I don’t often talk about officiating on here, certainly not to any great length, because I think it’s a pretty pointless exercise. You can’t control officiating and my main goal is not whether we “deserved” to win or lose in any specific contest; it’s to think about the team and to discuss areas that went well, didn’t, and what those things mean moving forward. The things within our control. The decisions we make.
But, after a game like this one where we outscored Florida State 80-76 on the road, after lauding the offense and the toughness, etc., it becomes a fair question to ask, “what happened to the defense that just held Miami to 38 points?” Should we be concerned? And, after rewatching that game in all of it’s officiated ignominy, I’d resolutely offer, “No.” Don’t get me wrong, there were moments of break down and things we could have done better. We didn’t play as well as we did on Monday, to be sure, but this game was officiated in such a lopsided, aggressive manner, I think we should be thrilled that we held strong on the other end and got out of there with the victory! So, my first section in this one will be diving into that a little and talking about the overall impact it had on our ability to defend.
I’m also going to focus on what we did on the offensive end to exploit FSU’s defense, McKneely’s development in the midrange, and a few other odds and ends. Let’s get after it!
Defending Against The Whistles
I’m not going to show every single foul that was controversial, but you knew most all that were borderline were going against us in this one, but I will try to illustrate some things that made it hard for us to play defense that they were getting away with, contrast with some of the most egregious calls that they got, and contrast back with some of the stuff that they got away with. Ideally, this will help give a scope of the impact, but you really don’t have to look farther than the early splits in the game. Through 10 minutes, FSU had scored all of 10 points; averaging 1 point per minute and were on pace to score 40. From there, the refs started to get more aggressive with the whistles, especially in the second half, and FSU scored 66 points over the remaining 30 minutes. It wasn’t just that it got much of our frontcourt into foul trouble, though, it was also that we started to have to play a watered-down version of defense to keep the whistles from coming.
You had some warning signs early with how they were allowed to play with the ball in the post. This is one of the more blatant offensive hooks you’ll see and it was called a foul on Dunn early. You could make the argument (and I had the initial thought) that they laid off of calling Dunn for a foul on the catch, and then when the FSU player made his “move” the refs decided to call the advantage that Dunn got on the initial contact… but this was still an absolutely wild offensive hook.
But they continued to do it and get away with it, like here against Minor and somehow calling Jordan for this foul:
Watch how animated CTB is at the end of that play, fully jumping in the air. You don’t often see that (although we did later), but these are not subtle hooks at all; his arm full-on made aggressive elbow contact with Minor’s side and the reach was blatant.
It’s really hard to defend in the post when you’re getting called for a foul like that one above, where you’re being held and being called for trying to get into proper defensive position. Later we saw variations of this like here, where Groves gets full on pushed away with an extended arm trying to front the post. At the six second mark you can see how much space FSU gets from flat-out shoving him out of the way. Then Groves attempts to get back into the play, the player puts his shoulder through his chest while he’s straight up with his arms, and FSU still gets the call.
This was an offensive foul clearly on the push and, at the very least, a no call after. But, either way, how are you supposed to defend in there when you’re allowed to basically be pushed out of the way and can’t hold your ground?
Here’s one later in the game with Rohde in the post. The game has already been called in this way for a while now so Rohde is visibly hesitant to play physically. His man throws a forearm into his chest and pushes him directly backward not one, but three successive times. We’re not talking just backing someone in here, we’re talking forearm in the defender’s chest and pushing them directly backward.
Absolutely terrible and you can see the expression from Rohde after like, “what am I supposed to do?”
It wasn’t just what they were getting away with offensively, often when they’d drive the lane they’d get calls just for being around bodies. Here’s one where they absolutely do beat Minor off of the dribble but Taine Murray is called for a foul here.
He’s in the restricted area and he doesn’t give it much of a jump, but he’s also moving backward, full-on retreating with his back to the play at one point, and, easily most importantly, barely grazes the offensive player, if at all?
FSU was consistently just hurling their body toward the hoop and getting bailed out with a call. Here the 6’11” Baba Miller (#11) gets a head of steam and basically stumbles over himself, head down, not looking, jump stopping in the lane. Beekman meets him, retreats, doesn’t give resistance with the body, and picks the ball but still gets called.
And here, Rohde gets beaten off of the bounce and makes contact with the driver with his inside arm on the slide toward the basket. He doesn’t hold him or impede his progress, and actually pulls back away when the player goes up for the shot. He was beaten and this is a bucket, but it’s not a foul (and if it is, it’s a very touch foul and should be on the floor).
So, it’s important to note that these are just some of the more extreme examples (and not even the most, which we’ll get to at the end), but the game was being called this way for about 3/4ths of the game, ratcheting up in the second half. So, while you did have some defensive break downs that were NOT a direct result of an uncalled offensive foul or a bad defensive call, like this one below where Rohde just gives up the offensive rebound without boxing…
Or this one from Taine where he just gets beaten off of the dribble and ends up jumping backing up under the rim to avoid contact…
You can look at either of these in a vacuum and recognize that they aren’t great defense, but there’s also the broader context of how hard playing defense without getting whistled was on this night.
Meanwhile, FSU was blatantly grabbing Dante Harris’s ball arm and ripping the ball away from him (that’s a full-on mugging)…
and raking Isaac McKneely across the arms on a jump shot (watch CTB jump again!)….
The contrast between what was allowed on either end was stark.
It certainly was much more extreme than the standard “home team gets the calls when they’re down” trend in ACC officiating. But, despite all of that (and we’ll tackle how we combatted it throughout shortly), it was at the end that you really saw the extremity of the situation. Here, we’re up 6 with just over a minute left. If we get a stop here, we should get fouled and have a chance to go up 8. FSU is in the double bonus because, well, obviously. This is the call they make on Blake Buchanan while playing hedge defense. He doesn’t impede the dribbler’s progress in any way, he simply touches him with his hand. If you call this, you can call just about any hedge we’ll ever make… ever.
That call made this game a sweat… but they weren’t done.
This is not a foul. But it’s so clear that the ref was just absolutely itching to call it. Dunn gets the ball, and barely.
You can see it better here:
All ball on the way up, and just a graze.
Just wild stuff; and I hope CTB was quietly behind the scenes getting this game reviewed left and right. And, again, if you’ve been reading my stuff over the past almost two years – I don’t think you’ve ever heard or seen me make these kinds of statements about officiating.
So yeah, Andrew Rohde and Taine Murray left something to be desired at times on the defensive end. Our bigs got into foul trouble and we even had to return to the former starting lineup of Dunn at the 4 and Groves at the 5 at times. We didn’t see Dunn at the SF due to forward availability, most likely, as well as how we were shooting… but the defense is still the heart of this team and I don’t see this game as any kind of indicator of a trend moving forward. I truly believe that it was an anomaly caused by some pretty extreme zebras who at one point basically tried to stop letting us play defense at all.
Spacing
Sometimes I’ll have discussions on this site about our not being as adaptive to what our opponent is doing. We’ll be insistent on running our stuff without being willing to deviate outside of our standard sets. This game was the opposite, and it was fantastic to behold. Throughout the game, we ran Inside Triangle for the purpose of setting up mismatches on our ball handlers knowing that FSU switches all screens. We did this primarily for Beekman, but also for McKneely, and there was no early game attempt to play Sides, we were right in the Triangle from the jump.
Here’s an early look at us running Inside Triangle. Note that FSU really doesn’t have to switch these screens; there’s no real pressure or tension to do so, they just opt to based on scheme. We’ve got the 6’10” Jaylan Gainey (#33) on Buchanan but when he sets a pin down for Beekman, he carries him to the point. Recognizing this, Beekman completely shakes him off of the dribble, gets into the lane, and draws the shooting foul. I like how he’s able to get to the line even with both Dunn and Buchanan on each block and their men stepping up, but having pulled the larger defender out of the lane, the rim protection on the back end isn’t as strong.
This is a pretty cool look a little later where they attempt to run Harris and McKneely over the top of two stagger screens by Groves and Buchanan, only to have Groves fade to the wing with hopes of getting him a shot. When that doesn’t happen, though, watch Beekman cycle through with McKneely until he has a matchup he likes and just take that man to the rack out of the spread.
The cool thing about this (after the initial creative look) is that this is fully Inside Triangle offense, they’re just running it more like a spread. Harris and Groves are on the wings, Beekman, McKneely and Buchanan are in the mix, but rather than a lot of screening action, Beekman and McKneely play musical chairs and then McKneely clears out while Buchanan hangs out on the block. A very intentional way to mix up this offense to attack what FSU was doing.
Here, below, now we’re in the second half and you can see how comfortable we are executing. Rohde runs over to Beekman for the sole purpose of handing his man off to Beekman, who immediately explodes into the lane, draws help, and kicks out to McKneely for the open three.
I like how casual this is. Just Rohde knowing his guy is the one, and exchanging.
And then, watch the logical extreme of this once Beekman has a man on him he likes in transition; Minor immediately pulls his man out of the play and Beekman cruises in for the layup before we set up any kind of offense.
For a team so commonly milking shot clock, leaning so heavily into early offense like this was both surprising and savvy.
Before we leave this section, this last clip isn’t really the same concept of our intentionally setting up mismatches, but it is an extension of the example with Beekman driving from the wing in the Inside Triangle, he keeps his dribble alive throughout the baseline and through the curl around, resulting in FSU having to hand him off between their defenders, and eventually allowing his patience to cash in with a bucket in the lane.
A huge nod to CTB, it just felt like all of our guys were VERY aware of the FSU defensive scheme throughout the game and had a lot of ideas on how to take advantage of both the matchups and the handoffs. I loved seeing the execution throughout, which the driving force behind out being able to weather the officiating storm and just outscore the Seminoles.
McKneely Midrange
One thing I’ve written about quite a few times this year is McKneely’s shot selection in the midrange. I’ve discussed how, at times, he’s pressed early in possessions, settling for long and/or hotly contested two-point shots. Over the past several games, he’s started to really take some strides in this area. Ever-dangerous from beyond the arc, and where we want him hunting most of his looks, his midrange game has made him a more balanced and dangerous scorer. It should make sense, then, that his career high in this one at 29 points, was a healthy mix of defense-stretching bombs and an effective game inside of the paint. When discussing this topic, though, I see a lot of conflating the two parts of the season… basically saying that the fact he’s making a higher percentage of shots now is evidence that the shots earlier in the season were correct. I do reject this notion. The shots that he’s getting now are more cleanly open, more often going toward the hoop, or later in the shot clock where the shots called out earlier in the season often seemed to be decisions made in advance like he decided he needed to be more aggressive on that play. What we’re seeing now isn’t evidence that those shots were always good, it’s the growth of a player maturing from knowing that the team needed him to be aggressive on offense, to better understanding what that actually looks like in practice. Here are some good looks at what I mean:
This is the first example and it should look familiar (it’s just his section). Rather than Beekman in isolation, we did so with McKneely as well. Here he’s got the 6’7″ Jamir Watkins (#2) on him which, actually, should be a pretty difficult matchup. He does a good job of beating him off of the dribble and getting a shot moving toward the basket, though. Even though he misses the shot, his momentum carries him right into the rebound/easy follow.
Earlier in the season, this kind of look was not happening from McKneely. He was neither taking his man off of the bounce often, nor was he going to be getting second chance points because he was often fading away or shooting from a much greater distance.
This is some absolutely great touch around the basket. FSU gets just a little lost on the switch between McKneely and Groves. Beekman throws the cross-court pass and McKneely settles right there in behind the defense right in that soft spot. Rohde throws a pretty slick little pass in to him but the finisher displays his little floater right over the help defender.
Again, a closer shot after a break down in the defense in the flow of the offense.
He was more successful at drawing fouls in this one (and would have been more so if the one from earlier had been called). You can see them intentionally set up the switch so that Cam Corhen (#3), 6’10” forward, is on him. He drives to the left, gets the defense in the air with a little pump fake, and gets to the line (where he’s shooting 90% on the season so that’s such a weapon).
Finally, this isn’t creating his own offense, but it’s a great example of his keeping his cool under pressure. He’s got Watkins on him again who is starting to exert more pressure. As he gets it to Rohde, though, he cuts down the lane and takes the return pass. He puts the ball on the floor but picks it up too deep. Rather than panic, he keeps surveying the floor, Groves makes a great cut to help him out, and finds him for the layup.
More than any other, that play exemplifies, to me, how much more comfortable he’s become around the hoop. The game appears to have slowed down for him in there since the earlier part of the season.
McKneely was 5-7 from deep in this one which, crazily, isn’t surprising from him. But he was also 8-9 from the FT line (granted a couple were at the end of the game) and 3-5 from inside the arc with tied for a team lead 5 rebounds and 2 more assists. Him adding this element to his game has the potential to take him from a guy who can get hot from outside whose offense can fluctuate, to someone who can pretty consistently lead your team in scoring.
A Brief Rohde Discussion
Andrew Rohde jumped back up to 32 minutes played in this one after having logged 20 minutes or fewer in each of the past three games. It should be clear that, while he’s willing to go away from him more quickly now, CTB wants Rohde to be in the core rotation and thinks we have the potential to be a better team when he is. When he’s knocking down shots like here:
And here:
Then there’s a much better case for it. As an aside, notice how Dunn is actually the one who sets both of those plays up. On the first, he drives in from the wing in Inside Triangle and then, in the second, he drives off of a screen from Rohde out of the wing in Inside Triangle and passes it back to Rohde on the replace. Teams don’t respect his outside shot, as they shouldn’t, but he vacuums everything into him in the lane when he drives, so more of that, please. But, back to Rohde.
His shooting was back on in this one and his two free-throws late looked very comfortable, which was encouraging. But this clip, below, is probably the most clear example why CTB liked having him out there so much in this one (as long as he was shooting). FSU pressed to varying levels of intensity all game. Recall against Clemson how Rohde was on the bench during our inbounding issues at the end of the game. He inbounded the ball from the baseline most of this game and did so breaking the press admirably. He also acted as a pressure valve, able to break the press on his own, when needed, like he did here. And then he finishes off the play by settling into the post and hitting Beekman with a pass that caught his defender off guard with its timing, leading to a Beekman drive and finish at the hoop.
There’s a lot of similar glue guy plays by Rohde scattered throughout the plays above if you look. And this, I’m sure, is what CTB envisions from him – someone who can help you deal with a team pressing an entire game, can knock down some open looks, and who greases the wheels for everyone else. I still think we’re going to see some variable minutes from him from here based on matchup and because the quality of his play really has fluctuated a lot – but definitely expect us to keep coming back to him and to see those minutes skyrocket, like they did in this one, when he’s knocking down looks, taking care of the ball, and making plays for others. Taine Murray will still get run and I expect we’ll still see a lot of the big lineup with Dunn at the 3 – but this is clearly CTB’s preference, all things equal.
Offensive Actions
In his postgame presser, CTB called out coach Sanchez for calling for two specific plays at key points during the game. Both yielded quality looks that we converted. The first was this one, where FSU had just pulled the deficit to two.
This sets up just like Inside Triangle, which we’ve been running all game (and it is, this is just a called “action” within it), but rather than hanging out on the wing, Dunn sets a screen for Groves to come out of the mix and head to the corner. Rohde passes to McKneely who finds Groves for the open look.
A classic case of a defense having defended something similar all game and then us adding a wrinkle they haven’t seen working to perfection.
The second action is gorgeous. It sets up a switch between Beekman and McKneely knowing that the switch is coming with McKneely’s defender high. But, rather that coming out top to collect the ball, once Beekman recognizes the switch he cuts back door and has a good run to the hoop where he’s able to make the bucket and draw the foul.
Both of these plays came at huge moments and I love both Coach Sanchez recommending them and CTB going with it. Combined with the way we ran the offense throughout, it just highlights a willingness to adapt and innovate.
In Conclusion
The odds were stacked against us in this one. One the road against a team that traditionally plays us very well, with three officials who were determined to keep us from defending, we elevated the weakness of the team this season and were able to outscore FSU, matching their 46 points in the second half. We did so despite all of our frontcourt playing through foul trouble, and we did so due to the continued development of individual players but also through the coaches and the evolution of their strategic concepts.
When you consider how this team was playing on the road early in conference play??? It’s an entirely different team right now. No, I’m not worried about the defense. No, I don’t think this is some kind of new normal for the offense. But I do think it’s an incredibly positive sign for the mindset of the team and its ability to adapt through adversity.
Leave a Reply