Ideally, any basketball coach would like to have at least one quality big man, some long defenders, some guys who can shoot and someone to run the team – a coach on the floor as people like to call it.
Those are ideals but just as in life, basketball rosters are rarely ideal and one measure of good coaching is how you adapt to less-than-ideal rosters.
In Florida State’s case, Luke Loucks really doesn’t have quality big men. Yet against UNC last time out and against Duke on Saturday, the ‘Noles largely overcame that. To be sure, they didn’t win either game, but they were in both, and against Duke, they were in it until the very end.
They did this in a couple of ways.
First, they swarmed on defense and made life difficult for Cameron Boozer and Pat Ngongba inside. UNC overcame it with big games by both Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar, who combined for 34 points and 28 rebounds while Duke adapted and got 14 assists from Boozer, Ngongba and Maliq Brown (Cayden Boozer also had 6 assists).
FSU also had superb three point shooting in the first half, but first-half shooting, while useful, isn’t nearly as useful as great second-half shooting is. Take what Christian Anderson did to Duke in the Garden in December: he scored 27 points and 23 of them came after halftime. Still, three point shooting is a great equalizer and Loucks is not scared to use it.
What we’re saying is this: FSU has some serious weaknesses but Loucks has managed to either mask them or compensate for them.
The whole analogy of athletics to military is overblown, not least of all because it’s quite rare for athletes to die during a competition. However, this much is true: in both worlds, you have to adapt to your circumstances and overcome deficiencies before you can succeed.
Loucks’ team is developing a wonderful identity. They’re undersized but scrappy. They aren’t scared to take threes. And most of all, they play hard and with discipline.
He’s only coached 15 games, but Loucks overcame a really tough 5-game losing streak and his team has clearly improved. He has adapted well enough to give both UNC and Duke major challenges. We’ll have to see what he does the rest of the year and later as his career develops, but if we were Florida State fans, we’d be highly encouraged by what he’s shown so far.
That program appears to be in good hands.
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