UcMiami
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Kelly Graves talked about how important Uconn's defense was and how that really made the difference in yesterdays game. And we have been treated to announcers telling us how much people ignore Uconn's strong defense when talking about the team for pretty much every year since 2000. (That they keep talking about it every year would seem to disprove their point!
)
What I started to think about again this NCAA run is how Uconn's defense is different from everyone else, and what makes it different.
To start, it is the statement and reality that if you don't play defense you don't get in the game, period. That is different from a lot of teams right off the bat, but a lot of coaches have the same kind of focus on effort at that end of the floor. So that differentiates a little but not that much.
Uconn certainly practices a variety of defenses and works on them in games so they can change defenses from possession to possession and from game to game. Some teams don't do that - Duke plays only zone, never man to man. Syracuse the same for the most part. Other teams never play zone even when facing a team that obviously struggles against zone defenses like TN - last year Miss St was getting beaten handily through 30+ minutes of a game playing exclusively man, shifted to zone in desperation and won going away. And as I posted elsewhere, teams waste opportunities to practice various defenses in live games when the outcome is already decided. But there are obviously teams that like Uconn can switch defenses and do through the course of a game.
Finally there is practice and the art of teaching defense and I think this is where Uconn really differentiates themselves from other programs. And it is twofold - individual defensive skills and team defensive skills:
How often watching a Uconn player in a defensive stance do you see them playing 'straight up' and not hedging to one side or the other, one hand or the other? Almost never. And yet you watch almost every other team and all their players are playing straight up. Being straight up allows the offensive player to go either direction and dictate where the ball will be and what their further options will be - it is ceding the initiative to the offense, and that is something Uconn seldom does. So they teach players principles of hedging and dictating direction in the way they play against an offensive player - always away from the center of the court, always away from the player's dominant hand, always in the direction of a help defender. It is advance teaching and something that I believe rarely gets taught with such precision elsewhere.
And the team defense is taught in the same way - the communication and constant awareness of not just your assignment but everything else that is happening and where your teammates are forcing the ball to go, the rotations needed as the switches are made, the choreography required to keep the defensive pressure and to continue dictating where and what the offense can do. Again, in its precision and attention to detail unique. And because they teach the individual skills, and the team skills with all the permutations of both, they can change things on a dime and adjust to in-game situations in a way that other teams just can't. We complain that other coaches don't make adjustments in game, but part of that is they haven't taught the skills to their players to make those adjustments.
Finally the other part of the title - The Scout. Every team creates a scouting report on their next opponent and who knows how good any individual team is at those scouts, but also consider how hamstringed those coaches are when they present that scout to the team if when they say, 'she only goes right so force her left' and the players all go 'right coach' but haven't been taught the techniques to actually put that into action. And compare that to Uconn and how every player knows exactly what that means, and how to execute it in a game. One of the bigs for Oregon commented that what she learned was she has to strengthen her left hand after yesterday's game, because the Uconn scout said 'sit on her right hand', and Gabby and Napheesa and Lou did just that. I suspect the Uconn scout is very detailed and specific and different from almost every other team's because all the coaches know that their players can take that detail and execute, while other coaches know that anything more than 'don't let her shoot threes' is just going to be wasted and confusing to their players.
As someone here posts frequently - Uconn is playing chess while other teams are playing checkers.
Sorry for the length of this.
)What I started to think about again this NCAA run is how Uconn's defense is different from everyone else, and what makes it different.
To start, it is the statement and reality that if you don't play defense you don't get in the game, period. That is different from a lot of teams right off the bat, but a lot of coaches have the same kind of focus on effort at that end of the floor. So that differentiates a little but not that much.
Uconn certainly practices a variety of defenses and works on them in games so they can change defenses from possession to possession and from game to game. Some teams don't do that - Duke plays only zone, never man to man. Syracuse the same for the most part. Other teams never play zone even when facing a team that obviously struggles against zone defenses like TN - last year Miss St was getting beaten handily through 30+ minutes of a game playing exclusively man, shifted to zone in desperation and won going away. And as I posted elsewhere, teams waste opportunities to practice various defenses in live games when the outcome is already decided. But there are obviously teams that like Uconn can switch defenses and do through the course of a game.
Finally there is practice and the art of teaching defense and I think this is where Uconn really differentiates themselves from other programs. And it is twofold - individual defensive skills and team defensive skills:
How often watching a Uconn player in a defensive stance do you see them playing 'straight up' and not hedging to one side or the other, one hand or the other? Almost never. And yet you watch almost every other team and all their players are playing straight up. Being straight up allows the offensive player to go either direction and dictate where the ball will be and what their further options will be - it is ceding the initiative to the offense, and that is something Uconn seldom does. So they teach players principles of hedging and dictating direction in the way they play against an offensive player - always away from the center of the court, always away from the player's dominant hand, always in the direction of a help defender. It is advance teaching and something that I believe rarely gets taught with such precision elsewhere.
And the team defense is taught in the same way - the communication and constant awareness of not just your assignment but everything else that is happening and where your teammates are forcing the ball to go, the rotations needed as the switches are made, the choreography required to keep the defensive pressure and to continue dictating where and what the offense can do. Again, in its precision and attention to detail unique. And because they teach the individual skills, and the team skills with all the permutations of both, they can change things on a dime and adjust to in-game situations in a way that other teams just can't. We complain that other coaches don't make adjustments in game, but part of that is they haven't taught the skills to their players to make those adjustments.
Finally the other part of the title - The Scout. Every team creates a scouting report on their next opponent and who knows how good any individual team is at those scouts, but also consider how hamstringed those coaches are when they present that scout to the team if when they say, 'she only goes right so force her left' and the players all go 'right coach' but haven't been taught the techniques to actually put that into action. And compare that to Uconn and how every player knows exactly what that means, and how to execute it in a game. One of the bigs for Oregon commented that what she learned was she has to strengthen her left hand after yesterday's game, because the Uconn scout said 'sit on her right hand', and Gabby and Napheesa and Lou did just that. I suspect the Uconn scout is very detailed and specific and different from almost every other team's because all the coaches know that their players can take that detail and execute, while other coaches know that anything more than 'don't let her shoot threes' is just going to be wasted and confusing to their players.
As someone here posts frequently - Uconn is playing chess while other teams are playing checkers.
Sorry for the length of this.
