Enjoyed the latest Miller/Deace Podcast

HaydenHawk56

HaydenHawk56

Well-Known Member
My take:
Did not pull punches.....defense (poor coaching) and not having a point guard is the biggest culprits to Iowa's woes. Does not take rocket science....except maybe for this coaching staff.
 
Both right on going all in on zone defense during the off season. A few have suggested staying with man to man defense and that is laughable. It is common knowledge that slower, less talented teams go to zone defense which forces the opponent to beat you from the outside. Even the best players shoot on average only thirty-five percent from three point land.

Also Iowa height advantage (except at point guard........could have really used Williams there this year) prohibits teams from throwing it over the top against a properly taught zone defense. The problem we have here is that it appears that Fran can’t coach defense and zone when they do run zone it looks so screwed up.

I can’t really go into breaking it down further without pointing out and naming individual players and criticizing them. I am hoping that at least one player I am thinking about transfers as he seems to bring very little to the offense and his defensive skills don’t seem too apparent either. I would trade Williams back for him at the drop of a hat. Williams with his height and fair quickness would have at least slowed opponents attack at the guard position. Fingers crosssed that this player transfers and Fran can pick up a JUCO guard who can at least play defense.

Again there are other things I could point out but I do t want to call any players out on here. It’s chicken $h!t to hide behind a forum name and call out the players by name.
 
BigD said:
It is common knowledge that slower, less talented teams go to zone defense which forces the opponent to beat you from the outside. Even the best players shoot on average only thirty-five percent from three point land.
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In today’s day and age unfortunately that’s just not true. Many guys are up well above the 40% mark. There are 15+ guys in the B1G over 40% on the season.

I’m not sure if I have any confidence in fran’s ability to coach a zone defense at this point.
 
NikeHawk21 said:
In today’s day and age unfortunately that’s just not true. Many guys are up well above the 40% mark. There are 15+ guys in the B1G over 40% on the season.

I’m not sure if I have any confidence in fran’s ability to coach a zone defense at this point.
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Yea, that used to be the threshold of a good 3 pt shooter, but not anymore. I agree it's up in the 40 range. The 3 pt shot has been around for 30 some years now and all kid's practice it. They probably take more 3's than free throws or 2 pt shots including layups. This has bolstered the shooting % over time.

To support your statement, I have a 5th grade son who started taking 3 pt'ers this year and he's well into the 40% range, probably between 45-50% somewhere. He doesn't take a lot of them in games and seems to only take when open. He'll take usually 1-3 a game. He will hit 1 of 3 or 2 of 4, sometimes 2 of 3. Seems like he usually at least gets 1 a game, often 2 a game and occasionally 3 a game, like 3-5. Last week had a game where went 5 of 6 (missed 1st one then 5 in a row). So, if I were to add up I think he's well into the mid 40% area.
 
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NikeHawk21 said:
In today’s day and age unfortunately that’s just not true. Many guys are up well above the 40% mark. There are 15+ guys in the B1G over 40% on the season.

I’m not sure if I have any confidence in fran’s ability to coach a zone defense at this point.
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Prairie high school has 3 kids that shoot 40% from 3pt range. And all 3 of them can hit from NBA range. I'd never coach a zone defense in college basketball, if I was serious about my job. Never, ever, ever. Too many guys can knock down shots from 23'-25'. I did a shot count on Indiana in another thread, with estimated distance on each shot. Out of 14 made 3pt shots, only 1 of those was at the 21' line. 12 of the other 13 were 22' to 25'. 1 was made at 26 or 27'. And they are one of the poorer 3pt shooting teams in the conference.
Even really long players in a typical zone defense would have trouble getting to 23' to challenge those shots.
 
lightning1 said:
Prairie high school has 3 kids that shoot 40% from 3pt range. And all 3 of them can hit from NBA range. I'd never coach a zone defense in college basketball, if I was serious about my job. Never, ever, ever. Too many guys can knock down shots from 23'-25'. I did a shot count on Indiana in another thread, with estimated distance on each shot. Out of 14 made 3pt shots, only 1 of those was at the 21' line. 12 of the other 13 were 22' to 25'. 1 was made at 26 or 27'. And they are one of the poorer 3pt shooting teams in the conference.
Even really long players in a typical zone defense would have trouble getting to 23' to challenge those shots.
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If you are going to play zone, you better be good at having your hands up disrupting passing lanes, communicating, extending it, and having a real good rim protector on the back end. You better have countless drills in practice rebounding out of the zone and finding a man to block out. All things it would appear Iowa is not good at or does not emphasize.

But, they suck at man to. It is almost like pick your poison.
 
One thing (out of many) that really bothers me with the zone defense is the lack of hands/arms in passing lanes. Iowa is tall and long, they need to extend their arms and "own" the passing lanes. That's something Aaron white did really well, for example. The zone should create a lot more turnovers than it does
 
mopkins said:
One thing (out of many) that really bothers me with the zone defense is the lack of hands/arms in passing lanes. Iowa is tall and long, they need to extend their arms and "own" the passing lanes. That's something Aaron white did really well, for example. The zone should create a lot more turnovers than it does
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Mr. Davis's teams were really good at this. I have his zone defense dvd......he really emphasized having hands up and communicating. Although they still had their problems with defending the 3, they did a much better job forcing turnovers out of the zone and certainly rebounding out of it.
 
I just listened to the podcast and they are correct on some things. If you are going to play a zone defense, you better commit to it and practice the hell out of it! But I disagree that you can effectively employ the zone defense in today's college game at a place like Iowa. Jon and Deace kept referencing teams/coaches from the 80s and 90s, that had good zone defense teams. One minute Deace is perfectly describing the difference between offenses of the 80s/90s and today's college offense and the next minute he's saying "play zone - lots of coaches from the 80s and 90s did it well"???
Jim Boeheim is probably the best zone coach in P5 conference basketball. He's been coaching it for 3 centuries, it seems like. And he recruits at a very high level, consistently. If we could recruit like Boeheim, I'd be all for committing to a zone defense. The other P5 or 6 conference coaches that still use the zone defense primarily, recruit high level athletes for their programs. Huggins (West Virginia), Drew (Baylor) and Beilein (Michigan) all recruit considerably better athletes than Fran does.
 
In todays world the only D you can run exclusively and be highly relevant is man to man. and you need darn good/fast players to do that.

If you can only play zone because you can't do anything else, you need new players.
 
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NikeHawk21 said:
In today’s day and age unfortunately that’s just not true. Many guys are up well above the 40% mark. There are 15+ guys in the B1G over 40% on the season.

I’m not sure if I have any confidence in fran’s ability to coach a zone defense at this point.
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I know I have severe doubts about him being able to coach defense period.
 
Given how the current roster is constructed I have given up on defense. I don’t think Fran can fix this. Just get better and more efficient on the offensive end. Outscore people. No one agrees with this, but I don’t care, increase the number of possessions you are getting.
 
If I know anything about Gary Barta...he's going to require Fran to change up his staff and bring in a defensive minded bench coach. Gary is on this I'm sure. When the season is over, it's the first thing announced.

Honestly, I think we should get Gene Hackman. Those Hoosier guys could play defense and they were tough. Is he still coaching? Fran better not get caught watching the paint dry on this one. I'm pretty sure it's too late to get Dennis Hopper though...although we play defense like we are dead, so maybe there is some correlation there.
 
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WinOneThisCentury said:
If I know anything about Gary Barta...he's going to require Fran to change up his staff and bring in a defensive minded bench coach. Gary is on this I'm sure. When the season is over, it's the first thing announced.

Honestly, I think we should get Gene Hackman. Those Hoosier guys could play defense and they were tough. Is he still coaching? Fran better not get caught watching the paint dry on this one. I'm pretty sure it's too late to get Dennis Hopper though...although we play defense like we are dead, so maybe there is some correlation there.
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...because Gutless Gary has forced KF to get good offensive coordinators, when our offense was garbage????
Can you give us an example of why you believe this?
 
lightning1 said:
...because Gutless Gary has forced KF to get good offensive coordinators, when our offense was garbage????
Can you give us an example of why you believe this?
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I thought there was a good chance his post was a joke after the first paragraph. The second paragraph where he talked about actors being our coach sealed the deal for me.
 
BigD said:
Both right on going all in on zone defense during the off season. A few have suggested staying with man to man defense and that is laughable. It is common knowledge that slower, less talented teams go to zone defense which forces the opponent to beat you from the outside. Even the best players shoot on average only thirty-five percent from three point land.
Click to expand...
As others have pointed out, your "average" percentage is off. Also you don't need to make as many 3 point shots obviously. If you shoot 15 threes and make 40% that's 18 points. If you shoot 15 twos you have to be at 50% or greater to make the same 18 points. Not always easy.
 
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