@HighEliteMajor
Ok. Did we employ one strategy against the press? Sure. But you're trying to set up a false dilemma here. You don't need more than one strategy to break a press any more than you need separate toasters for white and wheat bread, you just need to be able to execute the strategy. That isn't to say there's no room for variation, but that's tactics, not strategy. I don't disagree with your break down of the course of events as it's described. It's the same stuff I was going over. But what you're identifying as passivity is actually naivete. You identify where OSU was successful with the press, but neglect to mention specifically why.
The steals happened when guys made mistakes. Failure to execute isn't the same thing as failure to plan, nor the same thing as failure of strategy. When Tharpe picks up the ball before he's drawn trap defenders, then gets picked, it's not because the strategy failed. He picked up the ball too soon. That's not part of the strategy. The other guys either didn't see this or didn't react in time and there's a TO. Selden throwing the sideline pass to Embiid when he isn't looking is more on Embiid than Selden and again, not part of the strategy. Selden was impatient. Embiid was in the right general area, but didn't have his head up. Wigs not recognizing and attacking into defenders with numbers after breaking the press is a classic freshman mistake and not part of the strategy. Again, patience, recognition. Those are things he's struggled with throughout the year, and he was especially bad about in this game.
Experience makes the difference here. These issues go away as players get more reps. You also mention the PGs not attacking with the drive, but that's not true. There were a couple of times where Mason or Tharpe made a great drive over the half court line only to find out that their outlet(s) didn't advance with them and they wound up in a bad situation until a cutter could recognize and save the play. That's execution. And it's clear that lob passing back and forth in the back court wasn't the ONLY thing being done. In fact, Selden doesn't often throw lobs. He line drives. The rainbow passes tend to originate with Tharpe and Mason and are largely a product of practicality more so than anything else. At 5'10" or 5'11" each, they're the shortest guys on the court. If they're going to pass over a trap set by 6'2" and 6'3"+ guards, that's how they have to throw. And lob passing itself isn't inherently passive either. Forcing the defense to shift is aggressive. Driving the ball towards the trap, springing it, then passing out, even lob passing, is part of a strategy. It's attacking.
Mixing up the general strategy (passing over the press), however, is irrelevant. When KU executed, they were successful as evidenced by the times they were able to get easy buckets, and even the times they simply set up and ran the half court offense. It isn't merely luck. It's what's supposed to happen. So no, I can't swallow any notion that this is generally poor strategy on Self's part unless you can come up with something more convincing. Now, that's not to say I'm not open to some of your criticism. Particularly, I strongly agree with #6. The easiest way to break a press is to get the ball moving before the D can get set up and KU was entirely too lax with getting the ball inbound when they should have known the press was coming. On #5, I'm not sure this team has the length to skip pass, but it's doable. #4 is irrelevant if you simply execute with the 2 guard front. Draw a trap and there's always someone open. That's about as fundamental as it gets. #3 I flat out dispute as true, and I likewise would put a Benjamin down that if you call into Hawktalk this week and ask if Tharpe and Mason have the green light to drive against the press, Self would give you a resounding yes and tell you that's something that they work on.
As for the first two (don't know why I went reverse order, but here we are), these would be nice wrinkles to add. In fact, I'd even add to #1 that it could be advantageous to put Embiid in the 3 position of the press break especially when Wigs is in, but I have a different argument for you altogether for these. I've talked a lot about lack of experience, but really that phrase means two things. KU is the 5th youngest team in the country so it's fair to say, they don't have a lot of experience playing at the college level. Even Tharpe, the most veteran guy on the team, averaged sub 20 minutes per game in the year prior. So yeah, guys are getting thrown into a lot of situations that are unfamiliar. But you're incredulous, and rightly so, that these kids wouldn't be familiar with attacking a 2-2-1 press. Given that most of them (save Embiid and Traylor) have been playing competitive ball for more than half their lives, I'd be a fool to disagree with that assessment. Still, as a team, they've only been playing together a couple of months and they still make mistakes that show exactly that. The very first TO Selden had in the 2nd half wasn't because of the press. It was the very first possession, in fact, where Perry was posted with great position, Selden had the passing angle, recognized, and fired the ball to Perry. It's difficult to tell from the camera angle if Selden threw the ball out of reach or if Ellis didn't go after it quickly enough, but what should have been as easy a finish at the rim as you can get became a horrible mistake. Now I doubt you'd try to argue to me that posting and feeding with a lead pass from the wing is bad or passive strategy, but this is essentially what you're telling me about Self's press break and again, I'm forced to disagree without a more compelling argument.
I've digressed quite a bit here, so back to my broader point. These guys haven't played together a ton and likewise, Self hasn't had a ton of time to cram everything in. Admittedly, our press break strategy is the simplest and most straightforward implementation of a press break you can get, but I still disagree that it's in any way passive. It would be nice to add these wrinkles (points 1 and 2), but, as we've seen, the guys still haven't mastered the basic implementation of the strategy (draw the trap, reverse the ball, look for easy outlets, repeat), so I'm not sure how practical it is to try and add screening and cutting on to the existing plan unless and until they look comfortable in the first place. The lack of execution that I've been stressing doesn't exist because these kids haven't seen this stuff before. It doesn't exist because they don't know what they're supposed to do. It exists because they haven't run this stuff together so much that it's become second nature. Now, you can argue that that's what practice is for, but there's two problems there: practice is no substitute for game time, and there's an opportunity cost for focusing on one area over another. Would you rather work shoring up our 3pt shooting (we're averaging 40% now in Big 12 play) or work on the press break? What about defensive rotations that were so loose through the nonconf schedule? You've seen the same improvement I have there, haven't you? So while I don't disagree that he press break is lagging, I think that's a matter of necessity more than anything else. There simply isn't enough time in the year to cover all of the warts on a team. That's why freshmen (as in multiple) led title teams have been the exception (2012), not the rule (pretty much the rest of NCAA history). So will we likely see more of the press as conf play continues? Sure, but that's to our benefit, not our detriment. Even if we pick up a loss or two because of it, getting the reps will make the team better at execution, and those passive mistakes that are making your head ache now will be fewer and further between. Trust.
