Arizona coach Sean Miller studying FIBA, NBA offenses during quarantine

Photo by Jacob Snow/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Rather than bouncing from recruiting event to recruiting event this spring, the coronavirus crisis has allowed Arizona Wildcats head coach Sean Miller to hunker down and re-evaluate other areas of his program.

One of them is fine tuning his offensive schemes, which have often been the subject of criticism over the years for being stagnant and uncreative, even though Miller’s teams have had a top-20 offense in seven of his 11 years as Arizona’s coach.

Miller said on the latest roundtable with UA alums Matt Muehlebach and Steve Kerr that he has been studying NBA and FIBA offenses and how they consistently manufacture quality shots within a 24-second shot clock, six seconds fewer than college teams are allotted.

Miller specifically mentioned Kerr’s Warriors, who like to confuse defenses by setting a bevy of off-ball screens.

“It’s amazing, some of the great international coaches, I’m mesmerized by some of the coaches and the way they move and the way their players cut and ball,” Miller said. “They play like your Golden State Warriors. Watching these guys play that style, I hate sometimes looking at our team just because I want my team and our team to play more like that.”

One reason his team doesn’t, Miller said, is because it doesn’t have much time to build chemistry because of all the roster turnover it experiences from year to year. Arizona has lost its entire starting five to graduation and/or the NBA Draft in two of the last three seasons.

But there’s still room for improvement, and if there is ever a time to implement NBA- or FIBA-like schemes, it’s now after the Wildcats signed four international players in this recruiting cycle.

“So we’re trying to steal things from you guys (the Warriors), and adjust to add and be better moving forward,” Miller said.

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts https://ift.tt/2ZcQ7W0
via IFTTT