooter on the team. That hurts the offense. Loyd is a great defensive player. He is great at disrupting the offense of the other team, even more so than what shows up in his number of steals (which is a lot). No argument from me that he is somewhat offensively challenged. He is a great change-of-pace guy to come in for Artis, give the team shot in the arm while Artis takes a breather. Stop expecting him to be as good as Artis. My gosh, the guy is now playing with one-hand! And looking like the toughest guy on the team. He deserves some respect for that. He went from being a below average shooter to a guy who is physically unable to shoot the ball right now. What do you expect the results to be in that situation? Just have to work through it, and hope Artis is back sooner, rather than later.

This team was picked to finish 7th in the Pac12. They have exceeded expectations, and in doing so, have created unrealistic expectations. Being in the Top 10 was fun, wasn't it? But, it wasn't realistic. Being mentioned by an ESPN writer as a possible sleeper for the Final 4 is nice, but probably not very likely. (Although, with as crazy as the college game has been so far this year, you probably have to include about 50 or more teams as Final 4 possibilities!)

Tied for 2nd place at the halfway mark of the conference season. Only 23 seconds (last night's game) from being tied for 1st. What a difference 23 seconds make! This lengthy thread wouldn't exist if not for 23 seconds last night. I'm sure the Indiana fans are unglued because of 9 tenths of a second! Time to back away from the keyboard and ledge. Need to make sure the slide stops tomorrow against Utah, and finish the rest of the season strong. A spot in the NCAA Tourney wasn't even a consideration when the season began, and it is still within reach.

Sorry for the long post. Thank you if you have followed it all the way to the end!

[duckgrad99]

So there were no other players who wanted on the team? I don't understand why we have someone like Loyd. Tell me what I am missing. Thanks.

We shouldn't have him, so that is on Altman for recruiting him. At this point though, there is no other option.

[duckgrad99]

Oh, boy. Where to begin?

There is nothing wrong with the offense! Miles Simon (who likely knows just a bit more about basketball than any of us on this message board) was actually quite complimentary of the offense when he gave a demonstration of it at halftime.

There is something wrong with the execution of the offense. For one, this team does not value the basketball. They haven't all year long. With the number of turnovers per game they commit, they have won more games than they should have. The law of averages is catching up to them. The frustrating part is that most of the turnovers are from carelessness. Some of them are from trying to be too aggressive, and that I can live with. Most are just plain careless, or trying to make plays they aren't capable of making. If you listen to Altman long enough, you will hear him constantly telling the players to make "simple plays". This team seems to get excited and make passes that are impossible to complete, or moves that they aren't skilled enough to accomplish. They actually played under control for most of the game last night. Only 12 turnovers was remarkable for them, but it seems like a couple of them came within the last 3 or 4 possessions of the game. A complete meltdown, and I don't know why. The second-guesser in me would like to see Dotson as the crunch time "closer," but even he doesn't yet have the experience or skill as someone like Devoe Joseph. The second-guesser in me also would like to see more of the full-court press, as that would have maybe made a difference. Hard to say. Hindsight is 20/20.

For once and for all, Loyd is not the worst PG in D1 basketball. Hyperbolic statements like that automatically reduce any credibility that might have otherwise been contained in the post. Is he a great shooter? No. Is he a good shooter? Sometimes, but not very often. Can the same be said for every other player on the team? Yes! There isn't a consistently good 3-point shooter on the team. That hurts the offense. Loyd is a great defensive player. He is great at disrupting the offense of the other team, even more so than what shows up in his number of steals (which is a lot). No argument from me that he is somewhat offensively challenged. He is a great change-of-pace guy to come in for Artis, give the team shot in the arm while Artis takes a breather. Stop expecting him to be as good as Artis. My gosh, the guy is now playing with one-hand! And looking like the toughest guy on the team. He deserves some respect for that. He went from being a below average shooter to a guy who is physically unable to shoot the ball right now. What do you expect the results to be in that situation? Just have to work through it, and hope Artis is back sooner, rather than later.

This team was picked to finish 7th in the Pac12. They have exceeded expectations, and in doing so, have created unrealistic expectations. Being in the Top 10 was fun, wasn't it? But, it wasn't realistic. Being mentioned by an ESPN writer as a possible sleeper for the Final 4 is nice, but probably not very likely. (Although, with as crazy as the college game has been so far this year, you probably have to include about 50 or more teams as Final 4 possibilities!)

Tied for 2nd place at the halfway mark of the conference season. Only 23 seconds (last night's game) from being tied for 1st. What a difference 23 seconds make! This lengthy thread wouldn't exist if not for 23 seconds last night. I'm sure the Indiana fans are unglued because of 9 tenths of a second! Time to back away from the keyboard and ledge. Need to make sure the slide stops tomorrow against Utah, and finish the rest of the season strong. A spot in the NCAA Tourney wasn't even a consideration when the season began, and it is still within reach.

Sorry for the long post. Thank you if you have followed it all the way to the end!

Loyd was just as bad before his injury, so I'm not buying that excuse. I realize expectations were low, but that doesn't take away from the team looking abysmal the past 3 games.