The pieces to this team don't fit and its not a good shooting team. Every loss or close game is because the offense stinks. When everyone plays well or to expectation this team can compete and win any game. But if you have 1-2 starter struggling a game, consistently, games like Tuesday are going to happen a lot more. For every good shooting game we have we seem to have 2-3 bad ones.
There's no margin for error and that's where other issues pop up.
Self's been harping that this team doesn't get easy baskets, they don't. They rely on half court offense. He's been harping they don't run and get out in transition, they don't. We let other teams do that against us though. Oklahoma St got 30 easy points. Oklahoma had 7 I think Self said after that game.
The pieces don't fit and Self doesn't have anywhere else to go. Bryce is hurt again so there was his first guard off the bench. Mitch has his moments where he can be good but he plays limited minutes for a reason. Enaruna has ramped up his energy level and is starting to get it. Maybe he continues to rise like Braun did in conference play last year. Harris has been a bright spot in certain games but a non-factor in others. He's a freshman having freshman moments. And he's completely unplayable next to Garrett due to how bad the offense is.
The rise of McCormack's play has come at a cost. He's averaging historic usage under Self. As great as his offense was against Oklahoma St, his defense was so detrimental for periods of time that Self had to play zone and triangle and two. But he couldn't sit him because he was scoring and the only guy scoring consistently. Gift and a curse.
Hopefully Self can figure some things out with this offense and figure out how to get all 5 guys on the same page. He needs 3 guys every single night to get their average or more.