A case for Brownell......

Feb 26, 2013, 12:01 PM

I've heard a lot on here about Brownell not being a good coach (although I know that's not the general consensus), and I wanted to share my opinion on the matter.

We all know brownell preaches defense, and nobody will argue that we have a bad defense. I don't think anyone has a major issue in that regard....but the offense on the other hand...

Brownell's offense runs on screens and cuts, a very methodical, slow offense. The system won't outscore you, but rather relies on getting open shots on the perimeter through good post play (at least that is how I feel about it). So, in order to do well, the players need to shoot well. I think we get plenty of good open looks that just aren't knocked down consistently.

In games we have won this season, our 3-point percentage is 40.3%, not a bad percentage at all, but in games we have lost, the percentage is 25.5%, and in a few of those games we've put up close to 20 attempts from beyond the arc.

So, my point being is, Brownell's system gets men open, but when they can't knock it down, we suffer the consequences, and at what point does blame shift from the coach to the players who can't consistently knock down the shot.

Same goes for free throws, on the year we are 65.6% from the line, placing us 280th out of 347 teams. This is no surprise for most, but how much of that can really be blamed on Brownell, it isn't like they don't practice them religiously, more players simply need to make them.

And lastly, a lot of grief has been given to Milton Jennings, almost deservingly so. In our wins, he is 53.9% from the field, in losses? Only 30.8%. Many of those shots are 3's, and many of his misses from the arc are with lots of time left on the shot clock, which can kill offensive momentum. I'm not sure if Brownell encourages this, but the fact that Milton has underachieved does not help.

So my point is that while Brownell is the coach, a lot of the blame has to go to the fact that our players simply are not making open shots (outside of roper!). Maybe this improves over time, maybe not, but you can't blame brownell for recruiting bad shooters (I'm sure they were pretty good in high school), and we need these guys to step up and hit more 3-balls to get us a few wins.