This team needs to prevent "stall ball" going forward

[OrlandoCuse]

Notre Dame laid out the blueprint to frustrate and beat us today. On the vast majority of their possessions they played "stall ball": held the ball out near half court until 10 seconds or less were left on the shot clock, then ran a spread offense set to get the ball down low or kick it out for a three. They were extremely successful in this strategy.

This team needs to come up with a way to counter this strategy. Today, we were too comfortable sitting back in the zone for 25 or 30 seconds and play token 2-3 defense.

I want to see JB come up with a different strategy, because we are definitely going to see teams employ this type of strategy for the rest of the year. He needs to find a way to attack the opposing teams guards. Force them into traps at the half court corners, frustrate them into turnovers. He cannot let the opposing team continue to dictate tempo. We need the game to be played in the 70's, not the 50's.

 

[Cuse_MN]

>>I want to see JB come up with a different strategy, because we are definitely going to see teams employ this type of strategy for the rest of the year. He needs to find a way to attack the opposing teams guards. Force them into traps at the half court corners, frustrate them into turnovers. He cannot let the opposing team continue to dictate tempo. We need the game to be played in the 70's, not the 50's.>>

Careful, I just got blasted for saying the pressure is on JB to coach a little different due to the loss of Fab.

 

[PoppyHart]

Combine that with a team that knows how to inbound the ball and its the perfect recipe.

Big 10 teams might really pose a challenge.

 

[orangefan13]

Interesting stat here...

We shot 13 more FG's then ND, 7 more three pointers.
They shot 8 more ft's then us. Thats the equivilent 3.5 more possesions (got to throw a three in there).
Factor in we got one "And One" all game so thets knock that 3.5 down to 3.0 possessions.

That means we shot 10 more two pointers and 7 more threes then notre dame. Factor in equal amount of foul shots.

Final stat...
Thats the possibility for 20 points from 2 plus 21 points from three which equals 41 more possible points then ND tonight. And thats not counting and ones on those 41.
And we lost :bang::bang:

And were worried about stall ball?? :noidea:

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Interesting stat here...

We shot 13 more FG's then ND, 7 more three pointers.
They shot 8 more ft's then us. Thats the equivilent 3.5 more possesions (got to throw a three in there).
Factor in we got one "And One" all game so thets knock that 3.5 down to 3.0 possessions.

That means we shot 10 more two pointers and 7 more threes then notre dame. Factor in equal amount of foul shots.

Final stat...
Thats the possibility for 20 points from 2 plus 21 points from three which equals 41 more possible points then ND tonight. And thats not counting and ones on those 41.
And we lost :bang::bang:

And were worried about stall ball?? :noidea:

ND did a much better job of executing in the half court offense, which was dictated by their stall ball strategy. They forced us to guard them for 30+ seconds each possession. We allowed them to run their half court offense with minimal pressure. They worked us until they got good shots in the half court, as noted by their 50% FG shooting.

We are not built to guard opponents for 30 seconds each possession. It frustrates our guys and the results show on our offensive end. We start jacking up quick shots, forcing the ball, driving into traffic, etc.

We did force some turnovers today, but did it with the press. This, unfortunately, did not leave us many opportunities to get out into transition because of where and how ND turned over the ball (typically threw it out of bounds, causing us to inbound the ball and run a half court set).

We are a transition team. We use the 2-3 zone to force teams into turnovers and get quick fastbreak buckets. We will not win many games in the 50's and low 60's. We need to force tempo and get the game in the 70's and 80's. The 2-3 zone and our transition offense is very susceptible to stall ball.

 

[orangefan13]

My stats were off we had 13 more shots.
I was factoring the threes as a seperate stat instead as part of FG's. :bang:

We hit half of those 13 shots taking two pointers and thats 13 points and we win by 4 and overcome a 6 point dissantage from the freethrow line and no Melo. :noidea:

 

[HoustonCuse]

I don't know that we can take a huge amount from this game, honestly. Everyone already knew that stall ball was a good tactic against us, but nobody could make it work. Look what had to happen for ND to win with it. They had to hit something on order of 6 - 8 shot-clock buzzer beaters, they had to get us on a night where we shoot sub-30%, and they had to take advantage of us not having our starting center and the leading shot blocker in the conference. I got frustrated too that we weren't getting out towards the ball in their stall sets, but really in a statistical sense, it was a major anomaly for all those things to happen at once. ND got blessed with the perfect falling into place of everything and they needed just about all those breaks to get this win at home.

 

[timkay99]

ND did a much better job of executing in the half court offense, which was dictated by their stall ball strategy. They forced us to guard them for 30+ seconds each possession. We allowed them to run their half court offense with minimal pressure. They worked us until they got good shots in the half court, as noted by their 50% FG shooting.

We are not built to guard opponents for 30 seconds each possession. It frustrates our guys and the results show on our offensive end. We start jacking up quick shots, forcing the ball, driving into traffic, etc.

We did force some turnovers today, but did it with the press. This, unfortunately, did not leave us many opportunities to get out into transition because of where and how ND turned over the ball (typically threw it out of bounds, causing us to inbound the ball and run a half court set).

We are a transition team. We use the 2-3 zone to force teams into turnovers and get quick fastbreak buckets. We will not win many games in the 50's and low 60's. We need to force tempo and get the game in the 70's and 80's. The 2-3 zone and our transition offense is very susceptible to stall ball.

The press was the counter.

The big reason that Syracuse wasn't able to fast break was b/c (surprise) Fab wasn't there to get defensive rebounds. I noticed that all 3 forwards had to stay in to try and rebound. This prevented the 3 on 2 breaks that typically gets Syracuse going in the secondary break.

Notre Dame did not force us to guard them for 30 seconds. The burn offense is designed to not start going until 15-20 seconds on the shot clock. They dribbled at about the 30 foot mark and just relaxed. There is no answer to that offense. Do you really want your guards out aggressively guarding with no presence on the backline? Notre Dame would just dribble in, work it around, then reset at top. That would really be guarding for 30 seconds.

Notre Dame made their shots. Scott Martin was shooting 8 % from 3 point range in Big East games and was 2-2. Cooley had 17 and 10 b/c of no post defense.

In the first half, every 3 Notre Dame shot went in.
In the second half, Notre Dame pounded Cooley.

Fact is, Notre Dame made their shots. Syracuse didn't. This is a game just have to flush and move on.

 

[HoustonCuse]

Agree 99.

 

[KevMonstah]

It is not possible to prevent a stall offense while playing a zone defense. That has always been my biggest complaint about it, is that it cannot put pressure on a team that is willing to pass the ball around for 25 seconds while making no move toward the basket. It just isn't set up to do that unless you extend the top out to halfcourt. Well, let me rephrase, a 2-3 zone cannot, a 1-3-1 at least makes the offense pass over a guy.

I was fuming mad they remained in that while down 50-33. Ok, yes, they went on a run to get to 8 or 10, but then had a horrible possession each and every time. And UND was just as happy to walk down, get across half court, and pass around no closer than forty feet from the hoop, and SU made little attempts to get after the ball.

Kev

 

[Cuse_MN]

It is not possible to prevent a stall offense while playing a zone defense. That has always been my biggest complaint about it, is that it cannot put pressure on a team that is willing to pass the ball around for 25 seconds while making no move toward the basket. It just isn't set up to do that unless you extend the top out to halfcourt. Well, let me rephrase, a 2-3 zone cannot, a 1-3-1 at least makes the offense pass over a guy.

I was fuming mad they remained in that while down 50-33. Ok, yes, they went on a run to get to 8 or 10, but then had a horrible possession each and every time. And UND was just as happy to walk down, get across half court, and pass around no closer than forty feet from the hoop, and SU made little attempts to get after the ball.

Kev

The offense - which was offensive - was the culprit for this loss, not the defense, but it is frustrating to watch teams run 30 seconds off the clock each possession as we sit their and watch them.

The blueprint was posted here a couple days ago:

http://rushthecourt.net/2012/01/19/blueprint-to-beat-undefeated-syracuse/

ND followed the plan perfectly.

Expect to see more of the same strategy.

 

[SWC75]

I hate it when we play excllent defense for 30+ seconds and then give up a shot- especially a 3- or foul somebody. We did that repeately in this game.

 

[BlueCurtain]

The best way to avoid stall ball is to be in the lead, as we have been in the vast majority of the minutes played until Saturday night. The zone works to SU's advantage when a team knows they can't sit on the ball.

That being said, there are ways to mitigate tempo if we fall behind ... but falling back into a zone after trunk monkey gets carved up isn't one of them.

 

[orangefan13]

As others have said in previous years.
I think alot of this game was mental.

Our offense played awfull. I am sure that didn't help the zone Mentally. I imagine in the back of our heads while playing defense we were waiting for the offense to get going.
On top of that knowing they aren't getting alot of transition buckets puts more pressure to get the offense rolling mentally.

We were waiting for that run but never got the offense for our defense to play off of.

Tempo just means more possessions and even if we play man to man against a team with a few decent ball handlers they can dribble for 20 seconds before setting up the offense.

We continue to shoot 25 percent at the 11 minute mark of the second half while ND shoots 50 with more possessions in the game then they win by more. We needed to score and stop them. Were shooting that poorly more posseissions and we could have lost by 20.

I do feel ND got better looks and our shots weren't falling. We don't run alot of set pieces though either. Look at teams that run alot of high post ball screens that intend a midrange shot instead of a layup. Or a a team like Duke this year whos spread offense is similar to our 09-10 team with a spread offense and Rivers is their sophmore KJO. ND's ball movement was good. They forced our wings to play out further on the wings and dished baseline to Cooley and Keita couldn't stop him. And they made threes when they didn't dish to him.

We had no 2 man rythum and for a team with so many weaopons it was VERY VERY VERY uncharectoristic.

 

[OrangeCrush22]

Good defense, and pressing prevent stall ball. We did both those things poorly, and lost.

 

[orangefan13]

Our press was decent we did put some pressure on them. We got some turnovers.

Our guards did alot of verticle hands instead of one hand out towards the man they are defending. We were playing the passing lanes towards the inside of the zone they didn't need to be played. ND wasn't even running a high post prescense. Our guards should have had one hand playing the guy with the ball instead.

This team had it all and was rolling. When you have that all is well.
After a loss like that there is nothing on the paper. Thets see what is drawn.

 

[timkay99]

It is not possible to prevent a stall offense while playing a zone defense. That has always been my biggest complaint about it, is that it cannot put pressure on a team that is willing to pass the ball around for 25 seconds while making no move toward the basket. It just isn't set up to do that unless you extend the top out to halfcourt. Well, let me rephrase, a 2-3 zone cannot, a 1-3-1 at least makes the offense pass over a guy.

I was fuming mad they remained in that while down 50-33. Ok, yes, they went on a run to get to 8 or 10, but then had a horrible possession each and every time. And UND was just as happy to walk down, get across half court, and pass around no closer than forty feet from the hoop, and SU made little attempts to get after the ball.

Kev

Got news for you. Notre Dame ran the offense when Harangody went down to a lot of success. They faced zone teams, man teams. There was no way to stop it.

If a team really wants to hold the ball, no defense will get them out of it. I mean, when Syracuse starts running clock at the 4 minute mark, the opponent being in man defense doesn't seem to make the offense speed up...

 

[Rossco123]

If you are up more than five, no one is going to take time off the clock. It just goes against human nature.

 

[arbitragegls]

do not agree...teams that stall cause transition teams a problem...we did press ND and they broke it...then what...BEST WAY TO BEAT THE STALL...BE IN THE LEAD...otherwise, low scoring games will never be 'Cuse forte for wins

 

[SBU72]

Notre Dame laid out the blueprint to frustrate and beat us today. On the vast majority of their possessions they played "stall ball": held the ball out near half court until 10 seconds or less were left on the shot clock, then ran a spread offense set to get the ball down low or kick it out for a three. They were extremely successful in this strategy.

This team needs to come up with a way to counter this strategy. Today, we were too comfortable sitting back in the zone for 25 or 30 seconds and play token 2-3 defense.

I want to see JB come up with a different strategy, because we are definitely going to see teams employ this type of strategy for the rest of the year. He needs to find a way to attack the opposing teams guards. Force them into traps at the half court corners, frustrate them into turnovers. He cannot let the opposing team continue to dictate tempo. We need the game to be played in the 70's, not the 50's.

Let me start by saying that I thought that the zone was pretty flat. Something that does happen to them especially when they don't get some tips early or oportunities anyways. A number of teams have used the stall ball and ND was the only successful one. There have been games where SU has caused mulitple clock violations, so SU CAN guard that long. ND was fortunate (lucky?) to sink many (somebody said 6 to 8) buzzer beaters and at least half of those by non shooters. He!! a guy shooting 8% sank 1 or 2! Although ND was credited with only 9 offensive rebounds, they seem to take advantage of them. During the last 5 minutes, SU did start to come out and pressure the ball more early in the shot clock. That looked to breath some life into the zone and if JB was to stress anything, that may be it.

 

[cuseincincy]

But, But but, the HOFer in the post game press conf said he liked the fact that teams play stall ball. He said it gives teams only 10 seconds to try and get a good shot against the zone and that he'd take that. Stall ball wasn't what beat SU. As another said ND making 6-8 last second shots and a few last second fouls was SU's defensive undoing. The offense is what lost the game and the inability to make shots. This should surprise no one. This was a known possibility before the season started. None of SU's shooters are "pure shooters". And they all went cold on Saturday. Saturday was a day JB should have emulated the late John MCkay if he had been asked in his press conference..."So, coach, what can you say about your offense's execution?" "I'm in favor of it."

 

[MyMeloMyMan]

I know we are all reluctant to ever blame the zone defense, as blaming the zone is akin to just flat out calling Jim Boeheim bad names, around these parts. It's friendlier to just blame the offense each and every time. But, on 2nd watch...that zone defense was just as BAD as our offense, especially the wings. ND was getting quality shots with under 3 seconds on the shot clock consistently. That cant happen.

 

[PoppyHart]

I know we are all reluctant to ever blame the zone defense, as blaming the zone is akin to just flat out calling Jim Boeheim bad names, around these parts. It's friendlier to just blame the offense each and every time. But, on 2nd watch...that zone defense was just as BAD as our offense, especially the wings. ND was getting quality shots with under 3 seconds on the shot clock consistently. That cant happen.

It's even more friendly to blame the refs.

 

[Knicks411]

Here is something that I don't totally understand.

When we are winning games late, JB likes to go to the stall ball. He has his reasons, and I am not saying he is wrong, so by doing that, he seems to be saying that he thinks it is an effective strategy. So wouldn't it then stand to reason that he should not want the other team to do it against us?

 

[cuseincincy]

Here is something that I don't totally understand.

When we are winning games late, JB likes to go to the stall ball. He has his reasons, and I am not saying he is wrong, so by doing that, he seems to be saying that he thinks it is an effective strategy. So wouldn't it then stand to reason that he should not want the other team to do it against us?

I think the difference is in end game situations JB is willing to trade time off the clock for a good shot. Whereas employing the strategy game long would not be something he would do. I look at it sort like the prevent defense in football. Most fans hate it. Some coaches proclaim to hate it. But, though it may not seem like it sometimes, it probably is a good strategy more often than not when you have the lead late. You wouldnt do it game long though.