JB's Presser after BC

[Townie72]

Teams are but not as a primary and only defense. Primary and only is our problem. It's antiquated and doesn't work in today's CBB where every team has a stretch 4 who can shoot.

The statistical proof says otherwise. Look at SU's defensive statistics while we have been in the ACC.

 

[Antiprodigy]

The game has changed because of the increase in the number of good shooters. The zone needs to be almost airtight to prevent good shots.

This statement is so patently not true. The game hasn't changed suddenly. Over the course of the past 20 years? Absolutely agree with you, but over the past 2-3 years? No. Not to any significant amount.

Most M2m's aren't airtight. All M2M's allow good players to get good shots.
The zone isn't airtight, and never has been airtight. And, oddly enough, good players have been able to get good shots off it. This has been, and always will be true.

However, a good zone, just like a good M2M will make players make uncomfortable shots. Many players will miss a higher number than average of those shots.

These guards do not make players take uncomfortable shots. Or at least, very, very few.

It's the players, not the game.

 

[Townie72]

We are Einsteins definition of insanity...

Except Einstein never said that about the definition of insanity. Check it out.

 

[longislandcuse]

This statement is so patently not true. The game hasn't changed suddenly. Over the course of the past 20 years? Absolutely agree with you, but over the past 2-3 years? No. Not to any significant amount.

Most M2m's aren't airtight. All M2M's allow good players to get good shots.
The zone isn't airtight, and never has been airtight. And, oddly enough, good players have been able to get good shots off it. This has been, and always will be true.

However, a good zone, just like a good M2M will make players make uncomfortable shots. Many players will miss a higher number than average of those shots.

These guards do not make players take uncomfortable shots. Or at least, very, very few.

It's the players, not the game.

But when you run a M2M, you don't have to recruit offense as secondary. You don't have to spend half a year perfecting it. You don't allow teams to dictate pace. I get what you're saying but there's a lot of negatives that come along with our zone that aren't based in just looking at shooting percentages.

 

[Townie72]

Over the history of time? Maybe.

This year? No bleeping way.

So the numbers prove beyond a shadow of the doubt that the SU zone is highly effective against 3pt shooting and against all shooting.

This year it is not. The zone hasn't changed. They players have. They are not playing the defense as it should be played. They seem not to have bought in.

 

[Townie72]

It's really quite bizarre listening to that presser and JB's comments about always being able to 'limit' their shooters and hold teams to a lower percentage from distance when playing us vs. what their 3 pt shooting percentage is coming into our game, but that this team simply can't do it. Yet, he insists that they will keep working on it in practice in hope that they get better, but at now 14 games in, it's not that likely that much of any dent will be made.
What's that definition of insanity?

His spew about how our high level athletes can not play or are capable of playing any solid man D is just nonsense. If that's truly the case, that really says more about JB's current state/mindset relative to his coaching, or lack thereof, etc. than anything else.

The answer is not to switch to M2M as much as that appeals to the simple-minded.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I didn't realize the game changed so much since last March.



You even gave the real answer earlier in your post. The game hasn't changed, the players have. And these guards aren't doing their job in the zone. They are either not physically, or not mentally capable of covering their assignments.

Last March, last march, last march... Serenity now!
Last March we were average in he conference. We still had not won an ACC tournament game. National media said we shouldn't have been in he NCAA field.

We then beat two teams that wouldn't have been worth crowing about if they had been on our regular season schedule, and then a 'bubble' gonzaga team.

Which sets of 'data' best represents how good we were?

The best argument in defense of our regular season averageness last year had something to do with how JB wasn't our coach for a stretch of games, but we are seeing even worse play this year with JB fully(?) at the helm. We just weren't that good last year but we're treated to solid tournament play and 12 minutes of desperation fantasticness. If you really hate boeheim, you could ask why we didn't play the entire season with the same sense of abandon, need, and intensity we saw in that magical spurt against Virginia.

 

[Townie72]

We were holding teams to 28% from 3. BC was holding teams to 28% as well. Yet we both have sucked this year. I just don't think that is a meaningful statistic, yet JB embraces it.

You're kidding, right?

What statistic do you think is more important in judging a defense?

 

[orangecuse]

The answer is not to switch to M2M as much as that appeals to the simple-minded.

Love Simple Minds.

 

[Cusefan0307]

This statement is so patently not true. The game hasn't changed suddenly. Over the course of the past 20 years? Absolutely agree with you, but over the past 2-3 years? No. Not to any significant amount.

Most M2m's aren't airtight. All M2M's allow good players to get good shots.
The zone isn't airtight, and never has been airtight. And, oddly enough, good players have been able to get good shots off it. This has been, and always will be true.

However, a good zone, just like a good M2M will make players make uncomfortable shots. Many players will miss a higher number than average of those shots.

These guards do not make players take uncomfortable shots. Or at least, very, very few.

It's the players, not the game.

Defense looked pretty good with Cooney/G up top last year. Kennard didn't score and we forced them to shoot 10-37 from 3.

 

[cuseguy]

This statement is so patently not true. The game hasn't changed suddenly. Over the course of the past 20 years? Absolutely agree with you, but over the past 2-3 years? No. Not to any significant amount.

Most M2m's aren't airtight. All M2M's allow good players to get good shots.
The zone isn't airtight, and never has been airtight. And, oddly enough, good players have been able to get good shots off it. This has been, and always will be true.

However, a good zone, just like a good M2M will make players make uncomfortable shots. Many players will miss a higher number than average of those shots.

These guards do not make players take uncomfortable shots. Or at least, very, very few.

It's the players, not the game.

Never said it was a 2-3 year thing. It's been a slow process. But players are becoming better shooters. It's more of a perimeter game than it was 20 years ago. Few teams play the zone as their only defense. You need to be able to mix it up.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

You're kidding, right?

What statistic do you think is more important in judging a defense?

Talk about "simple-minded..."
If a team goes 3-12 from 3 against you, but shoots 55% from 2 because you've overcommitted to the perimeter, your 25% 3pt defense statistic is pretty much meaningless. And that's just the simplest explanation for why a single statistic, without greater context, is insignificant.

Point was, though, that a horrendous BC team, with losses to Fairfield, Hartford, and Harvard, and who had not won an ACC game in forever... came in with the same 3pt defensive percentage statistic as we did. And what was the result today?

 

[Alsacs]

Talk about "simple-minded..."
If a team goes 3-12 from 3 against you, but shoots 55% from 2 because you've overcommitted to the perimeter, your 25% 3pt defense statistic is pretty much meaningless. And that's just the simplest explanation for why a single statistic, without greater context, is insignificant.

Point was, though, that a horrendous BC team, with losses to Fairfield, Hartford, and Harvard, and who had not won an ACC game in forever... came in with the same 3pt defensive percentage statistic as we did. And what was the result today?

How games have you won?

 

[Antiprodigy]

Never said it was a 2-3 year thing. It's been a slow process. But players are becoming better shooters. It's more of a perimeter game than it was 20 years ago. Few teams play the zone as their only defense. You need to be able to mix it up.

Yet, how many times has SU been in the final four the past 5 years, in comparison to the previous 20 years?

Almost seems like the zone is becoming more effective, not less!

(And this is for you Zelda!) (Yes, measuring with final fours is absolutely a valid measuring tool. No one gives a crap what your overall record is. No one remembers. But, everyone remembers when teams make the final four. That is a successful season, whether you like it or whether it fits your data.)

See, you can try to make this all about yet another zone vs. M2M thread (we have probably only had about a 1000 of them over the past 10 years)

But, what this really is about is the inability of the current players to effectively play a defense that the staff has been teaching for many years. This is a player issue, not a defense issue.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Yet, how many times has SU been in the final four the past 5 years, in comparison to the previous 20 years?

Almost seems like the zone is becoming more effective, not less!

(And this is for you Zelda!) (Yes, measuring with final fours is absolutely a valid measuring tool. No one gives a crap what your overall record is. No one remembers. But, everyone remembers when teams make the final four. That is a successful season, whether you like it or whether it fits your data.)

See, you can try to make this all about yet another zone vs. M2M thread (we have probably only had about a 1000 of them over the past 10 years)

But, what this really is about is the inability of the current players to effectively play a defense that the staff has been teaching for many years. This is a player issue, not a defense issue.

Who brought the players in?

 

[skurey]

Weird how a lot of people blame the teenage athletes playing for free and not the millionaire coach.

You can make your own inferences from there.

 

[Trueblue25]

Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake, and Virginia all lost yesterday.

Don't they all play m2m?

You'd think that m2m teams were undefeated since Naismith invented the game.

If good m2m teams can lose, why does anyone think we'll have success.

Whatever makes us stop losing by double digits.

 

[jdubs30]

But when you run a M2M, you don't have to recruit offense as secondary. You don't have to spend half a year perfecting it. You don't allow teams to dictate pace. I get what you're saying but there's a lot of negatives that come along with our zone that aren't based in just looking at shooting percentages.

I get your premise, but I don't believe we recruit offense as "secondary" - I think JB's offensive style is a lot more free flowing and a lot less direction - and when you have the right personnel - MCW, Waiters, Triche, Flynn, etc. it works. Hell, the offense hasn't been a problem this year. Yeah our PG's are an issue but scoring overall besides the UConn game hasn't been a problem.

This might be a self-fulfilling prophecy type question, but - do we get to the Final Four in 2013 or 2016 without the zone? I'm going to go with no. In 2013 every team we saw in March was so befuddled by the zone that they could barely function against us. We could score 55 points and win easy. Last year wasn't as dominating, but it gave Dayton, MTSU and Gonzaga problems - UVA couldn't score the last 10 minutes of the 2nd half and obviously UNC is a nightmare matchup for us.

For so long in JB's career, the zone has been the X factor. How does that MCW team get to the FF without the zone? Would we be as dominating in M2M? Because we were not gonna outscore people with that team. Unless you're an elite/dominant team, you need something extra to make that run in March - whether it's high level elite player like Melo, or something that a lot of teams haven't seen before - and that's what JB had, the zone.

I think the fact that more teams are using zone is actually hurting us. Teams are praciting against it more and going up against itgames more often. The days of teams not knowing how to attack a zone are over. I think it is still a weapon and I'm a big fan of it - but the personnel has to be right. Ironically, would Calipari or Coach K ever say "this group of guys I recruited can't play M2M, so we have to play zone". JB looks at this as our D, period.

 

[iommi]

Yet, how many times has SU been in the final four the past 5 years, in comparison to the previous 20 years?

Almost seems like the zone is becoming more effective, not less!

(And this is for you Zelda!) (Yes, measuring with final fours is absolutely a valid measuring tool. No one gives a crap what your overall record is. No one remembers. But, everyone remembers when teams make the final four. That is a successful season, whether you like it or whether it fits your data.)

See, you can try to make this all about yet another zone vs. M2M thread (we have probably only had about a 1000 of them over the past 10 years)

But, what this really is about is the inability of the current players to effectively play a defense that the staff has been teaching for many years. This is a player issue, not a defense issue.

What about when you don't make the NCAA tournament twice in three seasons? Is that a success? Can't have it both ways. If you can't see the program is heading in the wrong direction, I'm not sure what to tell you.

 

[iommi]

jdubs30 Our offense has been a huge problem this year, all due respect. Can't look at the final margins. In what games that we lost did the offense play well?

On our defense, JB even today in the post-game said the d looked good in practice. You know why? Because our d was up against OUR offense. The same exact offense that other teams don't even have to watch film on to know what we are going to do. We have the same offense, same out of bound plays, same everything. No adjustments? Not one backdoor lob to get an easy basket? It's really lazy coaching. Cruise control.

 

[br801]

The guards rely on the forwards to make help plays contesting those open threes as well. And lydon and white are just not good on those rotations either.

The zone isn't an effective weapon anymore. Too many kids can shoot that shot well.

Your last sentence seems like it should be true, but if you look at historical three point shooting percentage across college basketball year to year, it isn't really improving, but more three pointers are being attempted.

 

[orange79]

jdubs30 Our offense has been a huge problem this year, all due respect. Can't look at the final margins. In what games that we lost did the offense play well?

On our defense, JB even today in the post-game said the d looked good in practice. You know why? Because our d was up against OUR offense. The same exact offense that other teams don't even have to watch film on to know what we are going to do. We have the same offense, same out of bound plays, same everything. No adjustments? Not one backdoor lob to get an easy basket? It's really lazy coaching. Cruise control.

Actually, we did try one lob. IIRC, it was intercepted (or maybe blocked away).

 

[iommi]

Actually, we did try one lob. IIRC, it was intercepted (or maybe blocked away).

I meant a set play. That was Gillon spazzing and chucking one up to Lydon, who was covered. It wasn't off a back door screen like we used to do back when we ran set plays like that. Does JB even use a dry-erase board anymore (half-joking)?

 

[Antiprodigy]

What about when you don't make the NCAA tournament twice in three seasons? Is that a success? Can't have it both ways. If you can't see the program is heading in the wrong direction, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Did you know that it is human nature to think things are getting worse, while things are happening?

It is only when we can look back in time that we can determine whether that is actually true.

This is one way to look at things.

Another way to look at things...

SU is coming off 4 years of penalties. I am not aware of any program who ever was penalized with any significant penalty that didn't suffer as a result. That's why they call them penalties.

SU's penalties were amongst the strongest penalties ever leveled.

SU should be in worse shape.

 

[longislandcuse]

I meant a set play. That was Gillon spazzing and chucking one up to Lydon, who was covered. It wasn't off a back door screen like we used to do back when we ran set plays like that. Does JB even use a dry-erase board anymore (half-joking)?

I imagine our practices consist of an hour of "knockout" followed by an hour of "horse" then 20 minutes of drawing up plays in chalk outside the Melo Center.