NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
Per KenPom
2017: 123
2018: 242
2019: 120
3 year average of 167.
Discuss.
2017: 123
2018: 242
2019: 120
3 year average of 167.
Discuss.
Defensive Efficiency in Cook Bohannon Era
- Thread starter NikeHawk21
- Start date
SpiderRico
Well-Known Member
We used to be a top 30 defensive efficiency team...but we still faded at the end of the year...
Iowa Defensive Efficiency - Instant Classic Hawkeye Oxymoron
smitharooney
Well-Known Member
This team has bigger issues than defense
I’m not sure what KenPom uses to calculate their rankings so fill me in if you wouldn’t mind. I usually look at teamrankings.com which I believe goes strictly on points per possession.
2018-2019: 205
17-18: 308
16-17: 200
Gesell, Sapp, Woodbury era
15-16: 76
14-15: 40
13-14: 60
12-13: 33
Going further I checked Iowa’s efficiency in their last 3 games in each of the ncaa tournament seasons to see how their D measured up come tournament time. Their points per possession in those last 3 games would have ranked like this:
15-16: 222
14-15: 212
13-14: 337
So you can see even during the Mikey, Sapp, & Woody era when Iowa has better individual defenders and their overall season ranking was better, their defense plummeted in the B1G & NCAA tournaments. 13-14 was a total train wreck.
I have to disagree here. Iowa’s D under Fran has been simply awful. Consistently awful. There were years when better individual defenders picked up the slack and were solid but it appears teams figure them out as the season goes and it shows up big time at the end of the year.
Even in their NIT seasons they were undone by teams scoring a bunch of points.
I would love to see what a Tom Davis could accomplish with the talent on this years team. Fran seems like a great guy, but he doesn't seem to have a clue on how to utilize the talent. Tom Davis was a master at it. I have a feeling we will have Fran as the head coach for years to come. It would be nice if Iowa would get a new coach. Fran has already made millions off of Iowa.
smitharooney
Well-Known Member
I’m only talking this team right now
mopkins
King Kong
This is such a great post, and I honestly can't wait until Cook/Bohannon are gone.
I really think they came in at the wrong time. When they were Freshman, Jok was a senior. Jok didn't exactly play defense either so they had nobody to look up to. They missed the era where defense mattered at Iowa and they don't give a flying F about defense at all.
JG10Hawk
Well-Known Member
Solid post.
Just thought I'd add in that Kenpom uses the same concept as teamrankings but adds in an opponent strength element to get to his "adjusted efficiency" ratings. Teamrankings' calculation of efficiency is the estimated stat in it's simplest form which does not account for the opponent strength.That's why you see Grand Canyon as the top defensive efficiency team last year on teamrankings but 50th in Kenpom.
Side note, the NET rankings formula uses the teamrankings approach for calculating it's efficiency element which can help skew rankings due to destroying a bunch of really bad teams.
JG10Hawk
Well-Known Member
Taking the teamrankings approach, it looks like Iowa's defense was pretty decent last night. They held Wisconsin to 0.945 points per possession which on average would be a top 50 defensive efficiency performance. Unfortunately Wisconsin held Iowa to an extremely brutal 0.654 points per possession which would be dead last on average (0.826 is the average worst offensive efficiency rating).
hawkdrummer1
Well-Known Member
some things are self-evident
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
My theory on that is it is caused by our gimmick defenses. We play a bunch of defenses but aren’t particularly good at any. By the end of the seasons most well coached teams are playing their best ball, they make sharp crisp passes and know where to move on offense, plus they have plenty of tape on how to exploit the hawks.
Many people actually believe zone defense is simply a lazy defense, and maybe there is some truth to that as well.
I still remember Nova (who obviously was a great team) absolutely dismantling our stupid press. It looked like they were running one of those 3 on 2 drills against a JV team for an entire game.
JG10Hawk
Well-Known Member
There is definitely some truth to that. Players tend to relax a bit and conserve energy for offense knowing they can guard a spot vs having to constantly trail the same guy.
That said, zone can be a very good option for teams with length(helps with close outs and denying passing lanes) that communicate switches and play solid defense collectively. This team has played some really good zone at times. The problem is that for a zone to be consistently effective everyone has to be on the same page at all times and hustle when ball movement/reversals start to move the zone.
Another key thing is to be active in boxing out when a shot goes up. Being lazy and ball watching vs finding a guy to box out is what leads to so many offensive boards out of a zone. Unfortunately this team tends to ball watch more than finding a guy to box out.
NikeHawk21
Well-Known Member
It’s amazing how poor this team is at blocking out, especially considering they aren’t that athletic. Normally guys and teams who are not athletic learn the importance of blocking out, for example Wisconsin, Iowa for some reason just doesn’t do it.
Robowe
Well-Known Member
Blocking out is like defense ... needs concentration/focus to do it every time. That is not there with this team in either case (rebounding/defense). It will take a culture change (getting players willing to do the dirty work) for it to change long term.
homes
Well-Known Member
My addition to the discussion - To quote the Beatles - I got to admit it's getting better, it's a little better all the time
As a basketball player or coach if you can get more points from a player than they give up then you are ok. But a lot of teams do not track this.
It has long been a tenet of MLB that you can hide a highly productive offensive player with home run power who is a defensive liability mainly in left field and maybe less so in right field. You could do this for a player or two in Basketball but not when 80% of your players are bad defenders.
This last couple of weeks I just have not been watching the games as the players do not look inspired and they look like they are sleepwalking in the first half especially
It has long been a tenet of MLB that you can hide a highly productive offensive player with home run power who is a defensive liability mainly in left field and maybe less so in right field. You could do this for a player or two in Basketball but not when 80% of your players are bad defenders.
This last couple of weeks I just have not been watching the games as the players do not look inspired and they look like they are sleepwalking in the first half especially
