The Heater Game? Maybe not because, hopefully, we’ll have more games where we’ll shoot that well, but it was fantastic to see so many guys get into a rhythm from outside. This was a convincing win that carried a 33-point margin in the second half before we relied heavily on our bench for roughly the last quarter of the game and Syracuse pressed full-court throughout. It was great experience for our younger players and, I thought, highlighted certainly some areas for development. I’ll spend a little time with that part of the game talking about some feature players but, generally, I’ve focused primarily on when we were at our most competitive, given that’s the utilization we’ll put on the floor when things matter most.
Coming into the game, Syracuse had just beaten LSU in the ACC/SEC Challenge by 23 points on the back of Judah Mintz’s 33 points. Last year, Mintz had some success getting into the lane against Beekman and finishing in traffic, especially in the midrange. Furthermore, Syracuse boasts 7’4″ Naheem McLeod, the transfer from Florida State. Given our issues with rebounding early this season and the size we typically concede game-to-game, these two players complimenting each other was my greatest area of concern coming into the game, and one that could be a litmus test for future guard/big matchups. How would we defend such a size disadvantage, certainly if we played the starting lineup we’ve been favoring with Jake Groves at Center? Given that we’d just managed to get through the Wade Taylor IV/Wildens Leveque/Henry Coleman III test, I was optimistic, but McLeod, at 5 inches taller than even Leveque, represented a different kind of challenge.
In this piece, I’ll focus on our approach to the size mismatch, and then spotlight a few player performances. But, first! When breaking down a game, there are so many different routes one can go. Often, I spend my time focusing on new developments, interesting trends in the matchup, wrinkles in our offense or defense, rotational changes, player development, etc. Sometimes, this lends me to spend less time on the greatness of the established players whose time is unwavering. So, I want to open by a concise, but very important nod to:
The Louisiana Lasso
Okay, perhaps that one is a bit much… but I’d also absolutely love it if people started calling Reece Beekman the Louisiana Lasso before his career ended. Beekman’s defense on Judah Mintz (#3) was superb all game, holding Mintz to 5 points just a game after that 33-point outing. It became clear just how much Beekman’s hamstring was hampering him in those contests last year and/or just how much he’s grown as a defender (which is scary considering he was already ACC DPOTY). Throughout these clips later on, I’ll be focusing on team defense, especially our approach to McLeod, but you’ll see Beekman consistently cutting Mintz off at the point of attack, or Mintz just downright not wanting to test the waters, and at times the rest of the team responding well if any help appears needed. But I wanted to spotlight two great possessions just to really highlight how difficult it was, typically, for Mintz to get any shot off.
Here is a straight isolation after an inbound from the sideline with only 9 on the shot clock. They fake a ball screen at first and Mintz tries to break Reece down off of the dribble. That goes nowhere and so, instead, Mintz tries to pump fake a shot from the outside, get Reece to contest, and draw a foul on the shot. Beekman does a great job of invading the space and contesting the shot so hard that it airballs, but without fouling. It almost feels like Beekman is just engulfing Mintz throughout this clip – and Mintz is listed as the bigger player!
This one is from later in the game and Syracuse is more desperate and Mintz is trying to force the issue. This is another isolation play and Mintz is very quick. He stops on a dime at the elbow and gets Beekman to sag ever so slightly, but not enough that he can elevate into a clean shot, so he tries that pump fake again. This body control from Beekman where he invades the space but is able to pull back and not make contact with the shooter is so good! And, once again, he forces Mintz off target.
There won’t be many clips as obvious as these, but keep an eye out for Beekman consistently deterring Mintz and taking Syracuse’s draft prospect mostly out of the game!
Groves’s Growth
There’s going to be a lot of this in the next section, but I did want to call out, specifically, how much improvement we’ve seen from Jake Groves on the defensive end since the beginning of the year. It does take some time to adjust to where you need to be within the defense and what your responsibilities are (and the tenacity you need to play within it). I mentioned last game how much improved Groves was in this area since early in the year where he was a bit of a liability – but there wasn’t as much focusing on him specifically. Here’s a look from him that’s night and day (and then we’re going to see a lot more of him working on McLeod).
This play will (and correctly) put the emphasis on Dunn’s great shot block getting back into the play here after getting beaten on his recovery to the wing, but Groves does work here. First, he has a great show on the Mintz dribble, stopping it dead, on the back end McKneely and Dunn shade for him and then the ball swings over to Dunn’s man on the wing. Groves recovers well to front his man again, but once he recognizes the drive, he discards, gets into good position, and jumps straight with both arms in the air with his momentum carrying him away from the driver so as not to foul.
Groves is never going to be a dominant defensive player… or probably even an average one individually. But he can be effective within the team defense, surrounded by other good to great defenders, like Dunn, whose ability to get to that ball was phenomenal… but who also probably wouldn’t have had the ability to if Groves hadn’t gotten into that play and made the shot difficult to begin with. If you pause at 6 seconds you can see how effective his contest was – he almost blocks it himself. That hedge and rotation back wasn’t just adequate, it was good!
There Can Be Only One (Dealing With McLeod)
Okay, so Naheem McLeod is a 7’4″ 265lb Junior who came into the game among the nation’s leaders in shot blocks and posed a real threat on the offensive glass and finishing around the rim. But in THIS game, he finished with zero shot blocks, 6 points, only two rebounds (none offensive), and only 15 minutes played (in fact, we actually out rebounded Syracuse 33-27!). So, how did we do it? We helped aggressively on the inside on defense and put him into space/pulled him away from the rim on offense. One thing to note, while I was worried about this comp, McLeod is not mobile as a big. This allowed players like Groves, Dunn, and our wings to beat him to positioning, which we’ll see shortly. Let’s jump right in by starting with our offensive strategy.
Offensive Spacing
Ultimately, I think this is was a great answer to McLeod, and we did it last year vs. FSU as well, with primarily small lineups that included BVP. Groves appears to be even more effective/efficient on the offensive end with his ability to put the ball on the deck, his pull up jumper, and his almost 46% three-point clip on the season. The clip below ends in a miss, but it’s a great and wide-open look for Groves on the wing. We start the offense in Flow and Beekman represents like he’s going to use Groves for a ball scree, but instead rejects it and drives. McLeod goes with him, creating a situation where Beekman has drawn two men under the hoop and we have all four players around the arc. Syracuse is tasked with a one-on-two with the help side defender trying to cover both Groves and Rohde. The ball goes to Groves, who whips it over to Rohde in the corner. Watch McLeod’s close out – it’s lumbering and really hard for him to change directions so Rohde leaves him completely in the dust off of the bounce. His drive draws two defenders and he kicks it out to Groves for the wide-open look with McLeod having no change to get over to bother the shot.
By having 5 players who are at least a threat to launch from deep, we forced McLeod into unnatural spacing away from the hoop. When he dove to help protect the rim, he had no hope of getting back outside to bother our shooters effectively. Again, while this missed, you’ll take that kind of a look for a quality three-point shooter every time.
Here’s a different look from the second half. We start the play with a stagger screen to get Rohde the ball. Groves is playing inside of the three-point line and McLeod is sagging off of him in the lane. The ball goes back to Dunn on the wing and now we’ve got McKneely, Rohde, and Groves in the “mix” within the Outside Triangle offense (a term I just learned from McKneely in his presser). Groves sets a screen away from the ball on McKneely’s man, which Rohde then backs up with another screen. This is a cool screen action to note because it’s within the Triangle but it’s effectively a double pin down to the wing and, since Dunn is positioned so low, there’s plenty of space if he were to be able to shoot. This is another difference in the angles we take with the Outside Triangle vs. the Inside. Anyway, this leaves two Syracuse defenders scrambling to get to McKneely, Rohde pops to the opposite wing, and Groves dives. McLeod is now in space and has to make a decision between going out to Rohde or sticking with Groves. Opting not to leave the three-point shooter alone, he chooses Rohde, who zips a really nice pass into Groves for the layup. Notice that because it’s McLeod, Syracuse can try to recover with their wings from McKneely to Rohde, but once McLeod has made the decision between Rohde and Groves, he’s basically pot committed.
Syracuse attempted to combat this by putting McLeod on Ryan Dunn who ostensibly represented less shooting tension. And they were correct – Dunn finished 0-2 from range on the day. In this clip below we see that McLeod is sagging off of Dunn on the outside, but not so far away that he’s back in the lane. The early part of the possession, Dunn has the ball unbothered on the wing. Now, I’d love to get to a point where he just pulls up with this kind of cushion and forces his man to stay on him, but we’re not there just yet. Instead, Dunn stays wide and we bring the ball down to the other wing (who is Beekman, interesting note that he played the wing in Triangle some this game, as well). Beekman cooks and drives through the center of the lane, driving around both Justin Taylor (#5) and with Mintz unable to get into the play effectively after getting switched off onto Groves. The thing to note here is that McLeod is once again in tension. He has to decide whether or not to commit to crash down and attempt to block Beekman, or stick with Dunn who is outside. If he does respond to the Beekman drive, Dunn is getting a clean look for sure. In the end, he kind of fakes like he’s coming in but stays home, and Beekman is able to finish neatly.
Last offensive look here, below, we set the ball with Dunn on the wing again, with Groves opposite. McLeod is pulled away from the hoop, again, by his Dunn responsibility. Note, there’s really no good defensive matchup for him here. If he’s on either Groves or Dunn, he’s stuck in the corner. If he sticks with a guard, they can either take him off of the dribble, force him to react in the mix designed to get an outside shot off of his responsibility, or they could even just swap with a wing. McKneely finds a decent back screen for Beekman who Dunn gets the ball to under the hoop. On the backside, Taylor drops to help Mintz on Beekman under the hoop, and Beekman reverses the ball entirely over to Groves who drains the three. Notice, also, Syracuse is playing pretty small OUTSIDE of McLeod, here, so the 6’6″ Taylor’s contest isn’t as effective on the longer Groves.
Our Triangle offense is always better when we have as many shooters as possible on the floor. This version, with our current starting lineup, offers nowhere to hide for a player with mobility issues. The best bet IS still sagging off of Dunn, but unless they’re willing to just let him shoot uncontested threes (something I expect someone will try to force at some point), it still poses challenges. I also think this shows that we’re not necessarily going to struggle just with height this year, it’s the strength and mobility to recover and attack angles that’s going to be necessary. A player like Armando Bacot might be more effective at sagging off of, helping, and recovering from Dunn – but I like the idea of forcing him to be in that position as much as possible.
Defensive Help
This first bucket of the game for Syracuse was what I envisioned as the most worrisome scenario – where we get in a hedge in the pick and roll and the roll comes too easily. You can see on this clip that on the first hedge Rohde leaves pretty early. Mintz doesn’t recognize the opening in time to pass, but must have noticed it because Syracuse goes right back to it. This is just getting Groves away from the bucket on the hedge, and then us not being aggressive enough about lingering back side help. And the easy dunks are really the main thing we were trying to avoid. Make them make a shot.
But, after this, we adjusted very quickly re: our emphasis. This next clip is a similar action but this time Dunn lingers for the potential pass and isn’t quick to jump back out to his man until Groves is able to get back. That’s a much easier rotation for Dunn, who covers a lot of ground. Beekman plays fantastic defense on Mintz again, fighting through a screen from Taylor on the handoff (Dunn gives an effective quick sag to help the transition) and even though Mintz gets a tip up after the miss on the quick jump, look at how four of our guys swarm around McLeod making sure he can’t get to the ball; McKneely racing to come up with it.
That’s the kind of team swarm rebounding we’ll need this year but, even just in general, it was a little easier for Groves to box out McLeod because, again, it was a player he was actually quicker than and he could navigate the positioning better. Take a look, below, on this defensive set and this rebound by Groves. It looks like he’s going to have to hedge early in the possession but Syracuse rejects the screen instead. At 8 seconds look at how aggressive Dunn is about camping the lane, both watching the drive and the roll from McLeod. Taylor is trying to clear out into the corner from Syracuse but Dunn really isn’t worried about him because he knows he can cut off a pass or recover out into the corner quickly enough. As the ball whips around and Taylor probes the baseline, Dunn cuts him off, but Groves positions himself as if to help and Beekman stays on McLeod on the backside. Eventually Syracuse kicks the ball around the outside a bit more such that Taylor has a sliver of space when Dunn sags on a drive and fires a well-contested three. This is just Groves tasked with boxing out McLeod here but he does a good job getting in front of him, takes a full-on push to the back, and goes up and gets the rebound from his protected space.
He drew an over-the-back earlier. This is a player who Groves is giving up 7 inches of height to. For perspective, that’s like asking Kihei Clark to box out Leon Bond in terms of listed size differential. So, Groves did a more than admirable job with his technique and positioning here.
This defensive set, below, I thought was especially cool, and it’s with Bond on the court instead of Dunn, so it’s good to see that this was also effective. Groves shows on the hedge to start the possession, then recovers as Beekman shuts down the Mintz drive probe. Syracuse kicks the ball around again and eventually puts Groves in another hedge situation, but both Bond and Rohde sag hard toward it this time. When Mintz passes the ball over to Taylor at 12 seconds, Bond is almost halfway down the lane from having sagged to help Groves recover, but he’s able to get back and run Taylor off the three-point line, and Beekman’s sag/intrusive hands prevent any further attempt at a drive. Despite the aggressive sagging, Taylor has to kick the ball back out again to Rohde’s man, who ends up resorting to a tough pull up jumper with a good contest by Rohde. On the rebound, though, watch McKneely. He’s sagging in the lane off of JJ Starling (#2) in the near-side corner. He reacts to Groves’s positioning and full on leaves for the opposite elbow to box out McLeod on the shot attempt. McKneely’s man is in the near side corner and he’s boxing out McLeod on the far side elbow on a jumper. That’s attentive rotational basketball with an emphasis on keeping McLeod off of the glass.
This one, you can once again see the emphasis being placed on pinching McLeod. Groves comes off of him to help Beekman in the corner on Mintz. Beekman got carried away on a misdirection and McLeod attempts to solidify the spacing with a screen himself. Groves performs sort of a continuation hedge, as it were, and as Mintz re-probes, it results in a double-team in the corner. McLeod is there on the other side of it, but Dunn has pinched down behind him, and STILL almost gets his hand on the cross-court pass. Taylor gets a quality look and misses, but you’d definitely rather that shot than McLeod getting the ball so close to the rim. Great awareness and prioritization by Dunn (and Groves to sit tight on Mintz).
Now, it didn’t always work. Here they pull Dunn away from the hoop by placing his man at the wing and back-end rotation from McKneely wasn’t aggressive enough and wasn’t able to impact the pass. He settles for the foul:
But, that play above and the first play that I posted are literally the only two times this pick and roll yielded McLeod points in the entire game – so the back end aggressive rotations, especially when manned by Dunn and Bond (which we went out of our way to prioritize) were effective.
This next play, below, is also the only bucket that McLeod got from a straight post up. It’s one where we defend the pick and roll but Groves repositioning allows an easy entry into the post. Dunn drops to swipe at the ball but, as he’s right above it and not coming from the backside, it’s harder for him to double without an immediate kick out back over his head to his man. The double usually needs to come from the blind side and requiring a cross-court pass over a roaming man to be effective. This time, McLeod is simply able to go to work on Groves and that length/physicality make the hook shot comfortable.
But, generally speaking, we were very aggressive about trapping McLeod in the post in this game and to great effect. Here we see Dunn, again, shading the hedge aggressively early. But, this time, when the ball rotates around and McLeod gets it in the post, Dunn crosses the lane to help double. McKneely is left isolated on the back side but Dunn’s hands are so active working to tie up the ball McLeod can only focus in front of him. You see Beekman, briefly look to leave to help shade McKneely some, but reading McLeod’s reactions, realizes it’s better to stay home and shut down the visible pass (savvy). The tie up forces a turnover headed the other way.
Another effective double of the post, below, and really good rotations on the back side that force a turnover. This time the Orange just straight-up post McLeod on the block with no frills. Dunn isn’t opposite-court this time, but he instead traps from the point, putting Rohde and McKneely in back side rotations. Just like we’d try to have Dunn/Bond sag on the pick and roll, we also would try to force Dunn/Bond into the double as long as they weren’t the nearest side defender. The ball skips over and there are really good rotations from our guys – Rohde takes the ball, McKneely lingers on the man in the land and then hands him off to Dunn before flying out to the wing. His man beats him on the dribble drive because of the wild close out but Dunn has rotated over to help shut that down and then, on the kick out back to Dunn’s man in the corner, the IMK close out forces Taylor to be too sped up on his dribble and he travels instead.
That’s really good energy and calculation with our rotations. Here’s one more, this time with Bond at the 4 again. In the Wisconsin game, I called out how Bond’s double teams weren’t intrusive enough and the Badger bigs could look over them and make a crisp pass. Here, Bond is quicker to get there (he’s shading aggressively early before the ball is even passed to McLeod), and he keeps working to take up McLeod’s space, forcing him to retreat and, eventually travel. If he can be effective like this on a 7’4″ player, then it’s not as much the height as the technique and tenacity (as well as the skill of the passer).
Generally speaking, I was thrilled with our defense on Saturday as a result of us navigating this mismatch so well and playing high quality team defense. I know that CTB let on in his presser that he wasn’t as thrilled with the defense on Starling…. I didn’t especially care to dive down on that one. Some of it was late in the game. When it wasn’t, McKneely has been solid on-ball all year. If it starts to become a trend, I’ll showcase it, but I thought that Saturday was a matter of us picking and choosing where we wanted to force the Orange to beat us. Beekman shut down Mintz (and we were alert to help as we saw in some of the clips with Groves above), we collectively smothered McLeod with both Dunn and Bond able to multi-task on Taylor, Starling was the guy who got a little less attention, especially given his poor outside shooting coming into the game. Of course, it’s CTB’s job to call out our break downs and he’s always going to focus on the areas for improvement in the defense (as he should!) but if I’m evaluating the job we did, I thought it was quite good, on the whole, while we were playing our competitive lineups. Speaking of….
McKneely Magic
Isaac McKneely missed only two of eight three-point attempts on Saturday and one of those was a last-second heave after a broken play (that we’ll see later). He was completely on fire and the varying points of attack, how he got those shots, and from what range were impressive and incredibly helpful to our offensive flow. He’s now shooting a scorching 55% from three on the season, which is made all the more impressive by the fact that it’s clearly been a primary point of emphasis in our opponents’ collective defense to deny McKneely these shots. But what I thought really got him going on Saturday, and is something I called out recently, was that he was aggressive making plays off of the bounce, as well, to set up the sniping. And I think that got him into a rhythm out of the gate.
Here’s the first play that I’m talking about and I’m amped about this one because Isaac’s finishing in the lane hasn’t been great this year so far. Firstly, just a call out, here’s a look out of Flow and, rather than taking the first ball screen from Groves, Beekman passes it over to Dunn, Rohde clears out through the lane so that Dunn can pass to McKneely and ball-screen for him on a cleared out side. For those Continuity Ball Screen fans, this is how we ran Flow more traditionally under the 2019 season where we’d work to clear out one half of the court with the action and could reverse the ball and change the point of attack in that way (as opposed to our more current version where we have typically had two players in the corners, one on the wing, with the ball-screen on the other wing). Some nostalgia here and we still have it in the repertoire. Also notably, Beekman passed up his option here to rotate the opportunity FOR McKneely. It’s a good drive from IMK and an even better finish as he floats the ball up high on the glass over McLeod’s contest. I thought this play really got him going.
A little later in the game, and I’ll show the threes momentarily, but you can tell he’s feeling it. His in the mix with Rohde and Groves in the Outside Triangle and, while Beekman has the ball on the wing, he dives down the land, taking the pass. Instead of continuing with the ball toward the bucket, though, he stops on a dime and first a sweet turnaround fadeaway jumper. The confidence was flowing.
One more little non-threeball look, this time creating for others. We’ve got the Outside Triangle again (repetition with terminology!) and this time when the ball is with Beekman on the near-side wing, which they’ve been increasing the frequency of as he used to primarily be in the mix, Groves sets a cross-screen for McKneely who gets a running start toward the hoop. When he catches the pass, he draws help from McLeod, sagging even more because it’s Bond he’s defending on the wing, but McKneely has great awareness to leave the ball for a diving Bond for the big dunk. Some quick things to point out here – Beekman and Bond on the wing (despite both typically being better inside), the spacing the Outside variant lends so that McKneely really has a head of steam on the catch, and how well he and Bond played off of each other here.
Okay, let’s get to some bombs. This first one is out of Flow, as run before. Beekman sets up the pass to Dunn and Rohde vacates to the opposite wing, but this time the ball goes back to Beekman and now we’re in the more recent set with McKneely and Rohde in each corner and Dunn on the opposite wing with Groves setting the ball screen. Groves screens and rolls into the lane, but it’s pretty passive and the ball goes down to Rohde in the corner. He drives it, passes to a diving Dunn, who turns and relocates to find McKneely for the kick out.
This next one is sneaky because they start out with a Flow look and Groves setting a ball-screen for McKneely, but he pulls it out and you can see them set the wings with Rohde and Gertrude on the wings and McKneely, Groves, and Dunn in the mix. But as Syracuse prepares to defend that and switches on a represented backscreen by Groves, McKneely simply pops outside of the arc really quickly and capitalizes on the confusion by firing away. This one’s a really good example at how subtly representing one offense and moving into another can cause just the slightest confusion and a player like McKneely can take advantage of that for max points.
This next one is a press punisher. Early on in the possession, Mintz thinks it’ll be cute to pressure Beekman quarter-court, probably not expecting us to push the tempo if we got by him. Beekman actually full-on gets entirely past Mintz creating a de-facto 4-on-3 in the bottom quadrant of the screen (if you pause at 2 seconds). At Syracuse attempts to recover and get their defense sorted, McKneely gives a shot fake, side steps the contest, and drills another. This is a good clip to highlight the confidence with which he was playing, but it is important because, in the past, we might have simply beaten Mintz up the floor and then reset the offense, not punishing Mintz at all for his aggression. Here, we looked to push the small advantage we earned and it led to three points!
Two more, but the shots get more impressive! From starting at about 10 seconds you can tell that McKneely is measuring this one up. He takes the kick out and launches from the logo and drains it. This kind of range may seem frivolous. Why take a shot so long when they’re worth just as much closer to the hoop? The answer is, spacing. Starling is punished here by helping on the Beekman drive and he would not have been if McKneely had spotted up at the three-point line because Starling didn’t actually help that much off of the line and would have been able to recover. By adding that distance, McKneely is basically forcing Syracuse to leave Beekman one-on-one on his drive or to give him that shot. It basically punishes team defense, and is the same element that you see in the NBA with players like Steph Curry or Trey Young not being satisfied with range simply at the three-point line.
And this last one was just an ultimate heat check – but is also great to see that McKneely can create his own look from deep off of the bounce rather than needing to be set up (or to use the momentum of a play). The step back three!
Coming into the season, I expected Isaac McKneely’s three-point shot to be a weapon for us, but I still expected it to be something that he primarily took in the traditional range, when open, as others created for him, and made at a clip somewhere in the low 40%s. He may level-off at that, but he’s currently shooting at 55% with logo and step-back threes in the mix. Many of his shots throughout the season have been with a very close contest. It was good to see him have a game like this because, so far, even though he’s shot well from the outside, he’d struggled to convert two-point shots at a good rate and, he’d hit a shot or two, but teams were having some success prioritizing limiting his shots from outside. But, yeah, when he plays like he did on Saturday we are a LETHAL offensive team that allows for much more open spacing around the bucket because the defense has to react to wherever he is on the floor.
Gertrude Giddiness
I was absolutely thrilled that Elijah Gertrude was able to log 18 minutes in conference play on Saturday. Some of those were as the sole point guard with the back up team against the press, and there was a stretch where he turned the ball over on consecutive plays that led directly to points (he actually led our team in turnovers). I’m thrilled about that, too, because it didn’t have a game impact and because they were learning moments for him. But there were also times, when factored into the main rotation (and he was tied for first off of the bench in this one!), where you could immediately see how he can contribute for us in unique ways to that guard/wing position.
We’ll start with this drive from the wing that netted him two free throws. It’s kind of hard to see exactly how he gets so far around his man on this drive. He’s directing traffic from the wing and his man is down in a defensive stance… it’s just a subtle ball fake and then he starts the drive and, almost immediately, his defender is on his hip and then he’s fully by him. He takes the ball into the would-be shot blocker and draws contact. He actually looks tentative throughout this play and still is somehow entirely past his defender.
This, below, was certainly the play of the game from him and represented his “welcome to the lineup!” moment. The transition bucket is just hustle and speed with a helping of Syracuse falling asleep; but the defense is also good, staying in front, invading the space of the offensive player while going straight up on the shot before the break-out. Not only is this easy points from simply efforting, they’re momentum points that get the crowd into the game.
Here’s a look that didn’t result in points, but I think will more often than not down the road and was, nonetheless, impressive. He fades away and tries to avoid contact at the end, but his ball denial yields a steal and, more impressively, starts a one-man fast break despite the fact that there are four Orange players at least even with him once he obtains possession. That’s electric speed/energy and, given some experience, full health, reps, this could yield to some explosive finishes in the future.
Similarly, this is a foul generated out of nothing but a willingness to push, and explosion. He gets beaten for this rebound – doesn’t box out. He’s able to steal the ball back with quick hand and persistence, but I’m showing this clip because of how quickly he moves from obtaining possession to attacking. As soon as he has it he’s pushed it ahead of him and is trying to run the other way, when he’s fouled. It’s lightning quick but, more, it draws a foul (or would have been a three-on-two break the other way).
These kinds of hustle plays; picking up free points and fouls and just forcing the issue/exploding out of nowhere are his current greatest value add (along with the ability to crash the glass and defend athletic players). But, he also shows glimpses of where this can be headed as he gets more and more comfortable/healthy. I loved that he played a good deal of point on Saturday but, even as a secondary ball handler… take a look at this…
This is Judah Mintz trying to press up on Gertrude and pressure him, and Gertrude, seemingly effortlessly, skips right around him, gets his entire body past him, and finds Beekman for the wide-open three.
And this play where he lulls his defender by representing a ball handoff and then EXPLODES toward the rim. Now, he didn’t finish this. He well could have. He could have dumped it off to Bond as well… but the, “OH WOW!” from the commentator is real.
Again, I don’t want to oversell this like the finished product has arrived. It hasn’t, and Eli has all of the room for growth in the world. And also, again, where he’s most going to help us in the short term is in all of the intangible athletic areas – loose balls, cheap points, securing the glass, tip-ins, blocks, steals, etc., etc. But, with time (might not be this season), these types of plays are going to hit consistently and we’re going to have more of those “OH WOW!” moments that are very hard for even the above average college basketball defender to contain.
I’m ‘cited.
Play Free, Blake!
I’m probably going to stop harping on this soon – but it’s also something I’m keeping a close eye on because I do believe that Buchanan being effective as a defender and a finisher around the rim and on the pick and roll is the last missing piece to how our puzzle is shaping up. Florida Gators Blake is the Blake I want to see come March, and it’s really fine if it takes from now until then for him to show up again. What I will say, though, is that it’s very clear he’s playing with nerves, and not playing free as he once was. Why do I say that?
That was hilariously one of McKneely’s two misses from outside, by the way. I don’t mean to be overly direct, but this is just a player who isn’t playing with confidence right now. He gets pushed from the three-point line with the ball all the way out almost to the sideline, has the ball dislodged from behind four separate times, and had multiple times where he could have gotten to a teammate before eventually doing so. Even just turning and take a couple of dribbles to create some space could have helped – but, this kind of thing normally happens when the game just feels so sped up for you and you’re really worried about making a mistake. It’s the b-ball equivalent of “seeing ghosts.”
It’s similar here on the defensive side with the indecision. Beekman starts the possession with fantastic on-ball defense on Mintz and Gertrude hangs with Starling and puts a strong contest on his drive, forcing a pretty convincing miss; but Buchanan gets caught in no-man’s land trying to decide if he wants to try to help block the shot or if he should stay home. In the end, he doesn’t really do either, and gets caught under the hoop, giving up a way too easy offensive rebound and fouling the put back.
And this one just kind of feels timid. It’s a good hedge and recovery at the beginning of the play, and he shows on another but his man slips rather than screening. Bond rotates over to help, and honestly keeps his feet too stationary and gets beaten on the dribble; but Buchanan pulls up on the recovery when I really think he could have flown in here and tried to block the first shot, or at least bother it. Then he kind of stands and ball watches so that the diving Orange player can keep the ball alive, and then the next rebound falls all the way into his chest which he kind of tries to awkwardly one-handedly cradle, which gets easily deflected out of his possession again as he couldn’t control it. Fortunately, we were awarded possession, but I think we need more attack from BB here. Go try to block it, box out, go get it with two-hands and rip, etc.
I’ll say, we still saw some flashes. He hit a nice little jumper in the lane and I thought this was the play that most looked like he did earlier in the season where, even though it was against the zone, he caught a nice pass from Bond and went straight up, fluidly, and tried to dunk it, getting fouled in the process.
So, the glimpses are still there and we’ve all seen that he can be a very effective foul-drawer and punisher of the rim on the offensive side, while being an incredibly mobile defender on the defensive side. For whatever reason, and this is not uncommon of bigs, especially young bigs, in this system, he’s playing a little paralyzed. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that he’s in his head right now so, more than Leon, even more than Elijah, Blake Buchanan is the player I most want to see get some quality and productive run against North Carolina Central on Tuesday, and really throughout this stretch of three lesser-competitive non-conference opponents over the next four games. The good news is that the way Groves and Dunn is playing, we have a little bit of time (maybe a considerable amount) before we’ll really need him to figure it all out for a more sustained period. And, who knows, there’s still hope that Jordan Minor could as well, which would also take some pressure off. A lot to keep an eye on here.
In Conclusion
While there’s still a lot to figure out and a LOT of room for improvement, I think that Saturday showed that the bar for this team is already sufficiently high, and just got a boost to its ceiling two games ago. I think that’s what I’m most excited about, is that we’re blowing out, by worse than the final score, a conference opponent who just blew out another power-5 opponent and a lot of these questions haven’t been solved yet. What will Elijah Gertrude and Blake Buchanan be at the end of the season? I’m not sure exactly, but I imagine with another 23 games of experience, it’ll be better than they look now. How will we best utilize Leon Bond between that SF/PF range? We’re still feeling that out now, and I imagine we’ll have a more concrete vision by then. Those three things are the most impactful developments, in my opinion, but there are others as well. Sometimes when teams are working through growing pains and finding their full identity, there are struggles along the way until they do. There still may (and likely will) be for us but, fortunately, it does look as though we’ll still be very competitive throughout the process, hopefully putting ourselves in a decent position for if/when we do realize our full potential for this year.
I hope and believe that Tuesday night will be a good building block headed into the break, and one in which I hope all three of those guys (Bond, Gertrude, Buchanan) get lots of minutes not just playing, but running with the core rotation. Looking forward to it!
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