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Message: [QUOTE="jordoo, post: 1320635, member: 569"] I agree that he has had issues as well and isn't one of our better defensive guards at closing out. He's pretty good at getting his hands on balls and collapsing down from the weakside to disrupt the driver but not very good at working over the screens and seems like you mention to quite often close out late even when he is standing 4' from the guy on the catch. If you watched this is something that Bennett adjusted in the game, he moved Brogden and Parrentes in a couple feet on the catch and told them to be shot ready. They almost held to freeze the defender like they would pass but really they were sizing up the hoop before letting it fly. I'd add that Cooney isn't one of our better guys at stopping penetration but Ron and Kaleb exasperate his deficiencies by basically rarely being where they should be and rarely moving properly with the movement of the ball. Cooney looked much better with MikeG who has had very little time there this year. IMO Cooney is an average defensive guard in our system with an above average ability to get his hands on passes and a below average ability to bother shooters even when he does close out well. If he played next to a MCW, Brandon or Andy we wouldn't notice it all that much. Heck Ennis was another probably average defensive guard in our system except he was great at playing passing lanes and Cooney looked like a much better defender playing with him. So even two average defenders can get by if they know where to be. This is why I pointed out Ron and Kaleb because when they were in it wasn't so much what shots UVA got or what mistakes these guys made as it was that UVA got whatever they wanted with little resistance at all against them. When Mike was up top with Trevor and the game wasn't yet out of reach they at least provided consistent resistance to what UVA was trying to do. [/QUOTE]

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