Until the last two years, UVa was always at least “good” or “great” at preventing offensive rebounds. It’s been a real weakness the past two years (the source of which isn’t exactly a huge mystery).
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Wdym, FSU bigs wanted nothing to do with Kihei when he was skying for those rebounds.
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You mean starting short guys with no hops might hurt?
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This also coincides with the longer 3-point line. The 3-pointer as a % of shots is up; longer shots, potentially longer rebounds. Positioning ends up mattering less than shooters having a “jump” on knowing which way the ball is headed or hustling to the loose ball. The guys with the inside position are screwed.
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To iterate off this, I’d add:
Offensively:
- Anytime the big hedges, immediately attack the paint and kick the ball to the corners for threes. The guards are late getting back to their men on the perimeter after they dive into the paint to cover for the big who is hedging.
- If playing with bigger guards, attack the match-up with Kihei anytime you can get him in isolation. Shoot over the top of him and keep shooting if you’re hitting.
- Shot fake when attacking Shedrick, Gardner, and Vander Plas. They like to leave their feet.
Defensively:
- Sag off the guards without the ball (except McKneely) and go under screens until they show you they’re hitting from three that night.
- If BVP goes into the post, immediately double him and go for the steal. His handle is loose.
- Play physical and grab and hold their players making cuts until the refs punish it.
- Generally try and force their guards to win it with jump shots.
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Defense bullet point #3 - VA is shooting a lot of FTs this year. Is that a good idea?
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Fair point. But I thought JMU got away with it quite a bit for the first 2/3s of the game and it worked (not a knock on them really - refs didn’t seem to want to call much for a while). And I think one of the other non-P6 teams we played was doing the same for a while before the the refs did much. Really depends on the officiating crew, but it does feel like it can take us out of our offense if things aren’t being called since we don’t have many guys who can just super effectively go iso after the action we’re running breaks down due to guys getting bumped and held and the timing falling apart.
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I am baffled at how no one can figure out bullet point 1 on offense. You need to make a “joker” available for immediate pass out of the hedge then quick hit to rolling big (who is always open for a second or longer) or the joker makes that next corner pass as you said
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Exactly what the Warriors do
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Yes!
Edit: said another way I think you can use the ball screen as a very simple decoy to start the offense and change it up. Would have been great to see the early 90s Ga Tech teams deal with it. Kenny Anderson off a Matt Geiger screen with Brian Oliver and Dennis Scott while Malcolm Mackey romaed around
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And I could be wrong on this, but this iteration of UVA feels like it’s much more straightforward to exploit with that type of action than past UVA teams. We used to be so big and long across most positions that even if you tried to exploit the hedge, making the passes necessary was still difficult. Recent squads have been less big across the guard positions and wing, so there’s just more space to make the passes and the guards recovering to the shooters have less length, making the close out less problematic for the shooter.
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Defensive rebounding used to be bread and butter for us. WTF happened?
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There’s more space regardless with the longer 3-point line. Screens start farther out, shooters sit farther out. Which is probably why the packline’s pack has also been extended.
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Our guys do good jobs at making those windows smaller by getting big, getting pressure on the ball handler, rotating behind the hedge. Our best hedging bigs have had super active hands too. Lots of college bigs just can’t make that short roll read on the fly consistently.
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Big PGs (Devon, Malcolm) and mobile, long wings (who play 25+ minutes) AND/OR bigs with terrific rebounding feel (Wilkins, Mitchell).
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Of course. But there are windows. Its funny cause the offensive big always looks baffled as to how he is so open but never recieves the pass
I have forgotten it’s a longer line. That’s an interesting factor, for sure
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This is cool. https://twitter.com/UVAMensHoops/status/1601215099305308161?s=20&t=reNkSDXqJH-4e5Zt4yXZeA
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So that’s how you pronounce his last name? Lol I guess not one English-language announcer has gotten his last night name right ever, huh?
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Gotta tril the Rs