Swiss Cheese Theory

I’m sure its been brought up before, but often when something goes wrong (i.e. we are beat by a St John’s team playing without a head coach and made up of almost all freshman), there are usually many different reasons/problems/errors which, in aggregate, lead to this outcome…

Here is a link which details the theory: http://patientsafetyed.duhs.duke.edu/module_e/swiss_cheese.html

Well, here are my cheesy thoughts on this particular game:

1. Poor rebounding/blocking out – we should have dominated the boards since they had no one playing over 6-8, but like usual… i’m actually amazed to see we had equal numbers of boards as the Johnnies

2. Joshua was ineffective – had one of his typical I-only-play-with-energy-in-the-state-of-Washington days. couldn’t get the ball, couldn’t block out and only had 3 boards, and was a liability on defense again

3. Inability to get free-throws – which kinda relates to not being able to get the ball to the bigs as much as we should have (see #’s 2 and 4). sadly, i believe our 9 of 13 for 69% FT shooting is better than our average.

4. Difficulty with the zone – as evidenced by 15 turnovers

5. Powell vs St. John’s frosh – my frustration with Powell (only 2nd to Smith – which I have gotten past the anger stage already) came to a head like a ripe teenage zit exploding like a volcano today, as I realized how it seems Powell has not made significant progress since the beginning of the year – 0 for 3 with 0 FT, 0 rebounds, 5 assists (yay!), 1 steal, 0 TO (yay!), and 2 PF in 13 mins. When I recall his season thus far, all I can think of is him waiting on the wings for the 3, passing around the perimeter, sometimes a flash on a rare fast break, some turnovers, and sometimes a liability on D. Can somebody help me here? I long for him to streak to the basket, move more off the ball, create plays… be a factor in the game! Are they not running any plays for him? Do the coaches tell him to sit there waiting on the wings only to pass around the ball or shoot a 3? I guess just seeing how all the freshmen on the Johnnies were today kinda made me reflect and wonder how much progress Norm has made this year…

Which brings me to one other thought and question I had… who is responsible? Besides Ben, what are the assistant coaches doing? Its probably been discussed a couple times here in the past, but can someone refresh my memory?

Apologies for the note of frustration… but thanks for BN for being my therapy for the day. :)