Not bashing Mahaney, but I was really surprised that Dan Hurley, who loves big guards, lost Newton, Spencer and Castle and looking at Ball, Diarra and Nowell, all generously listed at 6'3" or less and decided to bring in Mahaney. It was a curious decision. I doubt any of our guards are really even 6'2".
I know nothing about bball analytics, but I saw Mahaney get blown by at least 4 times....that ain't good defense imo. what happens when he has to guard Kidary???? I'm glad he finally got a few key baskets, but I have no idea how you say he played GREAT defense. Liam on the other hand won that game for us
really good point about both guards...
Yeah Mahaney is still our worst Defender or at least 1a and 1b with Ball. The two can't play extended time on the perimeter at the same time. That is why I think Hurley needs to incorporate Nowell more into the lineup to give us better balance. I know Nowell is still learning but not sure playing Diarra extended minutes to help cover the other defensives deficiencies is a good long term solution.
I saw a few times guards driving to his left (to the right if watching TV), and that is used to make sure he fouls or he screens the post player we have. That would nominally be where AK would help, but without him, that was Baylor's plan. It wasn't all against Maheney, but others as well.
The system, with all our passing and off ball screens, doesn't work so well with small guys who can't cleanly pass the ball around or over defenders. Means we have to dribble more that is ideal.
It’s not only the blow-by’s that are frustrating, it’s also the rebounding help. Does anyone know the number of rebounds by our 1 & 2 guards through the first nine games this year vs last year. It may be comparable, but it sure feels like our guards got more last year.
Is there a change in how refs are calling the game making it harder to defend dribble penetration? I've heard more than once that off-ball defenders must be set well before the offense player initiates contact. The eye test seems to support that and even some on-the-ball defenders aren't getting charging calls like last season. Ball used to get that call last season if my memory serves me, but seems to be getting called for blocking just about every time this season.
Another thing we miss is an effective screener
Yes, they mentioned it on one of the broadcasts last night. Said refs were visiting teams but that players were struggling to adapt to it. I don't like it. Especially if it's being called a block rather than just a no-call. Rewarding players for blindly crashing into defenders doesn't improve the game.
Surprising our worst three graded defenders are the sophomore class. What were they doing all last year when watching the 4th best KP defense roll to a NC? I would actually classify best given the missed time of DC and SC.
This is what I suggested earlier. Those 3 all have skills. They all sat for a year. They all have heavy competition at their positions. So they try to do too much at times. Shoot too early, go for the steal instead of just playing straight up D, it's a misunderstanding of what will get them on the court.
Right now there are 3 options:
options 1 and 2 I think are the only choices. Playing by utilizing gimmick defenses takes time to execute well. Without the practice, those gimmick defenses won't be executed correctly and will just lead to easy baskets. It's probably better to just spend more time with the core man-to-man principles and some 2-3 zone principles, and that's it for defenses.
Not sure what game you were watching. Maybe the first drive of the game he had trouble, then he was fine.
