Question about our Man to Man defense | Page 2 | The Boneyard
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Question about our Man to Man defense

Lafayette said:
Sure, but last 3 years, played exceptional for the teams he had. Even last year gave #1 Florida a tough run.
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100%. I'd say we punched up twice (last year and 2023), underperformed twice (21/22) and did exactly as expected once (25)

And even in the 2023 case, suggesting we overperformed is questionable...we came in as KP #4, and were favored in every game. It's more the degree to which we obliterated the field which is the compelling factor. and the BE was actually good that year.
 
I think when we play St John’s again we should not play as tight past the 3 pt line. They got a lot of baskets in the paint with blow bys. Also they are not a god shooting team from the outside.
 
Nicklo28 said:
I think when we play St John’s again we should not play as tight past the 3 pt line. They got a lot of baskets in the paint with blow bys. Also they are not a god shooting team from the outside.
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I'd bet my bottom dollar we still have Silas, Braylon, Ross, and Stewart pick up aggressively. It is our identity. Silas is too good a defender to allow soft defense.

Malachi and Solo I wouldn't be against having them sag off more. We also need to NEVER put Solo on an elite perimeter scorer like we did 2 nights ago--that was malpractice by our staff.

SJU did got a ton of buckets when we hedged by attacking the side opposite of Mullins, so he had to help when AK stayed on his man to cover the easy pass.

A few ways to fix that. Have AK and Mullins pre-switch or veer, have Silas shade ballhandlers towards Braylon, etc.
 
husky429 said:
I'd bet my bottom dollar we still have Silas, Braylon, Ross, and Stewart pick up aggressively. It is our identity. Silas is too good a defender to allow soft defense.

Malachi and Solo I wouldn't be against having them sag off more. We also need to NEVER put Solo on an elite perimeter scorer like we did 2 nights ago--that was malpractice by our staff.

SJU did got a ton of buckets when we hedged by attacking the side opposite of Mullins, so he had to help when AK stayed on his man to cover the easy pass.

A few ways to fix that. Have AK and Mullins pre-switch or veer, have Silas shade ballhandlers towards Braylon, etc.
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We just cannot have their guards drive and Tarris leaves Zuby and they dump to Zuby and Tarris fouls him going up.
 
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Lafayette said:
We just cannot have their guards drive and Tarris leaves Zuby and they dump to Zuby and Tarris fouls him going up.
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Yeah, Tarris has to stay home more. Would love to see him roast a teammate for letting his man get in the lane. Passionate leadership by Tarris!! What a concept.
 
HooperScooper said:
And they're still the 10th best defense in the country on kenpom. How is that possible with a team as you described?
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Literally said it's better this year. But the D we play, with hedges, overly tight man, etc., at times puts guys in mismatch situations. Were you digging Mitchell posting up Mullins? Or AK trying to check a PG? Or Solo getting beat off the dribble 27 times a game? Statistically, we are a very good TEAM defense. I do not think, other than Silas, we have great individual defenders. I feel like we've given up a lot of points to teams that play a lot of ISO ball. 80+ against SJU, BYU, Prov 2x.

A big part of our fouling issue is that we get beat, try to catch up, and commit fouls. Mahaney was put on an island and did this three times a game last year.
 
dennismenace said:
LOL I think it is in the book "How to lie with statistics" or Mark Twain's comment: "There's lies and there's damn lies and then there is statistics"
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The metric that matters: 24 and 2 14 and 1
 
Is there still a thing called zone defenses??????
 
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boog204 said:
There's no way you watched tonight and said this is a top 10 defense.
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It was awful tonight. Absolutely atrocious.

And BTW all I did was ask a question. I asked how they could be top 10 with all that going on. You didn't answer my question.
 
What I said in my original post (which I made after a win) reared its ugly head. Nobody on this team other than Silas or Ross has any business playing tight man to man above the 3 point line. Blow by after blow by
 
Time to play more Zone. I know it won't happen with Hurley but it needs to especially when Ball is defending.
 
HooperScooper said:
It was awful tonight. Absolutely atrocious.

And BTW all I did was ask a question. I asked how they could be top 10 with all that going on. You didn't answer my question.
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My apologies if I came across as aggressive. I have absolutely no idea how they were ranked where they were. I did not believe we were a great defensive team all year. We blew multiple 15-20 point leads because we could not stop people.

I do believe that, from a pure team defense principle, we are solid. The problem is we have really bad individual defenders and if teams ISO us we are exposed. In my initial reply, I listed SJU, BYU, and PC 2x as teams that exposed our individual defenders. Last night did as well.

I really think a HUGE part of the problem is that DHs style of tight man, picking up at times at almost halfcourt, simply does not work with poor defenders and especially without good rotations and rim protection. We could easily do this in 23 because we had enough athleticism, size, and adequate rim protection. 24, you had size in Newton, tenacity in Cam, ridiculousness in Castle, and a mountain in DC. We really only have Silas this year as a legit UConn-type defender. The solution is to just slightly alter our style of on-ball defense and stop thinking that our 3's and 4's can rotate.
 
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3rdbass said:
Time to play more Zone. I know it won't happen with Hurley but it needs to especially when Ball is defending.
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UConn hasn't played zone since like 1993. You, I, and the rest of the universe know it will not happen. Plus, we do not have the length, athleticism, IQ, or any of those necessary intangibles to do it. I honestly believe we'd get carved up by a good offensive team.
 
There was a really good article in January on Storrs Central I think about how opponents were due to start shooting a lot better against us, and we were due to start making more 3s on offense.

Both have happened but here’s the result of the defense looking so much worse

 
This is a fairly common thing if you watch Hurley teams. He takes away the three point line. However -sometimes- when he does this the defense gets extended and overplays 25 feet from the basket. When that happens, it makes it easy for opponents to get by the first man, the middle of the court is open, and they have a free run to the lay up line. This was especially bad in the first half last night.

To make things worse, when we corrected a bit, they went off from the arc in the second half.
 
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Teams are getting to the rack so easy. They are turning the corners on our perimeter defenders on the first move. They can get to the dominate hand on their first move. When Ross came in for Solo he was getting beat the same way. Only difference he makes up ground chasing. We always are chasing from the side or behind which creates an image of us being out of position then we reach. Auto whistle every time. Stop letting your man get behind you and maybe we won’t get called for so many fouls. Whether they are fouls or not.
 
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