Daniel Hamilton Defense

[uchusky32]

When your eyes disagree with the stats, I'd be more worried about confirmation bias than the stats being wrong.

We not a good defensive team period. Stats don't tell you Adams and Gibbs can't keep guards out of the lane, without having to work hard to get there. Stats don't tell you Dham hedges off his man for wide open 3s even if they miss them.

 

[Silk31]

This is the worst defensive UConn team I have seen in a while!

This is the worst perimeter defense we have seen in the longest time. Aside from Purvis I have no faith in any1 keeping their man in front of them.

Our bigs are fine but they are getting exposed because they constantly have to help and rotate out of position because our perimeter D consistently plays matador D

 

[Leebo]

We not a good defensive team period. Stats don't tell you Adams and Gibbs can't keep guards out of the lane, without having to work hard to get there. Stats don't tell you Dham hedges off his man for wide open 3s even if they miss them.

Yes, that's what confirmation bias means. You are very good at noticing every bad thing they do. But we're giving up fewer points per 100 possessions than about 330 other teams, so maybe try to watch for why.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

Can we stop bringing this up? Statistics are important I'll never disagree with that. However, when you watch the game we are not a good defensive team, our rotations are terrible and we give up a ton of lay-ups. I don't need statistics to tell me that.

This is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

 

[uchusky32]

Yes, that's what confirmation bias means. You are very good at noticing every bad thing they do. But we're giving up fewer points per 100 possessions than about 330 other teams, so maybe try to watch for why.

Or the stats are making you look at everything they do well.

 

[Leebo]

Or the stats are making you look at everything they do well.

I'm not suggesting that they never do anything bad. I'm talking people off the ledge who are saying that it's the worst defense in the history of UConn or something.

It's a solid defensive team. It's not perfect. It's not god awful. It's good.

 

[uchusky32]

I'm not suggesting that they never do anything bad. I'm talking people off the ledge who are saying that it's the worst defense in the history of UConn or something.

No but they are the worst in quite awhile. Boat stop the opposing best guard from doing what they wanted last year. Trying to think back when I said we are terrible defensively. I'll be 50 tomorrow. Maybe Perno teams.

 

[Leebo]

Mo but they are the worst in quite awhile. Boat stop the opposing vest guard from doing what they wanted last year. Trying to think back when I said we are terrible defensively. I'll be 50 tomorrow. Maybe Perno teams.

We've already been over this, but this team is better defensively than last year, regardless of whether your eyes liked what you saw more or not. It's not up for debate unless this team starts to do worse in the future.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

No but they are the worst in quite awhile. Boat stop the opposing best guard from doing what they wanted last year. Trying to think back when I said we are terrible defensively. I'll be 50 tomorrow. Maybe Perno teams.

I retract my previous statement. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

We've already been over this, but this team is better defensively than last year, regardless of whether your eyes liked what you saw more or not. It's not up for debate unless this team starts to do worse in the future.

In fact, they're a better defensive team than 3 out of the 4 last Uconn teams!

 

[uchusky32]

I retract my previous statement. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

We've already been over this, but this team is better defensively than last year, regardless of whether your eyes liked what you saw more or not. It's not up for debate unless this team starts to do worse in the future.

I give you yes last year team was worse but the amount of blow bys our guards are giving up and the amount of layups because Brimah is out is pathetic. And with Brimah out you stats will change.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Bear in mind that those statistics currently include 7 cupcake games and 0 conference games. Let's see where the numbers end up by the end of the year.

That said, I think people are in denial when they say this isn't a bad defensive team by UConn standards.

On the other hand, they are a breath of fresh air on the offensive side compared to what we've seen for the previous 5 years.

 

[Leebo]

I give you yes last year team was worse but the amount of blow bus our guards are giving up and the amount of layups because Brimah is out is pathetic. And with Brimah out you stats will change.

If that happens, I'm happy to discuss it, but our defensive efficiency improved with last night's game. So, for now it's a baseless assertion.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

Bear in mind that those statistics currently include 7 cupcake games and 0 conference games. Let's see where the numbers end up by the end of the year.

That said, I think people are in denial when they say this isn't a bad defensive team by UConn standards.

On the other hand, they are a breath of fresh air on the offensive side compared to what we've seen for the previous 5 years.

It'd adjusted defensive efficiency. It takes into consideration opponent. I'm guessing you don't understand how statistics work.

Also, our Adjusted offensive efficiency is #42. We have a better defense than we do offense.

 

[polycom]

This is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

So you're a blind believer in the statistics huh? You must not watch games and only look at the box score.

 

[Stainmaster]

So you're a blind believer in the statistics huh? You must not watch games and only look at the box score.

Those gosh-darn nerds with their stupid numbers, they really are ruining sports today!

 

[Leebo]

So you're a blind believer in the statistics huh? You must not watch games and only look at the box score.

This isn't that difficult to understand.

We have a group of people on this board who think the defense is historically bad. Others are saying, "guys, it's demonstrably not that bad. In fact, it's pretty good."

The original group comes back and says, "but we have all these bad habits."

Yes, the team has some bad habits, but we have a good defense in spite of these, so we are doing some things right. It's not a historically bad defense. It's also not amazing, and no one is saying it is.

 

[Gurleyman]

The hedging, sagging, recovering, etc. that people are getting on DHam for is how we teach defense. If you watch our Final Four game with Florida when we locked them down (other than post ups to Young), you'll see five guys in the paint when they attack off the dribble, and everyone rotates, switches, recovers, like clockwork. Boat just was really good at making up the ground quickly, and Giffey read the game so well at that point in his career that he was always one step ahead of where he needed to be. Bazz too.

In the scouting reports I'm sure there are specific guys we aren't supposed to help off (the Trevor Cooneys of the world), but the majority of our defensive principles under Ollie center around collapsing, helping and recovering. It's a system that's vulnerable to quick ball movement, but it forces the other teams to make tougher reads and quick decisions. Florida, Kentucky and Michigan State all came off the rails when we were doing it at level five. Iowa State had the one guy we couldn't match.

If DHam is here another year, I think he will probably get closer to Giffey's level of reading the game on defense. He's a smart player - just is building his mental repertoire.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

So you're a blind believer in the statistics huh? You must not watch games and only look at the box score.

You're helpless.

“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

 

[Husky Dad]

This isn't that difficult to understand.

We have a group of people on this board who think the defense is historically bad. Others are saying, "guys, it's demonstrably not that bad. In fact, it's pretty good."

The original group comes back and says, "but we have all these bad habits."

Yes, the team has some bad habits, but we have a good defense in spite of these, so we are doing some things right. It's not a historically bad defense. It's also not amazing, and no one is saying it is.

I think this is a good point. I think the complaint comes from seeing such gifted players on the floor who lack a sense of intensity on defense. It seems in times past we had teams with less talent on offense that made up for it in defensive intensity.

 

[LIUCHusky]

No but they are the worst in quite awhile. Boat stop the opposing best guard from doing what they wanted last year. Trying to think back when I said we are terrible defensively. I'll be 50 tomorrow. Maybe Perno teams.

The Perno teams played very good defense. At fifty you are too young not to remember that.

 

[RipCity]

KenPom has us 22nd in the country in adjusted defense.

Last night we allowed a lot of driving, but that was partially the result of sticking to guards through screens instead of going under them like we have been earlier this year. It worked, too...

 

[nycscooby]

I love the guys that rely only on stats and then only on some or one of the stats. Defensively, to me, we fail the eye test for a team that many if not most of us, felt had a good shot to go far in March. I see a lot of open looks and very few turnovers. I'm not saying that they are terrible just that they are very exploitable. I really wish we were turning teams over, it would allow us to get out and run.

Here are some stats beyond just the scoring defense and FG% defense (which may well be the most important defensive stats but as previously noted above, are inflated at this point in the season with some of the cupcakes that we played that simply couldn't deal with our length and athleticism).

Scoring defense: 43rd
FG% defense: 26th
Blocks: T28th
Turnovers forced: T218
Steals: T240
Rebounds: T164

 

[uchusky32]

The Perno teams played very good defense. At fifty you are too young not to remember that.[/QUOT

I said maybe, Ray, Al, Phil and Cliff played hard nose D.

 

[msgordon]

I love the guys that rely only on stats and then only on some or one of the stats. Defensively, to me, we fail the eye test for a team that many if not most of us, felt had a good shot to go far in March. I see a lot of open looks and very few turnovers. I'm not saying that they are terrible just that they are very exploitable. I really wish we were turning teams over, it would allow us to get out and run.

Here are some stats beyond just the scoring defense and FG% defense (which may well be the most important defensive stats but as previously noted above, are inflated at this point in the season with some of the cupcakes that we played that simply couldn't deal with our length and athleticism).

Scoring defense: 43rd
FG% defense: 26th
Blocks: T28th
Turnovers forced: T218
Steals: T240
Rebounds: T164

the most important stats are points scored/allowed per possession, period. you win by outscoring your opponent. and i agree --my eye tells me this team has a lot of bad habits and rotations, but i suspect we are making up for it in other less obvious areas. our opponents ORB% is 23.1%, 39th in the country (source--https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/stat/opponent-offensive-rebounding-pct). last year we were 28.9/165th and even in our championship year before that we were 30.6/229th. our turnover rate is also lower then the past two years(16.3% this year which is 65th, we were 135th and 93rd the last two years). and i cant find stats for this currently, but i would also hypothesize that our transition defense has been better than it usually is(this is generally correlated with lower turnover rate). these three things dont always jump out at you in terms of forming an overall impression of our d (its generally easier to notice a bad rotation or somebody getting blown by off the dribble) but it seems fairly clear they are making up for our deficiencies. scoring off offensive rebounds/turnovers/in transition are some of the most efficient looks you can get, and we have done a good job limiting them

 

[johnhuskies95]

Bear in mind that those statistics currently include 7 cupcake games and 0 conference games. Let's see where the numbers end up by the end of the year.

That said, I think people are in denial when they say this isn't a bad defensive team by UConn standards.

On the other hand, they are a breath of fresh air on the offensive side compared to what we've seen for the previous 5 years.

You do know that Kenpom takes into account the quality of opposition, right?

 

[PcketknfNiels]

Strange timing for this comment IMO. I know he's struggled quite a bit defensively but I thought he actually played one of his better defensive games against UT. Maybe I'm remembering wrong.

I agree with this. Definitely thought it was one of his better games defensively and he seemed to keep up the activity level more than he typically does.

 

[Leebo]

At the end of the day, I can't trust any of your "eye tests" because there's no rigor behind any of it. You're giving us strong feelings backed up by anecdotes. Yeah, I'm sure you saw a player do a bad thing multiple times... What you can't do is explain why that means this is a terrible defense on the whole.

But I only have so much energy to spend reassuring UConn fans that UConn isn't terrible.

 

[Tenspro2002]

It'd adjusted defensive efficiency. It takes into consideration opponent. I'm guessing you don't understand how statistics work.

Also, our Adjusted offensive efficiency is #42. We have a better defense than we do offense.

You do know that Kenpom takes into account the quality of opposition, right?

That's embarrassing. Yes, I forgot that we were talking about adjusted defensive efficiency that accounts for opponent quality.

I'm not sure how to reconcile that good ranking with the fact that it looks like our defense is a lot worse than in years past. And it's not just a few scattered observers either.

 

[nycscooby]

At the end of the day, I can't trust any of your "eye tests" because there's no rigor behind any of it. You're giving us strong feelings backed up by anecdotes. Yeah, I'm sure you saw a player do a bad thing multiple times... What you can't do is explain why that means this is a terrible defense on the whole.

But I only have so much energy to spend reassuring UConn fans that UConn isn't terrible.

Wow, way to back up your point....with facts. You're right, they are a lock down defensive dynamo and the rest of us don't know anything.