Watch the next 2 games when Reece is first to get the ball in the back court vs. Clark. Reece’s instinct is to run. Clark’s instinct is to walk. But even Reece has run less playing 36 minutes a game - they are all exhausted. No one should play 35 minutes a game - and really in Tony’s system they really shouldn’t - it’s mentally and physically exhausting.
Watch UVA’s body language when they get a defensive rebound. They all sag and rest immediately. They are exhausted from Tony’s style of defense of staying in front of your man and no gambles to end possessions early with deflections and steals and turnovers caused by pressure.
If we would high pressure more and get deflections it would end defensive possessions quicker.
We have the athletes to do that in 2023 - will we??? Doubtful.
One of the most interesting things I’ve learned over the last 4-5 years was how flexible Dick Bennett was schematically. Pretty interesting contrast to Tony. Anecdotally rigidness seems to be a common trait among people who follow their successful parent(s) into the same field.
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I think part of this issue this year was defensive rebounding. We needed all five guys to rebound.
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Yep when every position has an undersized guy.
Defensively:
5-8 PG
6-2 SG
6-4 SF
6-5 PF
6-11 C
I am convinced that our glacial pace has more to do with the energy we expend on defense than anything else. Our guys actually get to rest on offense.
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Jay Willy has said exactly this on his show
Also, when coaches dont fully trust their playmakers they tighten the reigns. This is part of it this year. Ty and those guys definitely “broke the rule” but made plays. Kinda like Kihei’s 1 on 3 versus Duke ha. Incredible
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Packline and mover blocker are designed to help teams compete against better athletes. Hopefully CTB will tweak his systems as we continue to recruit better classes/talent 2022 and beyond.
The part that seems like a deliberate choice by Tony and not an impact of the defense or anything like that is our pace slowed downs after the infamous Syracuse collapse. Before that game we were slow but not always slowest in the nation. Since then we’ve been the slowest almost every year (maybe every until this year?) and some years there is a noticeable gap between us and the second slowest team.
Love what we do. Love our program and our process because we do things the right way. Just wish we weren’t last in this category. Last is tough. Perhaps we tweak things moving forward. Great coaches adapt and change. Tony is great for sure. But his greatness will be enhanced if we change a little bit. My opinion. Imagine is we scored 6-8 more points by selectively running. How many more wind does that get us? “Easy buckets” is a hard thing to quantify, but if we ever did it, we would pick up some wins. DTW is on to something. Both with pace and with personnel.
Also, we should all hope that Reese and Kadin make HUGE leaps next year. No reason to delay a big jump. Kids get injured and transfer and things happen so while it’s fun to predict, we should all hope that they have a big jump next year. Reese and Kadin both have a long long long way to go to be NBA ready, and that’s not a knock on them They aren’t even close right now. They do have solid foundational skills upon which professional careers can be built, but they aren’t in the realm of NBA players yet. Not yet. Make the jump, perform next year, and then we should discuss. Nobody is rooting harder for them than us.
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I think both of those guys will make themselves over the summer and be real next year. Then after one more season at UVa tbey have a shot at League. But agree. Its not after next season
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The parts about getting these easy buckets that I feel uncertain about are:
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How many easy buckets are out there that are truly “free” in terms of low risk when you go after them. There’s probably some but I don’t know it’s like 2 points per game or 10.
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What the right balance is with the tradeoffs of increasing the pace. To go beyond getting 1-2 fast break buckets per game, my intuition is that you have to take more risks with weakening your defensive rebounding, turning the ball over more on offense, and presenting a less set defense for the opponent to attack. I’m not sure if all of those intuitions bear out in the data, but I think there are tradeoffs to increasing pace in some form, otherwise there would be a stronger association between higher pace and win percentage/team strength.
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I think the non technical point is that just 6-8 more possessions has some convexity to it. Its very simple, you selectively run it down the other teams throats. Can turn into lay ups or FTs or a Kihei 3 in transition. ideally 8-10 “easy” points per game
but we are first if you look at it right…
And what no one has mentioned is secondary break offense because the defense isn’t fully set - or is caught in mismatches because they had to sprint back.
The other piece that isn’t mentioned is that the ball is already in the frontcourt that much sooner and you can run more of your offense if the break isn’t there.
In high school our rule was get a great shot in 7 seconds or less and if not - then run the offense to get a good shot. We caught so many teams in mismatches still after we had the ball 12-15 seconds into the possession.
The sneaky part is the psychological game too … teams knew as soon as they shot it they were in trouble if they missed if they weren’t sprinting full speed back. I’m convinced it caused them to miss a lot more shots vs us than other teams because they lost focus on just that moment of shooting.
Oh and my college team scored 98 points per game one year. 
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I would also add that when we selectively run we can “probe” the defense and if it’s not there, we pull it right out and get into our blocker mover. It’s a good point AQ - I see what your saying. But we should at least try to see if the layups are there. Also, easy buckets in my mind are when we throw it into the post on the block, in semi transition before the defense is fully set, and our post guys make a move and shoot within a few feet of the basket. Think Ted Jeffries jump hook from 5-7 f on the secondary break. Automatic bucket. We have the personnel for that but we don’t look there.
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DTW- was typing when you mentioned this. Secondary break is huge.
I like the 7 second ish rule. Lotta good things can happen in offensive transition
The UNC teams we played in early 90’s had a great secondary break. We always prepared for it but it was hard to stop. They were disciplined and well conditioned under Dean. It was a real weapon and we knew it was coming but it was still hard to stop.
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Also, The Forum chats are starting to affect my sleep patterns, workload, friendships, and dietary requirements. And it’s worth it.
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