Wasn’t going to write one for this because I was out of town - but then the Notre Dame game happened and I think this game informs that one (and the future) so importantly… so I did an abridged version:
And good-gravy, knocked this out in like three hours… we’re cranking!
Good job hitting the high notes, especially the double screens they started running in the 2H.
Tillis has been a discussion point, but as you point out, I basically think he’s fine other than when we are playing top 5 NBA draft pick PFs. (I think we need to play Arizona in the tourney, so Tillis can tell folks he guarded Yax, Boozer, Wilson, and Koa Peat.) Too bad two of those are in our league, vying for the top!
There was some good discussion yesterday of mistakes v. athleticism (h/t @alltimeassistleader) but it’s kinda both, IMO. This is reductive, but against a team with athletic bigs like UNC, because of our relative (to them) lack of athleticism, we lose a margin of error in various situations.
Yeah, agreed across. My biggest thing is just that we need to have a backup plan to Tillis in these kinds of matchups that isn’t just never sit TDR.
FWIW, I think Sam Lewis would have been a better option in this one than Tillis.
Agreed. Better teams are certainly going to punish you more for mistakes.
In the stretch I re-watched – UNC’s 39-20 run spanning half-time— I felt like the biggest part of UNC’s run was our defensive lapses. There were actually fewer plays during that run where they were punishing us with their ball screen action than I expected (although that happened a lot throughout the game).
With that said, UNC still had to convert on those defensive lapses. One example is a different play from the one Cuts ID’d where Jarin Stevenson scored after getting a transition outlet ahead of the defense. We did an even worse of identifying him in transition than the one in Cuts (which was the biggest mistake in my opinion). He ran straight up the middle of the court and no one picked him up.
But coaching, athleticism, and talent all play into it. It was a coaching point of emphasis for UNC to get out in transition in the 2H, a worse PG may not have seen him and made an on time and on target pass, and he wouldn’t have gotten so far in front of the defense/it would’ve been a tougher catch if he wasn’t as good of an athlete as he is.
I want to say Grünloh showed himself capable of guarding the 4 at some point.
I really don’t hate the Ugo - Grünloh- TDR - Lewis - Hall lineup…
Small ball with Lewis is the way
I still wanna see the double big lineup some more, but I think Sam has shown he can be that guy.
It’s not the way, imo, in most matchups - but was uniquely well-suited for ND because they could drive a bit, but they had no one able to punish inside with any consistency.
The Lewis-at-the-4 numbers are 1) low-frequency and 2) bad, especially defensively: hoop-explorer.com/OnOffAnalyzer?calcRapm=true&gender=Men&showExtraInfo=true&showRoster=true&showTeamPlayTypes=true&team=Virginia&year=2025%2F26&
Like, against ND we were rocking one lineup in OT with Tillis at the 5 and Lewis at the 4 and N.D. STILL weren’t playing through the interior - because with Towt out… they just didn’t really have anyone who could do that.
It was a Notre Dame thing, not a lineup efficacy for us thing.
I have this memory of Tillis’ hands being more active earlier in the season and finding ways to disrupt bigs despite his size limitation. Didn’t he perform decently well against Swain and that big center against Texas?
Maybe this is just my small ball BVP PTSD acting up.
Awesome work, Cuts, and I appreciate you getting this out despite time pressure. As an English teacher, though, I am contractually obligated to point out a word choice issue in final paragraph (shame for shape), and since I’m being editorial, I will further suggest deleting the comma between things and above in the same paragraph. Please recognize these as quibbles from a grammarian and not a criticism of the work as a whole, which was excellent.
Those double screens were killing us, appreciate the explanation of why as I was only processing it as miscommunication on responsibility. We probably need a schematic approach to defending it to clarify roles (IOW - we always fight the screen or we always hedge and slip).
This may be an issue of the lack of time together, too. These guys are mostly veterans but they’re not veterans of the same system and the very personnel flexibility that can help us - in the sense that our depth can help paper over weak games from one or two of our usual contributors - also hurts us in defensive cohesion.
Hey thanks! I’ll take it - given that crank and timeline if that’s all you found I’m thrilled.
I often sacrifice editing for completion in season.
Updated!
Awesome! Occupational hazard to see it all the time and most of the time I don’t bring it up, but that word (shame) has such strong connotations I figured you’d care. Heck, there might be more, I wasn’t grading it, but that one jumped off the page.
And your response gives me an opportunity to finish another thought that I had but didn’t want to reply to myself: I am very reluctant to call out players for a single game and doubly so when they are recovering from injury but that clip of White missing the three and admiring it while it was in the air while Stevenson ran the floor really illustrates another aspect of how focus can look like schematic or athletic weakness.
Lots of people have observed that UNC was more athletic than us, pointing out their long transitions as evidence, which is partially true, but on that play, Jacari’s lack of focus made Stevenson look super athletic. When Stevenson took off, Jacari needed to run with him instead of standing and he would have had a chance to defend the pass or the move to the rim on the other end. Because White was standing, Stevenson got a huge head start, the passing lane was open, and it was too late for Hall to recover to Jarin. In real time, I see Stevenson running the floor and a strong look ahead, but the clip shows why it happened - it was less athleticism and more Jacari not getting back.
All fixable, but notable in terms of the argument that our commitment to crashing the glass opens us up to transition. When Stevenson sprints, Jacari needs to realize that that’s his man and get back. We can still crash the offensive glass, just can’t ignore leakers.
Oh 100%!
I’m not privy to any conversations suggesting otherwise but if they were - Wilson had one really nice contested catch but these weren’t situations there they just beat our guys down the floor with foot speed. These were plays that happened because they were alert and intentional and we were slow to recognize the danger and/or responsibility.
Stevenson wasn’t even running that fast on most of these - he just made a point of turning and running as soon as they’d secured the board and we were still watching the play or matching up.
ND had one of these with a big too and it wasn’t blazing footspeed that did it
I think everyone is just fondly remembering Armaan proving to be a workable PF basically out of nowhere and figuring that since Lewis is taller than Armaan, he could probably do it too.
For me, it’s none of that… It’s about matchups versus specific teams and to be able to do it with Sam is important against other teams that can play small ball
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