This Tournament Really is an Indictment of our Strategy

[Orangeman]

Everyone can handle. Everyone can shoot. Players generally know what to do during most/all game situations (foul/not foul, etc).

EVERY team can shoot threes for a stretch. The 2-3 zone is probably the exact wrong defense to play against this next generation of players.

Ball movement creating good shots happens across the spectrum of Major, mid-major, etc. Our Offense is just plain bad, no question about it.

It's been said a lot, but our "recruit to a position/skill-set" is probably not the answer.

You need to be able to switch D's to defend shooters...

Our press needs a ton of work...it shouldn't/doesn't have to be do or die.

In short, this post is highly redundant to the board's reactionaries (myself included), but tying it back to the winning play on the court, we just aren't doing things right.

 

[sufandu]

Watching Duke pressure guys 10 feet behind the 3 point line and occasionally trapping them at halfcourt while playing a 16 seed is frustrating when I see us wait for teams to get within 5 feet of the three point line before we raise our arms. I wish I could see more killer instinct from our teams.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Oh sweet jeebus, not every game has to be a referendum on how we play. No matter the result.

 

[jdubs30]

I agree on a high level with most of what OP said.

Fact is even as recent as 5 years ago a lot of college teams had trouble scoring. We made a wall at the 3pt line and said “shoot it”. But now most of these teams have 3-4 guys on the floor at any given time who can make those shots. Our days of daring teams to shoot 35 3s a game are over simply because mostly everyone can shoot now. Yeah it won us the first Duke game but has lost us a lot of games this year

 

[CorduroyG]

we can still play zone, but we need to adjust it to defend the 3 pt line. dont collapse every time a guard penetrates, or every time its passed to the foul line. the top of the zone needs to extend further out. this needs to happen from the opening tip.

the college game is turning into a 3 pt contest. the 3 pt line needs to be moved back. but jb needs to adjust the zone, the days of sitting back and playing the percentages and hoping teams clang 3s are over

 

[dollarbill44]

we can still play zone, but we need to adjust it to defend the 3 pt line. dont collapse every time a guard penetrates, or every time its passed to the foul line. the top of the zone needs to extend further out. this needs to happen from the opening tip.

the college game is turning into a 3 pt contest. the 3 pt line needs to be moved back. but jb needs to adjust the zone, the days of sitting back and playing the percentages and hoping teams clang 3s are over

I agree with not collapsing every time the ball gets to the FT line. The only problem with continuing with the zone and extending it out is rebounding. The offense has a distinct advantage because they are facing the basket and get a one or two step advantage on us when a shot goes up. If we have only a C and maybe a weakside F to rebound against 2 or 3 offensive players, we're going to continue to get burned.
I would like to see us go back to the mixed D we played for JBs first 25 years.
If we do stay with the zone, we absolutely have to be better on offense so that when we play teams that are shooting the 3 well, we can at least score with them. These last 5 years have been excruciating for us long time fans who grew up with talented offensive teams. And no more clumsy centers please.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Oh sweet jeebus, not every game has to be a referendum on how we play. No matter the result.

To be fair to the OP he is referencing our strategy and how this tournament shows it doesn’t work. And we have to look all the way to 2018 to show a time when it did work. So there’s that.

 

[OrangeFoo]

To be fair to the OP he is referencing our strategy and how this tournament shows it doesn’t work. And we have to look all the way to 2018 to show a time when it did work. So there’s that.

Or maybe the point is we reached peak zone the year we made the NCAA and while we will still have some good results... the trends might not be great?

For better or for worse we look we are playing a different game than a lot of other teams. We will see if that is a good thing of a bad thing or just a thing.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Or maybe the point is we reached peak zone the year we made the NCAA and while we will still have some good results... the trends might not be great?

For better or for worse we look we are playing a different game than a lot of other teams. We will see if that is a good thing of a bad thing or just a thing.

Agree. We don’t know what it means but a lot of people are acting like this is it. Nowhere to go from here.

 

[RICuse44]

I guess my question would be if 2-3 zone all the time is the best defense then why hasn’t everyone else copied it?

Crossing streams a bit think of the the run pass option in football. Very successful and was initially described as a gimmick or system offense. Now nearly every college and most pro teams use it.

A lot of college and some pro teams use zone in situations. Not all the time though.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I am more concerned about the offense than the defense.

We struggle shooting.
Our bigs can’t do anything offensively.
Our passing is not good.
We don’t finish at the rim well.

Most of our problems are related to offense and not defense.

 

[orangehomer]

i don't know if it is the defensive style so much as the seeming lack of foot speed. watching many of the other teams i am struck by how slow we were overall this year, not just straight line speed but overall quickness in general.

edit: also the overall lack of ballhandling. other teams get turnovers and they are off to the races. we generally have 3 guys at a time that can't take two dribbles in the open court or make an open court pass.

 

[newmexicuse]

Everyone can handle. Everyone can shoot. Players generally know what to do during most/all game situations (foul/not foul, etc).

EVERY team can shoot threes for a stretch. The 2-3 zone is probably the exact wrong defense to play against this next generation of players.

Ball movement creating good shots happens across the spectrum of Major, mid-major, etc. Our Offense is just plain bad, no question about it.

It's been said a lot, but our "recruit to a position/skill-set" is probably not the answer.

You need to be able to switch D's to defend shooters...

Our press needs a ton of work...it shouldn't/doesn't have to be do or die.

In short, this post is highly redundant to the board's reactionaries (myself included), but tying it back to the winning play on the court, we just aren't doing things right.

I think you have it backwards. The board's reactionaries are those that do not want change.

I see a few problems with the two-three:

1. It is not dynamic, ie, we do the same thing regardless of what is happening.

2. We rarely find the hot hand. Nobody should ever make more than two threes against us without then getting special attention on each touch. How many times do we see guys make four, five, or more threes against us and still not have a hand in the face. You give something up when you extend, so extending should be an adjustment not our core D, but we never seem to adjust, which is the big problem.

3. In terms of the poster above who said we should not collapse, i gave him a like. We should not collapse automatically, but we should collapse if the other team has a player who is effective at the key. Most teams do not have that kind of a player. Duke made the adjustment and had Tre Jones really hurt us from that spot.

4. It is totally inexcusable that we are 100% zone, and do not even make opponents waste prep time. They are totally free to just hone in.

5. In terms of our O, I think a lot of the issue goes to the lack of talent at the PG and C spots. There can only be somuch creativity when every play has to be run thru the 2, 3, and 4 spots. Of course, that raises the issue of who is responsible for roster construction and recruitment strategy.

It is pretty clear that the game is changing and jimmy becomes less and less adaptable over time.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[Ghost]

Watching Duke pressure guys 10 feet behind the 3 point line and occasionally trapping them at halfcourt while playing a 16 seed is frustrating when I see us wait for teams to get within 5 feet of the three point line before we raise our arms. I wish I could see more killer instinct from our teams.

I'm fine with us sticking with our defense forever as long as we start recruiting kids with some offensive aptitude, and a PG!

My only concern with the zone, and it's been this way forever, is that we don't do things like what's listed above. We used to trap...we haven't trapped a player in like 7 years.

We don't apply pressure, we don't force pace on teams that suck and that we could beat by 30 points on talent alone if we forced some tempo on them.

We can easily lose a tournament game, or any game to a crap team like Vermont because the zone will allow them to minimize possessions and just hope they get hot enough to keep it close - and sometimes that's enough to pull it out in the end. Our defensive efficiency will still look great though!

We've become so offensively stupid though that we're relying upon the reverse - that we can keep games close because of the zone, and then pull them out. It's meant a couple deep runs in recent years - but I can't say it's enjoyable basketball.

Get me a POINT GUARD!

 

[tbonezone]

somebody hits 6 threes in the first half you scrap what you're doing and pin a man to his jersey.
you don't just "pray" he cools off. box and 1 whatever. but 1 man stays in his grille every possession.

 

[OHIORANGES]

Everyone can handle. Everyone can shoot. Players generally know what to do during most/all game situations (foul/not foul, etc).

EVERY team can shoot threes for a stretch. The 2-3 zone is probably the exact wrong defense to play against this next generation of players.

Ball movement creating good shots happens across the spectrum of Major, mid-major, etc. Our Offense is just plain bad, no question about it.

It's been said a lot, but our "recruit to a position/skill-set" is probably not the answer.

You need to be able to switch D's to defend shooters...

Our strategy probably shouldn’t be to have our Senior Co-captain point guard suspended for failing a drug test

Our press needs a ton of work...it shouldn't/doesn't have to be do or die.

In short, this post is highly redundant to the board's reactionaries (myself included), but tying it back to the winning play on the court, we just aren't doing things right.

our

 

[newmexicuse]

somebody hits 6 threes in the first half you scrap what you're doing and pin a man to his jersey.
you don't just "pray" he cools off. box and 1 whatever. but 1 man stays in his grille every possession.

Box and One - not two three zone - non sequitor - does not compute, does not compute, does not compute !!

 

[Ghost]

somebody hits 6 threes in the first half you scrap what you're doing and pin a man to his jersey.
you don't just "pray" he cools off. box and 1 whatever. but 1 man stays in his grille every possession.

I would say there are two type of scenarios that play out:

If the team is hitting tough threes (which isn't the same thing as contested in my mind) - in that case I'm okay with staying zone. If guys are hitting shots off curls, off the bounce, etc...I'm kind of fine with JB rolling the dice on the percentages. If they're hitting tough shots, shooting whilst on the move, off the bounce, etc...I'm not sure going straight up M2M is going to help.

The second scenario would be like the UVA game -- where people are going bombs away on set shots...

I know people think those are tough shots because some are "contested," but in that scenario, I'd just like to see us change the game up. Make them take some shots off the bounce, off curls, etc...they're clearly in a zone when it comes to spotting up, close-out of not, they're shooting spot up threes and they're comfortable doing so...sitting back letting them go off at a 50%+ clip seems dim.

We just let them stay in that comfort zone and pray they cool down, or late close-outs scare them into missing.

It's the Buddy thing...set shots are easy, make him move, and he's not the same shooter.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

Games evolve. Football has changed from the heavy run, option style offense to the RPO spread offense. Defenses are forced to change to combat the offense.

College basketball offense is changing. 3 pointers are up. Low post and mid range game is slowly dying. Zone was great at defending the game from 1990 to 2010. It’s not so great at defending today’s game.

I’d like to see us at least develop the option to have pressure man-to-man. Most teams can drop into a zone if they need to. We can’t ever go to a man-to-man defense if the other team is shooting lights out. Our only hope is they cool off. That’s not a defense, that’s a prayer.

 

[RoysRunts]

Not what you play but who's playing it. Washington looked pretty good, as did Buffalo

 

[Cusefan0307]

Games evolve. Football has changed from the heavy run, option style offense to the RPO spread offense. Defenses are forced to change to combat the offense.

College basketball offense is changing. 3 pointers are up. Low post and mid range game is slowly dying. Zone was great at defending the game from 1990 to 2010. It’s not so great at defending today’s game.

I’d like to see us at least develop the option to have pressure man-to-man. Most teams can drop into a zone if they need to. We can’t ever go to a man-to-man defense if the other team is shooting lights out. Our only hope is they cool off. That’s not a defense, that’s a prayer.

We were 5th in defense last year. Sure I would like to switch it up, but our defense IMO was worse this year because the players just didn’t play it as well.

 

[OrangeDW]

somebody hits 6 threes in the first half you scrap what you're doing and pin a man to his jersey.
you don't just "pray" he cools off. box and 1 whatever. but 1 man stays in his grille every possession.

Yeah. It’s just that simple.

This isn’t high school.

 

[Cusefan0307]

When’s the last time anyone played a box and 1 in college? 1980?

 

[malpearl31]

2. We rarely find the hot hand. Nobody should ever make more than two threes against us without then getting special attention on each touch. How many times do we see guys make four, five, or more threes against us and still not have a hand in the face. You give something up when you extend, so extending should be an adjustment not our core D, but we never seem to adjust, which is the big problem.

There were 11 games this season when "hot player(s)" hit 5 or more 3s against us. We went 6-5 in those 11 games. 9 of those 11 games were in ACC or NCAA Tourney action. We were 4-5 in those games.

 

[Madbiker]

I am more concerned about the offense than the defense.

We struggle shooting.
Our bigs can’t do anything offensively.
Our passing is not good.
We don’t finish at the rim well.

Most of our problems are related to offense and not defense.

Yes. Fans are having a meltdown because Baylor shot the lights out against the zone. But if you look at the KenPom stats we were in the top 25 on defensive efficiency and we are almost every year. Our defense against 3 point shots is near the top of the ACC most years though wasn't as good as our standard this year. We led the ACC in turnovers forced for the 2nd straight year. We are not losing most of the time because of our defense. We are losing because our offensive efficiency is poor. We are perennially a poor 3 point shooting team percentage wise. We don't have enough shooters on the floor. We don't get easy 2 point baskets because we have no post up players. Most years we are near the bottom of the ACC in free throw percentage. Just like we were in the Big East...even though the players change, the result is pretty consistent. We need an offensive makeover. But it won't likely change under JB. It could improve if the absolute talent level of players improve. Like another Carmelo who can score no matter what system is being played. Barring that, it's going to be tweaks to the same old, same old. The game has changed offensively. and we are not adapting.