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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 5230579, member: 488"] Florida has some good players, but when you sit down and really deconstruct the machine, I think you'll find that scheme and team building are more instructive to their overall success than sheer talent. The coaches have done a very good job of devising a menu that both limits their best players to digestible portions but also requires their fourth and fifth options to consume beyond what they might be asked to elsewhere. Balance is the objective, and it can only be achieved by assembling a group of players that will readily assert themselves within the specified parameters of the offense and share the ball. Florida has done this remarkably well, as evidenced by the fact their top six scorers all average between 1.6 and 4.3 assists per game. You don't see balance to that extreme unless it's part of a larger vision. (I don't know what exactly this offense is called, but it seems like a hybrid of what UConn runs and what Villanova ran under Wright. It's a lot of ball screens, but not always from the top. The angles change rapidly, with the objective being to reverse the ball from side to side fast enough to open a crack in the defense. It's a lot like watching a powerplay in hockey - it doesn't always look like much is happening, but the magic is in the subtlety.) So what does this mean? It mean that some schemes are harder to prepare for than others. UConn has had a lot of success, in the tournament, especially, in part because their offense is so different and innovative. (Florida, from what I've observed, is more comfortable defending traditional PNR offenses than navigating the motorcade of screens UConn throws at you.) I'm not saying Florida is easy to defend, by any means, but I think for a team like UConn, it's a preferable alternative to defending a high usage star like Fears. Clayton is a phenomenal player who gets the ball into his shooting pocket about as quick as anyone I've seen, but he's not the type of guy who's going to blow by you. If UConn can keep the ball in front and resist overhelping, there's a chance Florida's shot-making chops are tested in a way they haven't been recently. That's just the reality of March basketball. One other thing I noticed - Condon the big is a real good player with terrific length who they're comfortable switching 1-5, but he's hardly the bulkiest guy and doesn't have the strongest base and can get out leveraged fighting for position inside. I'd look for UConn to try to seal him off with Johnson or Reed to help pave some driving lanes. I don't have a pick either way, but I do think the 9.5 seemed high to me. I was expecting UConn to be getting 4.5-6. This will be a big challenge and I think that will bring out the best version of them. [/QUOTE]

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