How would you improve our defense?

[Giddyup5]

There are some really smart basketball minds on here, and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on improving our defense.

I agreed with Champs when he thought our accomplishments this season would be predicated on having a top 10 defense. With the addition of Miller, improvements from Brimah, Purvis, and Hamilton, I thought this goal was very realistic.

Obviously we are far from that (our adjusted defensive efficiency for KenPom is currently 39)

How would you improve our defense?

Some have suggested Ollie prefers to play the long game with his defense, allowing mistakes in rotations now with the hopes that it'll eventually click. Is this realistic with this group? With Hamilton having to facilitate the offense so much, can we count on him in Feb playing the defense we need. Does Gibbs have the lateral quickness and desire to play lock down D?

I think you can generally hide one poor defender when you play M2M defense but 2?

I like the idea of mixing in some consistent zone each game to hide Hamilton and Gibbs. But if that's what KO decides to do, then we need to start now. It takes time to implement match up zone principles. And to make matters worse, it takes away practice time from focusing on man to man principles and defensive rotations.

Thoughts?

 

[James]

For now I think this is just how its going to be, there will be times in the game where we execute perfectly on defense ( think about the runs vs zaga, cuse, and maryland) and then there will be times where the pressure and responsibility of the man2man are highlighted and defensive breakdowns will seem egregious. But honestly i wouldn't mind seeing gibbs and hamilton maybe dial it a bit back when pressuring the ball in the half court. I mean neither of these guys are lebron and wade when it comes to forcing turnovers, Even adams has been hit with a ton of nickle and dimers.

KO has instilled a very layered and impressive foundation for a pro style defense, its just hard for these young college players to keep up and make choices on the fly... As the year goes on i'm looking for the players to pick n choose spots ( or level of aggression) better on defense, you scout teams for a reasons don't mimic the same coverage on every player. Sometimes you don't really need to hedge hard on a non explosive pnr player, lay back and force them to playmake.

I like the direction we're going in though because (when huskies are clicking and not snoozing off ball) other teams rarely get 'easy looks', they have to get creative vs the man2man.

 

[Rocktheworld]

I'd like to see KO go small with Facey at the 5 and press. We have the length, speed and athleticism 1-5 that way. Did it with Facey coming all the way up against (an admittedly abysmal) Central and caused some difficulty. Causing some havoc and forcing a few TOs in the back court may quickly counterbalance halfcourt breakdowns that are going to happen due to our obvious deficiencies. The halfcourt D will simply take time to get better, and I don't have a clue as to how to hide two sub-par defenders.

 

[mauconnfan]

I'd like to see KO go small with Facey at the 5 and press. We have the length, speed and athleticism 1-5 that way. Did it with Facey coming all the way up against (an admittedly abysmal) Central and caused some difficulty. Causing some havoc and forcing a few TOs in the back court may quickly counterbalance halfcourt breakdowns that are going to happen due to our obvious deficiencies. The halfcourt D will simply take time to get better, and I don't have a clue as to how to hide two sub-par defenders.

I like the idea but you need a protector and an intelligent player in the back. We don't have that really and we may get AB (when healthy) and Kentan in foul trouble. I think you would have a wonderful safety in Miller with some brains and long arms for anticipation the 2nd to last layer as well as DHam. This team with Thabeet may very well be a decent pressing team but not with who we have. I would like the occasional soft press and then get back into 1-3-1 or 2-3 I though we looked good in a zone the few times I've seen it. Good length and it's not like we cover the crap out of the 3 anyway.

 

[SubbaBub]

Pure desire. That's all they need on every possession.

 

[CTBasketball]

I'm not saying its a solution, but this team could run a devastating 1-3-1 zone. Huggins 1-3-1 from his 2009-2010 Final Four squad ran thru some pretty good offenses all year and shut most of them down. It had Devin Ebanks at the top, and Joe Mazulla at the baseline. Da'Sean Butler and Wellington Smith at the wings, and Kevin Jones at the center.

If we put Purvis, Facey, and Gibbs on the wings with Miller down low and Hamilton up top it could throw some teams off for a quick junk defense here and there. Hamilton's length can help disrupt the ball handler at mid court, and we have length down low too. Everyone's athletic and can jump passing lanes too...

 

[8893]

Pure desire. That's all they need on every possession.

Yep, more acting like this and less talking about it:

 

[Palatine]

Hamilton needs to stay with his man. Don't help, just stay with your man. It's okay to switch but don't double team. Stay with your man.

 

[huskiesnyc]

If KO considers championship defense level 5, I would say Gibbs is at about level 1. He needs to do much better on defense starting with picking up his intensity. I would lock him in a room and make him watch Ricky Moore in the 99 title game on repeat.

 

[Giddyup5]

I'm not saying its a solution, but this team could run a devastating 1-3-1 zone. Huggins 1-3-1 from his 2009-2010 Final Four squad ran thru some pretty good offenses all year and shut most of them down. It had Devin Ebanks at the top, and Joe Mazulla at the baseline. Da'Sean Butler and Wellington Smith at the wings, and Kevin Jones at the center.

If we put Purvis, Facey, and Gibbs on the wings with Miller down low and Hamilton up top it could throw some teams off for a quick junk defense here and there. Hamilton's length can help disrupt the ball handler at mid court, and we have length down low too. Everyone's athletic and can jump passing lanes too...

This is exactly one of the options that I had in mind. Huggy would play M2M all game against us and then switch to a devastating 1-3-1 zone for the last 10 minutes.

James likes the way we are progressing with our M2M defense. I'm just not too sure. Looking back to the Cuse, Zags, and Maryland game we still were giving up a decent amount of open looks during our run--they just happened to miss. Esp against Cuse and Zags we gave up quite a few open 3's and drives.

I would love for our man to man defense to round into 11 or 14 form (and it still can) because it by far is the most consistent defense you can play (there is a reason no one in the NBA plays zone).

A few specific concerns-

Can Hamilton who has to facilitate our offense (and often expends a lot of energy doing so) be consistently good on defense? Kemba, Bazz, Boat (who also had similar offensive responsibilities were some of the best conditioned athletes we've ever had and also had significant mental endurance)?

If Hamilton is a defensive liability, can we afford to have Gibbs be a second liability in a man 2 man scheme? Maybe we switch to short periods of zone when Gibbs is in with Hamilton to hide them? The importance of Adam's maturation is vital to this question as well.

Can Facey continue his progression and become a Roscoe Smith type player for us? He has already shown good improvement with his rebounding and offensive moves. I am hoping practicing against Miller every day will translate into improved footwork and court awareness.

Finally, can Miller be the defensive glue that we all thought he would be once he learns the defensive schemes?

 

[BUConn10]

Hamilton and Gibbs lack lateral quickness on the defensive end, which really hurts us off the dribble.

 

[UconnAlum04]

Get Coach Calhoun to come in and "tell" the team to play better defense or get benched. (in Calhoun's own subtle way)

 

[Scot-e]

I'm not saying its a solution, but this team could run a devastating 1-3-1 zone. Huggins 1-3-1 from his 2009-2010 Final Four squad ran thru some pretty good offenses all year and shut most of them down. It had Devin Ebanks at the top, and Joe Mazulla at the baseline. Da'Sean Butler and Wellington Smith at the wings, and Kevin Jones at the center.

If we put Purvis, Facey, and Gibbs on the wings with Miller down low and Hamilton up top it could throw some teams off for a quick junk defense here and there. Hamilton's length can help disrupt the ball handler at mid court, and we have length down low too. Everyone's athletic and can jump passing lanes too...

I agree 100%.

 

[mauconnfan]

Hamilton and Gibbs lack lateral quickness on the defensive end, which really hurts us off the dribble.

Crazy thing they are both smart so despite lateral quickness you should be able to guard your guy with brains, give space out think/read your guy etc etc but so far both have not.

 

[lange10]

I understand that numbers are numbers, but 39 as our defensive efficiency is inflated. Prior to the Umass-Lowell game we were in the top 20, which was the case for the entire season up until that weird, weird game happened. With Brimah we are a top 20 defense. If we don't let how we're doing on offense determine our effort on defense, I'd argue we could be a top 10 defense.

 

[intlzncster]

Pure desire. That's all they need on every possession.

Everybody needs to bring Purvis's intensity on every defensive possession. Often feels like guys are just going through the motions.

 

[gtcam]

This team takes way too many defensive plays off
Lack of desire - pure and simple
They have shown they can but don't wan to do it consistently
And that amazes me with RM sitting on the bench

 

[80shusky]

By showing different looks. Throwing an occasional full court press with a half court trap and as others above have stated some zone into the mix just to keep the other teams off balance offensively I think would help. I'm not saying run these things all the time, just show it for a few plays to change the tempo or ignite some fast breaks and transition points. When I was a kid I played youth basketball at the YMCA in Raleigh, NC. Our team won like two games and came in dead last. The following year my father coached the team. Unfortunately it didn't help me with playing time because I wasn't very good. However, with exactly the same players on our team he changed our defensive principles. Most teams played 2-3 zone including ours. What he did was mix in man to man and a full court press with a half court trap. Against a team with one good player we would show a box and one and face guard their best player denying him the ball. We would change our look every three or four defensive possessions. It created confusion and turnovers and we scored in transition. He stressed defense in practice and rewarded players for stops and steals. Some of the other dads complained and said we should be running offensive plays and practicing those instead. We practiced almost nothing on offense. Players who loafed on defense and just tried to score points sat the bench until they got the message. We tied the record of the best team in the league in the regular season with one loss and lost to them in the championship tournament at the end of the season losing exactly two games all year.
Obviously I understand that this isn't youth basketball and that all the college coaches are better than my father. That said, the theory worked. The following year we were undefeated halfway through the season when IBM transferred my father to California and we moved. I never did find out what happened to the team after we left. It wasn't just the different looks that made us better, it was our defense changing the tempo of the game and giving us confidence that we could beat anybody. It changed our intensity as much or more than it changed the other teams' efforts to score. It made us work hard and made us work together.
I'm not advocating abandoning the pro style man to man that KO is using. I am saying that we can adapt to what we are seeing and confuse the other team by showing them some different looks occasionally. Make them work and use clock. Get some steals and force some turnovers that hopefully lead to easy buckets.

 

[Rocktheworld]

I like the idea but you need a protector and an intelligent player in the back. We don't have that really and we may get AB (when healthy) and Kentan in foul trouble. I think you would have a wonderful safety in Miller with some brains and long arms for anticipation the 2nd to last layer as well as DHam. This team with Thabeet may very well be a decent pressing team but not with who we have. I would like the occasional soft press and then get back into 1-3-1 or 2-3 I though we looked good in a zone the few times I've seen it. Good length and it's not like we cover the crap out of the 3 anyway.

I'd put Miller at the rim. Purvis, Adams, and Facey running the trap. Gibbs/Dham faded back.

 

[willie99]

shorten the rotation, improving chemistry

too many combinations is not conducive to playing great team defense