Viewpoints Ellerbe needs to change his style of basketball Watching the Michigan Basketball game vs. Illinois on Sunday, I finally realized what it was about coach Ellerbe that bothered me so much: a complete lack of originality. He has some of the best new talent in the NCAA on his team, but he continues to thwart it by keeping gifted players on the bench and playing old school basketball. His players constantly try to break out of the mold by excelling at motion and spread offenses with 3-pointers and running jump shots. But then Ellerbe has to substitute in a slower, less talented player that screws everything up. Traylor is gone and so should that style of basketball. No matter how much we pretend, Asselin, Vignier and Young are not big men. Asselin is no center and I'm reluctant to call any of them power forwards. They consistently don't produce the points we need. Moreover we are at our absolute worst when two out of the three play together at the same time. Asselin's double doubles are horrendously misleading. At my old high school they used to not credit you with rebounds that you got from your own missed lay ups! All three of them added together will not be half as good as Traylor was, but we are keeping our offense the same. On defense the outlook is much worse. Vignier is slow and Asselin is too often found out of position. Someone explain to me how in a 2 - 3 zone Asselin doesn't have 10 defensive rebounds? But he had two and trust me, that is a bad, bad thing. He simply is not strong enough. Even if Asselin was kicked in the teeth while rebounding, he shouldn't drop the ball. Power forwards do not drop the ball and centers certainly should never drop the ball. He needs to quit griping about fouls and be strong with the ball - holding it tight and keeping it above his head. With some work our big men could be infinitely better. Here's the good news: We don't need a true big man. I say we can beat teams without one. No, we don't have a "Fab five," but we sure as heck have a fast five! We can play the run and gun style basketball of the early '90s and dominate scoring 100-plus points by letting our freshmen run teams into the ground. Who are we subbing for? Is Gaines tired? Did Crawford even break a sweat this Sunday? Why does Ellerbe slow it down by subbing in our big men? He is starting to use 1-2-2 and 2-3 zones on defense against stronger teams and they're working. What do we need our so-called big men for? We've got most of our defensive rebounds from Blanchard at small forward anyway. What are our big men doing for us? Not a whole lot except screwing up the tempo and not being strong with the ball. So let's be originals. Lets try: Blanchard, Smith, Jones, Gaines and Crawford and I say really try. Full court press, run and shoot, dunks, trick passes, the whole works with little to no reprimand for mistakes, because they will come. Use a light full court press into a loose 2-3 zone with all five players rebounding. Keep Smith and Blanchard and Jones down low and with our speed we will overcome our lack of height. Play your best players and you'll win more games. Didn't somebody famous once say that? Trust me, Ellerbe, for five minutes play Blanchard, Smith, Jones, Gaines and Crawford. When we play slow we play into our opponents' hands. Give your talent a much longer leash. Let them run a motion offense, or five down or anything. Just let them run. Be an original and play the fast five. Leave the old school ways at home. - This viewpoint was written by Engineering senior Max Ferrigni. Originally on page 4A in the 1-19-2000 issue of the Daily.