I’m going to miss watching Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn play in the Blue and Orange (or, really, Penn State’s uniforms but you get me). Ryan Dunn took over a game defensively about as much as one player can and Beekman was dominant on both ends of the floor in a game that felt like they (along with some timely moments from Isaac McKneely and Blake Buchanan) willed us across the finish line on Saturday.
It was an ugly win; mostly because of the 1-11 FT shooting element. I saw some funny commentary after the game wishing we would get burned by our FT shooting now so that we won’t later. Somehow, I don’t think that’s how it works. It’s certainly not like they aren’t trying to make them now. Anyway, giving up to as many as 10 potential points at the charity stripe and still winning should go to show that this game really wasn’t as close as the score on the floor; which IS a good thing because you aren’t going to replicate something that extreme again.
We played MUCH better defense in this one, augmented by Wake not running an offense that implemented the high ball screen so often. Still, the rotations were better and the approach seemed more cautious in that way, which we’ll touch on. The rest of this one, somewhat due to the tight turnaround, and somewhat due to the game itself, will be more of a hodgepodge; celebrating some Dunn and Beekman, and some other stuff.
Improved Defensive Rotations
As I mentioned earlier, Wake did not often run the high ball screen like I just spent the entire Pittsburgh piece covering, so it’s hard to say clearly if we made many adjustments. We’ll look at a couple of clips that give some potential glimpses but, in general, the defensive rotations were much tighter. Firstly, the change from last game of putting Beekman primarily on Hunter Sallis (#23), McKneely on Boopie Miller (#0), and Rohde on Cameron Hildreth (#2) paid off as opposed to Rohde primarily guarding Sallis the last time we faced Wake. Sallis, who went off for 21 points the last time he played us, and had just come off of a 33 and 22 point game in his previous two contests, was held to 12 points – not all of which were scored on Reece. So, we’ll catch some of those changes throughout here but, in this first clip, below, Beekman is was out of the game quite early for him after picking up an early foul.
Here we have Harris in for Beekman, guarding the sharp-shooting 6’3″ Parker Friedrichsen (#20), with McKneely on Sallis and Rohde still on Hildreth. Dunn and Minor complete the remainder of our lineup. Sallis passes the ball over to Hildreth and Efton Reid (#4, Wake’s 7-foot Center), shows the screen, drawing Minor to show a hedge, and then slips. This IS something Pitt did often, just farther away from the hoop. Minor does a good job hustling back on the recovery, but notice that Ryan Dunn has come far over to help cut off that drive. Harris is right under the hoop, and McKneely is keeping an eye on both his own man, Sallis, and Dunn’s man, Andrew Carr (#11). Reid identifies and passes it to Carr, who McKneely flies out to, and watch how fast Dunn identifies and recovers to Sallis on the perimeter. That’s the first victory – supporting Minor on Reid’s slip without giving up a perimeter shot. Dunn shows off his versatility by sticking with Sallis, but that leaves McKneely on the 6’10” Carr who goes down into the post. Friedrichsen takes the pass back from Sallis and smartly finds Carr in the post, but Minor is quick to come over with the post-to-post double and is there basically on the catch to support McKneely on Carr. Dunn, now, does a good job of both covering up Reid and reading a recovery to Sallis (to big responsibilities which he does so well), Carr has to retreat dribble out of the post, and Minor does a nice job of slipping back to Reid while Harris shields off the near-side pass. All of this leaves the panicky Carr no clear outlet to pass and he travels.
This is already a big improvement from the Pitt game despite the offensive system being different. Both the awareness and promptness of the rotations were more decisive and quicker – and it resulted in a turnover with Beekman off of the floor.
Here we’ve got the same group again, and first you see just the crazy ground that Dunn covers at the beginning of the clip (much more on him soon). He supports Rohde on Sallis by showing in transition and then covers a chasm to get to Carr, deterring an outside shot. Despite his momentum closing out, he also cuts Carr off on his drive to the baseline. Wake whips the ball around the horn to Hildreth who has McKneely on him after the transition defense instead of Rohde who defended him well a good chunk of the game. Hildreth makes a neat little one-on-one move to spin toward the baseline and free himself from McKneely, forcing Minor to rotate over to cut off his driving lane. This leaves Efton Reid open under the hoop, but Rohde does a nice job of recognizing, diving, and getting his hand on the pass to force the turnover.
This was an area that Rohde struggled mightily last game; identifying help defense in spots and then being quick about the rotation; but here he was much quicker to react on the collapse and it forced the turnover.
Okay, here was one of the rarer instances on the day where they were setting some ball screens farther away from the hoop and I thought the response was better on this one. We’re back with the starters on the floor and Reid fakes a ball screen on Rohde who is defending Hildreth, and slips. Minor reacts well, briefly showing and then dropping to Reid with Rohde not having issue staying on his man. Remember, against Pitt, whether or not they were setting this screen, we were showing aggressively on the other side, so this is a significant improvement. The ball swings around and Reece pressures it going to Sallis, disrupting it and forcing him to collect. This causes Wake to safety valve to Reid who then gives it back to Sallis standing at the logo. Reid moves to ball screen Reece but, notice at 13 seconds (huzzah!), Reece and Minor stay back! They keep depth at the three point line and show on either side of Reid. While Ellis drives toward Minor occupying him, Minor keeps depth around the three-point line, obscuring his path while Beekman recovers. Rohde and Dunn are in good help position and even though Ellis is still able to find Reid under the basket, the distance for Minor to recover and the lack of tension put on Rohde (who could linger closer) is a huge deal! Rohde was able to get back into the play and use quick hands to smack the ball out of bounds before Reid could convert the opportunity.
This was one of the most similar sets to what we saw against Pitt and Wake still slipped the screen and got a pass to their big near the hoop… but the much improved depth kept by both Minor and Beekman meant that the play was initiated closer to the hoop and not so far away in non-threatening-land. This meant that Rohde could hang closer to the paint and the passing angle to his man in the corner would have given him more time, and it meant that Minor was able to get back into the play faster when Rohde held up Reid. Altogether, this is basically exactly what I was asking for us to do (at least an element of it) to combat the high ball screen; don’t engage it so far out, pick it up as it comes to you closer to the three-point line. We don’t know yet if this is going to stick, but we can hope!
This is from the second half and was during the small window of time where we did get Ryan Dunn back at the SF with Groves at the PF and Buchanan at the Center. This ball screen didn’t come as far out as some of those that Pitt was setting, but it did stretch the defense some and it came at a point where Buchanan still hedged it pretty hard, Beekman went over Reid’s screen, and Buchanan recovered. But, and this was the other element I spoke about with Pitt, with Groves and Dunn on the back side during this play, it’s much better help on Reid. Dunn tags him at first, and Groves is flatly in the middle of the lane with his feet just outside of the restricted area, comfortable recovering to the corner with his length from there. Buchanan recovers back well and Beekman disrupts Sallis’s dribble to make this a non-play.
But, yeah, if you were brave enough to read through/watch all 35 of those clips from the Pitt game; recall how much better this backside help looks with both Groves and Dunn than those did. This is the other big element of improvement and I hope we come back to this lineup a lot more after taking a brief hiatus.
The last of these, this is some good interplay between Dunn and Rohde defending the two-man game. We’re back to having Harris on the floor instead of Beekman with Buchanan instead of Minor. Carr and Hildreth try a screen action on the wing but Dunn jumps Hildreth incredibly aggressively (still in good range for that, not too extended). He’s still able to recover back to Carr on the pass to the wing and shut down the drive back to the middle, which Rohde also disrupts by reaching in. Carr passes back out to Hildreth again, and Rohde does a good job moving his feet, being physical with him, and using his length (along with a good helping contest by Buchanan) to bother the shot. Dunn drops down to secure the glass.
Not only was this good and comfortable support between Dunn, Rohde (and Buchanan) but it also highlights the quality job on-ball and the good matchup decision it was to put Rohde on Hildreth. Rohde, as I’ve mentioned most of the season, is a high variance defensive player. Unlike most of our guys who’ve fallen into that category in recent seasons, however, it’s less matchup-related and seems more dependent on how he’s moving from game-to-game. When he’s feeling well, you’ll see it in his ability to slide on the ball and use good positioning/size to impact shots in the lane, and go better get into plays on the help-side. When he’s not, it looks much like it did off the ball against Pitt or on the ball against N.C. State. It seems as though CTB’s playing time decisions with him revolve more around him not turning the ball over and, occasionally, how he’s shooting; but if we could use his defense as the indicator on how to scale his PT nightly, I think that’d be a much more reliable evaluation of his upside on an evening and would allow us to be a little more proactive about some alternative lineups like leaning more into Dunn at the SF.
Either way, it was encouraging to go from two poor defensive performances in a row (one that was reffed that way and one that was real… but still both tangible from a morale standpoint), to holding ANOTHER team almost scoring 80ppg to under 50 points; and to slashing their point output by 19 from the first time they played us!
Dunn Dominance
While that was more focused on team defense, I did wanted to take a few clips to celebrate Ryan Dunn’s individual excellence on this side of the floor. As I mentioned, I’m going to miss watching him do this kind of stuff, so let’s cherish some of it!
Here’s just elite recovery that allows him to roam and disrupt. After forcing a kick out and recovery to his man on the perimeter, he stays to double team Sallis in the corner with Reece, forcing the ball out of his hands and eliminating a chance for him to get going early. Then, having abandoned Carr who dove toward the hoop, Dunn blazes back to steal the pass in!
Think about how much Dunn had his footprint ALL over that possession and influenced virtually all of it. Minor gets faked out on Reid’s screen and goes to the wrong side early, giving Hildreth a good driving lane. Dunn’s presence deters Hildreth and he kicks it out to Carr, though. Then Dunn free lances to keep the ball away from Wake’s most potent offensive player and, in the process, baits a pass that he steals and runs out the other way (forces a foul but… free throws). Elite defense!
Here, they do set a high ball screen for Hildreth on Rohde, and you’ll notice that Dunn doesn’t attack it as aggressively as we were, but when Hildreth uses the screen Dunn does attempt to pounce. He misses and takes himself out of position. But the recovery and the chase-down block is insane… and demoralizing for Hildreth.
On this next clip, below, he stands up Carr down low and blocks him/rakes the ball out despite Carr trying to back him down with his size… but he also gets in a good supportive show (after Minor does) at the beginning of this clip after a second ball screen for Ellis. His is the one that stops Ellis’s progress and ultimately brings the ball back to him so that the can get the block!
This one goes without saying. The recovery, the elevation, and the power to stonewall this ball and force it back down; eventually leading to a shotty violache! Side note: nice proactive switch and good defense to close out the possession from McKneely.
Here’s the switch onto Sallis from Beeman under 4 minutes that a lot of reporters were asking about in the postgame pressers. It says something when a player is proactively switching onto the cover of the reigning ACC Defensive Player of The Year to provide a more smothering contest. You can see in this clip the Dunn wants it after the screen from Monsanto (#30), and that’s just really strong on-ball defense with a good retreat angle and then not fouling on the way up.
Sallis really doesn’t have much of a prayer on that shot, and I like that Dunn is still aggressive with the contest after the foul called at FSU. Great body control to pull back late.
This next one was probably a little less skill-intensive but was no less satisfying. Up four, Dunn just straight up stuffs an attempted three by Damari Monsanto after he attempts an isolation step-back. In our game at Wake last year, Monsanto went off for 25 on 7-15 shooting from outside; regularly finding aggressive looks that he liked from deep against us. He didn’t play in the first contest so I wondered how his return would shake things up. Here, he tries to take matters into his own hands and Dunn will allow none of it.
And then, finally, on the final play of the game after all of the free throw woes across the team, Dunn again proactively switches a ball screen on McKneely in transition and picks up Hildreth. With the clock running down, Dunn matches Hildreth’s speed, cuts off the baseline, and then almost blocks the turnaround jumper from Hildreth as the buzzer sounds (shout out to Buchanan for swatting the rebound away and not giving up a tip to Reid)!
The coolest thing about each of these final three possessions, as I briefly had the thought live, “Why does Wake keep testing Dunn?” is that, other than Monsanto who never seems to want for confidence shooting, Dunn found a way to insert himself into the play to make his defensive presence more impactful. In the first clip, he took the switch from Beekman to stifle Sallis. In the last clip, he did it again, switching when Wake set the screen on McKneely so that he could use his speed/length to bother Hildreth. Both cases were effective, but both were also aware of time. He knew on those switches that the player he was switching onto wanted to shoot and didn’t really have a realistic chance to pass away. There’s no doubt in my mind that Dunn should be ACC DPOY this year despite Beekman being probably more effective than last year on that side of the ball.
Beekman “Putting Defender In Jail”
This was a term used a lot during the broadcast but really what it just means is Beekman keeping his defender behind him once he gets an advantage after a ball screen. Wake was playing a lot of drop coverage with Efton Reid, ostensibly because he wasn’t worried about our screeners shooting the ball. Beekman did a really nice job throughout the game of exploiting this and either getting a bucket right away or forcing Reid to switch onto him and then punishing. It was also cool to see how we used our standard offensive sets to locate and exploit this regularly, giving Beekman a lot of creative license.
Here’s a first look and it’s out of Inside Triangle. Harris and McKneely are on the wings and Groves, Buchanan, and Beekman are in the mix. They go through some token screening actions but really Beekman just asks for the ball at the top of the key, Groves clears, and Buchanan sets a ball screen for him. They’ve been doing this out of Triangle a lot lately rather than bothering to get into Flow, just running their ball screen action out of it after forcing defenders to defend the screening actions at first. Buchanan catches Miller (#0) with his screen and notice how Beekman’s body control settles down, keeping Miller on his back as he tries to recover, Buchanan draws his own man on the dive, and Beekman is open for the push shot in the lane once that clears.
Just very savvy awareness and navigation of his man attempting to recover on the ball screen.
Here’s the next look, below, and the entire play that pans out after is a result of Reid switching onto Beekman after Minor sets a ball screen in Flow. This is a pretty well-spaced play for us if you look about 1 second into the clip. It’s that near-side ball screen with two men in either corner and McKneely late to the top wing. After getting the screen, Beekman attacks Reid, eliminating any space and forcing him to pick him up, while Minor rolls, taking Miller with him. Now, the rest of this is one big continuation as Wake never hands the assignment back off. Beekman passes out, resets, and takes the three over Reid. So far away from the hoop, though, Reid isn’t able to help on the glass and Dunn tips the ball back out to Beekman, who immediately dribbles back into shooting range. This commands that Reid, once again, stays with him as his assignment, and this time Beekman just explodes by the mismatch on the dribble, finishing with an extended right arm going down the lane.
All of that comes from within “Flow” but it’s really just a lot of spreading the floor, setting a ball screen, and letting Beekman dictate what the defense is doing.
Here’s another look out of Inside Triangle where it doesn’t end up being an isolation play but the result is an open shot for Beekman that’s a result of the switching. When he takes the ball screen from Minor, watch how he quickly takes up space on the diagonal to draw Reid to him. He’s really not looking to score there, but he’s moving with urgency to force their switch. Now, he picks up his dribble to see if he can get the ball back to Minor who has Hildreth on him, but Carr is sagging down off of Dunn like one does. Instead, Beekman passes the ball back out to Groves who drives himself on Sallis and, once again draws Reid. This leaves Beekman open at the three point line because Reid is having to wear the dual hat of rim protector and perimeter defender after the switch. Groves misses his shot off the side of the backboard (would have been a better example just to pass this out at first, but he gets there), and then finds Beekman for the open three.
An aside, if you pause at about 15 seconds, check out the attention that McKneely commands from Miller. He’s out by the tip of the logo and Beekman is much closer to Groves, but Miller isn’t shading Beekman at all. That also helps (and Beekman, in turn, could have slid farther down the wing to provide more optimal spacing)!
This one puts it all together and highlights the confidence with which he was playing at this point. Watch him draw the switch, back Reid out to the three-point line, and calmly hit the shot over him. This after Reid has to give space because he’s already been beaten on the drive.
And here, below, just a continuation of the logic. Beekman takes the screen from Minor, keeps Miller on his back/hip throughout, waits to see if Reid will come and, this time when he doesn’t, he just takes it all the way to the glass for the finish. Miller can never get back into the play despite Beekman’s drive hesitating at one point and being methodical/controlled throughout, and that’s because of his body control and positioning on Miller.
Final look, below, and this one comes out of Sides; so we’ve seen it out of all three of our offenses now. Beekman takes the curl screen from Minor which leaves Hildreth chasing the play. He then commands Reid’s attention as he runs all the way baseline and then out to the perimeter drawing the switch… only to blow right back by Reid going the other way.
Practically speaking, given the way Wake was playing these actions, this became a lot of isolation ball where we’d just intentionally get the mismatch and let Beekman go to work. I love that. Find a weakness in how they’re defending you and target it repeatedly with your best player!
If teams like B.C. UNC and/or Duke play a lot of drop coverage with their bigs to close the year, I expect a lot of sets like the above designed to let Reece cook.
Bouncy Blake
I’ve taken a few times recently to highlight the progress of Blake Buchanan and this game was no different. I love the activity and confidence with which he’s playing. He even took a push shot that missed from just inside the free throw line very late in the game that, while no one was thrilled with that outcome, I love the confidence with which he took it! Low confidence seemed like an issue for him earlier in the season and I don’t see that now.
Additionally, and this might have been the Efton Reid factor but still noteworthy, we went back to always playing a Center again this game after getting away from it against Pitt. Buchanan logged 21 minutes and Minor 19; eclipsing the 40 minutes for the position. It was Buchanan, though, who closed the game, and I thought his activity and contributions showed up the most in this one, especially his timely plays around the rim and his 4 offensive rebounds.
We basically decided to play the post straight-up unless there was a mismatch like Carr on McKneely where we saw Minor with an intuitive double earlier in this piece. Reid had 6 points early but finished with only 10 and both Minor and Blake did a good job of standing him up and forcing misses at times. Here’s a great look at Buchanan holding his ground as Reid tries to back him in from the three-point line, forcing the contested hook, and then grabbing the rebound:
There have been times this season where we’ve attempted to play the post straight-up and times where we’ve felt the need to send a double team. Most of the time that double team would come when we were playing small ball with Dunn or Groves at Center, but we would send Blake help from time to time as well. Lately with the emergence of the Centers, we haven’t been doing that nearly as often, allowing Buchanan and Minor to play straight-up in the post; and our defense has improved for it (as has their individual defense).
Here’s one more look at it. Reid gets pretty decent depth on the post up but ends up having to take a hook shot fading away and Buchanan gets a solid contest on it:
That’s a boon that we can just leave the Freshman alone on an island like that, have him hold up, and let Dunn drop in for the rebound rather than having to scramble over for a double-team and force us to make rotations.
Offensively, he’s starting to dunk it more in traffic again like he did against Florida. Just more clean on his catches with momentum and having the confidence to try to finish strong with it rather than laying it up.
Worth noting, I love that Dunn took the mismatch and turned it into the lane there, drawing the double. He’s become a good passer from the lane, this time to Dunn, but also recently on kick outs to Rohde in previous games. But still, I’ve little doubt that mid-season Buchanan would have laid this up.
Here’s that push shot again that we’ve seen so often recently.
This is really just a great tool for him to have at this point because it allows him to score without Reid getting back into the play fully here, but it also keeps these stronger post players from getting their hands on him and disrupting the flow of his move. He was often getting that when he would try to go to that hook shot and it would kill his advantage/force him to pass it back out. Here he’s just capitalizing on the advantage that’s there.
And then there’s his biggest play of the game with under a minute left to go. Let’s first take a moment to talk about this offensive set. First, Beekman runs Sallis all the way through the baseline and then out to the point with Rohde and McKneely on either wing. He then takes a ball screen from Buchanan, effectively setting up Flow. Just getting to this point was different and may have had Wake off balance at first. He draws Reid on the perimeter with Sallis chasing. As Blake drives, Dunn crashes in from the corner, leaving Monsanto (#30) in the middle for Wake to handle both. It’s an incredible find and ball placement for Beekman to be able to drop that pass on a dime over both Reid and Sallis, past Buchanan and Monsanto, to Dunn. Dunn attempts to contort his body and finish before landing, and misses, but Buchanan is there to clean up the shot and draw the and-1 (again, FTs).
Most of that play is another Beekman showcase – both commanding two guys and then that insane pass; but Buchanan taking advantage of the two-on-one around the rim and punishing the glass on the put back is huge. It’s a big part of why he’s out there and re-emphasizes how we’ve improved our size issues this season through Jordan and Blake’s improvements.
Okay, a couple of quick-hitters to close.
Quick Dante Harris Thought
Dante Harris finished with 2 points, 3 personal fouls (one technical), 0 assists, 2 turnovers, and 1 steal in 12 minutes worth of play. Primarily he was used as Reece’s back up PG but occasionally played alongside of him. The logic behind him being the 8th man in the rotation has been quickness on defense, creation of his own shot and for others, and ball security.
But, he really hasn’t been great at any of those things, especially since returning from his ankle. His defense does appear to be getting a little better, but his lack of a shot threat from outside more often bogs things down than his quickness alleviates. In fact, over the season, he averages just 2.4 points while shooting 27% from the floor and just 15% from three in 15 minutes per game! Metrically speaking, he makes up 6 of the bottom 11 two-man pairings on the entire team (these are the worst of the 45 two-man pairings with at least 100 possessions shared; and it’s actually 5-of-8 if you back out all combinations with Bond, who isn’t currently playing):
Defensive performance against Wake aside, FT opportunities missed aside, 49 points of offense is probably a sign we should still be looking to improve our options. And if the main rationale is ball security, I don’t think that’s what this looks like:
I realize that’s just one play, but it does show that he can still be reckless with the ball from time to time, he’s not a vault. He’s averaging .8 turnovers in his 15 minutes, where Rohde is averaging 1.1 in his 27 minutes and Eli Gertrude is averaging .8 in 10 minutes. None of that is alarming enough of a difference to say that’s the reason we should play Harris and, honestly, if it’s pure ball security we’re looking for then we’re probably better off just giving Rohde those minutes at point when Reece sits, letting him get us into our offenses while using his size as a mismatch from time-to-time, and then redistributing some of his minutes at the 3 over to Dunn (or Murray). This would be much more aligned with how he was used at St. Thomas, alternating between PG and off-guard, and is how he was utilized in his best game of the season vs. Texas A&M.
While I DO think we should be playing Gertrude at this point and that his defense and intangibles would all improve our situation in both the short term and long term, I’m not actually trying to use this time to advocate for any one specific solution. Like I just said, Rohde at the point is somewhat intriguing as I think he plays better there and it increases our team size across the board. To use him there during those 7-9 minutes that Beekman has been resting would be something worth revisiting, IMO, and experimenting with the trickle down the rest of the lineup where you don’t necessarily increase Rohde’s overall minutes, you just redistribute some of them to the backup PG role and play Taine and Dunn at the 3 more often.
My main point just being, we have a reasonable sample size now and our minutes with Dante Harris have not been very effective on the whole. His offensive metrics are VERY bad and his defensive metrics don’t make up for them; and we’ve seen this play out with the eyeball on the court repeatedly over recent contests with poor offensive stretches when he’s in the game. The second half of the home N.C. State game, and the stretch after we took Reece out after his third foul against Pitt, immediately spring to mind, but there have been others that have been less visibly impactful as well. Whether it’s tightening the rotation even more, or being willing to explore other options from our bench again, this feels like one of those situations where we shouldn’t be content with how things are going just because we’re winning games. I know there’s often a, “don’t mess with it if it’s working crowd,” when considering the outcome of any given game. We’ve won 9 of our last 10 so “it” meaning our overall team performance is definitely working. But within overall team performance are a ton of variables to isolate and coaches rarely (and I would argue should never) think about the team in a simple “Did we win? Yes? No?” fashion. They have to look at what went well within the performance and what didn’t and where are opportunities to build on strength and where are opportunities to improve. For example, I’ve no doubt we’d still have been looking at ways to improve our high ball screen defense after the Pitt game even if we’d found a way to win. And even though we lost to Wake Forest the first time we played them, and Jordan Minor started that game, we built off of his presence moving forward because it was a positive development despite the loss that we could (and did) lean into. This is an area where tweaking the lineup utilization to go bigger more often, letting Rohde run the offense some, or being willing to give Eli another chance all seem like potentially positive approaches that we could tinker with to help eliminate some of the tough stretches we’ve been having.
One Great Set, One Rough One
Okay! The final thing I’ll touch on is two different possessions near the very end of the game. One was a perfectly designed action to get McKneely an open three, and one was us running a base offense that resulted in Andrew Rohde having the ball in isolation late.
This was the McKneely play and it was gorgeous. Interesting segue from above, Rohde is running the point here and bringing the ball up the floor. We replicate Sides with Beekman cutting to the wing and Dunn setting a screen from the elbow, and then Beekman immediately catches the ball and starts to drive baseline. This draws Sallis, chasing, Monsanto, dropping down from Beekman, and also the attention of Efton Reid. Meanwhile, McKneely has presented himself on the wing, but dives to the corner, baiting and utilizing a well-positioned back screen by Buchanan, and Beekman who was looking for this the entire way, finds him for the dagger.
That was a thing of beauty. A huge tip of the hat to CTB on the design, especially in the context of how teams normally defend the offense.
This one, on the other hand, is far less effective and it’s because we run the standard Sides offense and wait so long to get into the set. With nothing drawn up, Beekman passes to Rohde and McKneely continues through in the standard Sides action. Hildreth does a good job of hustling to deny the pass, though, and with only five seconds left, now Rohde has to take it on himself to make something happen. It’s not a bad matchup with Friedrichsen guarding him, but his drive also draws Efton Reid’s help since there really isn’t time to get a pass to Buchanan in a threatening place to shoot. Rohde ends up shooting a very difficult fadeaway on the baseline and Dunn can’t quite tip out the rebound despite Reid being pulled.
Given everything, I thought this was a pretty admirable effort by Rohde. He hadn’t been in this position where he was left to isolate his man in the game, and was able to draw Reid away from the rim on the shot so that Buchanan and Dunn both had a pretty reasonable crack at getting the rebound. And, for clarity, this play wasn’t designed for Rohde. It was just basic Sides that they decided to initiate late likely with the idea of getting iMac a shot out of the action. That being said, you want Beekman with the ball in his hands here OR you want something designed to create an open look. Either calling something else like the awesome design above, OR just letting Beekman isolate or run off of a ball screen would be better; but by running the base offense so late, Wake could just over-play it and disrupt what we were doing, which gave us neither of those things (Beekman making something happen or a designed look).
I’m sure that’ll be something we rarely replicate in the future, in fact, it could be an opportunity to punish teams attempting to cheat on what they think is a known action (again, like that designed play to the corner was), but I did think it was interesting.
In Conclusion
This was a great win! It’s one that will go a long way toward cementing our resume as a tournament team over the final stretch even if we don’t finish as strongly as I think we will. Wake is a good team, and I firmly believe they should be in the tournament when all is said and done.
It was great to see our two best players completely step up and take over in their respective spheres. Well, Beekman everywhere, but especially on offense, and Dunn just absolutely creating havoc on the defensive end. Those two, along with McKneely, will keep us in a lot of games even when things aren’t going perfectly.
I didn’t get to it as a focal point in this one, but I also thought McKneely had a great game. It wasn’t one of those offensive fire starter games, but he came up big in big moments, worked in that improved midrange game, and his defense throughout on Boopie Miller, while also helping on Sallis when needed, and being good with his back-end rotations… all was excellent. I’ve said it before, but it’s nice when probably your most dangerous (or at least someone who can give you a lot of points in a hurry) offensive player is one of your better all-around players. I came into this season often thinking we’d have to decide between McKneely’s offense and someone else’s defense but, really, he’s just been plain good most of the time. Not to look too far ahead, but I often remember this is his second year and think about what he’ll look like in year 4.
We still have a lot to figure out, though, which isn’t bad considering we’ve won 9 of 10! It’s nice to have clear areas for improvement when outcomes are still good! Aside from the unanswered question of defending a more concerted high ball screen attack, we’ve still got ideal lineup and offensive efficacy questions to sort out. What better way to do that than tonight in Blacksburg!
Cuts from The Corner: UVA Hoops Musings 