Versatile Point Forward

Chapter 72 Is the Western District Champion?
Another semi-final in the Western Conference was held almost at the same time as this one. Xavier University deserved to be the No. 3 seed in the division. They narrowly beat West Virginia University 79 to 75 and successfully joined UCLA in the Western Conference Finals.This game determines who can enter the final four of the NCAA and compete for the NCAA championship this season. For any team that has reached this point, it is an extremely important game.Not to mention whether he can beat the champions of several other divisions, if he loses, he will not even be eligible to play against top teams.

In the history of the NCAA, the Xavier University Musketeers are not a truly strong team. Although they have become regular season champions and even league champions in their league many times, they have only scored 96 goals in 19 seasons. 16 NCAA tournaments, no championship, not even a Final Four.Xavier University has sent a total of [-] NBA players to the NBA, the most famous of which are David West and James Posey. It can be said that there are no superstars in the history of their team.This year's situation is not far from the same. None of the players in the starting lineup can catch the eyes of media experts, but even so, they have made it all the way to the Western Conference finals, and their combat power cannot be underestimated.Judging by their numbers, it's likely another team-first team.

Holland sat in his room, frowning as he looked at the information at hand.Unlike players who prefer to look at basic statistics, the head coach pays more attention to some more detailed or advanced statistics, and the most eye-catching statistics of the Xavier University team may be their SRS.What is SRS?To put it simply, it is based on the adjusted average net score based on the schedule. Xavier University's SRS is 17.17 points and ranks 14th in the NCAA. Although it is not as good as UCLA's own 21.71 points, it is still a very good net score.

What really troubled him was that four of the five starters at Xavier University averaged more than 10 points per game. Even UCLA only had Westbrook, Ye Feng and Love.The team's scoring leader is their center Josh Dunn, who averaged 12.4 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, followed by their power forward Derek Brown, who averaged 10.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, and is also the team's rebounding leader.And their two guards CJ. Anderson and Drew Lawande can contribute 10.7 points and 10.8 points respectively, plus a small forward BJ. Raymond, who averages 9.9 points per game, constitutes Xavier University's starting lineup. Group of five.Judging from the overall score of the starters alone, Xavier University can almost keep pace with UCLA, even if they don't have top offensive players like Ye Feng who score like chopping melons and vegetables.

"It's hard to handle! I'm most annoyed by this kind of team that is particularly strong and has no obvious weaknesses..." Holland muttered to himself while rubbing his temples.He also understands that basketball is a team sport, but any coach would not like to encounter a very strong opponent, because it means that he needs to spend more effort to study targeted tactics, which greatly increases the difficulty of preparing for the game. Difficulty and workload.But what can be done?If you choose the path of team coaching, you must devote most of your energy to studying opponents and thinking about countermeasures. Any lazy coach will only be submerged in the long river of history.As long as the head coach has achieved that much, he is a veritable workaholic.

Holland believes in the team spirit of his players. Ye Feng and Love are very willing to pass the ball. Westbrook's often hot-headed brat is actually a guy who is willing to share the ball with his teammates, but If his teammates are not strong, it is hard to say whether he is willing to pass the ball.But in the final analysis, UCLA is still a star football team. It is impossible for any head coach sitting in this position to ignore the strong offensive ability of the three of them, even if they are willing to give up the shot to their teammates.The best example is the 2003-04 NBA Finals. The Lakers, who had Kobe, O'Neal, Malone and Payton, lost to the grassroots team of the Pistons unexpectedly, which became the biggest stain on the star ball.

However, Holland knew that the failure of the Lakers back then was not entirely the fault of the stars. The team's injuries and off-court infighting also affected the team's combat effectiveness to a certain extent.For UCLA, these two problems do not exist. The current health status of the players is quite good. Even the top five starters with the most playing time per game have no major injuries that affect their appearance.As for the infighting, Holland had to be thankful that the players under him all had very good personalities, and there were no thorns in the team that gave him a headache.More importantly, the team's troika Westbrook, Ye Feng and Love have very close personal relationships, and the three of them communicate very frequently off the court. As long as the three of them stabilize, the team will immediately be as stable as Mount Tai.

This time, Holland firmly believes that UCLA will not repeat the mistakes of the Lakers, but how to deal with Xavier?Anyway, this has already reached the division finals, which is equivalent to the "Elite Eight" of the NCAA. Those who have reached this point are not easy to deal with. Maybe the opponent has prepared some killers in order to reach the final four.Holland knows nothing about all this. The only thing he can do is to formulate tactics according to the opponent's game style, and then let the players do their own jobs. As for the outcome of the game, it depends on those four 10 minutes Let's compete with the opponent's coach on the spot!
Holland knew that it was impossible for his players to play pure team basketball. More than [-]% of the team's shooting rights still had to be concentrated on the troika body. Even if the opponent's defense was ignored, Shipp and Mbah a Moute could not share too much Score heavy duty.Although the basketball game is known as "offensive wins the box office, defense wins the championship", in the final analysis, it is still necessary to score more points than the opponent.In terms of scoring, Holland may still be concerned about strong teams like North Carolina and Kansas, but Xavier, to be honest, he is just afraid that the opponent will get too many open spaces through cooperation. He is full of confidence in purely scoring of.

Even so, he still reminded his opponents during training, asking them to pay more attention to the transfer of the ball, but if the position of his teammates is not very good, don't pass the ball reluctantly.For Westbrook, he is the most worried, because this guy will often get excited, and he will completely ignore the number of defenders in front of him when he is hot-headed. He is forced to hold the ball and play N. In the end, there are only two results: either he is directly intercepted. , or the opponent gets the rebound and counterattacks.In this regard, Holland clearly warned him: "Russell, if you can't keep calm on the court, I will force you to give Ye the possession of the ball, lest you directly bring the team to the court. Go into the pit." Westbrook stuck out his tongue and made a face at Ye Feng.

The reason why Holland dared to say this in public was also because Westbrook himself was an optimist. Although he had a strong desire to win, as long as someone could do the work that belonged to him, he didn't mind letting himself play well. Take it easy, of course, if there is no way to win the game, he will still take back his own power, even if it goes against the coach's arrangement.And Westbrook didn't say anything, but still admired Ye Feng in his heart, so he didn't have any resistance to the coach's words this time.

Ye Feng, who was forced to lie down and was shot, seemed a little helpless, he himself preferred to hide behind and make soy sauce.But the coach's words have been left here, and he can only obediently agree.However, Ye Feng is still looking forward to controlling the game. Although he has always been used as a pure scorer, even if the skill of organizing offense has been put into the arsenal, he has not used it many times.But this does not mean that he will feel unfamiliar. After training from childhood to adulthood, many things have been deeply engraved in his bones. It only takes a few rounds to retrieve the original memory.

Freshmen like Ye Feng, Love and Enrique may not feel much about this game, but for veteran players who have played for the team for at least one season, Xavier University is an opponent that must be defeated.Because last season, UCLA, as the No. 2 seed in the West, eliminated Weber State University, Indiana University and the University of Pittsburgh in a row and also reached the division finals, and defeated the top seed University of Kansas 68 to 55 to enter the final four.And this season, the team's strength has steadily improved, and they can't accept the fact that the team can't reach the semi-finals.So maybe the goal of Ye Feng and others is just to win, but Westbrook and his team's goal is to surpass themselves last year, at least to be on par with last year. What's the point of being eliminated in the division finals?

This is also one of the important reasons why Westbrook agreed to transfer the possession of the ball to Ye Feng when he could not control his emotions. He did not want to try the feeling of falling in front of the final again. He's about to become a division champion, and he'll pay any price for it, as long as it gives him a chance to compete for a championship.Ye Feng also knew his friend's mood, otherwise, a person like him who is afraid of trouble would not have acquiesced to the coach's emergency arrangement without any struggle at all.For him, this is not only to follow his own basketball philosophy, but also to help the seniors achieve their wishes and strive to compete for the highest championship title!

Xavier University?Let the horse come!We won't give up the Western Conference title.

(End of this chapter)