@Cuts_from_The_Corner @DavetheWave @DFresh11: is there anything we can scheme/exploit offensively when teams are basically keeping someone in iMac/Rohde’s pocket wherever he is on the court? (Outside of individually beating their man).
Like could we use that to clear space on side of the floor? More dribble handoffs to force switches? Pin downs?
For me you HAVE to make sure the guy being shadows touches the ball off screens or whatever and that gets so much attention that other guys have space, yes. I didnt notice if we passed iMac up or not but that has always worked when I played
The best part of this idea is that we could spend even more practice time on defensive stuff!
IU coach Mike Woodson (former NBA coach and no idiot) dropped a zone at L’ville and … "…his unexpected pivot to a 2-3 zone the adjustment turned around a 74-66 win against Louisville.
Kenny Payne thought Woodson was trying to trick him with it. Xavier Johnson said the Hoosiers know Woodson doesn’t much like it. Woodson turned to it anyway, proof he’s still searching for answers to his team’s problems — but proof also, perhaps, that his team is not the lost cause it looked like at the under-8 timeout in the second half Monday."
Point is … you don’t need a lot of practice to be effective when dropping a zone on someone who is not expecting it at all. It will steal a few possessions and potentially change momentum.
Yes - run some 2 man game with Rohde/Blake or Isaac/Groves etc to force their big to guard a shooter 25 feet out … pick and roll doesn’t work as well with Reece when opponents are obviously told to go under every time.
It was very obvious from the tip Wisconsin was going to give Reece and Dunn and Bond all the threes they were willing to take. And if you noticed just because Reece made a couple they didn’t deviate from the plan …
Dunn missed two wide open threes in the first 5 minutes and I’m willing to bet even if he had made one or both he would have stayed wide open all game. He was 0/3 outside the lane. And Reece was 3/7 outside the lane. Any opponent will take 3/10 all day and the offense will stay bogged down because by playing that way everything stays clogged for everyone else.
Rohde and Isaac and Groves simply have to attempt 12 threes or more every single game. No exceptions. 7 attempts won’t win games against anyone good.
Reece scored or assisted on 33 of the Hoos 41 points There were 4 free throws made on 2 possessions which would not have been assists if we made the shot. And 2 other FGs made. That’s it.
Normally if Reece produces 33 points we would think the rest of the team could produce the same?
Is that reasonable?
p.s. I forgot to add Harris to the list of guys left wide open outside - he was 0/3 and Bond was 0/1. So they simply played the percentages and dared our non shooters to make shots.
Combined 3/14 - all makes by Reece. 0/7 by the other 3.
Still remember my HS school coach breaking down the ‘book’ that tape gives your future opponents. The boys will be seeing similar treatment again in future games this season. JMHO.
That’s the stat I was thinking of! Like, how friggin good is our defense?
Ive thought about it more. And I dont think rebounding was why we lost. I mean it’s a huge part of it. But I remember the announcers talking about “Wisconsin has this many rebound but only so little 2nd chance points” (paraphrasing).
Poor shooting night + poor chemistry and execution on rotations and basketball stuff + playing a veteran team much more battled tested than us who also as someone jokingly said but might be the case “they know our playbook better than we do” + out energied and out hustled.
More seriously I dont think adding Robinson does much because the execution and experience needed to rebound would still be an issue. But I dont think we can count on Minor either
Also I still can’t get over the fact that blackwell, a 2/3 star guard who is basically an Austin Williford equivalent, looked more confident and assertive than Leon Bond and Rohde (to be fair it’s engrained in how our offense operates/ nothing really to get them downhill or engage them in the offense). Just a blatant sign that we lost the psychological war last night. We did get it to 35-40.
My solution: Go Groves Buchanan in the front court and double there. And have Dunn at the 3 playing safety basically there to steal the ball on the pass out of the double or block the shot if the pass goes to someone under the rim.
Also don’t hedge with Groves. And play Leon some since when he’s in we can switch screens instead of being punished on the hedge
I mean, if you don’t take from this that rebounding is the primary problem, I don’t know what to tell you.
During the Florida game, Florida rebounded 53% of their misses and allowed us to rebound 28% of our…so we aren’t far off from doing it 2x in 5 games this year.
Look at the OPP. list in that Torvik table. It’s a who’s who of bad power conference teams over the last 15 years.
We, thus far, are a historically bad rebounding team.
The question is if its something that can be coached (e.g. rotatations, efforts) or structural (talent, roster composition, playing a stretch 4 as a 5, etc.).
that’s sorta my point though. we rebounded poorly vs florida and still won. We rebounded poorly vs Wisconsin and got BLASTED. Rebounding is horrid but it’s not the reason of the outcome disparity last night since Wisconsin didn’t really capitalize on 2nd chance points and we only scored 41 pts
Wisconsin’s 2nd chance points was only 12-5 over us, which is abysmal for them since they had 17 more offensive rebounds.
If we can marginally improve rebounding as year goes on, I’m really hopeful.
The silver lining as you said is that we can be a shit rebounding team and still hang with top 30 teams. Need the other stuff to click through.
As a related side note, anyone remember when we dropped like 3 straight during 2015-2016 and our rebounding was garbage? Lost at GT … woof
It was very calculated… rarely did they go right back up with a put back attempt…. They ran offense for another 15 seconds… lots loooong possessions… tires the legs of a jump shooting Hoo team and the legs of cutters coming off sides over and over….
Here’s an example - Reece makes a 3 to cut it to 10-7 at 14:07 left in the first half. The next UVA shot attempt was at 12:04.
In that time Wisconsin had 3 FGA and 2 FTA
I think my point is that the difference was that we got a statistically anomalous # of steals and got to the line a ton against Florida (but didn’t convert as high as we should have). I think the Wisconsin outcome is a heck a lot more likely against Power 6 Size if we continue to rebound this way.
that’s fair but it shouldn’t be underestimated that we are an entirely new team 5 games vs a team that returned everyone AND has extensive knowledge of both our offensive and defensive systems after having already been battle tested themselves.
In 2018 for example, Marvin Bagley and Wendel Carter combined for 29 rebounds themselves and we still found a way to come out on top. Of course the rebounding disparity overall wasnt as great but there are way to work around it.
Last night to me was moreso them punishing the doubles/hedges, taking Buchanan Iso, and no one outside Reece stepping up. And rebound of course were a factor as well, the disparity was immense.
