Touche' you've done a little homework. But, I think you need dig a little deeper also. Remember Johnson was an assistant at Stanford under Montgomery in the late nineties, so in fact, he did help recruit and/or coach Jacobsen and Knight as an assistant. As for my stats, I'll admit I was off base a little bit on the scoring rankings (perhaps I was looking at season vs. Pac10 numbers). But, you're going off of a year/era when Stanford relied on the Lopez twins as their best players. They played the wing spot by committee, with Mitch Johnson, Goods, Hill and others all getting good minutes on the outside. Also, if you want to be truly fair to Trent, when he came back to Stanford as a HC, he inherited a lot of these players who he did not recruit. His staff was responsible for recruiting the Lopez kids. And, as far as some of your %s let's keep it in perspective. Yes, they shot 36% from behind the arc, and around 45% overall, and scored over 70 points per game. In contrast, LSU shot 32% from behind the arc and 43% overall, and just over 68 points per game. But, they had five players who hit greater than 35% from behind the arc. (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/leaders?cat=3pt&groupId=21&seasonType=2&seasonYear=2008). LSU had one (Thornton). They had the conference's leading assist leader (their PG, Mitch Johnson). I'll still maintain that a good shooting wing will benefit from a balanced offensive team--and I still stand by the fact that Stanford has traditionally been known for running a smart efficient offense making the most of its talent given their higher academic standards. It just so happened that the last couple of years, Trent had to build off of two 7 footers who went #10 and #15 in last night's draft.
The truth about the offense is it is going to be somewhere in the middle of what people think. The scoring average is down because the Pac-10 is one of the better defensive conferences. However, at the same time they dont need to score much and the possessions per game are down. Johnson runs a basic motion offense which will be run more on efficiency than aggressiveness. All these stats are fun but in college basketball talent will be the key in determining how well off you end up being. The strategy be will be Herb Sendek like - you will have to be efficient or it will become a defensive game.
Actually thought him transferring was a bad choice in the first place with CDR and rose leaving but ...to UNO??? http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/jul/02/ex-tiger-doneal-mack-transfers-new-orleans/
here are normalized stats for stanford in the last 4 years--- from kenpom.com sorry for the messy attachments, but the data is there.
ok, those attachments are crappy, just go to kenpom.com stanford's natl rank for adjusted offensive efficiency in the last four years--- 25, 69, 97, 90 LSU's for same time period 122, 82, 50, 24
I think it's also important to note that in adjusted defensive efficiency in 2008, Stanford ranked 15th, and LSU ranked 76th. There certainly has been a downward slide by the Tigers in both accounts. You wonder how fulfilling these stats are, though. The stats are always a little self-serving, at season's end--although you can say that it was accurate in predicting to some degree our best teams (all on an adjusted rank basis): Kansas was number 2 in offense and number 4 in defense. Memphis was number 9 in offense and number 2 in defense. UCLA was at number 7 in offense and number 3 in defense. UNC was number 1 in offense and number 19th in defense. It's hard to take away too much from these stats, when Texas (number 3 in offense and 36th in defense) creams Stanford by 20 in the tourney. I think there is a general truth though that trends are pointing to higher scoring teams having success, as long as they can also turn on the defense when needed. So, when Trent installs his "controlled fast-break" it seems to me that he's implementing more of an offensive minded game at LSU--probably he knows he'll be able to recruit a better athlete here than at Stanford and wants to push the ball a little bit more. We'll see how that goes with some of the personnel that we have (i.e., relying on Garrett and Bo to run the fast break will be interesting... Chris Bass may get an earlier role than expected).
