Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="auror, post: 4497300, member: 1329"] I don't think I said anything exactly like that in this thread, but this is what I'll say. We have a bunch of PnR coverages and defensive schemes, but the overarching philosophy and uniting thread is to prevent open 3's. So we will often overplay the 3-point line, close out hard, go over screens, etc. Offenses will take what seems available, which is often a contested midrange jumper or floater. Which is better than "we're literally standing on top of you to block your 3 point attempt" or "let's try a layup from our 6'2" point guard against a 7'2" with a 7'5" wingspan guy with a 16% block rate". In general, offenses are drilled pretty strongly not to shoot a 3 with a guy draped all over them, especially early in the shot clock. So offenses will run their actions to attempt to gain an advantage heading towards the rim (most often through PnR). Their 2 best options are get to the rim with penetration or pass or kick out to open 3 once defense collapses to help. But we don't really collapse (although we do shade a bit towards the roll-man). And then they get to the rim and realize Clingan (or Sanogo) is there and our PnR defense has slowed the attack enough (through hedge or drop contain) so that our on ball defender has made up the ground and erased the advantage. So now we've checkmated the offense into taking the shots we want, which is contested midrange jumpers/floaters or heavily contested shots at the rim. So as you say, we end up defending a lot of mid-range shots. In fact I have the numbers, we force the 17th most 2-point jumpers of any team in the country, roughly 1/3 of shots. The best shooters in the entire world (talking Kevin Durant, Chris Paul) make 45-52% of contested 2s. Our opponents overall are shooting 36% on those midrange 2s. I haven't charted what Xavier did on actual contested vs. uncontested shots, but they shot 75% on non-blocked 2s yesterday. Of course, offenses are always trying to break that checkmate and get high quality shots like dunks and layups if available. Marquette did that too often in the 2nd half to go along with shooting well on their contested midrange 2s when they couldn't. They're a top 5 offense in the country for a reason. The other option for offenses against us is just go straight 1v1 ISO, without playing the "try to gain an advantage" cat and mouse game. Which at the college level usually isn't a great option, because you're not really going 1v1 usually. Smaller arc compared to NBA and no defensive 3 seconds means help is closer. However, Providence and Xavier were able to win 1v1s enough (often by drawing fouls thanks to our over-aggressiveness and Karaban not quite being stout enough as a freshman), that it worked out. We ourselves take hardly any midrange jumpers on offense, because Sanogo is our guy to take advantage of 1v1s and he's extremely effective at it. We do our best to spread the court so that teams can't help on him. Thus the 4-out and Karaban's importance. We also have Hawkins off screens for quick release 3s. And Clingan on the roll also... He generates an advantage just by his size, mobility, and hands. These 3 are why we can have an elite offense without an elite on ball PG generating advantages. That and we're lethal in transition with our shooters flaring out to the wings. Defenses don't have a lot of good options for defending us, so they've resorted to allowing high value shots (wide open 3s) to our worst shooters and hoping the variance swings their way. A few teams with the requisite personnel (OMax Prosper for Marquette, Devin Carter of Providence, Colby Jones of Xavier) have been able to take away Hawkins, which reduces our options by 1, and allows them to focus more on clogging the paint with everyone else. Other teams scheme defense differently. No middle and pack line Ds try to take away the paint and rim totally and are content to offer contested and somewhat open 3s instead. So our tradeoff is allowing a few more contested shots at the rim, but less open 3s. A few years ago, using mostly the same scheme, our defense was a lot worse, because we allowed too many attempts at the rim vs. midrange and didn't contest them well enough. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach