The defense in general has been much much better by everyone in February vs. January.
In the non conference, we were getting 2+ Kill shot runs a game (10-0 or more). Those largely went away in conference not because we weren't scoring as effectively but because we weren't doing it on the defensive end. Last night we had a 10-0 that spanned half time and a 14-0 mid 2nd half. Heck Providence didn't score from the field for like 10 minutes.
In the first half they weren't much better on O. If it wasn't for a superhuman effort form Bynum going 4-4 from three the doors could have been blown off this thing very early.
I believe there was an adjustment period in conference to the way its officiated. There is certain physicality that is allowed (holding off ball cutters, bodying a post up player so long as you don't use an arm bar, lowering your shoulder on offense so long as you don't use an arm bar) and there is physicality that is not allowed (arm bars on offense and defense, roofing a guy going up in the paint, etc.)
This type of officiating (along with the AFJ Saga) broke our offense for a short time. Teams like providence extremely overplayed our perimeter motion and prevent both the three point looks as well as the post passes to Adama.
But more disruptively so, it stopped our defense from stringing together 3-4 possessions in a row on stops because teams getting down hill on us were getting an auto whistle in the paint. A perfect example of this was back to back plays on the road at creightion two weeks ago. On one end of the floor Hawkins is bear hugged coming off a curl, no call (geno would have thrown his water bottle). On the other end Shyerman gets in the circle with no real intent on actually scoring from the field, he gets into "fouling position" flails his arms and drops the ball in a way that would make J.J. reddick blush and goes to the line.
So whats been changing?
Offensively - We've added wrinkles to punish not guarding AJ - Running him on the baseline from the corner (first bucket of last night) and using him to hand off ball screen for open 3's where the help isn't there to hedge because its doubling the low post.
We've started penalizing teams for overplaying the perimeter by attacking off the dribble (Hawk, AK, Newt primarily).
We've changed how we feed Adama so he gets the ball moving in motion instead of slowly backing down so teams can double and triple team him as soon as the ball hits the floor.
Alleyne has fixed our bench issue and we use Diarra and Clingan in combination to get deep dribble penetration and allow Donovan to crash low enough to score.
What's changed on defense?
For the most part (our freshman are the exception) we're doing a better job of guarding dribble penetration without fouling.
We're doing a better job of preventing guys getting down hill in the first place.
AFJ is AFJ'ing again and we're putting him on the point of attack alot.
Alleyne is a + defender and taking Joey's minutes is getting us 1-2 extra charges drawn a game.
I'm confident that there were real strategic problems that resulted in our slide, and I'm confident we are demonstrating a recurring pattern of having solved them. Can they pop up again? Sure. But I feel like we are much more consistent then we are being given credit for.
The "this team could go to the final four or lose in the first round takes" are either lazy or not paying attention.
Defense strategy and a change in the way our games were being called broke us.
We've adapted.
Buckle up.
And yes I still love this team.
