Lack of penetration

[Wrinkle]

The way I see it, all of our struggles can be traced back to this basic fundamental of the game.

For years, we have run a milquetoast pick and roll attack, which isn't really a pick and roll at all. The screener rarely rolls to the rim, and even when they do, they are never, ever hit with the pass by our ball handler.

To defend this bastardized attack, teams hedge the screen, usually aggressively. And this then spells the end for our offense. There is no splitting of the screen by our guards, no rejecting of the screen, no quick swing to the wing, there's usually not even a concerted effort to put down their head and bully their way into the paint.

I think the issue may be twofold. Personnel wise, we haven't had the type of the lead guard we desperately crave -- a guy we can throw in pick and roll every single possession and generate consistent offense. Flynn, MCW, Ennis. Even so, we haven't had total bums at guard (for the most part). One would certainly expect them to be capable of understanding and executing the basics of a pick and roll offense, even if they are not supremely effective at it. Not have we had optimal personnel for roll men. But this cannot alone explain what we've seen on the court for years

And so we come to coaching. What is the aim of our high screen action? It virtually never gets our ball handler into the paint, and the screener almost never receives the pass. So what we have is a useless screen that merely bottles up our guard and stops the ball.

So bizarrely futile is our pick and roll action, it's gotten to the point where I've tried to imagine what the coaching staff could possibly be thinking. Is JB commanding the guards NOT to make the pass to the screener? For the love of God, why? Even if we hit bag o' skin and bones Sidibe with the pass as the roll man, we've penetrated, and the defense must adjust. We seem to run this high screen with the sole intent to free up the guard for a run to the rim, and yet, when the defense denies this alley with the hedge (which good defenses do, every single time against us), we are dead in the water.

I love the pick and roll. It is in fact my favorite play in basketball. It can be very effective at any level of play. But not this Syracuse pick and roll. This is BAD.

 

[jncuse]

That's what s... never mind.

But I do agree with your post. We are not helping our guards out at all.

EDIT - And a quality first post. Welcome to the board.

 

[djorange1989]

Heh heh heh heh. He said penetration

 

[jdubs30]

My fiancé says the same thing

 

[Wrinkle]

It's difficult to say after one game, but when I look at this roster I see a pace and space kind of squad. When we brought in Goodine-Girard-Hughes-Guerrier-Marek against UVA in the 1st half we saw a spark of life. Spread the floor and run pick and pop. Marek and Guerrier will get open 3s. Knock down a few and we'll get avenues to the rim. Guerrier was bricking jumpers but he is a threat to shoot them, and some will fall. If we can get Carey a little room to breathe in these high screen situations he may finally prove effective.

 

[Madbiker]

Based on our recruiting the last several years, it seems the staff has given up on the idea of a penetrating PG to create shots for others.

 

[tbonezone]

marek logged some major minutes last season and was 11/29 deep. why would we think he's a 3 point threat ?

 

[Alsacs]

The way I see it, all of our struggles can be traced back to this basic fundamental of the game.

For years, we have run a milquetoast pick and roll attack, which isn't really a pick and roll at all. The screener rarely rolls to the rim, and even when they do, they are never, ever hit with the pass by our ball handler.

To defend this bastardized attack, teams hedge the screen, usually aggressively. And this then spells the end for our offense. There is no splitting of the screen by our guards, no rejecting of the screen, no quick swing to the wing, there's usually not even a concerted effort to put down their head and bully their way into the paint.

I think the issue may be twofold. Personnel wise, we haven't had the type of the lead guard we desperately crave -- a guy we can throw in pick and roll every single possession and generate consistent offense. Flynn, MCW, Ennis. Even so, we haven't had total bums at guard (for the most part). One would certainly expect them to be capable of understanding and executing the basics of a pick and roll offense, even if they are not supremely effective at it. Not have we had optimal personnel for roll men. But this cannot alone explain what we've seen on the court for years

And so we come to coaching. What is the aim of our high screen action? It virtually never gets our ball handler into the paint, and the screener almost never receives the pass. So what we have is a useless screen that merely bottles up our guard and stops the ball.

So bizarrely futile is our pick and roll action, it's gotten to the point where I've tried to imagine what the coaching staff could possibly be thinking. Is JB commanding the guards NOT to make the pass to the screener? For the love of God, why? Even if we hit bag o' skin and bones Sidibe with the pass as the roll man, we've penetrated, and the defense must adjust. We seem to run this high screen with the sole intent to free up the guard for a run to the rim, and yet, when the defense denies this alley with the hedge (which good defenses do, every single time against us), we are dead in the water.

I love the pick and roll. It is in fact my favorite play in basketball. It can be very effective at any level of play. But not this Syracuse pick and roll. This is BAD.

Welcome to the board. Trust me this has been discussed ad naseum. We don’t change our system to what our personnel can do and we haven’t recruited players to fit the pick and roll.

 

[Wrinkle]

marek logged some major minutes last season and was 11/29 deep. why would we think he's a 3 point threat ?

I would say 11/29 suggests he needs to shoot more.

 

[hoopsupstate]

Penetration isn’t always by the dribble. The pass is just as effective. For example, the little success we had against Virginia is when we hit the “roller”, ie Marek and he the passed the ball to the opposite wing for a three. We just don’t use the pass to the post for any purpose. Teams don’t guard our bigs and overplay our guards and wings. I’m curious to see what adjustments JB makes for Colgate. Colgate’s defense is not their strength, so we should be able to run our offense tomorrow night. On another note, Colgate has far better shooters than Virginia, so our perimeter defense will have to be much better.

 

[Wrinkle]

[

Welcome to the board. Trust me this has been discussed ad naseum. We don’t change our system to what our personnel can do and we haven’t recruited players to fit the pick and roll.

We haven't had optimal personnel, but I think it's primarily a coaching issue. Why was Brissett not rolling and popping every possession? He wasn't Amare Stoudemire, but surely Oshae could've gotten some buckets. He's a guy who certainly had the skillset to catch a pass on the roll and do something with it.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Great first post. That’s all very accurate.

 

[tbonezone]

J.B's new video.mastering the dry hump offense.

 

[OrangeDW]

mastering the dry hump offense.

Oh, wow. You won the board today.

 

[Alsacs]

[


We haven't had optimal personnel, but I think it's primarily a coaching issue. Why was Brissett not rolling and popping every possession? He wasn't Amare Stoudemire, but surely Oshae could've gotten some buckets. He's a guy who certainly had the skillset to catch a pass on the roll and do something with it.

Please post more.
Don’t be a stranger. You are saying what I have numerous times. The more it’s said the better.
Coleman, Chukwu, Sidibe all doing the high ball screen has killed me.
Especially since when we had Lydon we NEVER used him in that spot when he could pick and pop.

 

[tbonezone]

I would say 11/29 suggests he needs to shoot more.

marek played in 34 games avging about 22 mpg. in16 of those games he attempted no treys.9 games he attempted 1. 8 games two. 1 game he tried 4. in 25 games he was 0-FER. so why would we want him shooting treys ? he hasn't proved himself to be a consistent deep threat.

 

[Scotch]

Please post more.
Don’t be a stranger. You are saying what I have numerous times. The more it’s said the better.
Coleman, Chukwu, Sidibe all doing the high ball screen has killed me.
Especially since when we had Lydon we NEVER used him in that spot when he could pick and pop.

Lydon had one amazing pick and pop in the UVA elite 8 game, and it was like why don’t we do this more?

This is a great thread. We are running a 1998 offense in 2019. It requires incredible isolation players and creators to be functional, and we don’t have those this year.

 

[Wrinkle]

marek played in 34 games avging about 22 mpg. in16 of those games he attempted no treys.9 games he attempted 1. 8 games two. 1 game he tried 4. in 25 games he was 0-FER. so why would we want him shooting treys ? he hasn't proved himself to be a consistent deep threat.

The crux of my post was not to say 'Marek should shoot more 3s', although I do believe that to be true, especially in the context of a pick and pop attack. 11-29 is good for 38%, an excellent mark for a big man, albeit on low volume. Just popping him to the perimeter off the screen and passing the ball to him could create some action, whether it be a 3 pointer from him or putting the ball on the floor.

 

[OrangeDW]

Thought we had noticeably better off ball movement in the two exhibitions. Did that go out the window in game 1 because it was Virginia? Will we see it against weaker opponents and progress to being able to do it against better teams later in the year?

We ran some set plays in Europe that seemed to be a new look. Where did they go?

Im trying real hard to be hopeful right now and hope that a young team just got overwhelmed by the intensity of playing a very strong defensive team in the first game, and things broke down and they reverted and that we’ll see a different offense going forward.

 

[Wrinkle]

The reason this is so disturbing is what possible basketball reason could there be for completely ignoring the screener? It utterly hamstrings the offense and the ability of the guards to accomplish the most basic of tasks.

The only thing I've come up with is possibly an ultra-conservative philosophy by Boeheim, where by forbidding guards to sling the ball around in pick and roll, you don't get the turnovers that sometimes accompany such action, especially from the converted 2s we like to roll out at PG. But does that make any sense? When it utterly devastates the flow of offense? Just so we can maybe grind it out with a good performance by the zone and a couple defensive breakdowns by the opponent?

We're somehow still competitive in most games, and rarely winning less than 20. And that is truly a testament to the power of our zone.

 

[Halfmooncuse]

When your as old as JB you gotta stick to the zone

 

[tbonezone]

if you've ever been to camp you know that screening is the easiest skill to teach. in fact it was a point of emphasis for kids like me who could not shoot or dribble. hours of practice honing my obstruction skills .

 

[TinyManInside]

My friends and I refer to it as the ‘pick and double team’, since most of the time the guy setting the pick runs away (without creating ANY contact) and the guard is left with 2 defenders to beat.

 

[jgeorge322]

Ever heard of pocket pool?

 

[007]

My friends and I refer to it as the ‘pick and double team’, since most of the time the guy setting the pick runs away (without creating ANY contact) and the guard is left with 2 defenders to beat.

Yup. This is part of the problem. They don't wait long enough to make contact. More often than not, there is no pick (no physical contact), there is no roll (can't really roll without the screen), and no pop. The guard gets doubled and picks up his dribble, playing into what the D is trying to do.

they could run slip screens, have the guard draw the double team and move it higher away from the lane, pass to the guy who set the slip "screen" and have him pass to the opposite wing, as hoops upstate suggested. We have the shooters to run that play. Marek could be used as the trigger. Maybe that's what they are trying to do.