Just curious what folks thoughts are on a 3-2 zone? This likely works best with a lineup of Sanogo, AJ, Hawk, Clingon, and Diarra. You got Clingon and Sanogo protecting inside, and the zone approach outside works well with AJ's strengths. Mid-range would be where teams could get us (like Marquette did), but it seems like it could at least be a fresh coat of paint we need during this mid-season slump.
3-2 Zone?
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Yesterday a 2-3 would have been better. SJU can’t shoot to save their lives, so the right adjustment was to force them to shoot over the zone and then have someone find and box out Soriano as their only offensive rebounding threat
But 3-2 would have also been infinitely better compared to the defense we ran, which seemed like “funnel them into the paint”
But 3-2 would have also been infinitely better compared to the defense we ran, which seemed like “funnel them into the paint”
Doctor Hoop
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You can play the 3-2 as a matchup zone, or as Raftery would say, "zone ... with man-to-man principles." That might be a good option behind Hurley's man D, rather than 1-3-1 which is really most effective if you are good at trapping aggressively out of it. 'Nova used that effectively in the past at times. It keeps your bigs down low, you play tight on the strong side, and off a bit sagging the paint on the weak side. Close out to recover as the ball swings. But you can't get beat on the dribble, or allow cutters to catch in the paint, that'll break it down. Also, teams can try to overload on the strong side, and your 3-2 needs to know how to handle that without giving up an open look to a skip pass.
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No. No. We are a truly atrocious zone defensive team from the couple random experiments, and its just not a long term option.
Just stop the hard hedge chaos and situational play, reduce complexity and chaos, play drop coverage, close out solid, stop reaching and being undisciplined. We are making defense much too hard.
Just stop the hard hedge chaos and situational play, reduce complexity and chaos, play drop coverage, close out solid, stop reaching and being undisciplined. We are making defense much too hard.
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We have length and athleticism, if we practiced it we could be good at it. I know it's tough for a coach to introduce a new approach in January, and it could lead to the wheels falling off completely. But something needs to change.
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Thing is, we did that yesterday vs. SJU (see @auror 's 2nd-half analysis thread). We mainly have an effort and execution issue with this team, not mainly a strategy & coaching problem.
Whine about Hurley all you want (and to be fair, if you are blaming things mostly on coaching...you should also be just as critical of Kimani, Luke, and Tom too), but our problem is mostly that the kids mainly need to figure out how to play again.
That includes simply putting the ball in the hoop at a reasonable clip. Don't ask me what happened. Wish I knew.
"It's the Big East scouting" is not an excuse. We are still getting loads of clean good looks at 2's and 3's on offense. Alabama, Iowa St., etc. have just as good if not better athletic guards as any team in the Big East. They weren't blowing by our perimeter defense with reckless abandon like guards are now. And even when it did happen, our help defense would contain it.
Frustrating, head-scratching stuff, for sure.
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it wasn’t the hard hedge. It was tight man on bad three point shooters that beat us almost every time off the dribble. I’m sure all the coaches told them to stop reaching.
When Donovan came in we should have switched to 2-3. Not saying stay in it but switch up the looks. 1-3-1 wasn’t really working and man def was not.