In our second revenge game of the season, we were able to improve by a 34-point differential, beating Notre Dame by 12 after losing by 22 on the road. We improved our rebounding margin by 10 and forced 18 turnovers en route to holding the Fighting Irish to 53 total points despite 50% shooting from three. Notre Dame is a weird matchup for us from their knowledge of our systems with Kyle Getter, to their collective team size and how they clog the interior of the paint, to them absolutely shooting the lights out for the second time against us. But, most interestingly, their Freshman Point Guard, Markus Burton, has been uniquely effective playing against Reece Beekman.
All of that considered, it was good to see us secure a comfortable win at home and without letting N.D.’s comeback attempt in the second half turn into what N.C. State did. We did so with Andrew Rohde tying a season low of 12 minutes, with Leon Bond not seeing the floor at all, and with Ryan Dunn not scoring a single point during the entire contest. So, we’re seeing different paths to victory and different role players emerging and contributing.
In this piece I’ll dive deep into Beekman’s duel with Burton, highlight Jake Groves’s big shooting game, quickly look at Dante Harris as a supporting player vs. the primary Point Guard, and briefly touch on a few other things. Let’s go ahead and jump in!
Reece Beekman vs. Markus Burton
In his postgame press conference, CTB talked about how Beekman was under the weather and gassed in this one. You wouldn’t have been able to tell by his stat line of 21 points on 7-13 shooting (4-7 from three), 6 assists, and 4 steals (although the uncharacteristic 5 turnovers might have been a clue), but it WAS clear when watching the game. In fact, I’m confident saying this was Beekman’s highest variance performance of the season with plenty of highs and lows. Some of this was clearly the fatigue of being under the weather, but a good deal of this was also caused by Markus Burton who has, twice now, proven to be Beekman’s toughest cover on the year. Burton had 17 points on 6-10 shooting primarily guarded by Beekman this game, and 15 points on 6-10 shooting in the first game – nearly identical offensive performances.
We can think of almost countless guards over the years who Beekman has clamped down, often even switching within games to take who ever got hot from other defenders guarding them, only to cool them off immediately. Switching between RJ Davis and Caleb Love and Jeremy Roach and Tyrese Proctor last year, for example, holding Wade Taylor IV to 9 points on 2-10 shooting this year and Judah Mintz (who he previously struggled with last year) to 5 points on 2-8 shooting, as another. What you normally get from Reece is assurance that he’s going to take the opposition’s best guard out of their game like a boa constrictor and then you’re going to have the advantage from whatever he’s able to bring on the offensive end. It was unique, then, to see him go toe-to-toe and win an offensive haymaker fight with his opponent. It was like if Floyd Mayweather Jr. showed up one bout and fought like Mike Tyson. Surprising and fascinating to see – although by the end of the game he’d combined elements of both, which was also exciting and what you’d ideally hope to see moving forward. But, make no mistake, Burton absolutely held his own in this one. Let’s take a look at the duel…
Here we are pretty early in the game and you just don’t see this that often. Some interesting things to note first. Dunn switches off of 6’9″ Tae Davis (#13) and gives him to Isaac McKneely while staying close to the ball and taking the 6’4″ Logan Imes (#2). We’ve talked about this increased switching with Dunn (and Bond) at the PF recently, but against Louisville it was against like-sized offensive players. Here, this was definitely an off-ball screen that they could have navigated, but instead were comfortable leaving McKneely on size in order to get Dunn closer to the ball. That’s interesting. It’s also interesting that he and Minor executed a good and aggressive hedge on Imes as first Burton and then 6’10” Kebba Njie (#14) set staggered ball screens for him. Minor cuts off the dribble out by the logo and Dunn stays sagged near the three-point line to allow the recovery by Minor. Note, Davis is in the corner well-away from the ball and makes no effort to exploit the mismatch with McKneely – so that’s likely good scouting on our end. To this point, the defensive play/strategy has worked perfectly as we’ve funneled through their offense and they’re left trying to create one-on-one against Beekman on the wing; normally a losing proposition. In this case, though, Burton is able to get into his hip, use an extended dribble to force Beekman off balance in need to recover to the angle, then stops with a pump fake that sends Reece.
Having an opposing PG just win the one-on-one with Beekman is uncommon and let us know this would be a good one.
It wasn’t just offensively, though, Burton’s quick hands were disruptive all game, this being the earliest example. You can tell Reece is a little off his game here just with how static he holds the ball before the swipe, just kind of anticipating the danger a little too late and/or underestimating Burton’s quickness.
Gauntlet thrown, Reece started to increase the defensive intensity later in the first half and he did so, often, by working to deny Burton the ball altogether. This is a bit of a twist and shows that he was taking the threat of Burton’s scoring seriously. Watch as the shot clock gets to around 7 seconds and Matt Zona (#25) has the ball, Reece presses to deny a hand-off to Burton. Successful, this made Imes come to collect and get disrupted by a Buchanan hedge, falling down. Burton was able to save the ball but had no time to do anything with it, and Beekman shaded the shot aggressively, forcing him to pass back to Imes for the long shot that missed everything and ended up in the shotty violache!
I like this wrinkle and we’ll see Reece put an emphasis on keeping the ball out of Burton’s hands again later, but him sticking to Burton here and preventing that hand off with Zona disrupted the entire flow of the play and was what caused the violation. Very cool.
Offensively, he was aggressive with his three-point shot, and we’ll see later him answer in big moments. I loved seeing him taking it upon himself not just to get into the lane, but to rise to the moment from the outside. Here we’re running Sides after transition and we have Ryan Dunn at the 3 with Groves at the 4 and Minor at the 5 (iMac at the 2). Burton is on Beekman but a flare screen with Groves forces a switch with the 5’11” Burton and the 6’7″ J.R. Konieczny (#20). With the 10 inch size differential we naturally pass the ball into Groves in the post on Burton, but he’s able to disrupt Groves’s dribble and force a kick out to Beekman. Beekman, in turn, has a mismatch with Konieczny’s mobility on him, but N.D. has been clogging the lane. Noticing the buffer he’s being given, Beekman simply takes one dribble and rises into his three-point shot over the out-stretched arm of the 6’7″ defender!
I love this confidence and, if he is shooting confidently, it’s also a smart play. Everyone on N.D. is defending him to drive here so he just calmly does the opposite. Also if you want to get really into the nitty gritty of the freeze-framing above, you can see how close that contest was to blocking the shot but he still drained it.
This next play on Burton defensively was huge. N.D. was down 12 with no shot clock after we intentionally fouled them. They should get the last shot here and either enter the half realistically down 12, 10, or 9. Instead, Beekman puts the clamps on the Burton isolation and disrupts his footwork enough in the lane to force the travel.
This was such a huge play in the game because not only did it stop them, but it gave us another opportunity before the half, which we cashed in for 3 more (and we’ll see later). That’s anywhere between a 3 and 6-point swing on the back of this on-ball goodness.
It was after the half that the fatigue really started to show up, though, and one thing we’ll talk about later is how Dante Harris was able to give him the rest needed to bridge the gap from here until the brilliant close to the game. Here was an early clue as he uncharacteristically just falls asleep on his man. He’s guarding Shrewsberry here after picking up in transition and leaving McKneely on Burton. iMac does a very good job on him but Beekman gets caught ball-watching and loses track of Shrewsberry entirely, who cuts baseline and is wide-open to hit the short jumper.
And, while that’s unlike him, Burton, swiped him for three more turnovers early in the half. Here was the most glaring one, to me, because you can tell he was laboring as he doesn’t hustle back on the break out. Dunn’s hustle, actually, held the play up enough that if Reece had hustled back he’d have been able to get into the play and likely not committed the foul.
Similarly, this clip, below, is a transition three where he just doesn’t get out on the shooter in transition fast enough or with enough urgency. He’s right there and this bucket is just on him not recognizing the threat and (seemingly) laboring.
So, when CTB talks about Beekman being under the weather and we think “but he had a great game” (and he did), these kinds of plays are where it’s showing up most – just being mentally sharp and not having that full edge to make all of the effort plays he would normally make. And it did cost us quite a few points, but it’s also an anomaly.
What I did love, though, is that he wasn’t just ineffective or sulking or getting down about his play throughout all of the above. Inter-woven between the turnovers and defensive lapses were offensive plays like this, where he takes a nice Minor flare screen and knocks down a three:
That play immediately followed a turnover.
And this, which was his immediate response to losing Shrewsberry on that transition three above, weaving his way through defenders and getting some of our few points in the paint.
When he left to recharge the batteries and let Harris run the show for a bit, he clearly needed the break to regroup – but what was so cool to watch was him just gutting out quality production in response to the plays I’m sure he wishes he could have back. After this bucket, above, he’d turned the ball over three times already in barely more than 3 minutes of play and conceded to blown coverages just himself – and yet Notre Dame had only made up 3 points from the half because of the rest of Beekman’s contributions.
It’s not like when he returned from his rest (about 4 minutes from 14:10 to 9:59) everything was immediately smooth sailing. Burton was still cooking like here after we had pushed our lead back out to 15 again. He doesn’t use this ball screen… it’s just a straight-up speed dribble getting Reece on his hip, taking him deep into the lane, stopping abruptly and elevating for the bank shot.
But whenever he’d get beaten, there was a clear and forceful response.
Here’s the (a little bit longer out) defensive response to that play above, where he and Minor execute some good initial drop coverage on some ball screens before the ball goes into the corner, but Beekman makes a point to lure and jump the pass back out to Burton, taking the ball the other way and drawing the foul.
This was the pick-6 version of the shot clock violation earlier where he increased his focus on ball denial.
And then here, you can almost feel him taking the matchup personally, he gets low with his reach and picks the ball cleanly, again taking it the other way.
Burton’s a very good player who played really well this game… and I bet he’s not used to getting picked like that.
Not to be deterred, check out this nifty little response where he switches the ball to the less natural near hand to get it under Beekman’s block attempt.
That’s some really savvy awareness of where his defender is and how to finish around him.
But, again, this is Beekman’s direct response to that on the next play (and he followed this up with another baseline midrange jumper)! This is his slick little variant where he fakes the curl screen in Sides and flares to the corner and he drills it (please start trying this one more, iMac).
A lot of this section is a nod to Burton who really impressed me. You almost never see a player continually isolate Reece and have a decent amount of success doing so. That being said, Reece still won the matchup despite playing under the weather by still making a ton of splash defensive plays and, mostly, by one-upping each play with one of his own (and we didn’t see them all and we’ll see some of the assists later).
But, yeah, while I expect Beekman’s defense to become more characteristically black holish in the near future, it was cool to see him duke it out back-and-forth with a quality opponent and still come out on top.
Jake “I’m Not Going To Call Him ‘Groovin’” Groves
Since the addition of Jordan Minor into the starting lineup (and Buchanan spelling him) Groves has mostly shifted away from playing small ball Center to his more natural stretch Power Forward slot. He’s predictably gotten less time. You want Ryan Dunn on the floor more often than not, although we saw him get some run at the SF some in this game with Groves at the PF and Minor at the C (which we’ll see some of in this section, but also works well to combat N.D.’s size at the SF). Two games ago, against N.C. State, he played for only 10 minutes and was 0-1 from the floor. Then, in the last game against Louisville, he played 12 minutes but was 3-4 from three.
I got caught up in writing about other things last game but I thought while watching the game live what a boon it was to have a player like Groves who doesn’t need big minutes to be effective. He can come in when the moment/matchup is right and immediately be on fire if the looks are there and open. If anything, the fresh legs and not having to spend the majority of the game banging inside with the opposition’s Centers probably helps him in this regard.
This game was the most glaring example of that as his 6-8 shooting from outside helped pace our collective 52% shooting from deep for the game. We’re going to do the fun thing now and look at all 6 makes and how they came about.
Here’s the first out of Sides and it’s both a good look at how effective his ability to pop out of a ball scree is, along with another look at Beekman’s efficacy and the attention he draws. The offense cycles through a few times without much headway but eventually Beekman gets the ball on Groves’s side at the bottom wing. It’s interesting because Groves doesn’t set any actual screen here. He positions as if he’s going to screen high pushing Beekman toward the middle of the floor, so Burton starts to shade that way, giving Beekman an angle to push the drive. Now, clearly Burton knows that 6’10” Carey Booth (#0) is going to be in drop coverage here, but Beekman strings the drive out not by going directly toward the lane but by going directly at the baseline just a dribble, drawing Booth and Burton before passing back to Groves for the clean look.
That’s really not that much space which is what makes it so hard to guard. It’s all in about two seconds, from the 17 second mark to the 19 second mark and it’s not a big mistake by Burton. He takes one solitary step toward Groves when he shows the screen and that’s all Beekman needs with one solitary dribble to his left to occupy both defenders long enough for the 6’9″ Groves to get his shot off. When you break it down like that it’s amazing to me how small the margins are at this level and when you have a sniper like Groves on the floor. One misstep and it’s three.
The second look comes out of Inside Triangle so, another offense entirely and one we didn’t spend a ton of the game running. Harris and Murray are on the two wings with McKneely, Groves and Buchanan in the mix. This is another example of how punishing he can be against a slight misstep. On this set, they keep running iMac off of screens toward the hoop. On the first, Blake sets a back screen that’s defended well but then, as they reset the ball through, McKneely runs around another curl screen from Buchanan with the ball with Harris. As he does this, Groves shows like he’s going to set another screen for McKneely’s man (#1 Julian Roper II) who proactively anticipates going over it, only to see McKneely snap the curl off and break toward the basket. This causes Roper to stumble while changing course to recover to McKneely and forces Booth, who is guarding Groves, to stay in the lane to protect from a pass to McKneely, now well ahead of Roper. This is probably a situation where N.D. needed to communicate a quick switch, but Roper continues to chase McKneely, allowing Groves to just pop right outside of the three-point line and for Harris to find him for the three.
Subtle little thing that didn’t really impact the play there, but I like Buchanan seeing it unfold and trying to get over into position to set a screen as Booth attempted to recover. He didn’t get there, but he also didn’t foul… and I love that he saw it and tried for it. We don’t run Inside Triangle as much since the move to Minor but, when we do, Groves is normally in the game and it’s because of this threat to spread out the middle of the floor and take advantage of confusion caused by the screening actions with the deep ball.
Okay, here’s the next one and we’re back in Sides, but this time Groves is running the ball screen action with Taine Murray. Now Murray can get downhill toward the rim when he has an advantage but he’s not really known for his dribble creation for others. It’s a very similar look that Beekman got earlier, though. After screening through to the baseline and then returning on the bottom side, Murray gets the ball on the wing. This time Groves sets a little bit of a screen on Murray’s man, but not really enough to lend much resistance but, since Booth is playing drop coverage again, Groves is able to pop to the wing and drill another.
It’s just such easy offense, especially when you have an opponent like N.D. who has been so determined to sag into the paint and clog things up.
So, those three plays were out of base set offenses and forcing our opposition to react to screening actions while still keeping track of Groves. This next one is basically a secondary break action where they just lose track of him in transition. Beekman runs out but doesn’t have numbers. He pulls the ball out and lulls his defender before exploding baseline again. As he drives through, and this is Beekman being Beekman again, he commands the attention of three separate N.D. defenders, meanwhile, Groves sneaks down into the corner and takes the kick out.
That one’s Beekman just being unwilling to set up the offense, continuing to probe the defense just to see what comes of it. Groves was aware enough to find a good spot to present himself.
Now this is a cool look, one with Dunn at the three (Groves and Minor at the 4 and 5 with Beekman and IMK in the game), and probably his biggest heat check of the game. This is a set play with the ball sticking with Dunn on the wing and both Groves and Minor setting staggered screens for McKneely who weaves through them and takes the pass on the wing. To be honest, if McKneely was ready to shoot on catch, he probably had the space to do so. Almost surprised by the room (which he rarely has) he drives the lane to the elbow. If you pause at 7 seconds there are a lot of things going on here. McKneely has the ball at the elbow and Minor’s man is sagging into the lane to stop the dribble with Shrewsberry (#11) chasing iMac. Beekman is clearing his man out by cutting baseline from the opposite side of the court down to the bottom, and Dunn, whose man (#1 Roper) has his attention on McKneely’s drive, is looping around Groves, looking for a backdoor run at the rim. This puts Konieczny (#2) in a tough spot as he has to linger to defend against a pass to Dunn while Roper, lost, tries to get back into the play. Groves takes advantage of the brief hesitation by Konieczny to pop out to the three and take the dump off pass for the straight-away dagger.
I said this was the closest thing to a heat check not because it wasn’t a good shot, it was, just because he had to know he wanted to shoot it and be ready to fire immediately to get it off over the contest. He did and he was.
Alright, the last look at the three-point shooting extravaganza. This is Sides again but it’s a slower developing look. Groves uses his back to screen/shield off Shrewsberry (#11) while Zona (#25) has to guard Reece’s path to the hoop. Instead of one pass and flaring out, Beekman takes his dribble farther in this time, forcing Zona to commit more and with Shrewsberry still chasing. Groves’s relocation here is so nice; rather than staying on the wing and forcing Beekman to pass around Shrewsberry back to him (and probably allowing a closer contest from there), he relocates down to the corner. In doing so, he offers Beekman clear line of sight to him on the kick out, and forces Shrewsberry to hesitate for just a moment on the close out as he wasn’t initially aware that Groves was there.
It’s just smart basketball. Rather than just standing around and spotting up, Groves works to be passer-friendly and has a very good grasp of where to go to take advantage of whatever the defense is doing.
Groves had 18 points in 22 minutes in this one after playing no more than 13 minutes in any of the previous three games. And, really, this is exactly the role I hoped for him prior to the start of the season; a veteran guy who doesn’t have to carry a big load for you but who also isn’t afraid to pick his spots and can pack a needed punch, especially against the right opponent. He’s just that now; not having to carry as much of a defensive load – he mentioned in his post-game interview how he barely had to defend any ball screens in this one where he did that all of the time from the 5 and he doesn’t have to keep opposing centers off of the glass. It’s that change-of-pace player that offers range from a position that we don’t otherwise have, and playing him at the PF unlocks some lineup options we weren’t previously utilizing.
I like it. I think we’re pretty close to getting our frontcourt to where we want it; at least within reasonable expectation this season.
The Duality of Dante Harris
We still don’t know what we want to be doing at the SF position, though. Andrew Rohde started the game again but only played for 12 minutes. I’ll touch a little bit more on why below, as it wasn’t the turnovers this time. Taine Murray was up to 20 minutes and Ryan Dunn played the SF some, which accounted for a lot of the solution; but Dante Harris played for 13 minutes as well.
Dante had some very effective moments in this one and it was crucial that he gave Reece the rest that he did, but I thought he was, again, much more effective when he was spelling Reece and it was more problematic when he was playing with Reece.
I thought his defense alternated between being sketchy and being very good. This was him in the first half without Reece guarding Burton himself. Dante is the type of defender who needs to get over ball screens and stay plastered to his man because, when he goes under, it’s too easy to shoot over his contest, like here.
That’s just strategy, though, and it’s this clip below, in my opinion, that’s still concerning and is a continuation of his on ball defense since he’s returned. This is Imes, not Burton, and what’s concerning is how far behind Harris gets left on his dribble penetration. Imes draws Groves and finds the wide-open man for the easy dunk.
Candidly, this is too easy for Imes. It’s not an overly quick move, he just starts driving the lane and gets by Dante. To be effective playing in the game with Reece like he is here, he’s really going to have to get back to being more lock down on the perimeter, as he should really be able to get up into/under Imes and make his dribble really difficult.
Conversely, here he is later in the game and this play really fired him up. We saw Burton get this same depth of penetration against Reece but, maybe he underestimated Dante’s reach, but we didn’t see Reece straight-up block him like this. Dante got up and smothered this shot!
And then, right afterward, this illegal screen is caused entirely by Dante just hustling and running hard to stick with Imes.
He’s fired up and that energy is contagious. That’s the kind of play that shows up as a foul and an offensive turnover in the box score but it would be easy to lose that the credit should go to Dante.
Generally speaking, I don’t think he’s to the point yet where you put him on the floor just to be a defensive stopper and play alongside Reece. He’s still conceding too much with his lateral movement… but it’s coming along.
Offensively, though, is where I think some concerns arise when he’s not playing as the exclusive PG. Here’s a look at a play, below, that went well for him. He makes the baseline jumper after faking the three and dribbling down there – jumping awkwardly off of one foot.
This was a successful play so why am I highlighting it? Well, when he takes the pass from Murray after drawing the defense after taking the pass from Reece, he’s wide-open from three. Because of his struggles from deep, though, he passes up that opportunity for three points to take a difficult shot for two points. Yes, he made it, but it’s a degradation in the quality of the opportunity and we just saw the N.C. State game where these weren’t falling for him. Again, I don’t mind this kind of look when the offense is stalling out and he creates something out of nothing off of the bounce, but it’s not a good long-term trend for the offense when you’re passing up open threes to take them.
Just to emphasize the point, this is why he’s reluctant to shoot it from out there. As Reece penetrates the lane, Harris gets the open look in the corner, but he misses pretty badly. You can see that there’s a hitch in his release, as well, a little pause at the top of his shooting motion when he shoots from deep as opposed to when he’s in the midrange.
He’s shooting 18.2% from out there this season, so you really don’t want him on the receiving end of those opportunities when Beekman creates them, which is almost inevitable when Reece is playing because he’s so good at it (and, generally, you want Reece creating as much as possible). So, Dante playing with Reece represents a willingness to waste some of the opportunities that you’re naturally getting within the flow of the offense when Beekman is on the floor and creating – because the endpoint of that creation (someone who can convert an open three) isn’t efficient.
On the other hand, when Dante is the lone pilot of the offense not only does Reece get some rest so that he can play better when he is out there, but now Dante is going to be required to create for himself and others. Rather than so regularly being on the receiving end of those opportunities, he’s either getting shots more in his wheelhouse or creating those same looks for other players. Here’s a good one where he’s got McKneely, Taine, and Groves as shooters 2-4 around him and Buchanan at Center. He ends up getting the ball on the wing and curling around a Buchanan ball screen for a left-handed finish at the rim.
I thought this play was important and timely because N.D. had just cut the lead to 8, one of the narrower margins in the second half. But it also showed that he can still get to the rim quickly, especially with such good floor spacers 2-4 playing around him.
This is the bigger issue than the defense with regard to how he fits playing alongside Beekman… but it does spark some optimism that, when we have to rest Reece, Dante can provide a valuable change of pace on both sides of the ball. I’m not sitting here saying they should never play together, especially when Dante’s defense rounds fully back into form. Then you can probably just accept some of the offensive losses in order to create more chaos on the defensive end, especially when you already have a lead. That being said, I do think we’re better served to minimize the overlap as much as possible currently – which we have been doing in three of the last four games.
Quick Rohde Blurb
Rohde continues to be one of the more polarizing players on the roster, and he continues to start but recently his minutes have seen a notable dip, playing 12 minutes in two of the past three games. It seems like CTB still wants to try him out and see how he’s doing at the beginning of games. Against Louisville, he knocked down a couple of threes, played good defense, connected the team with some quality passing, and played 28 minutes. But, against N.C. State he turned the ball over, didn’t play good defense, and got the early hook. In this one, he didn’t turn the ball over (and actually got 3 assists in his 12 minutes), but he wasn’t shooting well again, looked timid with his own offense and again struggled on the defensive end. This sequence below, kind of highlights why he got such little run.
During the offensive possession he’s at the point throughout most of it. Near the beginning of the play there’s a great passing sequence where Beekman takes a pass near the corner after a good screen from Minor, draws the defense and hits him with a nice bounce pass, Minor passes to Dunn in the high post, who finds Rohde wide-open for three. But Rohde neither takes it nor even looks like he’s thinking about it. Much like we were just talking about Harris, this is wasteful of an opportunity created through the offense and now, after all of that advantage created, we’re resetting. Then McKneely draws his defender on a curl and kicks it out and he isn’t looking to shoot again! Finally, he passes it over to Beekman who turns it over trying to make something happen. Then, in transition, N.D.’s offense comes to a complete set with Rohde having picked up Burton on the ball, and he just gets completely blown by for the easy bucket.
The turnover was from Reece, but it was caused by Rohde wasting two opportunities on the possession and being unwilling to shoot. The bucket was from bad on-ball defense after stopping the initial break.
I do think CTB wants Rohde to be the SF option he leans on. He has all year, and continues to start him. Contrary to how many would describe it, he HAS shown flashes of what he can be in that role… but you can’t play like that and continue to get extended run, and CTB agreed in this one.
It does continue to raise questions about the SF. I don’t have a section on him, but I did think this was one of Taine Murray’s better defensive games. He wasn’t amazing, but he was solid throughout on both ends and provided a nice little offensive lift over a short span in the second half. Again, I would like to see Leon Bond here some. Zero minutes at the SF when size/athleticism there is valuable isn’t a good sign – but if Rohde is struggling, I don’t think you can lean more into Dante there and this is probably the most you want to be playing Taine in a game (20 minutes). This is still the biggest development to keep an eye on as the season heads toward the final stretch.
Corner Close-Outs
This section and the next are very short, just things I wanted to touch on briefly. We really have to work on our spacing and our corner close outs. Multiple times over the past several games we give up open looks in this area of the court; but historically it’s predicated on that defender having to navigate helping a rolling ball screener and their man in the corner. On Wednesday, we just simply were out of position and not close enough to get an effective close-out on multiple occasions.
Here’s a look from McKneely where he simply has too much depth. He briefly jumps into the lane to help deter a pass to a cut, but he has time to recover to his spot and just relaxes while he’s still too far away. They just pass it to his man in the corner and knock it down.
And here’s a look from Dunn that’s basically the same (which is saying a lot because a Dunn contest is rangy!). He just gets too far away from his man anticipating needing to help on the drive, which he doesn’t, really, as the ball screen makes no contact and Beekman is right there.
CTB was very animated in the huddle after this one (which was right on the heels of the McKneely one) coaching the guys up, so I’m sure this will be a point of emphasis – but we’ve got to make defenses work hard to get these looks, they can’t be open on default.
McKneely Evolution
Two more quick things I wanted to show with regard to McKneely’s evolution, how he’s playing and how we’re using him. The first is something I’ve been harping on all year; him getting run off of the three-point line and settling for a long two as a result.
But here, a thing of beauty, he pump fakes a hard contest from outside and dribbles to the side, clearly mindful of the three-point line this time, and buries the shot for the extra point.
I love it. And really, let’s have a lot more of this from all of McKneely, Murray, and Groves. Once you land that pump fake, don’t just immediately step forward, often step horizontally to create your space so that your shot is worth maximum value.
Okay, this last clip is the play at the end of the first half which, I absolutely loved this design. It’s after Beekman forced Burton to travel, giving us an extra possession and boy did we take advantage of it. Minor sets a screen for McKneely who curls toward the corner. Beekman then inbounds it to Minor, running right at him and taking a hand off while moving quickly toward the middle of the court. After passing the ball, Minor immediately runs and runs toward McKneely, who rockets back off of his screen. Roper makes the mistake of getting caught under Minor and the rest is gravy for iMac.
Designing more plays and different looks to get McKneely open looks from deep has been something I’ve longed to see all year. Inbound plays are a great way to do it, and this was a beauty!
In Conclusion
We have a huge game and opportunity against Clemson on Saturday, but it was good to get the monkey of our worst loss of the season off of our back. It’s interesting that the most tenuous part of our team earlier in the season was the frontcourt and now that seems fairly stable/decided while we’re working to find solutions to the backcourt. What is positive, though, is that we’re still playing a wider rotation (played 9 in this game, have mostly been playing 10) to find the right solution, and the baseline for our improved play has remained at this higher level despite the continued tinkering.
The frontcourt didn’t even contribute much on the inside in this game. Dunn took only one shot all game and it was a tipped rebound, coming off of a 19 point performance. Minor scored 5, Buchanan 2. Groves was on fire but that all came from outside. But the stabilization of that unit and defensive improvements it’s been providing have really gone a long way.
Of course, that group will get one of its bigger tests on the season against PJ Hall – so I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes. If interior defense isn’t a huge pain point on Saturday, I think we can feel pretty confident about it moving forward.
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