vs. North Carolina 2/24/2024

On Saturday we held UNC, averaging close to 80 points per game, to 54 points… and lost by 10. This on the back of a 16-point first half, after scoring 41 points at Virginia Tech and 49 points vs. Wake Forest.

So, what’s the deal with our offense? Is it the system? Is it the personnel? Is it the freedom?

Yes.

I’ve seen a lot of different people chalk up our issues to all of these things but, really, it’s a perfect storm of all of them together. Teams, especially those in conference who are familiar with us, have gotten better at defending our offensive sets. They know where to be to bother our scorers and where they can help each other without often getting burned. This has been compounded by the fact that we’ve played a high number of poor or unwilling shooters, making it much harder to exploit these defensive strategies, and that our best shooters have struggled to get past their men off of the dribble and score inside. Finally, the scripted motion of the offense and the “philosophy” behind great shots best coming from the “right” people has stagnated the willingness/effectiveness of some of our secondary/tertiary scoring options when opponents have been able to limit our preferred options. Basically, it’s all been starting to snowball and we need to find and lean into some answers.

Now, I have exactly zero hope that we’ll realistically change core offensive systems mid-season. We might try a few small tweaks to already existing structures (and did in this one, which we’ll talk about), but we’re not going to see any dramatic overhauls. That would require an entire philosophical shift away from what we’ve been doing for the last 15 years in the middle of a push to try to make the NCAA Tournament. It’s unlikely to happen during the remainder of the CTB tenure, but it happening now is unthinkable… and, even though I think most can agree at this point that it needs some sprucing and attention, I don’t actually think we can afford to undertake that effort now. That leaves two main ways to possibly scrap out some improvement this year – who we’re playing and how they’re guided to play.

During the piece below, I’m going to primarily tackle our offensive woes, where they’re coming from, and some ideas for our best options to play our best basketball moving forward. So let’s hop in!

Forty Points… For The Third Time

There are so many compounding factors that have us where we are on offense currently. I do think the system needs updating and can’t be as prescriptive. Teams know what’s coming most of the time, and we rarely ad lib. That being said, I still think it could accomplish a lot more if there were more capable and/or willing scorers on the court. More complete offensive players. There’s also just an over-arching lack of willingness to attack/a feeling that certain players have the green light. You see this reiterated by CTB in post game pressers when he talks about when guys get open looks if they’re “the right guys” to go ahead and take those shots. So, we’re going to see all of that coming together during these next clips and then talk about what tools we have in our possession to fight these issues.

This first clip is a great example of unwilling shooters and unable creators. It starts out with Beekman bringing the ball up the court, Dunn and Minor on the top side with Rohde and iMac on the bottom. RJ Davis goes under a Jordan Minor screen and Beekman thinks about taking the open look but is unwilling, likely because it’s so early in the shot clock and he’s only shooting 31% from three on the season. Then UNC messes up a screen from Rohde and McKneely and Rohde gets the ball at the point with Cormac Ryan on UNC (#3) not realizing that the switch had occurred. When Rohde catches the ball he has an open shot fro there or a wide-open lane to drive down to either attempt a shot toward the rim or to draw Bacot and dish. He just missed a three a little earlier, though, and he’s also shooting under 28% from deep on the season, so he hesitates, does nothing, and passes the ball right back to Beekman. We’re ten seconds into this play and we’ve already passed up two quality three-point shot looks and a driving option down the center of the lane, likely due to some combination of player confidence issues and the concept behind not taking early shots in the possession. But if you’re struggling to get good looks over a possession, you need to take the good ones you get! It was early yet so perhaps they didn’t realize the struggles they’d be having (but I’d also argue, we’ve been having these struggles for a while now). Beekman passes to Dunn who has Harrison Ingram (#55) guarding him, basically daring him to shoot from out there. The ball does to Rohde moving away from the basket and then to McKneely with RJ Davis (#4) switching onto him with Elliot Cadeau (#2) staying home on Beekman. Notice how UNC has switched screens to stay in aggressive guarding possession on McKneely to keep him from getting an effective outside shot. This is a big part of strategies against us, aggressively shot deny McKneely and Groves from outside. It even caused the cross-up on Rohde which he refused to try to take advantage of. The other element of this is that teams are not scared of McKneely or Groves beating them off of the dribble when they pressure them aggressively. Both can do it on occasion, and McKneely is improving, but it’s still not a strength and too often he ends up settling for a tough, contested, mid-range jumper. That’s what happens here. A couple of dribbles to his left, and a step back long two that misses.

So this is a first glimpse at what I mean. Is it system? Yes. We really generated no action moving toward the basket throughout this entire possession until McKneely just went one-on-one against Davis. Is it the personnel? Yes. Both Beekman and, especially Rohde refused to shoot open three-point looks, Rohde refused to try to attack a wide-open lane, and McKneely was unable to create an advantage against Davis. Is it the philosophy? Yes. They passed up two good looks to funnel a worse shot to McKneely and ignored quality options that came earlier in the shot clock. But, yes, while McKneely is a much better shooter than Rohde or Beekman, this was not a higher quality shot than the one either had from deep. We passed up good for bad. I think we’re at the point where we need any player who should theoretically be shooting open threes to take the ones that they get when they get them, because there’s no guarantee what’s coming after.

This next clip is out of Sides with a light ball screen variant. Watch throughout how both Bacot (#5) and Ingram sag off of our blockers, Minor and Dunn, respectively. They both to such a good job throughout the possession lingering in driving lanes to deter anyone from trying the action because they really don’t have to worry about either Minor or Dunn shooting from distance. Cormac Ryan chases McKneely aggressively to make sure he has zero space, and the ball goes back to a Rohde/Dunn two-man game. Rohde gets an advantage off of a curl with Cadeau trailing, but rather than taking the ball into the lane to prove (and Bacot is lurking in there) he slips a quick pass to Dunn on his motion. Ingram plays drop coverage, and Dunn decides to elevate right into his midrange jumper and misses the shot.

A Ryan Dunn midrange jumper in rhythm in two-man out of Sides is something most of our opponents would encourage. In fact, their entire defense is set up here to live with this shot if we so choose to take it. Both Rohde’s lack of willingness to take the ball farther into the paint AND Dunn not being willing to use his quickness off of the bounce to try to get around or draw a foul from Ingram there lead to this shot. Note, also, it is the offensive system combined with the players. UNC knows exactly how they want to defend this action, there’s no confusion, and Minor being both a non-shooting threat himself and lingering halfway up the lane rather than going deep to the bottom block or potentially setting a screen elsewhere allows Bacot to stay involved in the play as a deterrent.

The two plays below should highlight how challenging it is to get spacing not only when you have two non-shooters on the floor but also when you have an unwilling one on top of that. Furthermore, if Rohde isn’t aggressive with his shot or his drive, then it’s hard for him to effectively help this offense enough to not justify playing a better defender.

This next clip we go to our BIG 3-5 lineup that I’ve been talking about. Interestingly in this game, the score held at 9-4 for almost four and a half minutes. We struggled to score out of this lineup but the defense was also incredibly good out of this lineup. I think it’s one we could have and should keep coming back to because, even though the offense wasn’t there, it felt like there was more opportunity. Also, the defense was lock down while we tried to figure it out, which I’ll speak to later. Either way, this is an example of poor dribble penetration threats. Groves drives into the lane on his man but doesn’t have the speed to make it threatening and Bacot is still lurking, playing off of Buchanan even though he drops. They do get a switch with Bacot on McKneely, though, and he had a chance to convert a reverse layup at the rim. It still highlights a general weakness from both Groves and McKneely on this play – but it’s progress at getting Bacot farther away from the rim and in isolation, and getting an opportunity going to the glass.

This next one’s pretty tough. Watch how the curl screens are defended from Sides again. Dunn takes a curl screen into the lane but when he does, Bacot drops fully off of Buchanan to support any driving lanes and then Lae’Lyn Withers (#24) lingers for a long time on the Beekman drive off of his curl. Bacot ALSO takes a drop off of Buchanan on the Beekman drive, effectively forcing him to navigate three defenders if he wanted to get all the way to the hoop. Instead, he settles for the midrange jumper in the lane again which, he can make, but basically has to take here because of how much UNC was sagging.

It’s worth mentioning here that I don’t get playing Sides with this lineup on the floor, especially with UNC playing as far off of the blockers as they were. Both Triangle, allowing Groves to pick and pop or Flow would have been better options with this grouping. You’ve got size on the court, isolate someone with a size mismatch (like Groves) or put yourself in better position to crash the glass on shots!

And here’s what I mean – one last look out of the BIG 3-5 lineup, this time they do move to the Inside Triangle with Beekman and Dunno on either wing and Buchanan, Groves, and IMK in the mix. This gives us a lot more options on how to navigate. Bacot is still playing well off of Buchanan, camping the lane and making action inside difficult. I also hated the way we started this play even though it’s clearly intentional. Buchanan sets a ball screen for Beekman who has a great opportunity to go 2-on-1 against Bacot if the side was cleared out, but Groves starts motion toward the top side and brings his men into the play. If they stay cleared out to open this play like we often used to last year (Flow open into Triangle if it doesn’t work) then Beekman and Buchanan might have numbers going at Bacot together. There needs to be more awareness and intention early on about this because it has been effective for us as a quick strike, which we desperately need at times. Either way, it’s a designed play for McKneely and Buchanan was probably fouled as UNC attempted to push through the screen. McKneely, with BB in his lap, doesn’t shoot, and they both set screens for Groves curling toward the ball, but UNC switches this as well, denying Groves a shot attempt. But then as they circle the ball back around, Groves does get Cadeau switched onto him, a mismatch, and he runs right to the post. I’m almost positive he got fouled on this shot, which should have been called, but wasn’t.

I think there’s something here. We had an opportunity for something early but weren’t looking for it, probably had another decent look if the UNC player hadn’t been able to truck stick Buchanan and, despite all of that failing, got a mismatch for Groves in the post that he probably has a much better chance of making if he isn’t hit on the arm without a call. I do really dislike McKneely cutting right in front of Groves with Bacot still there as rim protection when he’s attempting to back down Cadeau, though. Pop back outside and present yourself for a kick out instead. That also keeps Groves from being able to pass to Buchanan who was presenting himself with Bacot sagging, if he’d wanted to, because McKneely was cutting his man through the passing lane. But, yeah, be aware of the mismatch we’d created, play through that, and try to be assertive about scoring over the smaller guy or drawing the foul. It didn’t work this time, but it feels like something we could go to with more awareness/intention.

In this next clip Dante Harris is on the floor with Beekman, Buchanan, Groves, and McKneely. This is considerably worse than the lineup we were just playing with as Harris is really no more of a threat to shoot from deep than Dunn but puts far less pressure on the rim offensively (along with the defensive differences). Here you can see it in action as they attempt to run a ball screen on a cleared out bottom side of the court. Beekman rejects the Buchanan screen on Davis and Jalen Washington this time (#13)again plays drop coverage. As Beekman probes the basket, he draws both Davis and Washington. Buchanan has his hands ready for a pass, and ideally he’d dive with momentum to try to finish at the rim through some Washington contact; but Cadeau has dropped very far off of Harris on the perimeter and is lurking on any potential passes to BB. Beekman maintains his dribble to navigate around Buchanan again, having to narrowly avoid Cadeau’s steal attempt. Notice on that swipe how far into the lane Cadeau is playing and there’s no kick out from Beekman to Harris because… why? He’s not a threat to shoot from out there and we’re just better off with Beekman trying to make this play around the rim. It’s just an extra body to bother Reece. I thought Beekman could have gotten a call with the body on Davis, but Washington is able to stay in the play throughout, going up to block the shot.

When your 6’0″ PG isn’t improving your spacing in contrast to your 6’8″ PF and also isn’t effective scoring at the rim, that’s a bad sign for the efficacy of offensive lineups with him in; especially those when he’s not even the primary ball handler (playing alongside Reece). We need to steer clear of these lineups moving forward and keep Harris as the backup PG, if anything. This is where the return of Gertrude will hopefully be something, which I’ll talk about later.

When a team is playing us like this, as I’m sure many will, I think we have to continue to attack the rim. Cadeau was shading Buchanan but he needs to be able to get into a spot where he can get the ball around the rim when Beekman is fully drawing his man. That little push shot or an attempted dunk should have probably been the two results of this play. Which brings us to one mental shift I’d like to see from the team – we need to force the issue at the rim, especially with Minor, Buchanan, and Dunn. I really don’t care if they get blocked or miss some shots; we need to put pressure on the defenders, force some fouls, get some dunks, force opposing teams to defend. If they’re going to drop their Centers and PFs, we need to take that space they give and force those players to defend their men in close to the bucket. Better things will come from that than repeated midrange jumpers like we saw from Dunn above. The willingness to attack and seek contact inside will play a big role in our ability to start to break this funk.

Buchanan drew Bacot’s second foul by putting the ball on the deck and doing at him around the free throw line. This next clip, below, isn’t really what I’m talking about. He still fades away in the lane. We know he CAN hit this shot and I’m glad he’s willing to take it because we do need people outside of Beekman, McKneely, and Groves looking for their offense; but when we run that two-man game out of Sides and McKneely gets him the ball, I’d like to see him drive at Washington here and try to make something happen at the rim rather than shooting the fadeaway pretty far up the lane.

Don’t get me wrong, this look is still better than many we got during our cold stretch because at least it was in the lane off of a basketball move; but it also highlights that mentality of not being willing to challenge rim protectors. Blake could have driven at Washington’s left shoulder there, come to a jump stop at the top side of the rim, given a pump fake shot a layup through contact, potentially drawn a foul, shot his fadeaway in closer, etc. We need more aggression from the bigs not just in being willing to shoot, but in trying to make something happen closer to the rim; hunting contact.

Notice also from that clip above how aggressively Cormac Ryan runs McKneely off of the three-point line, he over-plays his right hand, and is comfortable chasing him because he knows that Washington is going to drop and McKneely isn’t a huge threat to get all the way to the hoop. Another reason that Buchanan is open but needs to punish the drop coverage.

Okay, now we’ve got Buchanan, Dunn, McKneely, Beekman, and Elijah Gertrude on the court for the first time in a long time. We’re still running Sides and we’re still facing challenges from teams sagging way off of Dunn. Beekman and Buchanan actually get in a very productive pick and roll with Beekman moving toward the hoop, but watch how far Harrison Ingram sags off of Dunn when he’s hanging out around the wing. Beekman draws the foul and it works out, but that’s a full on extra defender in the lane bothering the advantage he created through the pick from Blake.

We can spend a lot of time talking about the system. We run three different offenses at their core. The problem here is that teams know the motions and Ingram knows that this look is what we’re trying to create AND that Dunn isn’t a threat on a kick out. But, even though his familiarity with our offense helps him be in the right spot, this is still very much a player personnel issue. When you watch Beekman start his drive at about 10 seconds, he and Buchanan are running a pick and roll and all of McKneely, Dunn, and Gertrude are outside of the three-point line. The spacing should be fine from a positional standpoint, it’s just not from a commanding respect standpoint. This is where Dunn needs to start diving at the rim again when his man is helping off of him. I talked about this a lot earlier in the season; he’s got to be willing to attack this buffer not by settling for jumpers since he isn’t comfortable with them right now, but by filling the gaps, catching the ball with momentum, and attacking the rim. Or, by catching the ball on the perimeter and immediately driving downhill AT the rim to try to finish. With the block/charge rule as it is, he should be able to force some fouls/and-1s if he just attacks these situations.

Your man is sagging way off of you? Great! Try to get a line on your driving angle so he’s not directly in front of you, and crash in with some momentum either looking for the ball while you’re in motion, an offensive rebound, an alley oop, etc. Build up a head of steam, compress the game in closer to the bucket, and make things happen!

Now, we’re going to talk about Gertrude more a little later, but here’s a good example of how he can help combat all of these struggles with spacing. He’s not a great outside shooter and was 1-7 from the floor in the game; but he also shot 8 free throws in the game when our next closest player (Minor) shot 3! It’s someone who, other than Beekman, can get into the lane and create an issue/draw contact.

Here’s a lineup of Beekman, Gertrude, McKneely, Groves, and Minor. The set is a little different and it creates issues at first because, even though we’re spread out, Groves runs his man directly into McKneely on his drive from the perimeter. Likely this was supposed to be some kind of ball screen that got delayed and created the chaos. This blows whatever the play was up, and so they just default with Minor setting a ball screen for Gertrude… but look at how EASILY he gets into the lane! He blows by his man, drives down the middle, hangs, draws some contact, and almost finishes with his left hand at the rim.

Sure, this didn’t result in points and a foul wasn’t called – but it’s an aggressive look going down hill at the basket that forced the refs to make a decision and swallow their whistles. It’s also a great opportunity that came directly out of a busted offensive play that was a direct result of Gertrude just being electric. More on that to come, but a potential solution to a congested defense can sometimes just be a superior athlete.

This next one is a cool clip to highlight because they were definitely trying something different for the first part of the set. It also demonstrates why it’s good to just take the open three sometimes even if it’s not given to your best shooter. Gertrude passes to Beekman on the wing and then interchanges with McKneely at the point, going to the bottom wing himself. Minor is positioned block-extended and Groves is deep baseline on the top side of the lane. Groves cuts off of a Minor screen to the corner, and McKneely passes to Beekman and runs toward Gertrude like he’s going to take a flare screen, which Gertrude represents but then slips and dives down the lane. UNC plays it well, switching those screens, as was their game plan on McKneely throughout the game, but it’s still an interesting wrinkle. After it doesn’t work, you can see iMac getting us into 3-man, or, Inside Triangle. He runs off of a Minor curl screen which doesn’t work because his man gets under and Corman Ryan is able to bother his dribble from the corner. From there, he passes to Reece, running his own curl around Minor, who gets a better angle going down the lane, draws aggressive help from Ryan, and kicks it out to Gertrude for a very open three. He misses. Again, he’s not a great shooter, but his willingness to take the look when open meant that Minor could be in good position to clean up the glass and put back the bucket.

This set wasn’t from lack of trying something new, and it generated a good look from outside. Gertrude isn’t a great kick out option, but he is willing to confidently step into the opportunity given, which gave Minor a chance to make a play on the ball.

Minor (+2) and Gertrude (+1) were the only players in the positive for BP/M for the game and it made a lot of sense as they were two of the only players (along with Reece) willing and able to make something happen around the rim while also providing good defense. I’ll talk more about Minor later as well, but this is a big reason that I champion leaning into both moving forward too; the ability to scrap, get on the glass, fight for second chance points. Playing bigger and/or (in Gertrude’s case) more athletic, gives us a better opportunity to get something positive out of a broken play or a missed shot.

Okay, now we’re jumping to the first play of the second half, back with our starters again, and this is probably one of the better examples of all of these issues coming together. We start out running Triangle, with Dunn eventually moving out to the bottom wing and McKneely at the top. Minor sets a ball screen for Beekman and then a screen for Rohde to take the ball at the point, the three of them in the mix. Rohde passes to McKneely and Beekman runs another screen around Minor at the three-point line, but Bacot again just stays deep on the action, and Ingram has a foot in the lane with Dunn out at the three-point line. Beekman drives into the clutter and finds Dunn on the wing who would be wide-open to shoot, but isn’t willing. One of the single most negatively impactful things for our offense this year is that Dunn lost his confidence in his outside shot and/or wasn’t encouraged to keep taking it. Him shooting us out of a game or two early would have been preferable to a situation where teams literally don’t have to worry about defending him out there. Either way, he gets the ball into Minor in the post who passes back out to Dunn (I’d have loved to see him try to create something against Bacot one-on-one considering Bacot had two fouls). Dunn briefly handles the ball against Ingram but thinks better of it and passes back to Rohde at the point, who is open after a nifty screen by Minor. Shoot it! But no. Instead, he drives it right into Cadeau’s body with no threat, and turns and passes it back to McKneely at the three-point line with under four seconds left in the shot clock who ends up taking a fadeaway three to get away from Cormac Ryan.

This clip speaks to it all – and really we should have gotten away from this lineup much sooner than we did. Driving lanes are completely blocked up for Beekman, Ingram isn’t guarding Dunn on the perimeter and he isn’t attempting to drive, Minor isn’t trying to make a post move on Bacot, Rohde is passing up open threes that come within the offense, and we end up forcing McKneely to just take a horrible shot to get one off.

If we’re going to play this lineup, Rohde needs to shoot the open threes. Dunn needs to try to take Ingram off of the dribble. Minor needs to be willing to try to make a post move on Bacot. Those may not be our most desirable offensive options – but they’re the most reasonable options we get when our opponent is defending us in this way. Empower your secondary players to take on a greater load as a coaching staff, and be willing to take those chances as a player when you’re in the game (but, also, rely more on other lineups as a coaching staff, too!).

Okay, one more clips from later and then we’ll talk a little bit more about some potential counters that we saw from the game itself (some that went well and others that didn’t) that we should be emphasizing.

In this next clip, the shot at the end from Rohde is rushed but it’s not the worst look. The problem is, in a lineup with McKneely, Rohde, Groves, Buchanan, and Beekman, and with Bacot sagging the lane off of Buchanan, the only player who is a real threat to beat his man individually is Beekman. The rest of the offense goes nowhere and feels entirely non-threatening until he drives and draws a couple of guys at the end of the shot clock and finds Rohde on the kickout.

UNC just stays plastered to McKneely and Groves, trusts Buchanan won’t be enough of an offensive threat, helps on the Beekman drives, and forces Rohde to jack one up late. Rough offense. Even with our two best shooters on the floor, the spacing is bad and we’re not winning situations even when Reece is forcing UNC to guard him with two players.

Okay, so what are some counters? The first non-negotiable is that we absolutely have to make the sag defenders defend their men throughout the game. That’s going to require passing it to them and sometimes isolating them on their guy. Here’s a shot from early in the game that I liked even though it didn’t work out, and I’d have like to see Dunn be more aggressive in this way throughout the contest, especially when other options weren’t working. Beekman accidentally almost ran his man into the play, which probably delayed Dunn’s move, but I love the attempt of him to isolate Ingram. He gets pretty deep into the lane and misses the jump shot fading away.

It’s not a bad look. What I’d really love to see him do is pump fake that turn around and then go into Ingram’s body trying to make something happen at the rim. But, at the very least, we should have gone back to this more often both to allow Dunn to get into the flow and to force Igram to defend inside since he was cheating so aggressively off of Dunn. Isolating Dunn might not be what you think is your bread and butter re: scoring options, and this was a missed look early, but if he got more reps with this and worked on his shot fakes/trying to actually draw contact, these are more productive looks throughout the span of a contest than some of the contested midrange jumpers we were getting. For no other reason (but there are several other reasons) not allowing the defender to get so comfortable helping and making him work on the ball is a big deal.

One criticism that I think has been fair with regard to our systems is that if we don’t have an alpha scorer-type inside like an Anthony Gill, we don’t run enough of our offense through our post players which doesn’t give them the confidence to be aggressive in the right opportunities or keep their defenders honest. Encourage Dunn (and Minor as we’ll see in a bit) to take more of these opportunities. It also evens out some of your spacing issues because now one of the core players who has been cheating has to defend his man and there are fewer places from which help can come.

Okay, here’s something we very intentionally did that I liked and, in fact, we did it enough that UNC switched Cormac Ryan onto Beekman for a while. We probably should have gone to it much more regularly – any time RJ Davis was guarding Reece, to be honest. This is just a straight clear out for Beekman, no screen, don’t bring the post player into the play. Bacot sags the lane a little bit, but Minor does a good job diving under him and forcing him to concede depth so that Beekman can finish over Davis in close to the basket.

We got into that offensive set through Sides… but that was an intentional clear out focused on exploiting the one-on-one mismatch that we had when Davis was guarding Reece. There are a lot of PGs in the league we should probably try this against and we should probably look to use it more frequently than we did. I’d like to see us do this and clear out for the post and Minor sometimes, I’d like to see us clear out for Gertrude sometimes, I’d even like to see us clear out for Dunn to, again, get him more involved in the offensive flow, at times.

Here’s the same concept later in the game where we’re technically in “Sides” but Beekman just isolates Davis from the point. Dunn cuts through baseline to occupy his man and the rest of the guys fan out. It’s interesting because, in theory, you could spread everyone out to the perimeter, but I think this could actually be more effective because both Bacot and Ingram could sag deep off of their guys and have eyes on Beekman in that scenario. On this, they’re having to defend Minor and Dunn at least somewhat well enough because they’re both closer to the basket around the time the drive is happening, but neither can actually get into the play. When all else fails, relying on some Reece one-on-one basketball seems like a pretty effective thing to turn to in order to break out of scoring funks and if you do force a switch elsewhere on the court then you should have a mismatch somewhere else. RJ Davis did not have a good time in this game.

Okay, this next one is a play out of transition and transition is something that we should be talking about again, especially if Gertrude is back in play. It’s a great way to get cheap points before the defense sets, and it’s something we should strongly be considering given how much our offense has struggled. This is a turnover on a miscommunication between Beekman and Dunn. Beekman drives, Ingram again sags the lane off of Dunn, but this time Dunn does what I want him to be doing, he dives toward the rim. Beekman passes to his spot on the wing that he vacated, so clearly they weren’t on the same page – but I’d want Dunn diving here each and every time and Beekman looking for that. If Dunn catches that pass with that kind of momentum behind him, there’s zero chance he’s not at least getting fouled going up for the shot at the rim there.

So, yeah, if your man is cheating off of you you’ve got to take advantage. If you’re not going to take the shot, a player like Dunn should virtually always be crashing toward the basket on plays like this to take a pass or to be disruptive if there’s a missed shot.

Here, we can see that the change has been made. Ryan is on Beekman and Davis is on McKneely. That should be favorable, but Reece still needs to be willing to take open threes! The motion of the Triangle draws both Cadeau and Ryan away from him at the three-point line here, but rather than taking the shot, he drives it into the lane and settles for the much tougher runner over Ryan.

So this is another element; I know he hasn’t been shooting it very well but Beekman’s going to need to look for his three ball more often to combat these types of defenses. For one, he should always take wide-open looks like this. Absolutely has to. It’s a better shot than that contested runner. But, also, with defenses playing so much drop coverage against him and his defender often getting hung up on that first screen, especially when it’s from Minor, there’s a lot of opportunity for him just to shoot the deep ball rather than drive in and take the midrange. I’d like to see him doing that much more frequently which should, in turn, force defenses to play those actions more honestly, at the least. If they’re willing to live with open Beekman threes after a ball screen so am I, especially in contrast to some of the other looks we got in this game.

Last one of these prior to going into two players specifically. This is exactly what I’m talking about with regard to Beekman driving, pulling Ingram, and then Dunn cutting toward the basket. Beekman finds him in stride this time, but rather than going up through Bacot who is in the restricted area and moving toward him, Dunn looks to avoid contact and tries to reverse the layup on the other side of the rim, which Bacot blocks.

We should absolutely not be deterred by these kinds of plays but we should learn from them. Too often we have been going around players in the lane, avoiding their contact, and trying to finesse the shot. I know we aren’t a good free throw shooting team, but I’d like to see us go through defenders much more often. Make the refs call it. Get defenders into foul trouble. Make the free throws, ideally, or don’t, but it’s still a net positive and will force guys to be more timid around the rim or even get pulled out of the game (like Bacot was early).

So, yeah, I think our best tweaks for this team right now involve playing your bigger, or more athletic guys, allowing more of your offense to come through your role players, aggressively looking for contact in the lane, taking the open threes that you do get (even if it’s not McKneely or Groves), and crashing the glass. Scramble to make a philosophical change first and foremost, to how we’re attacking.

Jordan Minor Mixes It Up

Jordan Minor had 12 of our 44 points in this game and 10 rebounds with 6 coming on the offensive glass. He was exactly the kind of scrappiness and physicality that we needed, with his time only being limited by foul trouble (he finished with four) throughout. This could probably be another jumping off point to talk about our strategy around playing guys who get two fouls in the first half, but I’m going to stick to the script here and focus mostly on how we should lean into Minor more to help combat offensive struggles.

Let’s give him more opportunities to do this, firstly. Bacot is sagging to help Beekman, so just step out and let Minor post him up. This is a sweet move to the left hand and if he can do it against Bacot, it should be an effective tool against most.

This goes back to what I was highlighting about Dunn’s isolation earlier – you have to force sagging defenders to actually defend their men and Minor is capable of doing that. Sure, he was blocked around the rim a few times and missed a few times, but the vast majority of his opportunities came from second chance points in the scrum; so let’s be more intentional about getting him touches when we’re struggling to find something on offense (and, really, in general). This is probably a more effective solution than isolating Dunn (which I think we should still do some) and could allow Dunn to crash in on the glass.

Here, look at how many successive screens he sets in the mix in the Triangle for Beekman. It’s good offense and has both Davis and Bacot scrambling and, most importantly, it punishes Bacot’s help AT THE RIM by presenting an option there.

Here he is, again, and this is such a glaring clip as Harrison Ingram is full on under the rim cutting off any return passes back to Minor. The ball goes out to Dunn at the point who, this time, does shoot it… and good that he did because Minor cleans up the offensive glass and puts the ball back because, after Bacot’s help on Beekman, Cormac Ryan is tasked with boxing him out.

From three… shoot the shot! Especially when you have had switches take place near the basket.

And here’s a good way to keep a player like Bacot’s attention. Beekman takes the drive wide, forcing Bacot to stay with him on the drop coverage, and shoots a (bad) shot over him. But this occupies all of his attention so Minor, crashing down off of the roll, is able to clean up the shot and finish against less physically imposing opposition.

And, for fun, he did a pretty solid job on Bacot defensively, as well:

Minor saw his minutes up-tick in this game to 24 compared to the recent stretch of games we’ve played and, had he not been in foul trouble, I’d like to think that number would have been even higher. But, for whatever the reason his minutes had come down over our regressive run – foul trouble, hedge defense, the emergence of Buchanan at times, etc., I think it’s stop playing around with that and just keep his time significant. His presence allows us to get sloppy and benefit from situations even when our offense isn’t functioning well.

Welcome Back Elijah Gertrude!

Okay, everyone, it’s officially time to have that discussion. CTB just spent since the start of 2024 deeming Elijah Gertrude unplayable in all but blowout minutes after pulling his redshirt only to play him 19 competitive minutes against the best opponent we’ve faced all season… and we won the time he was on the floor by a point!

There’s really no argument that holds up to scrutiny that this wasn’t a mistake. Our rotation is such that we needed to turn to him in this one to offer something we just didn’t have, and certain players have been visibly struggling for a while now, and players with Gertrude’s physical talent and capabilities benefit from live minutes in games that matter. So, if were turning to him so aggressively now (which I’m all for, for the record) then turning so aggressively away from him throughout that middle stretch of the season was very clearly not the way to go. What’s more, he showed you flashes of this earlier in the season when he was playing more – so you knew you had the potential to tap into it and opted not to.

I wrote about this at length in two different pieces prior to the season – opportunities to improve playing time distribution, and my actual piece on what I hoped would happen from a playing time perspective this year. In both, I made the case that we should be giving Elijah Gertrude a chunk of time during each competitive game. It could have been as low as five minutes some games. You do this to keep the player warm and to keep them engaged. You also do this because the player is SO gifted that there are going to be games where they have an enormously positive impact, and you can scale their minutes up when they do. With them being so young and inexperienced, there will also be games (Memphis, for example) where they don’t play well at all – but you don’t have to keep playing them in those games! You can pull them after a mistake or two and go back to your experience while they know that you’ll keep going back to them in the next game, and the next game, and there’s opportunity to learn and grow.

Saturday was the first game in which we gave him serious and meaningful time since December, and yet he had one of these moments; having a very positive impact, offering you traits no one else on your team does, and playing a large role in keeping the team in it after the atrocious start to the game. Imagine, if you will, how much more ready and polished he might have been with regular experience (which CTB always champions) throughout the season. Think about all of the times we struggled and needed some kind of spark, but didn’t turn to Gertrude as a potential way to create that. Prior to and throughout the season, CTB regularly has talked about how glad he was to have gotten Ryan Dunn some experience last year. His energy and athleticism both helped at times AND the experience got him more ready to be who he is this year.

But then he didn’t apply that lesson learned to Elijah for most of the season? It defies logic. Hopefully, from here, THIS will be the turning point both for Gertrude at least being tried (and hopefully with larger chunks of time) each game moving forward AND for future players with similar upside being buried on the bench while we double down on tried-and-true options that aren’t themselves offering a high level of impact. Please join me, fans, in loudly taking up that battle cry moving forward!

But, as I wrote on Saturday, if THIS moment was the turning point where we finally start playing Eli moving forward (and, better, if it’s the thing that keeps him at UVa), then it will have been worth it!

Let’s take a look at some of the impact, which he offered despite shooting a poor 1-7 from the floor. Defensively, he did a very good job in general, although he occasionally got caught in some rotations or on screens (more experience would help!), but there’s no doubt that he made many positive defensive contributions and showed even more flashes of his potential there. Here, he rotates off of his man in the corner and helps on Jalen Washington’s dive toward the basket from Minor getting caught out helping. We’ve seen this rotation many times over recent games with one of our help side guys (usually Rohde or Murray or even McKneely) either being late on the rotation or not being able to impede the much bigger player going to the rim. Eli is quick and gets his hands on the ball forcing the steal and breaking out the other way.

Very active hands and good fluid movement to retreat while doing this so as not to draw the foul.

Here he is on a run out fast break. You’d want Beekman to look at McKneely but pass to Minor filling the lane here, as he probably has an open dunk, but an iMac transition three is still a good shot. But watch Gertrude absolutely SKY for that offensive rebound over two UNC players and draw the foul in the process.

That’s incredible! It kept the ball with us and, more, drew foul shots. With any other guard on our team in that spot, that’s an easy UNC defensive board.

Watch this practical athleticism, below. First, he drops down on the missed free throw and swipes the board, then he breaks out the other way, slips a screen with Beekman, takes the return pass, and goes right to the rack, attempting to dunk the ball and drawing the foul.

How’s that for not avoiding contact at the rim? How’s that for punishing space without using a jump shot?

Here’s a look where he’s late on his recognition and rotation… but watch the crazy contest he gets on Bacot’s dunk.

That level of rim protection from an off-ball guard can and will be very valuable in the future. He really almost blocked Bacot and likely would have blocked most other players.

Here’s one that’s a good example of how we should definitely run more when he’s on the floor. Along with Beekman, Dunn, Minor, even with Harris at point like he is here, opportunities like these are so important to get easier points. Harris forces the turnover by Davis by reaching around and assaulting his dribble, and McKneely does a good job of throwing the runout pass. Watch Gertrude beat everyone down the floor and command the foul as he goes up on the pogo stick to attempt the dunk.

I mentioned his quality defense which would have been bolstered by tighter rotations which would come with playing more and having had more game experience alongside our starters and core players. Cormac Ryan, who was having a blistering shooting game, landed some daggers throughout the contest. Gertrude lost him twice and got punished for it, once gapping too hard on a drive and once getting caught on a bunch of off-ball screens. But, overall, he was a very good answer to lock down Ryan compared to Rohde or McKneely. In the clip below, we see that he shows on Ryan flipping the ball back to Cadeau and then has quite a distance to recover on a flare screen that UNC was setting. Buchanan does a good job of shading Ryan when he catches the pass and deterring a shot, and Gertrude smartly goes low, making contact with the screener so that a release toward the basket isn’t clean. That’s Groves (who had a crazy block at one point that I won’t be showing but… I’m regretting now just because it was impressive) sitting under the hoop. Gertrude does well to fight through and get back in front of Ryan who attempts to take him off of the dribble while Buchanan recovers to Washington. As Ryan drives baseline, Gertrude controls him and then uses his quickness to slip behind and get at the ball. This one probably WAS off of Gertrude but we got the call, and it was a result of his just being far quicker than Ryan.

This is another clutter-buster. Watch how at the beginning of this play, Beekman probes the lane, but both Bacot, dropping from the Minor screen, and Ingram sagging off of Dunn, make things impossible for Beekman to drive. Again, when people talk about offensive spacing and sets… the spacing of our players is great here, but UNC isn’t respecting it. Beekman brings the ball back out, passes down to McKneely, who passes the ball in to Minor in the extended post. This makes Bacot have to guard him directly. Away from the ball, Gertrude goes like he’s going to set a ball screen on Cadeau for Beekman, which UNC switches as they have. This time, however, Gertrude dives right into the lane prior to Cadeau getting into good guarding position – trailing the entire way. Minor hits him with a good pass and Gertrude takes it RIGHT into Ingram, drawing the hard foul rather than trying to shy away from the contact.

What an answer to the spacing issue. Just pure explosion (and it’s a savvy cut knowing that UNC plans to switch). Likewise, he could have also dumped this off to Dunn once Ingram helped; but this is great and forces a much more open middle of the floor, playing through the post and passing out of it to athleticism moving toward the rim.

And the last think I’ll just say about Eli is that, while he didn’t shoot well from the floor at all (but did shoot 8 free throws), the one shot he did make from the floor was the most pressure-filled one! With 1:14 left and down seven, he took a ball screen on the wing, noticed Bacot sagging off, and hit the open jumper as Minor filled the lane.

He missed his first 6 shots from the field but kept aggressively attacking the rim and then made the biggest one he took without hesitation? Yes. This is exactly the kind of player with the confidence and lack of conscience as a scorer that CTB needs in a system that has made conscience a very relevant talking point, of late!

Eli has been freed! Let’s keep him that way to close the season. It might not have to be 19 minutes per game (although I’m very open to that idea!), but it should be something we try in each game and shouldn’t be something we’re scared away from if there’s a mistake or two. If we’re comfortable turning to him in these kinds of high-leverage situations, let’s make sure we’re still turning to him regularly from here. And, for that matter, let’s embrace that philosophy moving forward for guys with his level of talent and upside!

Okay, one more quick thing I wanted to close with…

The BIG 3-5 Lineup

Now, this lineup did not have its day offensively as I mentioned earlier in the piece… but it was fantastic on the defensive end, matching stop for stop. It also got Bacot both of his early fouls that caused him to sit. But, when Buchanan drew Bacot’s second rather than keeping this lineup in (which, fair, enough, it wasn’t scoring) we immediately went small in response, bringing in Dante Harris and Taine Murray. The thing is, a lot of the offensive adjustments that I talked about above, playing through the inside, crashing the glass, diving on drives, occupying front court defenders by staying low (or getting the ball in the post) to keep them from sagging, all are things that are well-implemented with this group. But let’s take a look at the great defense the group was playing:

This is part of our scoreless drought… and it includes a missed layup on the other end, but watch when RJ Davis shakes Beekman and gets a path down the lane how much that space evaporates. Dunn almost blocks the shot with his armpit. Speaking of the runout, given the charge rule, I’d like to see Beekman try to take some contact here while attempting to finish to ensure he’ll at least get to take a trip to the charity stripe.

Here’s the actual defense back the other way after that Beekman miss. McKneely takes Ingram in the post and Beekman drops down to help with the double team. On the miss, Dunn collapses down on the glass and draws the foul on Bacot. Just good collective help and rebounding support.

This last clip you can just kind of feel the quality of the defense here. It’s just the collective length, even Groves being difficult to pass over on the back screen on McKneely early. They don’t have many places to go, and when they do attempt to beat McKneely off of the dribble, Blake’s right here this time to swat and collect the shot.

I still think this lineup offers a lot toward our ability to shut down opposing teams and, while we’re struggling to score across the board, I’m undeterred. I think we should lean into our better defensive lineups and then make some of those adjustments to put more pressure on the rim and get more scrappy points.

It should also be noted here since I didn’t spotlight it and have nowhere else to put it, but Reece Beekman held RJ Davis to 1-14 from the floor (and wasn’t guarding him during his make). Absolutely crazy defensive performance, supported by some of the plays above.

In Conclusion

It’s a weird feeling because I spent most of this piece writing about ways in which the offense has been struggling primarily through both spacing and timidness; and my conclusion is that we need to double down on our defense with our Big lineup and by playing Gertrude more. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. But if you lock that area down and hold teams like UNC to 54, Wake to 47, Miami to 38, then you probably only need marginal improvement on the offensive end, which is good, because I don’t see much that is going to practically and radically change everything from here.

And then, leaning into those lineups but also playing through other players: Minor in the post, Dunn in isolation and crashing the glass, Gertrude attacking the rim, Groves and McKneely taking open looks but not having to force them. Attacking the second chance, playing with a little less structure, trying to get into transition more, encouraging everyone to continue taking the open threes that they get and encouraging everyone to focus more on drawing contact inside, I think all of those adjustments will compliment each other to allow us to be the best we can during this stretch run.

Wednesday is potentially the most impactful remaining game of our season. Win there and we’re probably on track to not having to do anything extra-ordinary to make the NCAA Tournament. Lose, and now we’re probably looking at needing to beat Duke on the road or make a deep run in the ACC Tournament. It’s time to be bold about the things we’ve learned over this stretch run!