So your stance is D1 athletes don't have enough competitive spirit to want to try hard on defense after a season like last year, but at the same time, they do care enough about playing time to start trying harder if the coach benches them. Gotcha oh wise one.
TRANSCRIPT: Fran McCaffery Media Day
- Thread starter RobHowe
- Start date
lightning1
Well-Known Member
My stance is that you're an idiot.
Well that's the smartest thing you've ever said on here.
lightning1
Well-Known Member
I meant it in the friendliest possible way.
Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
Going back in time, one of my favorite small but athletic teams was UTEP 1987. Tim Hardaway, Jeep Jackson, a young Antonio Davis. Both of those guards were baerly six feet tall (Jackson might have been 6'1"). Starting center Mike Richmond had to stretch to make it to 6'8". But they knocked Arizona out of that tournament on Lute's home floor, then gave us all we could handle in round two. It was a travesty that they were a seven seed, they should have been higher. The classic game with us is occasionally on TV and should not be missed. Marble went off for 28, 6'5" Chris Blocker rose up on the baseline and dunked right in Brad Lohaus' grill (or was it Quintan Gates at about the same height?) That floor was teeming with future NBA players and would have another if not for the Jeep Jackson tragedy.
The Cleveland State team in 1986 that famously knocked Indiana out of the NCAA'S was ever smaller and even more athletic. Led by Clinton Ransey and Mouse McFadden, they played the most vicious full court press I've ever seen, bar none. It's no coincidence that their coach Kevin Mackey was a Tom Davis disciple but they could have given even our 1987 team a run for their money.
Sadly, our days off having that kind of athleticism are long gone. So going small for long periods of time is out of the question. Roy Marble and Kevin Gamble are not walking through that door. Gerry Wright is not protecting the rim.
MWS604
Well-Known Member
Until we can defend decent PGs, I don't think significant improvement in our half-court defense is likely. Last year our opponents had 60 more steals than we did. Since many steals lead to easy, undefended baskets, we can improve our defensive stats by better passing and if Cook can turn it over less. He led the team last year with 82 TOs.
There's an angle I haven't really heard brought up that I was wondering about. It's been defense defense defense as far as talk about what needs to improved upon right? And rightfully so don't get me wrong. I also wonder if offensively we can be better. What if we can put up 6-8 more pts a game on the board? We have a group of guys that have all been through the wars now that have played together (with the major newbies being JW and I'll even count CM as one) What if we are more efficient on O and improve on free throw shooting and just have an all around better offensive team as well? I could see that being the case and nothing would help alleviate what ails us at the defensive end than that.
Jason Rann
Well-Known Member
You're absolutely right. We averaged over 13 turnovers/game last season putting us at 222nd in the country. Knock that to 10 and we would go all the way to 15th. I am convinced this is possible, especially when you consider how many of our turnovers were of the unforced variety, sloppy passes, loose ball handling resulting in steals, etc.
Here is where you get the rest of those points...steals. We were 277th in the country last year only averaging five/game. Just improving that to seven/game gets us to around 60th in the country. Modest improvement on defensive fundamentals, better rotations and positioning should make that possible, especially with our maturity.
No doubt about it 13 TOs is too many. 10 or so I think they could live with but even 8 or 9 would be better as an avg. Might be tough to do with their style of play but like you said they have 3 or 4 really bad dumb preventable ones every game that if you score on half of those that's 6 pts a game or more right there. Getting steals and an easy runout once or twice a game sure wouldn't hurt either. The good ole Mr. Davis Days provided many of those it seemed like. Back then their were less ball handlers on the court and it was easier to pressure teams into TOs like that but it's still something we can ramp up on.
Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
Yeah, there were still echoes of the types of offenses run by John Wooden, Denny Crum, Bobby Knight, Ralph Miller, etc. They preached floor spacing, movement without the ball, passing over dribbling, limited individual creative freedom for the point guard. Different times in the early Mr. Davis days, which combined with the athletes Raveling recruited, made their pressure defense that much more effective. Indiana in particular had a tough time with it. They lost in Carver by double digits five years in a row, including their 1987 championship year. I would bet that no other team can make that boast against any Knight coached team.
The championship Bulls of the 1990's had the greatest active player on the planet, yet still ran the old triangle offense, another offense that favors spacing and passing over dribbling.
Yeah that's something that's rarely talked about now. Big guys shooting outside has been a thing for quite awhile now but how about the amount of guys that are 6-7 and taller that are competent ball handlers. Not necessarily Penny Hardaway but plenty good enough to where they aren't dribbling it off their foot out of bounds all the time. I think when teams have 3 or 4 guys on the court that comfortably handle pressure and handle the ball in the open court it makes full court pressuring them almost pointless to do. Back then when teams were really PG dependent to be your primary ball handler all you had to do was get it out of his hands and go to town. Steve Alford could shoot. Boy he could shoot but he wasn't a full court ball handler against longer athletic defenders.... Hence his lack of success in the pros.
lightning1
Well-Known Member
We lost 14 BIG games last season by an average of 12.3 PPG. If we cut our turnovers from 13 down to 8.5 per game ( which would lead all D-1 teams tied with Virginia) and apply those 4.5 possessions to our production of 1.09 points per possession...that's adding an average of 4.9 points per game to our total. Which, as you can see, is < than 12.3 PPG that we got smoked by in conference play. Even if we were to apply that 4.9 PPG to each BIG contest, it's only good enough to give us 4 more conference wins for an 8-10 record. Basically, a top 25 ranking in offensive efficiency and a #1 ranking in fewest turnovers per game is still only good enough to get us to 8 BIG conference wins. I appreciate what you guys are trying to do but this is absolutely a defense problem. It only gets fixed by committing to playing better defense or recruiting better defensive players. Or both!
lightning1
Well-Known Member
I favor spacing and passing over dribbling. If you can't get to where you need to be in 2 dribbles, the chance of a turnover goes way up. One player over dribbling stagnates the offense. It leads to players standing around off the ball. It makes it easier for defenses to stop the ball and force a turnover. It's just bad basketball.
Probably why I can't watch the NBA.
lightning1
Well-Known Member
And taller players are more comfortable passing the basketball too. The days of hoping the ball gets to a big that can't make a simple pass, are also pretty much gone.
Oh for sure the math is what it is. I think even moderate improvement that's realistic in every facet of the game especially defense and rebounding at both ends is what it'll take to drastically flip our win/loss record. I was just adding some lessor brought up areas we could also improve on.
Yes I should have included that as well as it is what I meant by ball handling overall. I just didn't spell it out separately. There are tons of not only good enough passers but really darn good ones out there now. Some old farts like to complain about the lack of fundamentals in the game but I think now more than ever there's more players that can dribble, drive, pass and shoot than ever before at all levels. Maybe defense needs to be focused in on more but like with football the rules are so slanted towards offenses it almost is what it is...
lightning1
Well-Known Member
I hope everyone understands a few things. Better defense = fewer possessions. For our team and the other team. Better defense = less energy on the offensive end. Less energy often leads to more mistakes/TOs, not fewer. If anyone here is expecting: Better offensive efficiency + more PPG, + fewer turnovers + better defense = our 2018-19 season.....better prepare themselves for reality. The only way to play better defense is to sacrifice personal stats and offensive numbers.
lightning1
Well-Known Member
The individual skills are better but the team fundamentals are way down. Team basketball IQ is way down. Players that know their roles are way down. I often have to teach 15, 16 and 17 year olds things that I learned as a 12 year old on the play ground. Things that I learned from the older kids because I didn't have a choice. If I wanted to play with the older kids, they told me what I was going to do and that was that. As I improved and proved myself, they let me do more.
Northside Hawk
Well-Known Member
Our AAU coaches ran a drill almost every practice where two teams scrimmaged five on five and dribbling wasn't allowed. It helped especially against a zone defense because it got them thinking two passes ahead and they learned to trust each other. Once they got the zone out of position, in a game, then they could attack with the dribble. A lot of easy baskets and trips to the free throw line. You see it all the time in middle school tournaments, one person dribbling away and the other four stand around and watch. If other teams dribble too much against our middle school team they preach trapping the ball handler to one side of the floor, then to half of that. Before you know it he's trapped in a corner. Yet in college and the pros you see dribble, dribble, dribble. Maybe it started when the kids grew up with the three point shot and the drive and kick game. Or maybe when pressure defense put a premium on the point gueard handling the ball more. But it seems like we're in a rut where dribbling is in and like you said it can make the NBA, and some college, tough to watch.
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That would make all the sense in the world if you have a tight rotation with most of your starters playing heavy mins. JBo is the only one last yr that played enough every game to be dead tired at the end. Hopefully CM stays healthy and plays well so JBo won't have to play 32 plus mins a game again. I don't think with this group of guys who typically don't play enough that it'd be a physical exertion issue that'd affect their play at both ends. I'm only assuming that Fran is playing 10 plus guys a lot again though which it kinda sounds like will be happening..
