In Reply to: I don't expect us to agree. I think as fans we may be posted by ej on January 05, 2025 at 17:46:28
It's like you refuse to concede any point, often by pivoting to another metric when you encounter overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I hesitated to respond to your original post, becuz I know this is what you practice. As clear as a bell, with no alternative goalposts in sight, you proclaimed:
"Cronin's O is fine just as it is."
Your exact words! An absolute absurdity. I noted that out of 355 Div 1 teams, roughly half of which fall into an inconsequential grouping inclusive of inconsequential leagues, UCLA ranked #167 in offense per NCAA official stats. That's not "fine", it's putrid. I further provided another metric that among the 18 teams in the B10 (a known Conference of known teams), that per official NCAA stats only 3 of the 18 had worse O stats than Cronin's "just fine O".
You then swept all that under the rug and erected the next goalpost, namely, that all that matters is winning. I shifted to your other end of the football field and pointed out that in CMC's 1st 16 seasons as a Div 1 head coach, he had managed to get past the 2nd Dance round only once, preparatory to then losing all the way back in the 2012 season. Having never done so before, it took him another 9 seasons to reach that level again.
You then pivoted away to proclaiming phantasmagorically that CMC puts his team in an offensive position to win almost every game. Of course, that latest proclamation of yours is absurd, not to mention it has unequivocally been his D that has predominantly carried his teams over his 22 yrs. CMC by myriad accounts, here and elsewhere, was not UCLA's 1st choice as head coach. He had a win %age at Cincy of 67%, if anything held down by a weak O which translated into reaching and losing his ONLY S!6 appearance in 16 years!
His win %age has improved slightly to 69% at UCLA, as I have praised him without exception as to his riding his elite D to that slight elevation in win %age. Within your new pivot point, his O has been anything but "fine". In what will be his 22nd season as a head coach, he will IMO (given our lack of depth this yr at the 1 & the 5) have surpassed winning in the 2nd Dance round only once! Which goes to my premise in responding to you that an unbalanced team is going to struggle to reach an upper tier status in "the only thing that matters, winning".
It hasn't been the D that has kept CMC from the winning heights. It hasn't remotely been his elite D that has constricted him. That would leave his "fine" O, which hasn't remotely been "fine". You're doing your best to deny that statistical reality by throwing up what you do best, namely, a Hail Mary with no supporting evidence that CMC's "fine" O has designed a system under which his players "get plenty of good looks". It's a standard Hail Mary with nothing behind it other than an empty proclamation.
Before you put any words in my mouth, I think CMC has been an improvement over UCLA's head coaches since Howland. I admire the D system he has put on the floor, including his signature brand of ambushing the passing lanes. I appreciate his ability to get his players to play hard for him, particularly on D. And, I consider his O "system" to be anything but "fine", supported by actual statistical metrics as opposed to conceptual proclamations.
I'll leave you to ignoring my above and doing your next transporting of the goalposts as I think we've come to the end of the road. I doubt this would gain entree to any kind of point-counterpoint moot court, but if you want to conclude that all we have is a difference of opinion, I'll just wish you good luck...