Hello, friends, there’s so much to talk about! I’m having an especially hard time editing myself… and I always have a hard time editing myself! This was a great and very encouraging win against a team whose offensive was 4th in the country coming into the game and who represented the best offensive rebounding team in college basketball. While we still conceded significantly in that area (losing 42-30 on the glass), we found other ways to mitigate the issue, forcing 16 turnovers, blocking 8 shots, and holding the Aggies to 17 made field goals on just over 30% shooting from the floor and just over 17% from behind the arc, en route to 47 total points.
Offensively, we went from our last game where we mostly ran Sides with a little Flow mixed in, to a game where we played almost entirely out of the Inside Triangle, with a couple of cool wrinkles mixed in that allowed for some positional interchangeability. So, there are a couple of players that I want to highlight, but the majority of this piece is just going to be looking at offense/defense and how different players led to different executions of those things. Interestingly, even though all 5 starters played over 30 minutes and had ALL of the team’s points, we also gave 5 bench players minutes – and this was all without Dante Harris being available! I appreciated giving everyone a chance to flash even in a game with as competitive of an opponent as this (although I do have all kinds of thoughts re: rotation, now)
And, the team win is certainly the headliner but I still feel like I’m burying the lead – Elijah Gertrude saw his first playing time for the season and is going to be available throughout the year! I’d assumed before the game that was due to the Dante Harris injury, and it sounds like it may have been spurred on by it, but it sounds like it was something coming in the works anyway… so much now to consider! If you’ve been reading along, you’ll be well-versed in my objections to redshirting him to begin with, so I’m particularly thrilled about this development and will have some thoughts. Exciting times, let’s get into it!
Welcome, Elijah Gertrude!
I’ve decided I’m going to start off by focusing on Gertrude and illustrating some of what he brings to the table in various areas – and that can kind of allow everyone, as I have been, to envision where he can fit into the rest of what we’ve been doing. Keep in mind, he’s still not fully 100%, despite the athleticism we saw on display last night, and he’s been running mostly on the Green (scout) Team prior to this, so there are a lot of adjustments he’ll make rotationally, especially on the defensive end. But, despite all of that, we saw his explosive athleticism on full display Wednesday night, and it matters on the defensive end because he’s the kind of guy who can really improve your ability on the glass on both ends, as well as offer an abnormal amount of rim protection from the guard slot when he’s in the game.
Let’s just jump right into his first defensive possession and start with rebounding. As A&M shoots the three, Leon Bond, who is at the four position, is struggling to box out the 6’7″ Andersson Garcia (#11). He actually gets pushed out away from the hoop and is trying to get back into the play with one outreached arm. Gertrude crashes down from the corner and skies for this board, leaving no doubt. This is the kind of aggressiveness in our wings crashing defensively that we’ve only gotten inconsistently throughout the year, but never at this ability to go up and sky for the ball like this.
Another look on the glass later in the game, here. Firstly, let’s call out Andrew Rohde’s defense here on-ball – very good with a nice contest at the end – using his size to his advantage. But, on the back end, Gertrude actually gets beaten when the shot goes up. Bond is trying to box out, again getting pushed pretty far under the hoop, Gertrude’s man cuts in front of him, making it so there are two Texas A&M players with better position to get this rebound, but Elijah uses his bounce just to go up and get a piece of that ball, deflecting it away from danger, off of the backboard and to Groves in waiting. Now, I don’t highlight this as a great play by any means, it’s a sign of lack of polish and probably some rust getting into live action, but the ability to make up for the mistake and impact the play in a positive manner through sheer ability jumps off of the tape. As he starts to get the reps and round into form, I expect we’re really going to see it in a reliable way.
Defensively, he wasn’t attacked off of the dribble a ton, so we didn’t see him tested much in that way. When he was, he looked a little slow to react but, again, his recovery and his verticality was at times great, at times fantastic.
Three more clips here to illustrate the point – the first is directly at the point of attack. This was a very interesting stretch of the game because neither Beekman nor Dunn were on the floor. We played Rohde, McKneely, Gertrude, Bond and Groves. Now, offensively this did not go well and we turned the ball over at a much higher clip than normal but, notably, on the defensive end we put the clamps down and didn’t let A&M make many in roads despite the lack of both of our best defenders. Groves and McKneely hedge early putting Bond on the back end in some potential tension. A&M doesn’t really test this, though, and instead sends Gertrude through some screens and get his man the ball. This is 6’6″ Jace Carter (#0) and Gertrude is giving up about 2 inches of height and 35 pounds to him. And, again, he just beats Elijah off of the dribble. He gives a little shoulder fake to his right and goes to his left and Gertrude is unable to stay in front of him/cut off the dribble. But, Bond peels to offer some resistance and Elijah hangs on his hip during the drive. It’s the end that’s special, as he elevates through his recovery and is able to swat the shot convincingly while keeping space with his body.
Here’s one from earlier where Blake Buchanan gets beaten really quickly off of a high-post spin. As an aside here, and I don’t really want to spend too much time dwelling on this yet but there has been a stark difference between Florida Blake and post-Florida Blake, so hopefully we’ll get Florida Blake back soon. He was really the only player of the 10 who got minutes who I thought didn’t play up to his own standard. Anyway, back to Elijah. The player makes the bucket here and it’s a nice finish, but I want you to look at how cleanly he beats Buchanan and then how contested that finish is by all three, primarily by Dunn and Gertrude.
Sometimes it’s not the result we’re looking at in these clips but, rather, the surroundings. When a post player beats his man cleanly to the hoop but has three players with this aggressive of a challenge around him, it’s a very good sign. We already knew about Dunn’s prowess in this area, but Gertrude adds an entirely new element.
Lastly, and very similarly, this was ruled a foul, below:
I actually do think he got him on the follow through and, to be honest, he’s going to go over this play in the film room because he’s late rotating down from the back side on the double team. He needs to recognize it and react as soon as Blake starts to go. Instead, he lingers and then reacts to the pass. But, still, once he goes, look at that reaction time and how he basically levitates through the air to come from clear behind a 6’11” 250lb player (#10, Wildens Leveque) to almost block the ball cleanly and to deny the dunk/force free throws. Of all of our guys 1-3, maybe Reece and Bond get back into this play, but none of them are contesting with this kind of explosiveness, closing from a short distance like that rather than an run up, and swatting down at the ball like that. This is next level athleticism, again, not yet at 100%. I hope we’re all collectively recognizing and salivating at what we’re seeing here and are excited about what’s to come once some of the inexperience gets worked out and the reps get there.
Now, he didn’t really do much on the offensive end except for draw a foul on the perimeter and airball a three-pointer. So, this area largely remains to be seen. It’s, again, something he’ll have to work his way into on a comfort level and we’ll have to weigh how much his ability to contribute in all of the special ways is offset by any potential offensive hesitancy. More to come. But, as we go through these next couple of sections, especially on the defensive side of the ball (but also potentially driving hard from the wing out of the Inside Triangle), I’d like everyone to place Elijah in some of these situations and try to consider where he could have an impact on the glass either way, clamping down an offensive player, flying in from help side, etc. Watching him step onto that court on Wednesday was honestly just one of those crazy, “it’s HAPPENING!” moments where you thought things were one thing and then there was a complete 180. What does this mean long term regarding our rotations? It’s unclear, but I’ll speak to some thoughts on that at the end.
Triangle Tangram
There were a few outliers on inbound plays and a one off here or there, but what was very interesting about this game is how we ran almost 100% Inside Triangle after barely showing it in Fort Myers. Clearly, getting Jake Groves on the court and looking to extend the A&M defense while attacking from the sideline was crucial to the team strategy. Even more notably, and I think very interesting, is how we executed the offense. On many occasions we clearly tried to disguise who were acting as the wings vs. who were the screeners “inside” the “triangle.” Sometimes, we would switch the wing with a screener during the possession, and we had a variety of different personnel used in positions they aren’t normally. For example, there were looks with Bond on the wing (which was surprising because he’s such a good fit inside, in my opinion), there were also looks with Beekman on the wing. Rohde and Groves often moved interchangeably between the wing and the inside, etc. I’ll highlight some of these things momentarily, but it’s clear both that we were trying to obscure roles AND that we were comfortable with a lot of different players in any role. This is different from last year where you almost always had certain guys on the wing when they were in (Clark, Dunn, McKneely) and almost always had certain guys in the middle when they were in (Beekman, Franklin, BVP, Gardner). It’s also interesting because of how many players we have comfortable enough to shoot the ball and from range, we often ran the triangle part of our offense very high, clearing out the backside for drives. Groves, specifically, playing the BVP-esque role in the offense but being able to fill either role was one of the most versatile parts of our attack last night. So, we’re really just going to do a deep dive here on how we ran the Inside Triangle against Texas A&M. Before jumping in, check out my piece on the offense, here, if you’re not familiar.
Here’s an example on the first play of the game. Watch how this play starts with Beekman bringing the ball up the floor slowly. Groves makes some show out of setting a ball screen early and then retreats into the lane. Rohde and Dunn are on the wings to begin with and McKneely is hanging low on the near block, making him, Groves, and Beekman the initial three inside. This quickly changes, though, as Groves pops out to the wing and takes the pass from Rohde, replacing him, and sending Rohde inside. Groves passes back out to McKneely now and Rohde moves in from his former spot to set a ball screen and then slip to the hoop. Beekman is still around the near-side paint while Dunn is on the bottom wing. After the Rohde drive Beekman pops back out and takes the pass from McKneely and immediately fires it down to Dunn. Pause at 10 seconds into the clip – this is a much more clear and defined view of what’s going on. Dunn is on the near-side wing, Groves is on the top side wing, and McKneely, Beekman, and Rohde are forming almost a perfect triangle. It’s more extended, as two of the guys are well outside of the three-point line with one near the foul line, rather than so many of the screening actions around the paint trying to get something to pop free near the hoop. It’s still the same fundamental offense, though, there’s just a lot of stuff going on to accentuate their personnel and they’re really pushing their spacing outward. Okay, now Rohde dives to what almost mimics a short corner but is a lot farther out. This is something he did a lot in this game, and what this does is pull his defender toward him while stretching Groves’s defender to try to help and allowing a lot of space for any IMK/Beekman actions going to the hoop. He ends up settling all the way out touching the three-point line and whips it back out to McKneely at the point while Beekman has now slid down the opposite side of the lane. But look, when Beekman continues to go low, A&M switches, keeping their Center, Leveque, around him, while having their guard, the 6’4″ Hayden Hefner (#4), stay on the wing. But Hefner concedes 5 inches to Groves and as he’s recovering for the switch, McKneely fires the ball over to Groves, who has slid up to the wing. While Hefner attempts to close out on him, Groves uses his momentum against him by taking a dribble to his right to clear space, and then just elevating off of the bounce into his jump shot, which the much smaller Hefner can’t get a good contest on after the switch. Take a look:
That was a dense lead in to the first play of the game, I know, but there are a lot of things happening here that are all very interesting and shaped the flow of this cat-mouse game, so-to-speak, to play around with A&M’s switching and to try to put their big but less mobile frontcourt players in tension OR to create a mismatch otherwise. This mismatch took advantage of Groves’s shot and size over a much smaller defender. ALSO, this is something different than how we played this offense with BVP (which is interesting because their roles are though of as so analogous). BVP was almost always used on the interior of the Triangle; to set quality screens to free players and then pop to the outside. Because of his ability to shoot off of the dribble, and because of how adapt all of Beekman, Rohde, and IMK are at playing any of the roles, we’re free to stick Groves out there OR, as in this case, represent him being on the outside or inside and then switching it in the middle of the play.
A major critique of the Inside Triangle is that once you scout it, you know how to defend it, especially if you aggressively switch the screens. This added wrinkle of disguising who is doing what and how we’re using the spacing makes that much harder and, in this situation, A&M switching ended up burning them.
Okay, phew! That was just one clip! But it’s the chess game within the game that gets me really geeked out. This next clip watch the beginning – it’s entirely just to obfuscate who is where. Groves fakes a ball screen McKneely is stationary in the near corner, Dunn makes a break into the lane, curls around Rohde, and then immediately returns to the top wing where he takes a pass. But then the ball returns to Rohde at the point and Groves switches with McKneely and we, once again, have Dunn and Groves on the wings (this time swapped), and the three guards in the screening action. They get the ball down to Groves to pull his man away from the lane, but he brings it back out to Reece and this time Rohde goes to fake a light ball screen and both he and McKneely pop outside. As Beekman drives, A&M collapses off of Dunn to help, causing them to rotate on the outside, and Beekman does a great job of surveying the rotations, identifying which of his three teammates (Dunn, McKneely, Rohde) are uncovered by the two remaining defenders, and delivering the ball for the open look.
Really good stuff up there highlighting the disguise and how far out they’re playing the action. You could probably almost call this the “Outside Triangle” but that’s confusing so please forget I said anything.
Okay, here’s another one and this one culminates in a big time Ryan Dunn three. He didn’t shoot it well in Fort Myers at all – especially looking like he didn’t have the feel in the Wisconsin game; not even attempting looks and allowing Wisconsin to sag off of him and impact driving lanes. So, it’s really great to see him step into these with confidence and knock them down. His shot honestly looks pretty when he’s not spending too much time thinking about it. But, here we go and this time we get another Groves/Rohde switch positionally, but this time with Groves starting on the wing and Rohde inside. The play starts and the ball goes to Groves on the wing and Rohde dives to that extended short corner, but Groves dribbles over to get the ball back out to McKneely. Groves then moves into the triangle as a screener and Rohde replaces him on the wing. Keep in mind that one of the key points of attack from the wing is to drive the ball down the baseline/to the outside from the spot with the screeners keeping the attention of their men occupied. We haven’t talked about it yet, but this also combats Texas A&M’s defense well, as they run a “no middle” style of defense designed to switch, help, and keep things out of the middle of the lane. These wing attacks from the outside circumvented this, at times, as we’ll see later. Anyway, Rohde exploits the open driving lane on the top side and draws help from Groves’s man with Dunn’s man sinking down to help on Groves. This left Dunn wide-open on the perimeter, which is a very logical choice given how he’d been shooting. As I’ve pointed out previously, teams are likely going to force him to either take this shot, or punish the space off of the bounce. Here Rohde identifies the opening and delivers a skip pass right on target which Dunn catches in rhythm and drains.
There are things that you want on tape, and Dunn confidently stepping into a three and drilling it is among the greatest.
This next play was gorgeous, full stop. It was also cool because, once again, they subtly changed who was in what role in the middle of the possession. Pause just one second in and you see McKneely at the free throw line and Beekman and Rohde WELL outside of the three-point line (maybe we do just start calling this “Outside Triangle” I may need some votes on this). They’re basically in an “X” formation when you look at all five players at that timestamp. The ball goes to Groves on the wing and he dribbles up to pass it back to Beekman, but McKneely stays in the corner and replaces him on that wing, and now as Rohde pulls back out to clear a driving lane for Reece, Groves and Rohde are technically part of the inside action. Beekman cross-courts it to McKneely who jump, touch-passes it out to Groves. Pause at 8 seconds, see the triangle Groves, Rohde and Beekman are forming with McKneely and Dunn on the wings. Groves passes down to Rohde, who probes the middle and then leaves back to Groves, faking a ball screen for him. A&M switches the screen as Groves now starts to probe off of the bounce, but A&M has fallen asleep on the back door because they’re so focused on erasing these middle actions and our team is so extended 1-5. Dunn cuts backdoor from his wing and Groves finds him for the monster dunk.
All of that came from rotating the point of attack, Groves being able to initiate off of the dribble from “inside” and our extension of the triangle opening up a world of space behind the defense for Dunn to make a heady decision to punish.
This next look is really interesting because Beekman is off of the floor and Harris isn’t available due to injury. This is one of the few times neither have been on the court for us in competitive minutes this year (if not the first chunk of time). So, now feels like a good time to discuss. With Harris out, not only did Gertrude burn his redshirt, but we had to find a backup PG for when Beekman needs to rest. IMK shared some ball-handling duties, but we mostly put the ball in Andrew Rohde’s hands to fill this need, as he played PG and was ball-dominant most of his time at St. Thomas. Now, Rohde is a volume player who plays better over the span of the game the more the ball is in his hands and the more he gets into the flow of controlling the action/rhythm of what’s going on. As such, I’m going to break out a section just for him after this. But the interesting thing about this development, and potentially a significant positive aside just from having access to Elijah Gertrude now, is that Rohde was his most assertive and most like his old offensive self in this game because of how much he touched the rock. Additionally, playing him at point and then bringing Leon Bond on at 3 (or Gertrude) really improves the size of your backcourt and the length of your team across the board, and puts the player guarding him at often a significant size disadvantage. All of this was at play below, with Rohde, McKneely, Bond, Dunn, and Groves on the floor at the same time.
So here’s the first look with this group, McKneely and Rohde break their soft-press, and those two along with Bond make up the middle of the triangle. Bond goes low while McKneely handles the ball and Rohde floats just inside the arc near-side wing. Rohde fakes a screen for Bond and pops back out, to take the ball at the top-side of the triangle. He drives and then kicks it down to McKneely who has replaced him to retain the shape. McKneely catches probably 3-4 feet beyond the arc, pump fakes, gets his man in the air, and then drives. As Rohde’s man feigns down like he’s going to help on the dribble, McKneely hits him with a sweet little hesitation like he’s going to pass it back to Rohde (also freezing his own man on the recovery), before continuing his dribble to the hoop and finishing with the floater. Really pretty play/drive by him.
I want to also use this time to quickly mention the Leon Bond enigma. After playing 21 minutes against West Virginia mostly as the 3 (sometimes 4) out of Sides, here he played only 8 minutes, mostly as the 3 and they were in the offense I think he’s best suited for – Inside Triangle! Perhaps because we were running it so extended we didn’t think he was a great fit in it but, of all of our offenses, I still really like how this one marries Bond’s accomplished post game with his size being too small for most post players. It allows him to get switches and smaller players switched onto him so that he can exploit his post/midrange skillset. But, in the game where we were in the offense the majority of the game, he played less. He remains the hardest player to sort out re: the best utilization, but the defense he did bring to the 3, as we’ll see later, was imposing.
Alright, fast-forward a little later in the game, one of the last plays of the first half. This is another one (and I thought the most impressive of the two) where Dunn was just ready to fire on the catch, and ALSO notable because he ends up on the “inside” of the Triangle on this one. It starts as a set play designed to run McKneely off of a screen from Minor into the top corner for a three, but A&M switches the screen (as they do) and aggressively denies the passing lane out to McKneely, so we reset the ball down to Dunn. At this point, Rohde and McKneely are the wings, Minor is in the post as one point of the Triangle and Beekman and Dunn are the other two. Beekman simply draws two defenders off of the dribble and kicks it to Dunn who launches. Note, he drew extra help so he also probably could have passed to Rohde in the corner for an open look – but I LOVE (especially for our long term prospects) how confident and willing (and ready) he was to take this look on his own.
Okay, second half! Earlier in the game Groves had an opportunity on an open three-point look from the wing and he hesitated, much like he was doing in Fort Myers. This time, he gets a clean look from straight away and launches in rhythm for a big bucket out of the half. Take a look below, though, at some of the nuances from above. This time Beekman is on the wing at the bottom of the screen with Dunn at top and Groves is on the interior with McKneely and Rohde. Groves is being more intentional about the screening and his screen action is what gives McKneely the driving lane to prove. As an aside, that pass from McKneely out to Rohde is reminiscent of Reece, and very accurate for being in air and having to contort his body. Rohde catches and immediately fires down to Groves who has no one around him.
A play of beauty and with your PG not doing any ball handling!
One thing Texas A&M was doing for much of the game was kind of a token half-court pressure where they intended to trap the corners. It resulted in a 10 second violation once and caused another turnover on a Rohde pass in the first half, but it also led to the below situation where we have the wings set up, and once McKneely breaks the trap to Rohde and the ball gets kicked back to Beekman, the lane is vulnerable for him to exploit:
Notice, in the play above, he really just has to beat one guy one-on-one because the help side is so spread they can’t get back into the play. This was a nice punish of the press.
Okay, this next one is neat because Beekman is back on the wing again. It’s the first time I’m showing us specifically attack the baseline with the dribble from this position (we had a couple of bobbles doing so earlier). Again, recall this is one of the chief points of attack of the offense in general, but especially against a defense like A&M. Now, what I think is more likely is that we were playing Beekman on the wing some to allow him to be a little more static, at times, to give his knee some rest throughout the game, but it’s also possible (and would be cool if this was the case) that we just wanted to give him the opportunity to make a play like the below. A&M tends to shade high on these passes to the wing, quasi-denying them but, also, designed to keep offense out of the middle. Beekman catches and immediately explodes toward the hoop, with great body control to finish through contact.
Here’s a very similar action, from the bottom side this time and with Dunn. It’s great to see because we really want Dunn attacking/slashing toward the hoop as often as possible. Not only is he a great finisher, it gets him into the flow of the game offensively, which is what we need. Taine Murray is in the game for this one at the top wing (he rotates there late to disguise) with Rohde, Beekman, and Groves screening on the interior. Those three go a little more ham with the screening on this possession than we have been, playing it a little lower, but their actions preoccupy the defense such that Dunn’s drive can’t be answered until it would be too late for any rotations not to get dunked on.
You can see on this play, especially, that Texas A&M is again shading the high side and it’s almost by design that this driving lane is so open – but our actions on the back end make help unable to come, along with how quick Dunn is to exploit and, obviously, his ability to get up to finish so powerfully.
Okay, two more looks from this section. There’s not a lot to this one on its surface but, notably, Beekman and Murray are on the wings with Dunn, for the first time, Rohde, and Groves on the interior. You see Dunn starting off like he’s on the wing but Taine popping down and displacing him such that now he’s in it. But this is simply that the ball goes to the wing and Texas A&M’s big man, much more comfortable under the rim, lingers to jam up Rohde’s motion and falls asleep on Groves. Jake just quickly sprints up to the point and takes the pass and shoots it. I like this clip just because it highlights how uncomfortable having to defend both our 4 and 5 outside made a big, physical, team like Texas A&M on the defensive side of the ball. Leveque really didn’t want to be out there, was delayed in recognizing the close-out and slow executing it.
And this last one, below, combines the wing drive with some crashing toward the rim, but there’s a lot going on in this one and it was cool to see how calm and within the offense we remained right through the end of the shot clock. We start off with Groves and Dunn on the wings but Groves quickly being replaced by Murray. Groves screens for Rohde who gets the ball outside, feeds it to Murray, and then dives to that extended short corner where he gets the ball back. Reece cuts down the top-side lane and takes the pass, which is an action we didn’t see a lot of Wednesday night, but is one we emphasized more last year. Texas A&M does not want to allow this, though, and if you pause at 9 seconds, you can see how far Leveque is helping off of Dunn. Beekman probably could have kicked it out to Dunn there and gotten a look. Instead, he proves baseline and reverses the ball back out to toward the corner, causing BOTH Rohde and Taine to dive/fill the spot behind him (should have only been one of them, think they got their wires crossed). Now the wing is technically Beekman, but he probes the lane again and you see Murray backing out and filling back to his old spot. Beekman kicks it out to Dunn, who pushes it over to Rohde. Now, this is subtle but is one thing I love about Rohde’s passing and how he tests a defense so well with it. He could have just moved it to Groves and whipped it around the shell but, instead, he takes a dribble and skip passes a lead into the corner for Murray. This makes his man have to close out on him, leaving the driving lane vulnerable. Murray takes it baseline and Leveque closes in to help, but both Groves and Dunn fill by cutting to the hoop, and Murray finds Groves for a nifty little touch finish with just over a second left on the shot clock.
That really was a beautiful play because there were several mistakes with who went where, but heady probing and passing overcame that and Groves had a very nice and calm finish on the move with so little time left to get it off. Also, good to see Taine make a play attacking. He played 5 minutes in this one all during one stretch late in the second half, which was odd timing, but the team was +8 BP/M while he was on! He mostly hung on the wing in the offense, but he made this play and then almost finished on one other drive. He struggled a bit on the defensive glass, which I don’t cover in that section, but had a couple taken over him, but he did crash down for one long rebound once. Generally, I’m still perplexed and struggle with him not playing the entire game but getting 5 key minutes in the last 10. It worked out! But when you look at Gertrude and Bond both getting 8 minutes a piece, it does feel like it’d just be better to split that time up and bump each over 10, at least. I’ll try to spend a little more time talking about the rotation at the end.
Heavy Metal Rohde
I just wrote an entire section focused on the offense and am now going to dedicate an entire section just to Andrew Rohde… but I think it’s worth it because THIS is the player many thought/hoped that we were getting in the portal. What had become more accepted was that he was looking increasingly like a quality/role playing starter at this level. He could come in, play solid defense, make some shots on occasion… he’d been a great passer throughout… but he wasn’t doing much initiation on his own. What should be more clear now, is that it was because he wasn’t being asked to do those things as often and, therefore, wasn’t in rhythm. With Dante Harris healthy and spelling Beekman when he’s out (and sometimes sharing the floor with him) the need for Andrew Rohde to be a heavy ball handler was low… but Rohde thrives as a player who gets a lot of touches and who spends a lot of time bouncing the rock throughout a game. One thing I noticed when watching him at St. Thomas was that his impact and the number of “whoa!” offensive plays increased throughout the game as he got more repetitions. On Wednesday, Rohde acted as the secondary ball handler and PG when Beekman was out of the game. He performed admirably, but was also notably more willing to create for himself and others, and some really positive things happened when he did (and we won’t even show the bank!). It was also a positive development not just because he built that offensive confidence, but when he was the PG, he got back to having a lot of those size mismatches that he thrived on at St. Thomas – remember, he played PG/primary ball handler most of the time there and it benefitted them greatly having a 6’6″ defender lurking over the opposition’s 1-2 instead of looking eye-to-eye at their 3. It was an exciting development that I thought really brought him into the game and also just added to our overall team size/defense. Let’s take a look at some of his impact:
This first clip is a look with him handling the ball more often throughout the possession, giving Beekman, still on the floor, more of a breather. One of the few non-Triangle sets, and the neat thing about this is how they take advantage of Texas A&M’s switching. Henry Coleman III (#15) runs 6’8″ and is 250 lbs. He really doesn’t need to switch onto Rohde here after the down screen with Groves – it’s a pretty weak one, but the Aggies go for it, leaving their biggest player on our de facto back up PG. Rohde realizes this and comes to get the ball, seemingly calling for the clear out. It’s a clear out that the Aggies have to respect because we’re playing five shooters, and Rohde just completely crosses Coleman up on the way to a wild finish.
This next look might be the sickest pass thrown by anyone on the team so far this season. It’s really pretty crazy. With the ball out by the logo, he notices A&M coordinating a switch between McKneely and Beekman’s men. Wade Taylor IV (#4) has his back to Rohde entirely and Reece cuts backdoor, but when Rohde initiates this pass (freeze at 5 seconds) both of the A&M players are around Reece. He just understands how the Aggies play defense and anticipates where the open space will be for Reece. The sheer accuracy of the pass almost rivals the anticipation, as well. This is next level stuff.
This one, below, is Rohde in that wing position of Inside Triangle as we were talking about above. Instead of just exploding to the rim for the finish, though, he gets his defender on his hip and watch how he angles into him on the drive to keep that advantage. Help comes, but Rohde stops short and shoots a pretty sharp-angled bank shot. This is his scorer’s mentality coming back into the fold, right here:
He was catching and shooting with confidence in good rhythm:
And this last play, below, is classic St. Thomas Rohde (as was the bank shot, really), and it really serves as a bit of a cure-all. This is a possession where we really get nothing going within the scope of the offense and the shot clock is down to about 5-6 seconds. When Dunn hands it off to Rohde and switch comes with Coleman again. He just throws down a few slick dribbles to get into rhythm and keep Coleman on his heels, and elevates into a pure three. This self-creation from outside off of the bounce is very much part of is capability.
You’ll notice that none of these clips I chose to highlight (we saw a couple earlier) are actually with him PLAYING primary point. But, I do strongly believe that both him playing that role at times during the game and needing to handle the ball more while Beekman was on the floor, helped to spark his play. I’m looking forward to seeing him assert himself more and I hope there’s more PG Rohde to be seen on the horizon.
Rebounding
I’m not really going to spend a ton of time on this, but Texas A&M is still a fantastic rebounding team and won the battle by 12 over the span of the game. They tested our ability to clear the glass every chance they got. While I thought we did a much job of battling throughout and crashing down from the wing, these kinds of possessions would still happen from time to time where we just couldn’t get them off the glass. It ended up being their most reliable source of offense as Coleman finished with 14 boards (7 offensive) and 16 points on 8-14 shooting, mostly due to this presence.
Here’s a look at Coleman going to work, collecting two on this play, the last in easy position for him to clean up (note, though, McKneely playing good defense on Taylor!).
Here’s another look, this time with Beekman off of the floor entirely. McKneely does a good job on Taylor and Dunn gets a strong contest on a corner shot – but this also pulls him away from the hoop and Bond/Rohde/Groves can’t hole Leveque off the board. He draws a shooting foul.
It’s not like this has stopped becoming a pain-point for us. If it wasn’t, imagine our defense? Sheesh. But I love the commentary before the game about how CTB told the team not to get discouraged if/when this happens and keep fighting/trying to keep them from scoring when they do get the ball. We heard this echoed by Groves in his post-game presser, but it does represent a little bit of a shift in mentality for the program. In years past, giving up offensive rebounds was a mistake that would often have players sitting for a while. Here, in order to keep our most compelling offensive guys on the floor (and also to accompany the defensive style we’ll talk about shortly), we’re willing to make some concessions that this is inevitable. Something we’ll ramp up the energy to try to prevent but won’t hang our head over when it happens. I love it because it ratchets up the effort but dials down the pressure… and allows for…
Defensive Pressure
This team, man. The energy, the rotations, the athleticism/mobility, the active hands, Beekman and Dunn (but with plenty of complimentary pieces), the defense was completely stifling; but stifling not just in the pack it in and don’t allow anything easy sense, stifling in the ball-hawking defensive play-making sense. What was even more encouraging was that there were times when one or both of Beekman and Dunn were off of the floor and our defense still made life miserable on the Aggies. We saw some of that above with Gertrude on the floor, but here’s another look below with McKneely, Rohde, Bond, Dunn, and Groves on the floor. I really liked this lineup because, even though we gave up some in playmaking, we still had a lot of shooting and a lot of athleticism on the defensive side of the ball. On this play, McKneely is on Wade Taylor IV again and, perhaps it was a result of Beekman having shut him down for so long, but Taylor also didn’t get anything going on McKneely who did a great job on him. He averaged over 20ppg coming into the contest and finished with 9 on 20% shooting from the floor. Remarkable. But here, they try to beat Dunn on a curl screen and seem to have a slight advantage, but Bond’s length and quickness dart back into the play, deflecting the ball back to the lurking Dunn.
Here, below, Beekman is out of the game again. This is just really good individual and team defense. Bond looks like a nightmare to try to take off of the dribble out there (which we’ll see more momentarily), Groves makes a nice show and recover at one point, McKneely with a good contest on the shot, and Dunn with the box out to draw the over-the-back call!
This next clip, below, is the same lineup and, as promised, check out this Bond on-ball defense, which finishes the play, and draws the offensive foul because they can’t get around him. But really it’s impressive before that point as between Bond initially, Dunn, and Rohde, there isn’t anyone they really want to test on the perimeter. Notice at the end, as well, if the offensive foul wasn’t called, McKneely is right there on the swarm to steal the pass anyway as the offensive player has nowhere to go and is just careening out of bounds. Suffocating by Bond and a big reason I love having him out there at the 3.
Okay, we’ll close with some pieces that end in Dunn greatness, but also talk about some supplemental pieces throughout. Jordan Minor only played 3 minutes again in this one, but I thought it was actually the best he’s looked for us thus far. Here he is on an aggressive hedge early where he lurks, but is confident enough in Dunn on the back end. Sure enough, Texas A&M, tries the pass over the top to Coleman but Dunn stays home, forces him to make a decision on the pass or shot, and then blocks the shot on the release. Minor comes crashing in to secure the ball.
Minor got 2 rebounds in his 3 minutes at a pretty wild clip AND forced A&M to knock the ball out of bounds once on their defensive end. He was pretty active and did give up one bucket on his man rolling but, I thought his pop to close the first half brought more energy than we were getting from Blake in this one.
Anyway, back to business here, and this is a possession that I wanted to highlight just from the amount of toughness and determination we were playing with to match that from the Aggies. Watch McKneely here, who REALLY has improved his on-ball defense over the past season, just offering such forceful resistance on the drive, keeping really good positioning throughout, and then getting his body in close so that when Manny Obaseki (#35) attempts to go up for the shot, he has to kind of go through Isaac’s chest (but Isaac also still pulls back so as not to foul). It’s a miserably uncomfortable attempt by Obaseki who airballs, and then Dunn just finishes the play with a tough and sustained box out of the high motor Garcia.
Okay, let’s finish with a block party hosted by Ryan Dunn. He has good refreshments. This next play, below, just illustrates Dunn’s recovery time. I’m not sure why teams would ever decide to try to put Beekman and Dunn in a hedge situation together. Perhaps to pull Dunn away from the rim, but his recovery is so good it doesn’t really matter. Here he fully supports Beekman’s recovery from the screen and then recovers to Coleman. When he arrives, it’s as Coleman gets the ball, and he’s got a path to the left handed dribble, but Groves does a good job rotating over to obstruct with a vertical jump, and you just can’t try to get a shot up like that with Dunn right on your hip. Coleman had a good game on the whole, but this is a volleyball spike.
Poor Jake Groves. Dunn gets to swat the shot and flex to the crowd and he’s falling on the floor, getting bloodied above his eye, getting four stitches after the game…. Kidding aside, I thought Groves was a defensive liability at the beginning of the season (and he was) to the point where it was hard to play him at times even when he was shooting the ball so well. In the amount of time since, he’s really improved his rotations and is just competing inside even if he’s not a very athletic presence in there. The result is that he’s, much more often, been in the right position at the right time as still a 6’9″ presence, and that’s been good enough in itself that the rest of our good-to-elite defenders can rally. It’s great (and kind of shocking) that we can hold a top 5 offense in the country to 47 points while playing Jake Groves 32 minutes. As long as he’s playing this hard (and playing as well as he was on offense), it’s going to be hard to keep him off of the floor and he represents an alternative way to combat opposing bigs, by stretching them away from the hoop on offense and by playing within the system well-enough to allow the double-teams to help on defense.
Okay, final Cut for now. Texas A&M tries to get out and run a bit on the break but Dunn is there for the spike after Jace Carter (#0) sifts around Rohde and Groves.
He’s everywhere!
And, really, I focused mostly on Dunn’s omnipresence (and truly insane defensive stats and metrics after 7 games), what Gertrude brings to the table, our defensive options when Beekman is out, McKneely doing good work on the ball, Bond’s imposition when defending the 3, Groves’s improvement… really a bunch of things, but I didn’t even really linger on Beekman, playing at less than 100% and completely clamping down on the SEC preseason player of the year – and he really did!
In Conclusion (Rotational Musings)
I’m not sure what all of this means for our future rotational usage, but I’m excited about the possibilities. I had heard that the Dante Harris injury seemed serious, but then CTB called it a “rolled” ankle in the press conference afterward. He was wearing a boot and using crutches and Elijah was activated, but CTB said that they were considering pulling it anyway given how he was looking in practice and this just prompted that decision…. So, it’s unclear, at least to me, what the Harris timetable might look like. It does sound like, while Elijah was gung-ho on playing this year, CTB approached him with the idea and not the other way around, so that’s something, but that’s also something that’s very good news because, as I’ve written about previously, that’s a player you can use, you want to keep engaged, and who brings a lot of unique skills to the table. We got to see it with our own eyes in a UVa uniform.
Leon Bond is a bit of an enigma. I view him as a fantastic fit on the inside of the Inside Triangle… but we played him 8 minutes in a game where we mostly used the offense (although we did extend it more than normal) and played him on the wing within that offense some of the time for the first time in his career (I’m specifically talking about the wing of the Inside Triangle, he’s played the wing, generally, for us before). Meanwhile, the previous game where we played Sides for most of the contest, he logged 21 most of which were at the 3. It’s confusing; and you DO have to alter the way you play offense or at least the offensive strategy when he’s in the game – but you also see how much he clamps down on players when he is defending from the 3. His usage will be something to keep an eye on with the Gertrude activation and because Murray is still getting some minutes which, even though he looked okay, I feel like you really just want to up that Gertrude/Bond time into the double-digits where you can. Then again, Murray does approximate more closely what McKneely and Rohde are doing, although not as well. It’s going to be a delicate shuffle, but one we should hopefully be able to start ironing out. It’s one that does feel like it’s trending toward my preseason desire for minutes across our 1-3, though, and I’m very excited to see those thoughts coming to fruition on the court.
As for the frontcourt, that’s also a pretty volatile situation. Dunn is a staple but we’ve already gone from thinking/hoping Buchanan is the solution to a lot of questions this season, to watching him look a little lost and seeing Groves re-emerge. On the outside looking in, Minor is still in the conversation. At the end of the day, Groves will almost assuredly be a big part of the long-term plan given how he’s improving on the defensive end and his unique shooting (and finishing in general) skillset. I think the backup answer is still largely in question, though. Buchanan still brings the most upside and unique skillset to accompany what we’re doing if he can persevere through this slump, of sorts. The biggest thing that would keep him on the floor is a significant improvement on the defensive glass.
Okay! That’s all for now. Up next, tomorrow, we see the non-zone Orange for the first time (against us), while staring down quality guard play and great size in the frontcourt. I expect more of the same re: playing Groves to stretch McLeod away from the hoop and force him into space, but we’ll also need our rotations on point. Beekman (hopefully healthier) vs. Mintz should be a lot of fun!
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