South Carolina at Kentucky Post-Game: Should Darrin Horn Be on the Hot Seat?
by Gamecock Man on Feb 19, 2011 7:41 PM EST
in South Carolina Gamecocks Basketball
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PrintAn old saying goes that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, hoping to get the same results. If that's true, Darrin Horn is certifiably insane.
I'm not going to give a detailed review of what happened this afternoon in Lexington. Suffice it to say it was a dismal day for Carolina basketball. And the truth is, there was probably little Horn or our team could have done today to win this game. The 'Cats are a deeper, more talented team, they were at home in the friendly lair of the Big Blue Nation, and they came to play today, shooting the ball as well as I've seen any team shoot it this year, particularly early on, after which point the game was never in doubt.
That said, it didn't have to happen like it did, with Kentucky mopping the floor with Carolina to the tune of 90-59 in a game that really wasn't anywhere near that close, if you can believe that. And as far as I'm concerned, the culprit is coaching. My main problem? Horn's continued reliance on Bruce Ellington to shoot us into games. Ellington was 1-11 from the field in 31 minutes of playing time. If this was a one-game thing, it would be one thing. But it's not. Ellington has not had a good game in weeks. Sure, he's had a couple where he's scored some points, but it's always been on a poor shooting percentage. More often than not it's been like it was today, with Ellington chucking up brick after brick and missing more shots than he scores points.
I get that Horn came into the season hoping that Ellington would be able to step into Devan Downey's shoes and be our leader on offense. It wasn't a bad plan, even in hindsight; Ellington came in as a heralded recruit and early on, he lived up to the hype. And for that reason, I hate to pile on him. He's a freshman, and he's struggling mentally. I don't think that means it's the end of the road for him. However, it does mean that as a coach Horn needs to step in and try something different. We can't keep going into every game planning for our first plan to be to have Ellington to chuck up half a dozen or more threes and hope some of them fall. That would be crazy, right?
Yet that's precisely what Horn is doing right now, and that, along with some of the other problems we've discussed this year, is causing me to lose a lot of confidence in him. A lot of people have defended Horn by saying that this team had low expectations, and certainly, it's a roster full of freshmen playing in a tough division. I get that. But we're awful right now, folks, and we seem to be getting worse. The worst of it is that I haven't gotten the impression that Horn is capable of doing anything to get us out of the rut. I see very little evidence of strategical genius in his coaching. What he does seem to do very well is motivate his players, but that only goes so far, because it's hard to motivate players once the season has gone down the tubes.
I don't think it's time to part ways with Horn yet. A historically mediocre program can't justify firing a coach in his third year, especially when we returned little talent to speak of this year and had no expectations. Horn deserves a chance to see this group of players mature and to see what he can do with them. However, I do think that it's time to put the pressure on. This program can be solid than this with the right coach. I hope Horn is that guy, but right now, I'm really having doubts.
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He has sat or started some players this season based on how they were performing ...
… so I know he is capable of reevaluating the roster. He just won’t budge on the issue of Ellington, though. I really have no idea what is going on. It’s one of those things that make me tired to think about. Trying to understand why Ellington continues to lead the offense makes me want to crawl into bed, curl up in the fetal position, and never get up. What a way to destroy the kid’s confidence, pretty much forever, by playing him even though he can’t do much of anything right. If Ellington is back next season, I’d have to give him much credit, ‘cause I would’ve quit.
stuff 'bout stuff.
Confidence.
I thought about this while writing this piece. What Horn is doing with Ellington right now isn’t good for his long-term development. At the end of the day, I think Ellington’s problem is that he’s a freshman and has gotten into a funk. I’m sure Ellington wants to play it out, but what would be better for him might be to sit it out and live to fight another day. I worry that Horn is missing the boat on this one and that he’s ruining Ellington’s head.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 19, 2011 8:58 PM EST up reply actions
Good post...
I too am having my doubts due to no offensive scheme and seems coaching of the “young team” is not there. Each game they should show something improved but it seems they get worse. Launching three’s is the game plan and no crashing of the boards. Seen better effort out of church league teams. Eric Smith deserves more PT over Ellington and Galloway. Thank goodness for Cooke of late as he is the only one still grinding.
USC Gamecocks Sports Analysis and Insight
www.leftoverhotdog.com
Cooke has really come on lately.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 19, 2011 8:59 PM EST up reply actions
Ick, ack, and yuck. Fair analysis, though.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Smith absolutely needs more playing time. He’s a better fundamental point guard than Ellington, doesn’t make reckless decisions, and is generally unselfish with the ball. Lost in the utter crap that was today’s game was the fact he had a pretty solid performance. We should run more sets with Ellington as a 2-guard, or heaven forbid, have him come off the bench. Galloway struggled as a starter last season but lit it up as a reserve, for example.
Of course, like you said in your own post, I’m not saying this to hate on Ellington. I think he’s a fantastic player and will develop into a great one for us. But right now, he’s struggling, and I don’t think it’s fair to him or the team to keep throwing him to the wolves when we have other options we could try.
Horn tinkered a lot wih the lineup in the preseason, but has been really reluctant to experiment with it in conference play. I can understand that to an extent, but our season is over; might as well keep looking around to see what works.
Yeah, although as silver said above...
Horn actually has tinkered with the lineup a bit lately. Smith and Slawson are getting more minutes in return for their solid contributions. The problem is that he won’t budge on Ellington and Galloway.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 19, 2011 9:00 PM EST up reply actions
Insane? Or just stubborn?
Based on what I have seen, both Ellington and Galloway are playing way too much. Neither one can throw it in the ocean. If Horn is going to play them, he needs to make them look to pass to the better shooters(and that is everybody), and look for their shot much less. Penetrate and pass should be the instructions to those two.
Our guard play is what has hurt this team more than anything else. Look at the stats. Ellington and Galloway are shooting more than anybody else and have the worst percentages. Cooke, Slawson, Harris, and even Lakeem, when he is healthy, make more of their shots than our guards do. It is a mystery to me why Horn lets this continue. He better wake up.
Yep. The front court is generally shooting for a decent percentage. Yet we continue to feed Ellington and Galloway's crappy percentages.
That’s the problem to me. Horn needs to be stepping in and telling these two to either look to create more or that they’ll sit.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 19, 2011 8:57 PM EST up reply actions
Most of me thinks that we should wait until the end of next year before making a decision Horn's future no matter what.
But there is a tiny part of me that’s looking across the border to UGA and Mark Fox and raising it’s eyebrows. They just beat Tennessee in Knoxville. When was the last time we’ve beaten Tennessee (men’s or women’s) in basketball?
Horn has brought some success to our program so far. We’ve had the occasional big win, a share of the division title – but no NCAA appearance. If we had this same record but were being competitive in our games I wouldn’t put Horn on the hot seat for a second. It’s pretty clear all the way around that we were in for a re-building season this year. The odd mixture of transfers that Dave Odom had put together has put Horn in a strange position his first few years. Now we’re going to be getting into Horn’s 5th year pretty soon here, and at some point you have to look around and ask what’s going on. Is it too much to ask to lose a game by single digits?
And anyone pining for the Dave Odom years has lost the damn mind. Odom idea of drawing up a play his last year here was “give the ball to Devan Downey.” I don’t know a whole lot about basketball, but I have seen horn draw up some nice plays on the inbound.
Dum spiro spero - "While I breathe, I hope"
State motto of South Carolina
by The Feathered Warrior on Feb 19, 2011 10:17 PM EST reply actions
I think you sum up the way I feel really well when you say that what's so maddening about this season is how badly we're losing.
I honestly didn’t expect much from this team this year in the W-L department, but I did expect for us to be competitive and to grow over the course of the year, kind of like UGA last year. We haven’t seen any of those things.
That said, we’re actually only going into Horn’s fourth year. It’s his third year right now. And I think some concession has to be made for the fact that we likely would have been an NCAA team last year if not for Archie’s injury and Holmes getting the boot. If not for that happening, Horn would be in a much different position right now and wouldn’t be subject to as much scrutiny. That’s part of the difference between us and UGA under Fox. Last year we were looking at having a team like UGA has this year until the personnel losses killed us.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 20, 2011 12:41 AM EST up reply actions
My beef is
the lack of coaching being seen from Horn. Ok a team or player has a bad outing or does not play well. A coach generally will address the issue and coach them on the proper way or desired way to handle the situation in the future. That is not going on. All we see is continued coming down the court pass around the perimeter a few times and launch a low percentage shot. Guards are not creating nor penetrating and “the bigs” get points when the rebound falls to them as there is not any crashing of the boards going on either. Bottom line is no offensive scheme.
Ellington and Galloway are in a shooting funk yet Horn still forces them to play there way out of it. Muldrow could use some coaching on how to play with his back to the basket and how to position for a entry pass but again no coaching on this. There is no high low game as all they want to do is launch three’s. No motion offense as the team stands around and the team creates spacing yet no penetration just a lanuch three with no positioning for a rebound…..geez.
USC has lost 5 straight. The team is young. This should be the time to coach them up and play different players as the usual suspects are not getting it done. If the season is lost then now is the time to coach the heck out of them not let them play so poorly. Living and dying by the three ball is not a offensive game plan and don’t get me started on the defensive scheme.
I understand trial by fire and letting them play but at some point you have to but your big boy coaching pants on and light the fire. Coming out for the 3rd game in a row and playing ugly basketball for the first 20 mins falls on the coaching staff.
I am willing to give Horn another year as the team is young (which is a BS excuse in basketball as many teams lean on young players to perform) but I need to see better coaching. USC has the talent to be a better team.
USC Gamecocks Sports Analysis and Insight
www.leftoverhotdog.com
Yeah, I agree. In sum, we keep doing the same things and the same players keep making the same stupid mistakes.
At some point, that has to fall on coaching.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 20, 2011 10:54 AM EST up reply actions
Horn's show on Sundays is a joke.
They got absolutely stomped into the ground yesterday, and they barely discussed why it happened, and said nothing about how to avoid it from happening again in the foreseeable future. Spurrier doesn’t do that.
Also, I’ve only seen two of the segments of the show where they discuss the drills they do in practice. One was a rebounding drill where they told them to kick it back outside. The other was a fast break drill where they pass it to a guy in the wing who then shoots a three. Perhaps this is our problem?
stuff 'bout stuff.
Stategy is not the main problem
Our strategy on offense is not the main problem. Few people would be complaining about how many threes we take if we were making more of them. Our main problem on offense is that we cannot make the shots we take, many of which are good shots.
Muldrow is not a low-post, back to the basket type player. We don’t currently have anybody like that. Maybe Horn will recruit a back to the basket post player in the future, but right now, all our post players are face up types. And again, nothing wrong with that, if they can make their shots.
I see your point, and I don't doubt that Horn's approach can work, given the right personnel.
We all saw that it could in 2008-2009. But isn’t good strategy also knowing how to adjust to the personnel you have? If we don’t have the shooters this year, or if the shooters we do have have all gone cold, is it too much to expect for Horn to adjust the offense?
I also have a problem with how little penetration we get in our half-court offense. If we want to be a shooting team first, fine. But it’s hard to get open shots when you just pass it around on the perimeter. You have to have guys who are penetrating and creating, and Horn isn’t getting our guys to do that. I get that we don’t have any elite back-to-the-basket style big men on the team, but we do have guys who can create off the dribble. Yet half of our offensive possessions are nothing but three passes around the perimeter followed by a poorly chosen three.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 20, 2011 4:00 PM EST up reply actions
If you all do fire Horn...
…don’t fall for the alure of Billy Gillispie….trust me on this…
You all almost got Tubby Smith in 2001, maybe he’d be more willing this time.
Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your way...
@btcoop71
Luckily, I think he'll be taken before then.
I honestly think Gillispie could succeed in the right conditions. He has a good track record other than at UK. He just needs to find the right gig. I don’t think that’s at a BCS school, though, at least not at this point.
I honestly hope that Horn gets the job done. There are some things I really like about him. But this season has been an unqualified failure.
Garnet and Black Attack: A Blog By and For Gamecocks Fans.
by Gamecock Man on Feb 21, 2011 12:49 PM EST up reply actions
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