Apologies for the delay on this one, as I realize most are already looking forward to Tuesday, but I was there for a great win for setting the table for the rest of the season, so I hope the wait will have been worth it.
In general, I thought that we played tough, with a high level of energy, and did a great job to come up with the win vs. a very talented team on a neutral court…. I also thought we noticeably could have played better; which is a great sign for our upside. It’s notable that, in a game that we felt pressure to win with such tight margins, the rotation really was just 7 players, although I think we wanted it to be 8 but felt like we needed to get away from that pretty quickly. While just two games ago we came into the season asking questions about who the starting 5 would be, and there’s certainly room for change/progression to this over the season, it now appears VERY clear what the initial rotation is. More on that to come.
Since I am so short on time, I’m going to try to make this a slightly abridged version of Cuts but, you know me… we’ll see how that goes. Let’s get into it!
Disliked: Interior Defense Without Blake Buchanan
My next section is going to highlight some of the stuff Blake brought to the table when his insertion into the game dramatically shaped it for the better moving forward but first: to highlight the problem he helped to overcome. One of the big fears coming into the season was the size of the frontcourt. Ryan Dunn is a fantastic defensive player and really can (and has) defend 1-5, but what he provides in mobility and bounce, he still sometimes gives up in pure size/standing verticality. It’s in no dispute that having him on the floor is our best defensive option and the thing we’re going to define throughout the season is whether he’s best placed 3-5, given the moment. As it stands right now, he’s primarily been slotted at the 4 when he’s played, and so the accompanying discussion is how you respond to very big lineups like Florida provided with 7’1″ Micah Handlogten (#3), 6’10” Tyrese Samuel (#4), as well as 6’11” Alex Condon (#21), and 6’9″ Thomas Haugh off the bench. Do you attempt to go small and stretch them, as with our starting lineup with Dunn at the 4 and Jacob Groves as a stretch 5, or do you bring in more size with either Blake Buchanan or, in theory, Jordan Minor? How does Leon Bond, who played primarily at 4 in his first game, fit into a game like this?
Well, our first response was to keep the starting lineup as we had it against Tarleton St. and it decidedly did not go well. Florida ran out to a 14-7 lead to start the game on the back of an absolutely dominating performance inside where buckets came far too easily and without much resistance.
Here’s a look at an early bucket. You can see how hard Groves is having to work to try to front Handlogten and, a bit of a concerning stat, he finished with zero rebounds for the game. It’s not to say he played poorly; his offensive contributions were huge and at big moments, though they primarily came when he was playing the 4 position alongside Buchanan’s 5. It is to say that he really struggled defending high-level big men, especially when he didn’t have a true center opposite him (and his -8 BPM was the clear outlier on the team, but also coincided with the addition of Buchanan to the floor). Samuel drives down the left side of the lane and Dunn is mostly in fine position, but his size does pose a threat to get a shot off. I would have preferred if Groves had stayed home here instead of going to help, and take our chances with Dunn defending the point of attack, and McKneely is slow to identify/rotate down to help on the pass to Handlogten (although he defended really well this game in general, which we’ll discuss), but you can just kind of see the relative ease of conversion here for Florida vs. the effort and energy to send multiple defenders we’re expending here:
This next one ratchets up the extremity of the issue. When Handlogten gets the ball in the post on Groves, Dunn immediately comes over to double and Rohde sags in to cover Samuel; but then Florida brings Handlogten out to set a ball screen and Groves hard hedges, taking him far from the hoop. His recovery is slow and our presence inside, despite it being Dunn, isn’t able to bother the quick pass to Handlogten and the immediate touch over to Samuel. Dunn’s basically in a two-on-one with two huge dudes at this point and there’s not enough time for Rohde to react down again.
This next clip, below, is just way too easy. Groves is attempting to front Samuel but he uses his significant size/strength advantage to seal, walk Groves up the lane just a little, and take the pass/finish before Dunn can get back into the play.
And this next one is the last bucket before the change – again you can see it looks very easy for Florida here. Handlogten simply makes a run down the center of the lane. Groves gets caught briefly flat-hedging, Samuel (and Dunn guarding Samuel) give him a slight rub, and Handlogten is able to simply catch and finish the ball up at the rim.
An eighth of the way into the game and Florida had a 7-point lead and it wasn’t just the ease of interior passing and points in the paint, they were playing volleyball on the glass (which did continue but markedly improved), and we were posing little to score inside ourselves. I was in the arena and the weight of the game felt looming at this point – we clearly needed an answer as their size was omnipresent.
Enter, Blake Buchanan, who we’ll talk about in detail momentarily, and whose presence single-handedly changed the trajectory of the game. It should be said that, aside from playing minutes with Buchanan, Groves did still play some time with Dunn later in the game. I thought CTB did a good job of mixing and matching those minutes so that Florida had some of their bench players on the floor during that time, which will probably be the best move going forward against our conference opponents with this kind of size. It does shine a light on Jordan Minor’s complete lack of playing time, though (as well as the 4 minutes for Leon Bond which we’ll talk about later). If there were a game for him to see more minutes, I would have thought this would have been it. His physicality inside just bumping and bruising and bodying the Florida bigs (who were long but not bulky) I would have thought would have had some value even in spot minutes to wear them down. That we opted not even to try that option in this game speaks to both how far down the depth chart he is and how well Buchanan played. Okay on to…
Liked: Blake Buchanan – Freshman Force
Usually, I try to err on the side of sample-size when discussing these things and not to overstate things in the short term, but the difference when Buchanan entered the game was so visible (we immediately went on an 11-0 run and took the lead 18-14) that it’s unreasonable to downplay it. His aggressiveness, mobility, athleticism, and physicality inside were all notable as well as his ability to finish or draw fouls inside against a team that had been completely shutting us down there. Some of it is he stark need because he simply fills a role that we do not currently have, as a true center with both strength and length, but his impact was undeniable, he played 27 minutes from there and his +8 BP/M was the highest on the team on a per-minute basis (second behind only Dunn’s 9 in total). He took over the starting slot at the half, and played throughout the end of the game, even hitting the winning free throws (70 and 71) among his 16 attempts, at the end.
Let’s take a look at the first play he’s in the game. Previously, we’ve been focused on defense, but I also mentioned how we were struggling to score on the interior at this point. After McKneely misses the little push, Buchanan pounces on Florida fumbling the rebound, right around both of their bigs, and then hits a streaking Dunn with a really nice pass for what should have been an and-1. This was a huge momentum play and just provided a spark in the lane/hope that we really needed in the moment. If I could side-track it a little, this is the kind of play Dunn is great at – when he’s just reacting and not over-thinking offensively – that can really help to get him going. I’ll talk a little about Dunn’s offense in the future, but this play was huge.
That was a good hustle play but now we’re showing something extra and needed here. This is out of Flow where Buchanan screens for Harris and then dives to the block. Harris finds Dunn on the wing (and he’s open enough that I’d like to see him shoot this more often than not over the course of the season if we’re going to be at our best) who drives in and finds Buchanan on the block. I did not expect this finish nor the confidence to take it. The quick little move into the fadeaway creates so much space that the result is basically a wide-open jumper despite the fact that he was covered. If this play alone is something he’s willing and able to repeat, it adds a lot to our ability to score against big/athletic teams.
The next contribution of Blake’s that I want to highlight is in the second half; another offensive board. The thing that’s exciting about this is how he very subtly uses his strength and physicality to push Handlogten out of rebounding position so that he can grab the board and draw the foul going back up. Normally, this is the kind of savvy (sometimes blatant) pushing around the basket that we’re on the enduring end of – but it is savvy enough not to draw the whistle; he doesn’t extend his arm. What I love most about this is that there are 3 Florida players under the hoop, along with their tallest guy who has been dominating on the glass, plus Buchanan, and he’s able to come down with the ball and take a trip to the FT line. Turning potentially empty possessions into positive plays is huge.
Here he is as an easy and athletic finisher out of Flow; changing screening directions, slipping the screen when the hedge is drawn, and easily dunking on Kugel on the back end. The fluidity of movement and how he doesn’t really need to gather himself much to go up for the power finish was on display on repeat during the second half – often sending him to the line after drawing a foul as we’ll soon see.
Along with that little fadeaway in the lane, this clip below was one of the more exciting on the night because he proved that not only can he finish, but that you can’t sag off of him when he’s in the high post and he’s willing to take the look when you do so. Notice, Samuel doesn’t really think he’s going to shoot when he catches it and is slow on the contest. All he needs is to be able to make teams play him honestly to maintain spacing and keep things open for drivers, and this was a great sign toward that.
Lastly, another one of the bigger plays of the game, Buchanan fouls out Handlogten who was probably Florida’s most impactful player of the game. First, an aside, I loved the increased use of Flow in this game considering the scale (I didn’t get to chart it and we still used a good deal of Sides but it certainly was a bigger presence and seemed like the go-to in big moments) and McKneely aggressively snapping that drive to the middle after the wing overplay from Florida for the dish was fantastic; love to see him creating and distributing (and defending) even when this wasn’t his best shooting/finishing game. It’s the athleticism of the attempted finish that forces the foul, though. Buchanan catches with momentum, gathers on the move, and goes up with a powerful one-handed attempt with great elevation and his body shielding the ball from the defender. Despite his length, Handlogten is coming from a comparatively stationary position and has to go through Buchanan’s shoulders/body if he wants to get the ball (which he was trying to). With such quality rim protection under the hoop, if Buchanan comes to a jump stop or doesn’t have the length/explosion that he does, frankly, with most of our guys, that’s probably a block – but he’s able to (and it built to this point through other fouls he helped draw) foul Handlogten out of the ball game for almost the final 3 minutes while we sealed the deal.
Certainly, you’d rather see better than 63% FT shooting, especially when he drew 16 attempts – but he shot better as the game went on, including going 2-2 in the most pressure situations – and simply the ability to force 8 calls (when I thought the refs erred on swallowing the whistle both ways for most of the game) through his tenacity and fluidity is huge!
Blake Buchanan’s readiness is a huge boon, especially when contrasted with our apparent reluctance to play Minor so far. Honestly, a big worry that I had coming into the season is that Minor would eat minutes, given our historical tendency to play experience in the frontcourt, that Buchanan could use for development while being close to as effective (if not more). The fact that this isn’t a concern at all and Buchanan is immediately able to go 27 minutes in the second game of the season is encouraging on the Buchanan end (while being slightly discouraging that we couldn’t use Minor at all against Florida). Now, it certainly wasn’t perfect. All of the clips I posted illustrating the problem were defensive and all of the clips I posted illustrating the solution were offensive, which is a little confusing. The truth is, Blake only grabbed two defensive rebounds and Florida still had some success on that end when he was in. But his ability to free up Dunn (and iMac, who did a great job crashing the glass defensively), and his ability to make traffic through the paint far less easy was noticeable and we’ll see it on some of the clips later re: Dunn’s rotations (so continue some of that a continuation of this section). But, very noticeably, Florida’s points were almost exclusively in the paint before he first subbed into the game, and then thei scoring shifted much more to the perimeter when he came in. So, more looks at this to come and I’ll point out Blakes presence along the way.
I’ll close with this re: Buchanan – he’s incredibly mobile and agile any frontcourt player let alone a 6’11” one. It’s going to pay dividends in a lot of ways; keeping him out of foul trouble, executing hedges and rotations in the defense, the ability to finish and adjust while doing so… etc. I hope that we see he’s earned his way into the starting lineup Tuesday night and that we continue to build solutions around him from here.
Liked: Dunn’s Defensive Rotations
Dunn’s crazy ability to seem like he’s everywhere at once on the defensive end is already starting to get some national notice (brace yourself for the draft projections all year!) as he was able to display it for a full 33 minutes on Friday. I heard somewhere he was credited for 7 steals; the ESPN box has him at 6… either way, that’s an insanely high number that paced the way for our total of 15 for the team. If we’re going to reach our maximum potential this year, he’s going to have to play a little looser on the offensive end, which I’ll talk about shortly, but the defensive whirlwind that we expected is already in full force. Let’s take a look at just a few of these and we’ll also see more in other sections….
This clip rocks, and his positioning to help McKneely on the Kugel drive, alter the shot without fouling, AND grab the board illustrates so much about what he’s bringing to the table. That stuff grabs the eye but I’d also like to draw attention to the earlier part of the possession. He’s right there to help on Beekman’s man at the top of the key and then he instantaneously reads and reacts to Samuel’s slip on the fake ball screen. There’s both never a point where the dribbler gains an advantage over Rohde nor a time where Dunn isn’t in fantastic position on Samuel, deterring a pass in, staying even, opening up and seeing the floor, and then reacting to the drive across the court.
My. Goodness. That dunk. Fluid in transition, which is great, but we get a good look at Dunn and Buchanan defending the hedge vs. Dunn and Groves. Dunn is much more able to aggressively show and recover and Buchanan does a good job of warding off passes to both post players. After Dunn recovers, he reads the pass into the high post for the Beekmanesque pick-6.
No bigger back-end protection than this one, which helped to seal the game before the Beekman steal that actually sealed the game. Samuel is not Dunn’s man – he’s guarding the wing, but both Buchanan and Beekman run for a long way with the point to cut off the dribble. Pause at 3 seconds at first. Buchanan is fully showing on the ball handler and Dunn is standing well under the elbow so he can deter a pass to Samuel and get back out to the wing. Buchanan recovers and then hedges so hard on the ball screen that he chases his man to the far wing. Dunn is literally covering both the near wing at the three point line and is helping McKneely to pinch Samuel – and he’s able to take up all of that space effectively. This is punctuated by the range he shows to go back on that pass and deflect the lob, which Buchanan corrals getting back into the play.
This is a special level of help defense! Looking forward to watching a lot more this year.
Disliked: Dunn’s Offensive Confidence
There’s time for Dunn to grow in his offensive confidence. It’s certainly on display with his handle, and when he doesn’t have time to think, he just reacts, some magical stuff can happen (see: the finish off of the Buchanan assist and the putback at the end of the game). The good news is that, between Beekman and several emerging options on a game-to-game basis, it doesn’t appear that we’ll immediately need Dunn to shoulder a significant part of the offensive load. That being said, if we’re going to reach our ceiling, we need Dunn to hit some of those outside shots in big moments and we need him to be more aggressive taking the ball to the hoop (drawing fouls, flexing his finishing ability). In the game against Tarleton St., he started the scoring by sinking a deep ball that he just caught and immediately fired. A couple of times on Friday (including the look I showed earlier) he passed up open looks and on two separate occasions he had a look in a relatively big moment, seemed to think about it, and missed pretty badly. I’ll be watching him over the next two non-conference games, hopeful that he just trusts it, let’s it fly, and sees some shots go through the hoop from range.
While the work that reportedly went into his three-point shot during the offseason could use some TLC on the court, this play, below, is my main bone to pick. Here, early in the game, he gets a mismatch one-on-one in the post against the 6’2″ Walter Clayton Jr. That’s a 6-inch positive height differential, let alone his reach, against the opposing team’s point guard on the block and Florida does not send help. Dunn’s got to get something heading toward the basket here but, instead, takes a couple of timid looking dribbles, bobbles the handle, and fades away hard on his jumper in the lane, landing almost on the free throw line.
So, yeah, we’ve got time to wait while his defense suffocates opposing ball rotation, but I’d really love to see Ryan Dunn increase his aggression on the offensive end, especially when he’s got a mismatch or has an open look from outside. It will be a huge plus for us down the line if he does.
Liked: Isaac McKneely’s Defense
Riley Kugel on Florida is a 6’5″ NBA prospect averaging 20ppg in this young season (23 in game one, 17 vs. us). The big question coming into the game is who would we put on him. Most assumed Beekman, with some such as yours truly speculating that they might try playing Leon Bond on him. It turns out, it was a little bit of everyone (except for Bond!) and, collectively, we did a good job in holding him to 7 of 19 from the floor. They certainly could have brought Harris on the floor for more minutes, played him on Clayton Jr., moved Reece to Kugel and kept Rohde on Richard (they liked his length to bother those shots) but instead, and this was one of the more exciting developments of the evening, they kept McKneely on the floor for his playmaking and just challenged him with the assignment for a good portion of the game. And here’s how it went….
First and foremost I want to say that, while I didn’t pull any of those clips, McKneely did a fantastic job rebounding for the game. He grabbed 6 in total, all defensive, and was a huge help crashing in to help finish up defensive possessions. In addition, he continued to display his awareness and knack for the ball by making some pretty good help side reads to deflect passes. While he didn’t log any steals himself, he created multiple turnovers in so doing. This first clip is exactly this, early in the game in transition. Handlogten has beaten Groves down the floor and Florida attempts to toss the pass his way. It’s possible they don’t see IMK lurking there on the throw, but it’s a good read and awareness to swoop in and get to a pass intended for a much bigger player.
Here’s another look later in the game, helping off of Kugel this time at the very start of the second half. You’ve got Buchanan and Beekman executing a hedge at the start of the possession, Dunn is there in case the pass gets through, and Rohde has pinched down well on the back side, leaving Richard alone on the wing… but McKneely reading when the pass would be coming and dropping off of Kugel to get his hand on the ball is the special sauce that to such a high turnover rate. And, honestly, it’s been a while since we’ve seen the defense rotate like that possession, right? Where everyone was a threat to get their hands on the ball and was getting where they needed to be on the floor with speed and urgency. It’s really been since 2019-2020 (though that team was certainly better at it) since the team has the speed, size, awareness, and positional balance across all 5 positions to rotate as we did with the Buchanan + Starters lineup.
Those rotations were sweet and nabbed us extra possessions, but the thing that impressed me the most and made me re-evaluate some thoughts about this team’s rotations, was how well McKneely played Kugel on the ball. It wasn’t perfect and there were some concessions at times, but it was very formidable and wasn’t a situation that Florida felt as though they could isolate and/or target. Here’s a great look, below, where Kugel gets the ball in transition with IMK having gotten depth and having to recover out to him as he takes the outlet pass. This is often a great time to drive on a defender because reacting to the bounce while changing direction is much harder than from a standard defensive position. McKneely stonewalls him, taking his shoulder directly to his chest and then hassling his dribble enough that he has to pull the ball back out and try feeding the post. It’s an opportunity where Florida thought they were going to get a mismatch in while running the floor that McKneely just shut down promptly and forced them to restart against a set defense.
Here’s one more look below, and this one is really excellent. If you pause the video at 2 seconds, you’ll see Dunn on Samuel on the perimeter with the rest of our defenders in a box. Rohde is shading the point, Beekman the opposite wing, and Buchanan is full-on leaving Handlogten on the block in preparation for a drive. McKneely is playing well off Kugel, helping to front Handlogten. There really is nothing for Samuel toward the hoop here, but he takes a few dribbles none-the-less, which Dunn defends well. Samuel picks his dribble up in a bad spot – not really close enough to the hoop to do anything, not really having had to draw the defense at all. Here’s one area where either our scheme or, more likely, Buchanan were a little off on the execution. I don’t think Buchanan needed to come on the double team here, he could have stayed home as Dunn had this under control and it wasn’t deep enough to draw concern. His double team comes late and not quickly enough to bother Samuel’s passing lanes or vision. He easily sees Kugel on the opposite wing, putting IMK in the awkward position of having to recover to him again. But what a great job he does, not biting on the pump fake for the shot, jumping over into position to body the drive again, sticking in good position on the spin move, and letting Kugel get into the air really with nowhere to go with the ball (which Dunn inhales). This was another good steal by Dunn who was rewarded for a deserving possession in his own right – but really the bulk of the heavy-lifting here was McKneely locking up a very good, and athletic, player.
The reason that I find this so interesting/exciting is that if you look at that starting lineup (with Buchanan instead of Groves), I would have assumed that McKneely is the most logical defender for our opposition to attack. And that may well still be true, it probably is. But if your weakest defender is playing like that and can comfortably be put on the other team’s best scoring option when necessary, that’s a very positive thing. Now you can keep his shooting and ability to stretch a defense on the floor more often (assuming he doesn’t get too tired from the defensive lift) and now you don’t have to do as much trading of offense for defense, but can have both. Speaking of that concept…
Disliked: Bond Never at SF
Now, I’m not including this under the “dislike” section because I disagree with the decision to only play Leon Bond 4 minutes. In fact, I think CTB started out trying to work him into the game at the 4 and quickly realized that he had to abandon that strategy for reasons I’ll show momentarily. What is disappointing is that Bond’s offensive game is still so inside-out oriented that it doesn’t appear to make much sense to utilize him at the 3 if it means taking and of our guards’ scoring/shooting/playmaking off of the floor. What this means is that we’re unlikely to get much Leon Bond time offensively at the 3 this season, and still more unlikely to get much Leon Bond time at all against large opponents. More likely, his role this year will be an energy piece who we give a shot, but who most commonly/likely finds a role against smaller more agile opponents. Perhaps we’ll see his time scale up significantly against, say, Miami, and down significantly against UNC or Duke. It’s still uncertain, but what has become clear is that his 8th man status will likely be more fringe/variable than how both Harris and Groves/Buchanan are utilized. Surely, this could be something that evolves over the season and is something I’ll be keeping an eye on but, of the four minutes he was on the floor Friday, these two sequences stood out as reasons CTB quickly went away.
On one of his first plays, Bond was able to tip in an offensive rebound, but right after that… pretty much every interaction he had over this trip up and down the floor indicated that he was really going to struggle around the rim against the Gators. He slips a nice screen toward the rim but gets the shot erased by the helping Handlogten, then gets back on defense but has a very hard time making an impact on the glass, just swipes at a Florida player’s drive, can’t impact the defensive glass again, and eventually fouls Samuel trying to get back into the play after he fakes a screen and cuts toward the rim. In his defense, having him guard the 6’10” Samuel is almost the same size differential as when Clayton Jr. was switched onto Dunn from earlier. This is why I stress that Bond’s future is really going to be better if he can play the 3 and only flexes to the 4 in certain matchups.
Then, there’s this possession, which features a sick pass by McKneely and also a shot clock violation on the block – but watch Bond’s role throughout the offensive set. First, he runs some stagger screens with Buchanan which don’t really create an advantage and so he gets into a pin down screen with McKneely. McKneely draws his man and finds Bond with the pass on the baseline. He has Samuel on him, a player who he should be much quicker than and has him faced up, but Bond seems to have no interest in attempting to take him off the dribble, gives the situation a stare (ball freezes for a second), and kicks it back out to McKneely, which effectively resets the offense. McKneely whips it back around to Beekman who takes a screen from Buchanan (who was setting it before the ball arrived), and Buchanan rolls into the lane and takes the pass from Beekman. If you pause at 16 seconds, you see Buchanan with the ball at the free throw line, his man Handlogten has basically ben camping under the hoop this possession but came up to deter the Beekman drive and then slides back to get in front of Buchanan. To assist with this, Samuel sags well off of Bond, encouraging Buchanan to correctly read the play and pass it out to Bond. This should have been a three-point look right between 16 and 17 seconds, but Bond has not spotted up outside of the three-point line, catches the ball, doesn’t look to shoot or drive, and immediately whips it back out to McKneely, again resetting the play. These are possession killers – where an advantage or look that is created through the flow of an offense is wasted because the player on the receiving end of the build-up either cannot or will not take the opportunity where another player in the same role would be able to, and the offense has to reset. We’ve seen these a decent amount in recent years across a variety of positions, but normally they occur most when a player either isn’t in the best positional/lineup fit or doesn’t have a favorable size/athleticism matchup. I’m confident that CTB recognized that with Bond on the floor we were still giving up size, but weren’t adding the ability to stretch the floor, and so he had to move away from it quickly.
So, does this change at all this season? We saw Leon hit a three in the Blue/White scrimmage and know he’s been working on improving his range. How effectively can he attack off of the bounce without putting his back to the basket? The answer to these questions are going to shape whether or not Bond can be a factor against size or whether he’s going to become a more matchup-dependent option to help deal with quickness in the frontcourt.
Liked: Dante Harris – Bottled Lightning
Dante Harris’s doesn’t care about your lateral movement, or the cushion with which you play him… or even bringing the ball with him, for that matter. His quickness eats up that space in an instant in the kind of way you see time slow down and the protagonist move around the other characters on screen. Hyperbole aside, he is a unique axis through which to attack and offers a change of pace from the rest of our team. Beekman is clearly the better and more complete offensive (and defensive) player, very capable of beating one-on-one defense and getting to the hoop or to his jumper, as we’ll see soon. But his attacks are smooth and calculated. And, while he’s very quick, most of the time he’s putting his opponent off balance slightly and then using his length and skill to finish over and around defenders. Harris is full-on past defenders entirely with time and space to glance behind him to calculate how much time they have to catch up while he makes a decision on what to do next. In a game full of superior athletes, he makes everyone else look slow-footed; quick in a way we haven’t seen during the CTB era (Jontel Evans might have some words with me for saying so).
The thing about his game, though, is while he still hasn’t shown a reliable outside shot, that midrange game is there. He’s very comfortable with it and he goes to it at will when it makes sense in the context of his creation. This means that he doesn’t need cleared out space by the rim and/or doesn’t have to consistently make acrobatic finishes against much larger players in traffic, because he can just use the advantage he creates on the perimeter, stop short of the help, and pull up. It means that his ability to take his opponent off of the bounce can be a reliable weapon in and of itself even if help side defenders are aware and staying home. Let’s do three quick examples – his buckets from Friday – on this:
This first look is a very cool set that they’ve run a few times with multiple curl screens. Buchanan sets a ball screen for Harris, McKneels screens Dunn to the corner, and Buchanan rotates down to allow Rohde and then McKneely to curl around him; ostensibly with the intent of creating an open look from three from McKneely. It’s a neat set but Florida, who was paying a lot of attention to McKneely as a shooter all game, was there to deter a shot. So the play, then, becomes… clear out and let Harris take his man, which he does so effectively that he has the VERY athletic, Florida/Georgia football scholarship-offered, Walter Clayton Jr., fully on his back by the time he gets to the elbow. You see him slow up there, drawing Handlogten into the lane to stop the drive, forcing Clayton Jr. to abandon ship and run to try to cover Buchanan’s dive to the hoop. Harris takes that opportunity to fan out wide, keeping space from Handlogten, and hits the jumper. This is not only pretty, it’s superior athleticism besting one great athlete and one very lengthy shot blocker. When we talk about Harris’s control, also remember that this play requires not just explosion, but also patience, timing, and angle awareness.
I’ve said previously and on social media that a Harris rejected ball screen is a deadly thing. It’s because he’s already quicker than his defender, but when he gets his man leaning on a screen or having to anticipate fighting through one, it’s really hard to deal with his movement the other direction. Here, in the clip below, Clayton Jr. anticipates having to get over the impending Dunn screen and Harris simply flies baseline and then pulls up/steps back when he sees Handlogten enter the picture.
One more, and this time he gets all the way to the hoop with the left hand and finishes nicely ahead of two defenders too slow to get back into the play. It’s a cool little offensive set because they start in what I may start calling Wide-Sides (we’ll see if it sticks/if I get annoyed with the extra characters), but then Buchanan breaks off to set the ball screen and IMK and Rohde fan out into Flow. Buchanan sets the first screen which Clayton Jr. steps under and then goes to set up the next when Harris explodes down the lane for the layup.
So why have I highlighted this in both of my pieces so far? Well, for one, it appears that Harris’s role in close games is simply THE guard off of the bench. He gives Beekman good rest (only played the 4th most minutes in the first half, allowing him to be fresh for the second), but can step in allowing the other guys 1-3 to shift where necessary. He only played 15 minutes, which I think is a good number and also highlights the trust that CTB has in both McKneely and Rohde already as his best options in those roles. But, I believe that Harris’s skillset does really compliment what the rest of the team is doing by being a distinct change of pace/different way to attack a defense. You don’t need to play as many shooters around him because he can just get to his shot, if needed, and he creates opportunity for rim-runners (unclipped, but the stumble/assist to Buchanan leaps out). He’s a good option to turn to if you’re in the kind of drought like we were after the Groves “flat tire” in the second half, and he’s definitely an option I’d like to see turned to when things are stalling. Finally, as the competition ramps up and we (already?) look ahead to March, we will be faced with increasingly athletic teams. Sometimes, players and options that are effective for most of the season, face reduced efficacy in those situations, and I think either IMK or Rohde (or both) may run into this on occasion, given certain matchups (hopefully not in the same game). I believe Harris will be a viable secondary answer (behind Beekman) to those situations.
At some point, teams who scout us will sag well off him and dare him to shoot, and so we’ll have to see how he handles that and how effective he can be at making them pay. This may crop up with defensive rotations, as well, where teams help off of him aggressively. That being said, I do think he has the tools to punish that in his own way, move into the vacated space, get his shot. Definitely something to keep an eye on as the season unfolds to see how teams adjust when Harris is on the floor.
Like: This Is Beekman’s Team
Ever since pre-injury Reece last season (and really, before) I’ve wanted to see a full year of unchecked, confident, aggressive Beekman. This is it and (knock on wood) if he stays healthy, we are fortunate enough to have a full season left of it. Beekman has and is playing with the freedom to do basically whatever he wants. Whether it’s carving up an entire defense early in the shot clock (vintage Michigan Reece)….
Having no-pass possessions at the end of a game when the score is tied….
Or gouging defenders with deep jab steps into NBA threes….
Or making the key end of the game steals to ice everything, this team is 100% his and it’s glorious! I do want to call out that clip above because it’s a neat set and one that caught my eye a couple times from the game. I want to make sure it is what I’m seeing if they run it in the future, but it’s very similar to something I’d called out thinking would be a neat wrinkle to add into Flow. Basically, Rohde screens Dunn into the corner so we have both corners occupied, Groves sets a ball screen for Beekman and then turns and sets an off-ball screen for Rohde who pops out to the three-point line. The play looks and Rohde has an open look, which he misses, but collects the rebound and immediately whips the pass over to Reece (again, I like the pressure Rohde puts on a defense with his passing). Later in the game we see this set similarly only Rohde sets a back screen for the ball screener – but the timing is a little off and it gets muddled. I don’t want to label this set yet until I see it more, but this additional screen action right after the ball screen can be very hard to defend, as the screener’s defender is put in a position of having to hedge, while either fighting through a back screen or helping on another screen by a player popping to the three-point line. I hope we’ll see more of this in the future because I think it’ll be a very effective addition with some polish.
In Conclusion
Ack! There’s already a game tonight and I’m just getting this out! Hopefully there’s been some fun stuff in here to read. I’m excited about the upside of this team and have really appreciated how CTB has been leveraging it in this early season. There are certainly concerns. Namely, Buchanan is young and can’t play a whole game. Even with him on the floor, there are still some concessions inside against big teams. Groves’s offense has been better than I anticipated but his defense has been worse. The scoring drought we went into in the second half didn’t find many answers for a long stretch of time…. I do think we’re going to feel the size issue all year. The question will be can we mitigate it as we did on Friday through Buchanan/Dunn and quality guard play. Can we have alternative players like Rohde, Harris, Dunn, to carry the offensive load from game-to-game, like Buchanan did against the Gators, so that there isn’t so much of a burden on Beekman and McKneely and we aren’t forced into playing Groves if it doesn’t make as much sense on defense?
Not questions we’ll get answers to against one of the worst teams in the country in North Carolina A&T, tonight, but it will be a good opportunity to continue developing and growing the confidence of those supporting pieces.
Short turnaround after this one – see you soon!
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