For me it's the lack of improvement in individual players plus the apparent inability to find a scheme that emphasizes our strengths and minimizes our weaknesses. Also, I am disappointed by the lack of hustle plays. For Wake to be out-rebounded by the teams we have played is inexcusable!
Indeed, very salient point. My buddy and I were watching the Wake\NCSU football game the other night and got to talking at halftime about Danny and the Deacs. Our three biggest takeaways and complaints include the lack of improvement in individual players you mention above mebane.
1) While we've seen a few guys progress from year to year, many of the guards continue to make the same mistakes that have plagued them as freshmen. Yes, when the team is less talented, there will be more turnovers and mistakes, but save for last year, Danny's team has had an alarmingly hard time limiting turnovers. In addition, we've relied considerably on post-grad transfers (Darius Williams, Austin Arians and now TT) in the front court and typically the younger, greener big men, rarely get a chance to cut their teeth with the team's best players on the court at the same time, often getting spot minutes playing with several other inexperienced or limited players.
2) The intractable resistance to zone defense has created a situation where guys aren't learning the nuances of playing effective team defense. The over-reliance on man to man and "staying in front of your damn man" has put too much strain on smaller back court players to do just that. And even if they do stay in front of their man, he normally can shoot right over him. In the front court, there's an over-emphasis on hedging out on screens and rotating rather than allowing a big man like Doral or Collins to just stay planted in the lane and patrol the glass.
3) The oft-discussed and bemoaned strange substitution patters and employment of puzzling lineups that don't maintain continuity and destroy flow. Case in point being the ends of first halves when Danny invariably loves to rest starters who have built an 8-12 point lead only to see it evaporate quickly as second liners end up playing too many minutes as a group and too much scoring is left on the bench. Not to mention the over-reliance on a pick and roll type offense that doesn't necessarily lend itself to creating post opportunities for pressing big men with fragile egos. And of course the quick hook when said fragile players makes a couple of mistakes and then ends up on the bench the rest of a half.
I think folks here would exhibit a bit more patience and not engage in reactionary, frustration-laden diatribes on this here forum if we saw more evidence of Manning's ability to both anticipate the issues that arise and implement proactively better schemes to deal with it. There is no excuse to not have worked hard in the first few weeks of practice to implement a match-up or perimeter-aggressive zone to deal with our obvious lack of size and quickness in the back court, as well as experience in the front court (see lack of development).
Not to mention DM has rarely demonstrated the type of coaching acumen (so I guess that is major point #4) that leads to the right half-time adjustments to counter the other team's adjustments (and corrections of dumb mistakes that plague our players in our PnR reliant offense), which always seem to create stagnation and scoring droughts for us and longer spurts of efficiency (often times absurdly so to the tune of 40-50 points) for them. And record scoring for a moderately talented guard whom we always afford a great match-up with our insistence to play the wrong combos of players for too long a stretch or at end of games.
If we were seeing more progress in these areas as opposed to just better talent 1-7 like we saw last year, which helped us overcome these coaching deficiencies in year 3, which is looking like more of an aberration rather than a natural evolution towards consistency, team identity and commitment to defense and hustle plays you would expect and hope to see solidified by year 4.
