Let’s hope this one works out better on the road.
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Got a good feeling about this one. We showed improvement at NCState and the main defensive issue (bad post traps far away from the hoop) will be addressed.
The team is learning how to win road games on the fly. Hard working young men who are a cohesive group.
Team will show moxie this weekend and win a close one.
Go HOOS!
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Happy Cake Day @plegard! Glad you could hang out with us and the other troublemakers!
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What if doubling the post has become a bad strategy, particularly in era of transfers and portal?
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It forces bigs from taking a contested 2 point basket into passing to a (very open) 3 point shooter. Analytics say it is better to give up a contested 2 than a wide open 3.
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Our rotations once the pass is made by the big are slow and disconnected, likely because of lack of reps and newer players to the program.
Thus, maybe we shouldn’t double the post anymore and play straight up - possible exception being Zach Edey.
I just never remember so many open 3s being taken against us.
Thoughts?
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110%. The game has shifted and we need to look at simplification and let player instinct/athleticism play more a role.
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Going full on contrarian on this. My feeling on whether we should stay home was best vocalized by the godawful rock reggae group 311, in the mid-late 90s
Like, are you guys aware of some post defender on our team that me and my homey Tony, who I alway agree with, on every coaching decision, are not?
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Yeah there’s definitely give and take to the situation. I think you’re #2 pretty much hits the nail on the head.
Our rotations have been slow at best. That’s something that absolutely can be fixed with experience. But the issue that’s maybe less fixable is that this group doesn’t have the size/strength to double. We’ve run into both problems so far of opposing bigs being able to see over the double to pass, being strong enough to split the double completely, or even both.
The million dollar question here @HoozGotNext nailed in his mailbag. Is it worth simplifying the system (less doubles, less hedging which lead to less rotations) or does this create too steep a learning curve for the young roster?
My thought on this is kind of a mix of the 2. I’d prefer to see more situational doubling and situational hedging each. Personally, I’m not a big fan of groves doing either. He’s the easiest to pinpoint these corrections on because we only get 1 year of him… there’s no dividend to be paid by making him go through this type of learning curve.
For example Dunn on the other hand, even if he does go pro this summer, could still have some benefit with hedging. I’d like to see us lean more into an aggressive hedge when Dunn is involved (especially with Reece) and trying to force a trap out of it. Their length and active hands I believe would do well to force turnovers and get our stagnant at times offense out on the break to generate easy looks.
And then with Blake it’s a little different both ways. As our biggest active rotation frontcourt player, it makes a lot of sense for him to be involved in the post doubles. Hedging though he still has some work to do. But we’ve also got to remember he’s in his first season and hasn’t even played half a season yet. There will be growing pains but the payoff down the road will be there with him.
We’ll see what happens though. I think we’ve gotten enough data to this point to trust the coaching staffs adjustments. Hope this answers your questions!
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Nc state, ND, and Memphis all took a higher percentage of 3PA by a good margin compared to their season averages.
Three point percentages up across the board.
Go ahead and double but be less predictable. Loved how isu did it last night.
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This, but for most of the team. I don’t think there’s a magic adjustment that is both 1) easier for less experienced players to execute consistently and 2) more impactful defensively. If this is how the staff wants this core of the team to play in the future, do it now and takes some lumps in order to get the reps in.
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Yeah that’s mainly how I feel about it. Guys have to learn. But it’s also part of why I think we should lean a little into a more disruptive set from the pack line. Play into this groups active hands and tendencies to create turnovers. Wouldn’t have to completely sacrifice principles and learning rotations that way.
Let me throw another question out there:
Is the pack-line defense the EXACT wrong way to play defense in the current “3 point happy” College and NBA game? And should we REVERSE the packline and play “pressure man” on the perimeter and switch when possible (a la KU and Duke) to force teams AWAY from shooting 3s?
That is what UCONN did so effectively during last year’s tournament. It’s what teams are doing to us, it’s what KU does every time I see them play.
I will admit that we might not have the perimeter defensive horses like KU and UCONN, but our strength this year IS smaller, more athletic players - Reece, Eli, Dunn, Leon.
It would take a real coaching epiphany to change, but imagine playing Reece, Eli, iMac, Dunn and Leon at once? Switching 1-5 and playing tight man everywhere.
I think it could work.
What say you?
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If we had Shed or if Blake were a year or two older/ bigger/ wiser, then yeah. Maybe. Rohde is a switchable piece, too. But all these solutions aren’t addressing the lack of a true post defender.
You guys are all trying to correct for the flaws of the defense we’ve chosen but any frontcourt with Bond and Dunn would get bullied to death if we tried to play a switching man.
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I think there’s some merit there, but over the past couple seasons there hasn’t been much of a correlation between defensive 3pt rate and adjusted defensive efficiency (at least by eyeballing some charts you can make on Torvik). Running teams off the line is a valid strategy but not one that’s strictly better all-around than more of a gap approach.
Also, agree with @haney, one of the traditional ways to attack a switching defense is to isolate a mismatch, and that would be a post player 95% of the time. The practical effect of going to a switching for this team might be more post doubles.
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I’m no whiz at this stuff, but a common way to attack that D is like what we did with Ty v Bolden. Work it around until you get your PG on their big. Then drive him.
But we’d eliminate the need for that. Just find a way to iso the big on the initial action.
Am I thinking about this right?
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That’s how I’m thinking about it. Switching is a good way to take away screening action (on or off ball), but only works if the defense can win enough of the one-on-one battles, especially the ones where their slowest guy is defending on the perimeter or their littlest guy is defending in the post.
Taking away 3s is a separate but somewhat related conversation, I think. That is also about how you position your help defense in terms of length of closeouts and where the help might be coming from.
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Shorter version of all this: we have the exact right pieces (defensively) to match up against a modern well-spaced offense. But we don’t have the one piece we need to match up against an old school college offense.
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One more quick thought to close my mental loop: I’m all in for tweaks or overhauls to the pack line given changes to the modern game, generally speaking, but I’m skeptical how much tweaks would solve our current issues.
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Have a good feeling about this one. Think we lose by 6-8, always within striking distance but never really feels like we are going to win kind of game. Which will be a big step forward on the road for this group
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