Unfortunately I will be a few hundred miles from cville for the foreseeable future but best of luck 
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The 5-out we ran briefly a couple years ago had no ball screen, which I thought was interesting. In the one clip thatâs made out for public consumption, there is a ball screen element. Something to keep on.
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I usually donât post articles behind a paywall, but Eamonn had a pretty good write up of the 5 out offense we ran briefly a couple of years ago. I still wonder what woukd things look like if we had blown out SF?
Is Virginia experimenting with an offense created in Division III? Looks like it
What, exactly, was Virginia running? That was the college hoops Twitter question of the day on Black Friday, as the Cavaliers scuffled their way through a Bubbleville matchup with a San Fransisco team coming off a season-opening loss to UMass-Lowell, a team Virginia was prohibitively favored to beat. The Dons were undoubtedly guarding Virginia well; they were making everything difficult, everything challenged.
Yet there was also a strange, stagnant, unrecognizable quality to a Virginia offense that had destroyed Towson, 89-54, two days prior. Were those â gasp â iso plays Tony Bennett was running for star redshirt senior Sam Hauser, the wing scoring force who was supposed to elevate Virginiaâs rock-chewing offense of a season ago into something more functional, if not elegant, in 2020-21? Why were so many guys making uncertain cuts? Why were so many standing around? Where was the blocker-mover, that Bennett family staple, an immediately recognizable pattern of constant offensive motion? Where was the ball-screen continuity, the great innovation of Virginiaâs national title season? Had this revamped but experienced team, faced with a smack in the mouth, just plumb lost its structure altogether? What, exactly, was Virginia running?
Turns out, it was a new offense altogether, one even the most obsessed college hoops fans watching that day almost certainly hadnât seen.
Indeed, Virginia was experimenting with a wholesale change in the way it approached offensive basketball. The system Bennett had installed â a free-flowing read-and-react style that prioritizes positionless play and the intuitive decision-making of the players on the floor â is the brainchild of Noah Laroche, the owner of Integrity Hoops, an NBA developmental consultancy that has worked with Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, and other professional basketball players. Laroche is a former Division III player at St. Josephâs of Maine. After hitting a low offensive point, Larocheâs coach, Rob Sanicola, asked his former player to help him install an entirely new offense. In 2018-19, the first full year of the offenseâs installation, St. Josephâs averaged 93 points per game, more than 20 per game more than it had the season before.
Coach Daniel, a YouTube creator, made a series of 2019 videos about the St. Josephâs system, the first of which was titled, âWhy NBA Teams Should Study A School Youâve Never Heard Of.â As Daniel describes, the offense features âno set plays, no pick-and-rolls, no dribble handoffs, and no patterned offensesâ â any of which alone would have made it somewhat revolutionary, given the near-universal adoption of those types of plays at all levels of the sport in 2020. Instead, the offense governs itself by a set of broad principles. All five players are frequently spaced around the 3-point line, leaving the interior area of the floor wide open, with the occasional odd-looking âpostâ player spaced in the short corner not far from a teammate. Players do not cross paths in conventional ways, but move around to maintain healthy spacing. All five players truly are positionless, to the point the defensive rebounder is expected to bring the ball up the floor. Any pass is always immediately followed by a cut.
It all sounds simple, and it is, but the learning curve is not insignificant: The offense requires a high level of understanding for five players to implement on the court in a way that ultimately flows. In a Jan. 10, 2019 Portland Press Herald story, St. Josephâs players talked about how hard the offense was to master at first, until they eventually clicked. âWe werenât used to how to get the best shot in the offense,â sophomore Jack Castle told the paper. âBut it really isnât an offense.â Once St. Josephâs reached that level of intuition, the results could look downright radical.
Itâs not hard to see why Bennett and his staff were drawn to the scheme. (And it is, by the way, it was easy to see why teams in the modern NBA would want to apply its principles.) After fielding the least efficient offensive team in a decade-plus at UVa, one that felt like an old-school slog stereotype of everything people used to (incorrectly) say about Virginia basketball, Bennett arrived at the 2020-21 season suddenly in possession of one of the more versatile, outside-in rosters in college hoops. The teamâs starting center, Jay Huff, is a mobile 7-footer who is a career 39 percent shooter from 3. Its four, Hauser, is one of the best pure perimeter scorers in the sport. âThose guys can both really stretch the floor,â Bennett said in the fall. âTheyâre a very unique thing.â Ditto Trey Murphy, a sharpshooting 6-foot-9 Rice transfer, who was suddenly eligible due to the pandemic, and could play a number of spots, alongside guards and wings Tomas Woldetensae, Casey Morsell, Justin McKoy and even Kihei Clark, who despite his size is comfortable operating on the dribble around the rim. This was arguably the least conventional, most positionally flexible roster of Bennettâs time at Virginia; if not now, then when? Besides, the last time Bennett added a new offensive system to UVaâs mix, he won a national title.
The problem, of course, is that such adaptation takes time. This was hardly the ideal offseason in which to overhaul your offensive philosophy; everyone started practice later than usual, in more individualized settings than normal, with no exhibition games to work out the kinks. Besides, Bennettâs staff is always focused foremost on ensuring that its trademark pack-line defense is drilled into the players before anything else.
Hauser is averaging 14.5 points per game this season. (David Butler II / USA Today)
Against Towson, and especially San Fransisco, Virginiaâs new offense was fully evident. The Hoos still ran their old stuff, but there were huge stretches of possessions without ball screens, where Huff would hover around the wing much as any guard would, when multiple cutters would flash in multiple directions, everyone playing off feel. There were some good possessions here and there, like this Clark mid-post touch and this pop-out Murphy 3, (both of which were cut by Hoop Visionâs Jordan Sperber). More often, though, the cuts were made with a lack of certainty, and players â oftentimes Hauser, especially down the stretch â got caught isolated in the inefficient mid-post area with the ball in their hands and a contested 2 needing to go up before the shot clock ended.
After the loss to the Dons, in which Virginia scored just 60 points in 62 possessions, Bennett was mostly focused, as per, on his teamâs defense, on his belief his players needed to dig out more stops down the stretch to secure the game. But the offensive, he acknowledged, wasnât ideal either. âWe werenât great, thatâs for sure,â he said. âAnd the stats back it up.â
Five nights later, Virginiaâs offense was much better. It was also back to its old stylistic self. The Cavaliers scored 76 points in 62 possessions against St. Francis, the vast majority of which came by way of the good olâ Bennett-invented blocker-mover O, particularly in the first half.
The same retrenchment appeared to be playing out last Friday, in Virginiaâs home overtime win over Kent State. The Hoos began the game in the classic blocker-mover and ran that and ball-screen continuity throughout the first half. Viewed again in snippets on Synergy, charting Virginiaâs offensive possessions, an exercise that began eagerly, pen in hand, quickly turned into a simple matter of writing ânoâ every time the Cavaliers initiated their half-court offense. The five-out, read-react stuff was nowhere to be found.
And then in the second half, there it was. After a series of possessions in which Kent Stateâs scrappy, well-prepared players shut down Virginiaâs conventional stuff, at the 11:04 mark the five-out offense showed up in force. And it mostly worked. Suddenly, the ball screens and fade screens were gone, and Virginia was playing high-tempo (within the half-court framework), passing and cutting to and from those unconventional spots. After struggling through much of the half, Bennettâs players began to find some easier looks: Hauser getting downhill on a drive, Huff bouncing middle and finding Murphy wide open on a baseline cut, Morsell flying in a straight line to layup territory and drawing a foul, Clark taking the ball at the mid-post and finding Beekman on one of those cuts. Save a few simple ball screens with Clark and Hauser up top â including a pick-and-pop that essentially sealed the win â most of the rest of Virginiaâs stuff existed within the principles of the offense they are still, clearly, trying to install.
Growing pains were evident too. At the 4:28 mark, when Clark found Beekman, the pass was just slightly mistimed, and when Beekman swung the ball back around to Huff out top, Huffâs drive went to the same space that Clark started to cut, allowing Clarkâs defender to swipe the ball from the 7-footer. Still, Virginia got pretty good looks down the stretch; the offense worked more often than it didnât. The defense, and its unusual yielding of offensive rebounds, was much more concerning.
In any case, the Kent State game offered evidence that, unlike against St. Francis, Virginiaâs staff isnât prepared to toss out the new scheme quite yet. Nor do they seem prepared to give themselves totally over to it. There is some sense to this: There is already clear evidence the offense is vastly better than last seasonâs. Whereas the 2019-20 Cavaliers struggled to score even against mid-major competition, this group has already shown some explosive flashes. Virginiaâs offense ranks 58th in adjusted offensive efficiency, up from No. 234 last season.
The Cavaliers are back to making shots from inside and outside the arc, and back to not turning the ball over, one of last seasonâs chronic issues. A year ago, just two Cavaliers finished the year with an offensive rating above 100: Huff at 113.9 and Diakite at 100.1. Huff, Hauser, Murphy, Beekman, Woldetensae and even Morsell are already well above that mark. (Clarkâs 23.9 percent turnover rate continues to be an issue.)
With early numbers like these, itâs not clear the offensive system requires an overhaul. Rather, the St. Josephâs of Maine system, with all of its advantages and quirks, appears to be evolving into one more tool in the box â another scheme from which to work in situations, and with the lineups, that call for it. â(We) were spreading them out and attacking on offense,â Bennett said of the late switch in the Kent State game. âI think both teams looked gassed at the end. You could see it. They missed some shots. We missed some shots. But I just thought it was the right way to go. I donât always get that right, but we were fortunate. We also had to play and make plays and get some stops. So again, you always say, âWhere can we grow?â And what can we take and say, âThatâs some good stuff?ââ
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Isnât the â5 outâ something the Golden State Warriors made popular some years back? I donât really follow the NBA anymore but I seem to recall that. You tend to go with a bunch of guys who can shoot the 3 and drive to the basket which stretches out the defense.
Getting the personnel to run that is the trick. It doesnât work very well when you have 2 or more guys on the floor who are limited offensively.
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It certainly fits the type of guy we seem to be recruiting recently. At least at the high end. Power being a prime example. Traudt another. Multi-dimensional bigs. Maybe BuchananâŠ
Why we ran and why we abandoned the 5-out two years ago are both interesting questions. Hauser and Huff were sort of multi dimensional but not really dribble drive threats in college. Though obviously great/good shooters.
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For me am more curious as to the movement. Pass and cut through, fill in. Pass screen away? randomly call for ball screen? I dont knkw
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This video from St Josephâs of Maine (who Tony apparently learned it from) is what we ran briefly in 19-20. No ball screens. Not much screening, really, at all. The main element that made a goober like me recognize it was the 5-out (obviously) and that long diagonal cut through the lane.
Whereas what we saw in that one Orange Bassano clip (drink), looked a bit different. Someone earlier this summer mentioned McKillop via Tennessee as a possible inspiration (based on the brief appearance on an iPad).
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Thats good thanks. I see it now.Is basically a motion offense with some recurring principles. They seem to love getting it to the short corner and making cuts off of that.
Edit: you have to really be used to playing together to run this, I think
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Iâm no expert by any means but based on the bigs that Tony typically brings in, it sounds like an offense Jay Wright ran may be a better fit - four out motion offense with a big still in the post. I found this video helpful.
(Villanovaâs 4-Out Motion Offense | Complete Breakdown - YouTube)
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No expert here either but I think this is it. Tennessee has been running that 4 out 1 in offense borrowed from McKillop. No accident that a practice video a few weeks ago had a clip of Tennessee on a tablet.
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Ding Ding
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Yeah, at its most basic level: pass-cut-fill
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sometimes the guy goes corner to corner and wing guy follows himâŠ
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Dont get me started on Italian debtâŠ
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I remember when Italy moved from the Lira to the Euro⊠it created such an inflation problem that there was huge emigration of expats from all countries that were riding the favorable exchange rates to their home country currency.
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Caroline Darney, the only native English speaker other than @rushdacote at liberty to speak about the Italy trip, joins @brogdonfanpage to discuss her takeaways. Havenât listened yet:
All the 22s look physically ready (and will get better with Curtis)
Isaac squared = Mick and Fish. Huh⊠Make it Mick and THE Fish and Iâm all in.
- Mick - looked comfortable. Blown by a bit (by Mega). Great shooting stroke. Didnât hesitate. Hit some long ones.
She thinks he will come off the bench early/often. Surprised how big he was. - The Fish - very active with hands in the paint. A little bit of everything offensively. Can shoot from outside and post up, nice moves. Moved much quicker with short shot clock.
- She loves Bond and Dunn. @brogdonfanpage thinks Dunn wouldâve RSâed a few years ago (high ceiling, not game ready). Implication (IMO) was probably shouldnât this year, but he needs to get invited to press conferences, so didnât want to state otherwise.
Caroline loved seeing them out there together. Both could get up and down in transition. Compare and contrast: - Dunn - longer. Some nice shot block attempts, defensive plays at the rim.
- Bond - (subject kind of trailed off)
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the talk of Dunn and Bond has me far too excited especially as they are both going to be redshirted
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My earnest guess is that Bond wouldâve been open to RSâing, but now staff wonât ask. And Dunn wonât be (and shouldnât be) open to a RS. Heâs too old to RS.
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Sheâs great but tends to be pretty optimistic with takes. The defense worries me a bit. I think she mentions that it needs work, too.
No way we are a top 25 offensive team this year, so our defense is going to need to really improve if we are going to be great.
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