Daniel Hamilton Defense

[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]

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.

 

[Leebo]

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.

You haven't been reading the rest of the topic have you?

If you had, you wouldn't be saying that I think the defense is amazing. I've simply said it's not terrible, and it's easy to back that up, and multiple people have done so with the only stat that matters for defense.

I have an analogy on the offensive side. I hate the way Omar Calhoun's shooting motion looks. When I see him take a shot, it looks like a bad shooting motion to me, and I expect the ball to not go in.

But he's making 45% of his threes this year, so I have to just get over that and say "he's one of our good 3 point shooters." The stats mean more than how I feel about the way it looks.

 

[msgordon]

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.

i'm not sure exactly what 'facts' you are looking for, you dismiss any relevant fact as a stat and continue posting badly

 

[intlzncster]

we give up a ton of lay-ups. I don't need statistics to tell me that.

It's magnified tenfold when AB isn't on the floor.

 

[intlzncster]

You haven't been reading the rest of the topic have you? If you had, you wouldn't be saying that I think the defense is amazing. I've simply said it's not terrible, and it's easy to back that up, and multiple people have done so with the only stat that matters for defense.

It's all or nothing on the internet. You just have to accept that, or you are going to be fighting a never ending losing battle.

 

[nycscooby]

I didn't say they were terrible either just that they were exploitable - - in more ways than I expected especially with our backcourt. Are these faults correctible? Sure but we will see as the competition gets tougher on a regular basis.

I took a look at some actual numbers:

Maine, UNH, Furman, SHU, UMass-Lowell (which actually scored 79 points and shot 50%) and CCSU shot a collective 35.6% (125-351) and averaged 60 pts/game against us. Obviously the Lowell game was a big push for this group statistically. If I take this game out then the numbers become (96-293 or 32.8% and 56.2 pts/game).

I admit that I was a bit surprised to see that Michigan, Cuse, Gonzaga, Maryland, Ohio St and Texas only shot a collective 40.8% (137-336) and averaged 68.2 pts/game against us. OSU and Michigan were excellent defensive games although OSU at #110 in FG% may not be a terrific shooting team (also, Texas sits at #143 for FG%). OSU and Michigan shot a collective 33.9% and averaged 57.5 pts/game.

 

[CTBasketball]

The best word to describe our defense I've read so far is exploitable.

 

[johnhuskies95]

I didn't say they were terrible either just that they were exploitable - - in more ways than I expected especially with our backcourt. Are these faults correctible? Sure but we will see as the competition gets tougher on a regular basis.

I took a look at some actual numbers:

Maine, UNH, Furman, SHU, UMass-Lowell (which actually scored 79 points and shot 50%) and CCSU shot a collective 35.6% (125-351) and averaged 60 pts/game against us. Obviously the Lowell game was a big push for this group statistically. If I take this game out then the numbers become (96-293 or 32.8% and 56.2 pts/game).

I admit that I was a bit surprised to see that Michigan, Cuse, Gonzaga, Maryland, Ohio St and Texas only shot a collective 40.8% (137-336) and averaged 68.2 pts/game against us. OSU and Michigan were excellent defensive games although OSU at #110 in FG% may not be a terrific shooting team (also, Texas sits at #143 for FG%). OSU and Michigan shot a collective 33.9% and averaged 57.5 pts/game.

Using ppg isn't a very good way to look at defense. UNC can play good defense and give up 70 points and Virginia can give up 62 points and play bad defense.

 

[intlzncster]

The best word to describe our defense I've read so far is exploitable.

Describes the vast majority of collegiate defenses though