Well, I would like to start off by wishing everyone a happy (belated) Thanksgiving. I hope everyone ate as much as I did. Turkey really isn't my favorite food, so luckily my mom spoiled me by fixing me two t-bone steaks.

Anyway, I like what I see from this team so far. They are really committed to playing solid team defense, and I have seen numerous efforts to take charges in the paint. This alone is very encouraging, as I believe that all of the good teams make a concentrated effort at taking charges.

We all have heard the saying "Points sell tickets, defense wins ballgames." Well, this was apparent last Saturday night against the Dayton Flyers. Our defense was superb, as Dayton was held to only 48 points. If you can hold teams to fewer than 50 points a game, you will win a majority of those games. However, neither the coaches nor fans were very excited about the offensive part of the game (30 percent shooting for 53 points). This illustrates my belief that a team can't rely on its offense alone to win ball games. There always will be ball games in which the shots just don't fall. It truly is a game of inches, and if you're a couple off then the shots won't fall. But if you play good defense and block out, you can get back those inches by forcing the other team to take bad shots and not giving them a second opportunity. Some nights you don't have any control how the shots bounce off the rim, but you always have control of how hard you play and how tough you play. We played hard against Dayton, and in the end took more inches from them than they took from us.

Then came the Louisiana-Monroe game Wednesday. We exploded for 99 points and shot 63 percent from the floor. So what was the difference? How did we go from shooting 30 percent against Dayton to 63 percent against Louisiana-Monroe? The answer is simple: We ran the offense through the big guys. In the beginning of the game, we got some easy baskets down low, which forced Louisiana-Monroe to go to a zone defense. Once they did, our guards started lighting them up from outside. From that point on, Louisiana-Monroe had to pick its poison as the Warhawks couldn't guard the big guys inside with a man-to-man defense or defend against the three with a zone defense. Dayton’s post players did a tremendous job of fronting our posts and taking away easy entry passes. As a result, our offense faltered and we were forced into taking low percentage shots (outside shots). This is the major difference in the two games from an offensive standpoint. In order for this team (and any team for that matter) to succeed on the offensive end, the ball has to go through the posts.

Everyone might not agree with the above statement. In fact, I have had coaches who don’t agree with it. But it’s all too simple to me. If you throw it to the posts down low, they usually take either a baby hook or get an open layup. Now which shot would you think has a better chance of going in? The one- to six-foot shot or the three-pointer? Just look at the percentages. If a post player doesn’t shoot 50 percent for the game, he had a bad shooting night. If a three-point shooter made 35 percent of his shots, he shot well. So why not start the game by going inside to the bigs and taking high-percentage shots? With a good start, the other team either will double the bigs or go to a zone (like Louisiana-Monroe did). When that happens, the posts will throw the ball out of the double-team to a guard for a wide-open shot. The easiest way for guards to get an open shot is to throw the ball to the posts down low and let the posts create a shot for the guards.

In the Dayton game, we made an effort to get the posts the ball early and for whatever reason, that effort failed. But we can't single out the guards for not getting the posts the ball. The posts share some of the blame, as do the coaches. Getting the ball inside takes a team effort. The posts have to post up strong and create a passing opportunity for the guards, who then actually have to pass the ball into a space where the posts can catch it. If one group doesn't do its job, the entry passes will be stolen or won’t even be attempted. When this happens, as it did in the Dayton game, the coaches have to make adjustments. When a team’s game plan focuses on taking the easiest pass into the post away (by fronting our post players), then you have to exploit other passing angles. This can be done in multiple ways, with the easiest being to bring the other post to the free throw line. Once the ball is thrown to this "high post," the "low post" must keep his defender on the outside of them. If done right, an open layup always will be there. If the defense makes an adjustment and stops fronting our post players, well then you are back where you started with an easy entry pass into the post. Now I know that I sort of went on a tangent there, but this is the sort of thing that has to happen in order for this team to reach its potential. Go through the bigs, you get 99 points. Fail in getting them the ball, you get half as many points and 30 percent shooting.