We need to stop guarding the ball way past the 3 pt line

[SaeHusky]

Seriously how many times did we get beat off the dribble. You play shell man or a zone most of the game against St. Johns and we win by double digits. We were lucky St. Johns missed so many wide open looks from outside because they killed us going to the hoop. Glad Danny came out of that late St Johns timeout in Zone

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Yes, let’s play a 5-man zone with everyone in the paint. Could work.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Seriously how many times did we get beat off the dribble. You play shell man or a zone most of the game against St. Johns and we win by double digits. We were lucky St. Johns missed so many wide open looks from outside because they killed us going to the hoop. Glad Danny came out of that late St Johns timeout in Zone

They shot 24% from 3 and 33% overall.

 

[SaeHusky]

Your missing the point. I'm fine playing man to man but we need to give them some space when they are 5 or 6 ft beyond the 3pt line. Otherwise we get blown by.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Your missing the point. I'm fine playing man to man but we need to give them some space when they are 5 or 6 ft beyond the 3pt line. Otherwise we get blown by.

This is a feature not a bug. Their guards didn’t show the ability to make the pass once they got passed their man. They commit to going to the rim and we want that because it allows us to block them in close and get out on the break. You saw it as a flaw, I saw it as the reason we won the game.

 

[Stinger92860]

I good with anyone not named Adama or Isaiah 6+ feet out past the 3 point line, unless they are guarding Nunge

 

[UConnSwag11]

Three-point defense isn't the problem. Our perimeter defenders do a horrible job staying in front of their man as well as not falling for the pump fakes which then puts pressure on Sanogo and Whaley.

 

[SaeHusky]

Roght. That's why they need to back off a little bit when guarding the ball 5 ft behind the 3pt line

 

[businesslawyer]

Your missing the point. I'm fine playing man to man but we need to give them some space when they are 5 or 6 ft beyond the 3pt line. Otherwise we get blown by.

We gave up 60 points. What we did was effective. Yes, the points they got were overwhelmingly smaller guys getting to the rack, but they only got 60 of them. Doing something differently opens up other possibilities.

 

[gtcam]

I would love to see UConn play zone for a while in nearly every game except vs the cupcakes. UConn's most effective offense comes when they run. To run you need the opponent to miss shots. Running against NBE teams is not that easy. Opponents never expect UConn throw a defensive wrinkle at them - I think a zone would be effective at times.

 

[UCfor3]

I would love to see UConn play zone for a while in nearly every game except vs the cupcakes. UConn's most effective offense comes when they run. To run you need the opponent to miss shots. Running against NBE teams is not that easy. Opponents never expect UConn throw a defensive wrinkle at them - I think a zone would be effective at times.

They played zone a bit in the 2nd half. Not a lot but a couple possessions. I remember one that worked out quite well. Maybe they will have that in their pocket now.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Zone is a good way to give guys playing in foul trouble some time not having to play man to man defense and guys that are gassed some time to conserve a bit of energy; all while confusing/frustrating the opponent (i.e. Sorryexcuse)... I think if we can execute the zone well, then it can be a good lever to pull especially down this busy and tough stretch run.

 

[auror]

The defense is designed to prevent 3's and allow contested 2's.

The reason? Analytically, a defense doesn't have as much control over whether or not a 3-pointer goes in. You can contest and prevent wide open 3's, but it's more about luck of the draw and the offensive player's own shooting ability than the defense when it comes to lightly contested 3's.

But that is not true in the paint, where strong contests and blocking shots can very much lower opponents' shooting %'s as a function of defense.

We hard hedge on screens to prevent their point guards from attacking on straight line drives, but guard up on players aggressively outside the 3-point line to discourage catch and shoot 3's. As you observed, this leaves us "vulnerable" to penetration from wings, but we expect our players to be able to recover and at least make it a difficult drive, and we rely on the weakside shotblockers, who can contest/block/alter the shot. The trade-off is that opponents shots are a little closer to the rim (and thus a little more high %), but the heavy contests are designed to reduce that.

And it has been working very well this year. So despite what you see as constant drives, we have the 4th lowest 2pt% in the country at 42%. St. John's shot 38% on 2-pointers. And we allow the 19th fewest 3-pointers attempted against per field goal. If you want to take a 3 against us, fine, but it's going to be heavily contested, not just lightly contested, due to our overplay.

There are two main downsides (every defense has pros/cons). 1) The recovery by the wing defenders and rim protectors in addition to playing physical D causes some fouls, and more shooting fouls than most teams. Too many can give opponents efficient foul shots and get some of our better players into foul trouble. 2) When opponents play 5-out, it makes the rotation longer for our rim protectors and we end up giving up some free layups and wide open backdoor cuts instead of strong contests and blocked shots. This is why we struggle against Villanova every time and Maryland/Creighton last year (Maryland was a horrible draw for us). The good news is that by having Sanogo and attacking the offensive glass, we can also punish these teams on the other side of the court unless they have the perfect lineup combination (a 5-out center who can also defend Sanogo 1v1 in the post... hard to find).

 

[mauconnfan]

This is a feature not a bug. Their guards didn’t show the ability to make the pass once they got passed their man. They commit to going to the rim and we want that because it allows us to block them in close and get out on the break. You saw it as a flaw, I saw it as the reason we won the game.

His point is well taken very often. Mathis began eating us up taking us to the hole but we started guarding him 30 feet from the basket tight. I mean none of AJ, Hawkins, Polley or Gaffney guards well from 30 when not giving space they all consistently get beat off the dribble. I understand what you are saying as well but certain players need to give space or we will continually put Sanogo and Whaley in position to help while leaving their men and an eventual scramble on the defensive end. I mean we’re a good defensive team but need to be smarter.

 

[freshler40]

Seriously how many times did we get beat off the dribble. You play shell man or a zone most of the game against St. Johns and we win by double digits. We were lucky St. Johns missed so many wide open looks from outside because they killed us going to the hoop. Glad Danny came out of that late St Johns timeout in Zone

Yes, more zone or box and 1 if they have a hot 3 pt shooter. This can be effective especially when we get in early foul trouble which is often. Give the opponent another look.

 

[freshler40]

The defense is designed to prevent 3's and allow contested 2's.

The reason? Analytically, a defense doesn't have as much control over whether or not a 3-pointer goes in. You can contest and prevent wide open 3's, but it's more about luck of the draw and the offensive player's own shooting ability than the defense when it comes to lightly contested 3's.

But that is not true in the paint, where strong contests and blocking shots can very much lower opponents' shooting %'s as a function of defense.

We hard hedge on screens to prevent their point guards from attacking on straight line drives, but guard up on players aggressively outside the 3-point line to discourage catch and shoot 3's. As you observed, this leaves us "vulnerable" to penetration from wings, but we expect our players to be able to recover and at least make it a difficult drive, and we rely on the weakside shotblockers, who can contest/block/alter the shot. The trade-off is that opponents shots are a little closer to the rim (and thus a little more high %), but the heavy contests are designed to reduce that.

And it has been working very well this year. So despite what you see as constant drives, we have the 4th lowest 2pt% in the country at 42%. St. John's shot 38% on 2-pointers. And we allow the 19th fewest 3-pointers attempted against per field goal. If you want to take a 3 against us, fine, but it's going to be heavily contested, not just lightly contested, due to our overplay.

There are two main downsides (every defense has pros/cons). 1) The recovery by the wing defenders and rim protectors in addition to playing physical D causes some fouls, and more shooting fouls than most teams. Too many can give opponents efficient foul shots and get some of our better players into foul trouble. 2) When opponents play 5-out, it makes the rotation longer for our rim protectors and we end up giving up some free layups and wide open backdoor cuts instead of strong contests and blocked shots. This is why we struggle against Villanova every time and Maryland/Creighton last year (Maryland was a horrible draw for us). The good news is that by having Sanogo and attacking the offensive glass, we can also punish these teams on the other side of the court unless they have the perfect lineup combination (a 5-out center who can also defend Sanogo 1v1 in the post... hard to find).

Thanks for the basic reasons/logic for our current defense. With all the extra movement by our bigs, to make effective, you also need a deep bench and use more timeouts earlier in the game. I guess it's all about trade offs.

 

[Husky Alien]

I would love to see UConn play zone for a while in nearly every game except vs the cupcakes. UConn's most effective offense comes when they run. To run you need the opponent to miss shots. Running against NBE teams is not that easy. Opponents never expect UConn throw a defensive wrinkle at them - I think a zone would be effective at times.

I agree, zone can be very disrupting when done strategically along with other type of defenses. Though I prefer the man defense for the majority of the game. But would like more of a mix up depending on how the game is being played out. Looks like coach is reading the Boneyard
Lol.....

 

[August_West]

This is a feature not a bug. Their guards didn’t show the ability to make the pass once they got passed their man. They commit to going to the rim and we want that because it allows us to block them in close and get out on the break. You saw it as a flaw, I saw it as the reason we won the game.

Our rim protection was elite yesterday. And it is usually one of better attributes, at least the most consistent one.

 

[Husky Alien]

Our rim protection was elite yesterday. And it is usually one of better attributes, at least the most consistent one.

And it will only get better once Akok is healthy. Hopefully we are putting it together for the stretch run.

 

[HuskyHawk]

The defense is designed to prevent 3's and allow contested 2's.

The reason? Analytically, a defense doesn't have as much control over whether or not a 3-pointer goes in. You can contest and prevent wide open 3's, but it's more about luck of the draw and the offensive player's own shooting ability than the defense when it comes to lightly contested 3's.

But that is not true in the paint, where strong contests and blocking shots can very much lower opponents' shooting %'s as a function of defense.

We hard hedge on screens to prevent their point guards from attacking on straight line drives, but guard up on players aggressively outside the 3-point line to discourage catch and shoot 3's. As you observed, this leaves us "vulnerable" to penetration from wings, but we expect our players to be able to recover and at least make it a difficult drive, and we rely on the weakside shotblockers, who can contest/block/alter the shot. The trade-off is that opponents shots are a little closer to the rim (and thus a little more high %), but the heavy contests are designed to reduce that.

And it has been working very well this year. So despite what you see as constant drives, we have the 4th lowest 2pt% in the country at 42%. St. John's shot 38% on 2-pointers. And we allow the 19th fewest 3-pointers attempted against per field goal. If you want to take a 3 against us, fine, but it's going to be heavily contested, not just lightly contested, due to our overplay.

There are two main downsides (every defense has pros/cons). 1) The recovery by the wing defenders and rim protectors in addition to playing physical D causes some fouls, and more shooting fouls than most teams. Too many can give opponents efficient foul shots and get some of our better players into foul trouble. 2) When opponents play 5-out, it makes the rotation longer for our rim protectors and we end up giving up some free layups and wide open backdoor cuts instead of strong contests and blocked shots. This is why we struggle against Villanova every time and Maryland/Creighton last year (Maryland was a horrible draw for us). The good news is that by having Sanogo and attacking the offensive glass, we can also punish these teams on the other side of the court unless they have the perfect lineup combination (a 5-out center who can also defend Sanogo 1v1 in the post... hard to find).

All true. My complaints about the hard hedge mostly come when those uncontested layups are coming possession after possession (or when a player who cannot do it is asked to (Carlton, Johnson). Call it off and leave the 5 at home to ensure those drives are contested. Hurley eventually did that yesterday and it helped us close out the game on a run.

I think it also depends on our personnel at any given moment. Polley is pretty good guarding the corner 3. He's terrible recovering to the paint to contest a driving guard. Martin is quite good at that and so is Akok. Jackson is ok at it. So the risk of sending Sanogo or Whaley outside the 3 line as a five increases if our 3/4 aren't Martin/Akok/Jackson. When we have Polley and Hawkins as the forwards, as we did at times, the 5 needs to camp in the paint (although Hawk is improving).