Hoos ready to watch some pick and rolls?!?!?? End article, roll clips…. Okay, there is a little more to talk about than that, but it’s notable that, while I’ve been calling for some significant changes on the offensive end, we seemed to approach this game by simplifying. It worked well, coupled with some continued roster changes/availability that, don’t worry, we’ll spend a lot of time on.
Don’t get me wrong, Virginia Tech isn’t trotting Efton Reid III and Andrew Carr out there to camp the lane. Their rim protection includes the 6’10” Lynn Kidd, 6’9″ Robbie Beran, and the 6’9″ Mylyjael Poteat. It’s not horrible – similar to what we’ll face against some other ACC schools – but nothing as imposing as we just dealt with. Furthermore, while they’re scoring machines, Sean Pedulla and Hunter Cattoor aren’t the most stout defensive backcourt, either. So, to the point, I think the jury is still out on how effective some of our offensive adjustments truly will be moving forward. That being said, it was encouraging. By, generally, simplifying our offensive focus and playing so much two-man basketball out of Sides, we took the focus away from so much spacing/team basketball and really isolated the ability to create no matter who was on the floor. Furthermore, our guys off of the ball were more aggressive about diving in and trying to make a play around the basket. Again, some of this could have been because of Virginia Tech, but the mentality and approach was definitely improved. This also allowed us to consistently play bigger on the defensive end which was very effective, holding Tech to just 18 first half points including a made three right at the buzzer.
The most obvious augmentations to this were the continued improvement and full-on starter’s playing time for Jordan Minor as well as the return of Dante Harris to the lineup. Minor allowed a lot of our guys to play around him and Harris added an extra dynamic into the fold, both creating for others and himself using his quickness. This allowed Reece to not have to carry so many offensive possessions which, in turn, allowed him to play a season high 38 minutes. I’m not sure if it was contagious or truly a sign of VT’s struggles, but Blake Buchanan got going through this action as well, which was great to see from him and Isaac McKneely, who had really been struggling with how to play in the half-court of late, was more effective as a facilitator and looked more comfortable as a driver.
There will be two short sections at the end, but most of this piece I’ll tell through the lens of focusing on both Jordan Minor and Dante Harris while touching on some key team concepts within those sections.
Jordan Minor
After the Wake Forest game I highlighted Minor’s play as the biggest true positive. I wasn’t surprised (but was pleased) as his success defending one-on-one in the post. I’ve always said that his strength is his, well, strength, and his ability to control players with his lower body is intrusive and can be effective. It’s why I always thought he would actually be a better man-to-man defender than a zone defender because he really isn’t the most vertical presence on the defensive side. We’ll see that return in this game. But, where I was surprised, was at how positively he impacted the offensive game. Historically, he’s always been very effective in the pick and roll but, offensively, he was more of a pound-the-rock with his back to the basket kind of player who had mixed results against players with length. But, watching him be able to clear out some space with his body and finish past Efton Reid (or draw fouls) with regularity last Saturday was eye-opening. I thought to myself (and wrote here) that maybe, just maybe, this could be something sustainable. Candidly, I wasn’t fully convinced, thinking it possibly just as likely that this was a flash-in-the-pan moment for him, noting that CTB was quick to pull him off of the floor early in that game and has been very short with his leash all season on Minor.
But, in this game, as the starter, playing a full 26 minutes with both stout defense AND having much of the offense run through (and around) him, I’m confident thinking that this will be a big chunk of the path forward for the rest of the season. Let’s go ahead and start by taking a look at his play on the defensive side of the ball.
Defense
Alright, here’s the very first defensive possession of the game last night and I’m just going to play it through here and then talk about it after:
Now THAT’s an exciting defensive possession to start the game. So, lots of things to point out. For one, Minor is guarding 6’10” Lynn Kidd (#15) who was coming off of a 16 point game on 8-8 shooting from the floor against Miami. Tech starts the possession by passing it to Kidd and then having him hand-off/set a ball screen for Hunter Cattoor (#0). Minor hedges but notice, a big change that was really consistent throughout the game with our hedge defenders (except for a couple of times with Groves), the hedge is much less aggressive or extended. We flat hedged virtually all game and it was a big improvement for our ability to recover on defense and to keep back-end rotations more consolidated. So, first and foremost, big change there. Minor briefly shows and then recovers to Kidd. The ball goes to the wing and there’s some good jockeying in the post before Kidd takes the entry pass. We do not send a double-team here, allowing Minor to defend one-on-one, which was a solid decision and effective all game. You see Minor’s strength on full display here as Kidd attempts to spin quickly baseline but runs into a brick wall and gets stopped entirely. This, coupled with Dunn’s and his reach pecking down at the ball from the wing, cause Kidd to pick up his dribble. With Minor hounding him, he has to pass out to the wing, which Dunn is aggressively over-playing, basically one-man trapping Robbie Beran (#31) in the corner. Beran tries to get the ball out of the corner but Beekman has also reacted and aggressively over-plays the passing lane, this time deflecting the pass and coming up with the steal.
That was an absolutely suffocating defensive possession and we weren’t even playing big, it just came from Minor being able to hold his own in the post and that enabling Beekman and Dunn to do what they do with more freedom/efficacy.
Okay, this next clip is another look at that flat hedge and the subtle benefit here that created this steal. Notice, Minor doesn’t take the severe angle to cut off the path of the dribbler, rather he stays even with the three-point line and is active with his hands to disrupt the dribble. As Pedulla bobbles the ball, he retreats, allowing Beekman to recover and already being pretty close to his man. This far shorter distance to recover allows Dunn to not have to sag as deep to help on Kidd. He reads Pedulla the whole way, baits the cross-court pass, and pounces on it.
Recall (or just look at my previous two pieces on N.C. State and Wake Forest) how often we were getting punished in those games by hard hedging, getting our frontcourt player out by the logo in some cases, and then having to recover all the way back to a diving big. It was especially hurting our back-end rotations who struggled to tag the roller and then get out to some of the passes outside of the three-point line. This change allowed for Minor to stay in the play and around Lynn for much longer and gave Dunn the freedom to stalk passing lanes.
So Minor’s presence early was effective at just controlling Kidd around the hoop while the adjustment to hedging angles/aggressiveness allowed the defense to stay more compact. Here’s a clip below later in the half where we went big and I’m going to speak to Leon Bond’s impact from the Small Forward position in a later section. That being said, I’m mostly going to cover it from an offensive standpoint because that’s normally the big concern when he plays the three. Here we’re playing Beekman, McKneely, Bond, Dunn and Minor – really probably our best possible defensive lineup at four slots (1, 4-5) with McKneely (who isn’t a defensive slouch) there for the shooting threat. Really, you could probably slot anyone into that two slot with those other four guys and have a stifling defense. But here, VT attempts to isolate Minor on the post and play through Kidd. Kidd is this time more effective on his spin to the baseline, he doesn’t get stonewalled, but Minor is still able to be physical with him, forces him well-underneath the basket and, eventually, forces the travel.
This is another good example of Minor flat hedging but this time with Groves at the 4 and Rohde, McKneely, and Beekman on the floor. Notice him flatten out rather than cutting off the ball handler on the dribble hand-off with Groves doing a good job of tagging Poteat (#34) on the back end. The pass goes back to Groves’s man and he gets out to him with a quality contest, forcing the miss. Minor does a pretty good job getting back into rebounding position and then shields Poteat off of the ball for the rebound.
This was not one of our more defensively athletic lineups, but having Groves predominantly play the four, which is his natural position, he doesn’t have to carry the burden of banging with the opposition’s center. Where as, Minor naturally does that well. Groves is still able to get a very quality contest recovering to the wing while also jamming the progress of Poteat on his dive. This change of us almost always playing with either Minor or Buchanan as a true center (one of the two of them was on the floor for all but three minutes of the game) just takes the pressure off of everyone from carrying that defensive burden of playing up in size.
Here’s another look jumping ahead to the second half. We’re back with the starting lineup with Dunn at the four and Rohde at the three alongside IMK and Beekman. Minor’s just a solid obstruction throughout this, showing and recovering on the first hedge, sagging the middle of the lane as Poteat lingers around the three-point line, which supports Rohde’s on-ball defense on the back end, and then finally getting wide and retreating on the hedge defending Pedulla’s drive. Pedulla kind of gets ahead of himself on this one and trips himself up on the cross-over, but Minor’s wide drop does force the reaction. Good to see Beekman and Dunn work their magic out in transition again, as well.
And for the last of the defensive pieces I’ll highlight from Minor, I thought this was some really nice interplay between he, Beekman, and Rohde in a three-man game. VT is running that same triple screen action that we see a lot of with the ball handler (MJ Collins #2) running Rohde off of Poteat at first and then Pedulla coming in for a staggered screen. Minor does a good job of showing but then backing up to keep from getting caught on anything else. It’s a quick recovery and Dunn is doing a very nice job of helping on the back side with plenty of time to recover to his man on the wing if the ball were to go there. Beekman and Rohde execute a switch on the guard-to-guard screen, putting Beekman on Collins who has to back the ball out to Pedulla again. This time, Pedulla attempts to enter the pass right into Poteat in the post, but Minor is quick with active hands and pokes the ball back for Rohde to collect the steal.
There was a lot more from Minor on the defensive side I could have added, but I thought these were some of the better examples most commonly of him utilizing this new hedging strategy and defending the post on his own without requiring double-team help. He was very strong in the center and, just like we saw above, helped to secure the glass, as well, with us actually (narrowly) out rebounding Tech 33-32.
Offense
Perhaps even more impactful, though, given the team’s struggles on offense, was how Minor consistently created opportunity for himself and really any of his teammates entering his orbit. His screening actions continually displaced VT defenders, creating real advantage for any number of his teammates which he’d then follow up by making himself available as the defense adjusted. It’s eye-opening watching some of these sets before and remembering what they looked like prior to Minor entering the rotation. So often our screens failed to meaningfully impede defenders who would get over or under them with ease and stay glued to our movers. This made our offenses far less effective than we’re used to seeing because defenders no longer had to make tough decisions as the screening actions rarely put them at any real disadvantages (and, on top of that, our screeners weren’t aggressively threatening to score).
So, remember how that looked and then take a look at the clip below. Minor catches Pedulla solidly at first, freeing Rohde and actually making Kidd step up momentarily, but it’s his second screen on Cattoor that really sets things in motion. At about 8-9 seconds into the clip, you can see Cattoor jolt when he impacts Minor attempting to follow McKneely around the screen, literally stopping his momentum and putting him on his back heel. This forces Kidd to have to step up to stop McKneely’s dribble and the extra time bought on Cattoor’s recovery allows McKneely to throw a nice pocket pass into Minor for the uncontested dunk.
This was our first basket of the game and it was a wide-open dunk created by pretty easy execution (although I like how McKneely really led the ball out there to get it through the two defenders) because of Minor’s screening ability. It was also good to get McKneely going as a passer early on, looking to create for both himself and others.
This next one is a good look at some quality screen and re-screen action with Beekman on the wing. First he sets a pin down screen that is successful and Beekman probably could have shot from deep. Thinking better of it, Reece lets his man get back in the play, though, and attempts to isolate him going baseline. Minor backs out to the wing himself, but this just allows Kidd to shade Beekman hard. Beekman passes out to Minor who passes to Rohde and then re-screens for Beekman. This time if you pause at 14 seconds, you can see Collins completely out of the play and off balance as he’s been rocked by Minor, forcing Kidd to pick up Beekman and allowing Minor to roll to the hoop for the uncontested dunk.
Now, one thing about that play I do also want to note is how Tech isn’t sagging off of Dunn aggressively on the wing here, which allows Minor to have such a clean run to the bucket. If this was Wake Forest, for example, Andrew Carr would probably have been in the lane to meet Minor, which would mean Minor would have to draw him and Dunn would have to dive. It should still be successful, but it would require an extra pass and is just something that our guys should be aware of moving forward as most teams aren’t playing Dunn this honestly.
Here’s just a great screen for McKneely to free up a long two, but really what could have/should have been a three with just a little different footwork from IMK. Teams have been overplaying the McKneely three, but given how quickly he can get his shot off it’s still been weird that he hasn’t been able to get more looks as the season has worn on. But one reason for that is he hasn’t had this kind of quality screening to free him up. Watch Cattoor struggle to get over Minor at the end. Also, it’s nice to see us to back to something designed out of the baseline inbound.
This exchange below, after some early screening action, is another interplay between he and Reece. It’s actually not his best screen from these examples but he gets enough of Reece’s man to put him in trailing position and allow for Reece to get into the lane and elevate for his shot. He also occupies his own man, though, who has to work hard to keep Minor off of the glass, which keeps him from being able to cheat to help contest the Beekman shot.
This next clip, below, is an example of why Kidd was so worried about keeping Minor off of the glass, as he cleans up the Dunn miss, this time on Poteat.
Now, this is good creation by Rohde and a good dive by Dunn (he needs to finish this) but notice how Poteat stays glued to Minor throughout and helps neither on Rohde’s drive nor on Dunn’s… and still gives up the offensive rebound because of Minor’s positioning. To be clear, Poteat is a back up and isn’t going to be one of the more imposing players Minor faces this year, but he’s still listed at 6’9″ 265lbs and Jordan is dancing around him.
Finally, here’s kind of putting it all together highlighting Minor’s ability to still score in the post even when not left wide-open through the pick and roll action. He sets a quality pin down for Rohde who briefly draws both VT defenders and gives it back to Minor. However, Taine Murray’s man has sagged off of him in the lane and Lynn Kidd is able to recover to get in front of him. This is probably a kick back out to reset the offense for any of our other post players but Minor turns his back into Kidd, takes a couple of dribbles, knocking Kidd back with his body and, when creating that separation, is able to finish with a soft left-handed hook at the rim.
Kidd has a reach advantage on Minor but you can see how Minor’s base is able to help him create enough space to get a quality shot off in close to the hoop.
It’s funny how when we talk about spacing it can mean different things in basketball. Normally, it’s the ability to shoot so that players can’t leave you, creating more space for other players to drive/cut through unobstructed by help-defense. But Jordan Minor creates spacing in a different way, by taking up space, by being hard to get around on screens, and by requiring post players to account for him in the post and on the glass, he both creates advantages for his teammates running off of him and keeps help defenders from leaving him too much around the rim. It’s a different skillset and they offer different things but, for example, if we had Ryan Dunn playing our center (or our four but with Groves still on the perimeter so, practically speaking) on these plays like we did earlier in the season, none of them are as effective. And that’s not a shot at Dunn – he’s an entirely different player doing different things – playing with quickness and verticality – but sometimes you need some good old-fashioned “Man strength” as CTB put it recently. But, notably, when you play Minor alongside a player like Dunn, now you’ve got complimentary skills on the defensive side of the ball, you have more potency crashing the offensive glass, and the issues that Dunn provides with spacing are not as glaring when we’re running so many pick and rolls on the opposite side of the floor.
Speaking of Minor opening up lineup options and complimentary skillsets on defense…
Small Forward – Leon Bond
The Leon Bond situation continues to perplex me on this team. In this game CTB used him exactly as I’ve been wanting him to, and it went… very well! During the 5 minutes he was in the game, all of them came at the Small Forward position and we built our lead from 13-11 to 21-13 when he left. It was a lead build on suffocating defense (only two points allowed over the stretch) and offense that wasn’t bad! Normally, when we’ve played him there in the stretches that we have (CTB has, previously, still preferred to play him at the 4), you’re expecting a trade-off in offense for any benefits you’re getting with the defense. In reality, this was the run where we grabbed control of the game and then basically held it from there. And yet… Leon never returned to the game after that! In fact, when we were holding a 10 minute lead over mid-way through the second half, Taine Murray got his first minutes of the game rather than putting Bond back in to help salt things away with excellent defense (more on that later)!
Hopefully, CTB and company will go back to the tape and realize that they had something here. You saw the clip where Minor held firm in the post earlier with this lineup, but I’ll just show one more defensive clip since I think it’s pretty self-evident that this would be a better defensive grouping than our normal lineups with Rohde or McKneely or Murray at the three. This time we have Bond at the 3, Groves at the 4 and Buchanan at the 5. I didn’t mind this lineup at all because, not only do you still get Groves at the four with a center backing him up, Bond’s defense from the three is there to back him up (similar to when they play Dunn with this lineup). But, alongside Beekman at the point, we also have Rohde at the 2. I like it whenever we get Rohde at the 1 or 2 instead of at the three because he’s actually just better suited there and his size becomes much more relevant on both ends. He had a nice steal in this lineup as well, but here we see just quality defense throughout. Bond picks up the ball at half court, which is a bit of a luxury, Blake flat hedges and has no issues recovering from there and Bond easily getting back into the play. The ball goes to the wing where Groves is a lengthy contest waiting to happen so they swing it down into the corner. Back out to the wing now where Bond is still on the ball as they try to probe the lane but he responds to the drive and Rohde almost gets his hand on a retreat pass back out. Now Tech attempts a DHO ball screen but Rohde and Beekman are able to switch, and Rohde gets a strong contest on the smaller Cattoor, forcing a tough mid-range jumper that wedges.
This is the suffocating defense that we’re used to seeing and, between Groves and Buchanan, we don’t even have our best defensive bigs on the floor – but it’s juiced up by playing Bond (and Rohde) up in size and still having a Center in the game.
So the concern, then, becomes can this lineup score – and we did see some good individual plays from the group above (Beekman hit a straight-away three at one point), but here are a couple of looks with the offense, below, this time with Dunn and Minor back on the floor 4-5 and McKneely in at the 2. They’re running Sides here and Bond’s actually very solid as a mover! He makes some crisp passes early but it’s on that pass back from Beekman where he drives the lane that stood out to me. He looks fluid and fast and not afraid to put the ball on the floor for so long. He also keeps his head up and leaves a really nifty little pass for Minor. Now, Minor travels so nothing comes from this, but this was a nice sequence from Bond that could have led directly to points.
This next clip is with the same group (all three of these offensive clips are) and it illustrates the benefit of just having all of these guys on the floor to be able to pressure the offensive glass. It’s Flow initially into Sides. If you watch Bond this entire possession, he doesn’t touch the ball after his initial helping to set the offense, but he’s active – constantly moving throughout sides and forcing his man to chase and really keeping him from being able to pay much attention to the play. And, honestly, that’s really all that’s needed on sets like this from Bond. Occupy your man and, if he loses you, go to the rim or spot up in the midrange! Bond actually clears out the lane with his man trailing and Beekman fills it with his drive to the baseline, finding Minor diving from the opposite side. Minor is blocked, but Dunn also crashes the glass and is right there for the putback.
Main point being, we know the value having Bond on the floor with this group is bringing from the defensive side – he certainly isn’t hurting our ability to execute good offense in plays like the above, especially with Minor in the game.
So, this is the last play I’ll show, below, and he was pulled from the game directly after this. It was at the end of the shot clock so Bond kind of had to take this shot, but I didn’t really love that he didn’t try to get something going at the hoop from that far away. Still, the idea of being able to post up Bond on an opposing team’s SF is something I’ve been asking for all year and I love the concept/potential behind it. Leon would have just needed to catch this ball a little deeper so he’s not fading away near the three-point line, no matter how much he likes that shot.
So, please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not implying that Leon Bond at the three improves our offense over some of the other options we’ve been using. I am saying, there are some unexplored options we can still do with it, and having him out there is not much of an issue (especially paired with Minor). It’s certainly fine enough, in my mind, to justify the significant benefit we get from having him out there on the defensive end at the three. I’d like to see a lot more of this lineup, along with Dunn at the three, as I do think the best iterations of this team are going to lean into defense and take the points where we can get them.
Contrastingly…
Quick Taine Blurb
With Dante Harris back in the rotation, Elijah Gertrude getting no time at all, and us (hopefully) realizing that we can play either Leon Bond or Ryan Dunn at the three, I’d like to see the Taine Murray experiment end, at least when games are still competitive. His offensive contributions just haven’t reliably shown up and, as I’ve been pointing out over recent games, his defense is a liability. Here’s a look from this game at that. He doesn’t crash down or help Minor with the rebound at first despite being close enough to at least try for it, and then he just gets completely blown by on the drive despite there being really no advantage there rotationally. Groves helps pick his man up and he’s left chasing to get out to the shooter which he can’t get to on time.
That’s just a terrible all-around defensive possession and can be contrasted with something like THIS kind of rebounding support, below, from a player like Isaac McKneely who is ostensibly offering a similar (although way better) offensive skillset:
I don’t feel the need to harp on this much longer – but I think we just have considerably better options across the board and it’s time to use them exclusively.
McKneely Mix
Before we jump into Dante’s return, I also wanted to take a quick moment to look at a couple of offensive plays from Isaac McKneely. We’ve seen for a while now his reluctance to take the ball deeper into the lane and his reliance on the mid-range pull-up game. He was technically 0-2 from three on the game, but he hit two shots with his foot on the line – which were practically three-point looks/opportunities from an execution standpoint. We saw one of those shots earlier and how Minor helped to free it up. But it was him showing up in other areas that I found most encouraging. We saw him run the pick and roll with Minor earlier in the game, but here were two more instances, late, where he did so with Blake Buchanan. In this clip, below, we see Blake setting up Flow with Beekman only to opt down to Sides with McKneely. It’s a very good pin down screen from Blake, better than he’s been setting (maybe it’s contagious?), that throws Cattoor off balance and McKneely does a good job of probing and then getting the pass back to Buchanan quickly in the most advantageous position:
I should also say that I’m encouraged by the finish here. It’s at a more severe angle and he goes up over Poteat’s straight arms. In recent games he would have been more likely to shoot a hook shot fading away once his man got back into reasonable defensive position.
And this one, below, notice how IMK is being a little more aggressive with his dribble, taking a few through the lane at first until he draws help and then, undeterred when that doesn’t work, setting up the screen action with Buchanan on the lower side and quickly laying a nice pass over the defense again to hit him in stride. This time Buchanan catches with momentum and takes that right to the rim, finishing through some contact.
I love these two clips because it’s from two players who have been really struggling to make plays in the half court, working together. McKneely doing a better job of drawing the defense and looking for that good pass, Buchanan doing a better job of catching the ball with purpose, wasting less motion, and taking a stronger shot.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t call out this play, below, which was clearly by design to exploit teams for overplaying McKneely (and a tip of the hat as I’ve been calling for more designed stuff for him). This is a nifty little set where he starts out setting a ball screen for Beekman, which he almost never does, like in Flow, and then curls around Dunn for a nice backdoor screen/pass which he finishes fluidly on the catch so that the help can’t get into the play fast enough.
Some day we’re going to get an eye-opening Isaac McKneely dunk and it’s going to be electric! Until then, actions like this will help to force the defense to play more honestly. I noticed a few other times during the game where he was more aggressive about attempting backdoor cuts looking for the ball, which I think will pay off more in time. But, yeah, I love this design and this idea.
Getting McKneely more involved and more comfortable in ways other than simply being a knock down shooter will help his offensive game and, in turn, likely give him cleaner opportunities AS that knock down shooter. These were some positive strides and I hope he builds off of them.
Dante Harris
Welcome back Dante Harris! He was a breath of fresh air injected into the lineup and provided a real spark on the offensive side of the ball which is kind of ironic because, pre-injury, the team’s offense when he was in the game tended to struggle and the defense played better. It’s clear he’s not still 100%, which he and CTB repeatedly made clear, but even if they hadn’t you would have noticed on the defensive end where he had to react to his opponent as opposed to being able to initiate the movement. Let’s be clear (and also debunk the myth that was already floating around): he was really bad defensively in this game. Like, a downright liability that, thankfully, VT didn’t identify or target with too much regularity. Here are some examples of what I mean on the ball, just getting blown by:
And here:
And here having to foul:
And here just completely lucky his man blew the open layup:
AND here:
So, when CTB talks about his on-ball defense after the game – that’s reputational – either hoping other teams won’t notice or the narrative won’t get out there that Harris isn’t what he was, or can be, on the defensive side of the ball right now due to his health. This can, and likely will, change as he continues to work his way back to what he was pre-injury but, in the meantime, is something to keep an eye on and should keep him off of the court if other teams identify and go after it.
But on the offensive end, aside from his three-point shot which was never a strength anyway, he was really getting it going! Dante, like Minor but in a very different way, has the ability to create for himself and others really no matter who is surrounding him on the floor, which is a huge boon when it comes to unlocking different lineup combinations. Let’s take a look….
Here he is early in the game running good action out of Flow with Groves. McKneely takes the ball screen early, resets through Rohde and Groves sets a wide pin down for Harris. What makes this so effective is how quickly and how far Harris is able to take this drive into the lane. He draws three defenders and then has great vision/court awareness to rifle the pass back outside to Jake. If he doesn’t take the ball so deep and gets cut off/slowed down earlier, the close out back to Groves is much shorter and the shot becomes much harder. This look is as clean as they get and that’s all due to Harris.
This next one, below, is all just quickness, body control, wiggle, and shot making (that’s all?). It’s a tough shot and not one we really want to live off of, but it’s a great example of him being talented enough to create something out of nothing. The amount of space he creates here from about the 14-15 second mark where he’s drawn both defenders, takes one dribble into Cattoor’s body, and then springs away to the baseline for the fall away jumper is impressive.
That’s a really tough shot, but the mid-range game is fully within his bag. He’s kind of our guard version of Leon Bond in that regard. While we wouldn’t want this to be a bulk source of offense, it’s good to have it as a quality bail out option at the end of a possession.
Here’s a pretty pick and roll look; once again, someone working with Minor. The pass has flare but it’s effective and he does a really good and subtle job of changing his dribble angle after the screen to hold both defenders on him just long enough to be able to whip the ball down to Jordan around the hoop.
This next clip, below, I really like for a couple of reasons. For one, he has the awareness to settle down in the short corner rather than cutting all the way through to the corner – recognizing the Beekman drive and that his man was being pulled to help. It’s good play/situational awareness but also good confidence to think/know that he can be effective operating in there so close to the rim against size. He’s right, because he catches the pass, takes one step, absolutely explodes into the air and hangs, drawing the defenders to try to block a reverse layup attempt, and then drops it off to Minor who draws the foul.
That’s just great stuff, and athleticism.
This shows that his quickness on the offensive end is still there, and reminds me how effective his ball screen rejection is. He absolutely cooks Pedulla and strides in for the uncontested layup. Also helpful, a Minor screen being a real threat.
And, lastly, here’s another good pick and roll, this time with Buchanan (way to go Blake!). Early in the action the post defender doesn’t bite and this likely would have stopped our other non-Reece wings, but Harris taking the ball deeper into the lane eventually does draw him over (another good screen by Buchanan to set Harris’s defender trailing) and the return pass is quality with Blake doing well to gather and go right up for the finish.
Really good stuff all around on the offensive side of the ball from Dante here, and it was much needed considering how things had been going for us! He augmented Reece’s ability to create in an explosive way, which did allow Beekman to be more passive on certain offensive possessions (which was a good thing for his overall fatigue and level of play). It was also just a different style of offensive player for Tech to have to adjust to and figure out. But, potentially most importantly and just like with Minor, he provided offensive options and answers for us that aren’t just “shoot better,” which is hard to control as an independent variable. He allowed us to operate effectively in more crowded spaces and still get quality offense.
In Conclusion
I don’t think I’ve ever had so many clips of two-man in one piece! Having two new players – one finally cracking the rotation for the first time and one returning from injury – changes the options and equations for the roster. I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be a cure-all, especially against better competition. I do think it will raise our floor and increase our consistency. I think it will provide more reliable offensive options that aren’t as prone to being disrupted by physicality or shooting slumps. It should allow Reece to be more effective with his utilization and, hopefully, set the tone for Buchanan and how he can play. I think it will allow us to also lean much more heavily into defensive lineups without conceding the ability to score, which is potentially the most valuable part of it all.
I’ve seen some chatter that Reece, Dante, Isaac, Ryan, and Jordan is our most effective lineup right now. I don’t actually agree, especially with Dante’s defense as it is. But I do think that both Dante and Minor pave the way for more lineups with Leon and Ryan at the SF, which I actually think will be our best options through just being completely stifling on defense.
I am concerned for what this means for Gertrude and I hope but am doubtful that he’ll get some more meaningful run… but a 9-man rotation of Beekman, Harris, McKneely, Rohde, Bond, Dunn, Groves, Minor, and Buchanan does provide a lot of different options to mix and match and tinker with lineups. Hopefully, it will at the very least, provide some stability to stop the wild fluctuations in performance quality on the road. We’ll see against GT on Saturday!
Leave a Reply