vs. Campbell 11/6/2024

Feels odd to have actual game tape to review again… even odder that it’s under a new coaching regime! Nevertheless, and despite the bumpy first game, I’m excited to kick off the season with these – where I tackle the ongoing strengths and concerns of the team through game film break down.

Normally, at this point in the season, I simply call out things that I liked and didn’t like from the showing because we’ve had an established baseline on how we handle things as an organization. It’s historically been about seeing how all of the new pieces fit into that mold. This time, though, there’s already more to analyze thematically because of all of the changes from last year. So, I’ll be taking a dive into what I liked and didn’t, sure, but also making note of apparent systemic and philosophical shifts under Coach Sanchez.

It’s just one game and one very specific opponent who has a history of playing major conference opponents well; and we got the win in the end, but it also looked more difficult than you would hope it should have and exposed some weaknesses and areas of development. It’s a game that felt worse watching live because of the sloppy finish and the impactful, uncharacteristic mistakes; but on review offered more to be encouraged by than I’d initially thought. It’s also a game we won, quite simply, from superior frontcourt talent. The positive is that we recognized this advantage and didn’t shy away from playing through it. Intentionally so, and in a way we really haven’t prioritized in recent years. But the concern is that those kinds of buckets may not come as easily against more physically gifted teams. Our offense struggled at times and the backcourt didn’t appear to have a reliable place to go to create looks outside of the framework of the offensive system. Frankly, it appeared far too easy to get under us and to pressure us, especially as the game wore on, without worry of being beaten to the hoop.

The defense was fine but not great. Encouragingly, many of the lapses were more mental in nature than physical though (with some exceptions we’ll talk about); which is what you would prefer at the start of the season. That kind of thing can and should improve through practice and repetition.

We’ll see how that progresses, and there have been early results throughout college hoops where talented teams haven’t figured it out and, in some cases, it’s already cost them (looking at Villanova who we play in two games). The cohesion issue, especially in modern day college hoops, is to be expected. What concerned me was the play and utilization of players in our backcourt after the loss of Jalen Warley.

Clearly any speculation that Warley left because of the emergence of Dai Dai Ames was put to bed. Ames didn’t start the game and played only 10 minutes, leaving Andrew Rohde playing a whopping 33 minutes at PG. Christian Bliss didn’t play at all due to nursing an injury; whether or not that’s new or a lingering issue remains to be seen. We’ll tackle all of that within, but this has immediately jumped out as a significant area of concern and something to keep an eye on as the year progresses. Watching the game, it was pretty clear that Warley’s skills compliment where the team was at its weakest. Without evolution over the season, the status of the backcourt will curb my optimism a bit more. But I do think there’s room to evolve and, while it will likely always be our weakness; it can get better.

As a disclaimer for this piece – the biggest change of all is that we ran an entirely new offense and stuck with it for the totality of the game. I didn’t want to just do a whole section on the offense, though, because that would be almost all of the first piece and would blur some of these other issues. So, I’m going to point out and discuss some of the new actions and looks within the offense while talking about these other points throughout. Please read with that in mind, that all of these subsets (as they relate to the offense) are also informing the discussion around those changes.

That being said, there were some significant positives and things to build around as well, so without teasing it all anymore, let’s just dive right in:

The Backcourt Situation

Andrew Rohde starting and playing 33 minutes at PG is… a development. Sure, Bliss not being available is relevant to the discussion but it’s possible he wouldn’t have factored in either way. Hopefully he will over the span of the season; but we’ll have to learn more about the injury and timeline. Ames playing so few minutes is the bigger head-scratcher and there really wasn’t anything clear about his play within the game that would indicate why Ames had to play so little. He didn’t really make much of an impact, but he also wasn’t a liability. It was clear that Rohde was exhausted by the end of the game having played so much as the primary PG, so it seems necessary that Ames is just going to have to play a larger chunk if for no other reason.

I want to start with Rohde, though, whose surprise role as the workhorse PG has been one of the bigger talking points from the game. I’ve seen some chatter, especially in the wake of last year that Rohde is playing out of position at PG and would be better suited at SF again, just that there’s too much competition there and we have a need at PG. I do disagree with this. Rohde’s best position and the one where he can contribute the most for us this season is PG; but the way in which he plays that role will have to look different than we’re used to seeing. He can’t be getting 33 mpg at the position. It needs to be a true timeshare with Ames ideally playing to the strengths of either and with Dai Dai gaining more and more comfortable as things progress. They are very different players and offer different things and we’ll need to mix and match and not let opponents get comfortable with how to defend us (and to keep both fresh, which was clearly an issue for Rohde on Wednesday, as we’ll see).

So, let’s take a look at some of those things, starting with the weaknesses that are atop of everyone’s mind. Rohde struggled in the second half of the game, making a couple of big mistakes that kept Campbell in the contest and, in general, limiting his ability (accompanied by a swath of guards 2-3 who also struggled to initiate outside of the occasional McKneely or Murray drive) to make the offense consistently threatening.

The main issue was that he struggled to stand up to pressure. The most glaring example was the below; attempting to break the press, his handle is high and his footspeed is always on the slower end. Campbell pecks the ball out from behind which leads to a run out the other way and an eventual three-pointer. Watch how slowly Rohde gets back after this turnover too, which was exaggerated late in the game. He was pretty fatigued with primary PG responsibilities for such a large portion of the game. (Notice also the slow close out from Power on the corner three, which is something we’ll talk about later.)

That was a huge play. Campbell had just hit a three on their end and then immediately cashed another, bringing our margin from 12 to 6 in a matter of seconds. I thought it set the tone that, rather on building on the momentum toward the second part of the first half and getting a comfortable victory, this one was going to be closer throughout than we’d want.

He had another even more potentially costly turnover late, below, where he mistimed a pass to Saunders which ended in a pick-6 going the other way.

His lack of hustle getting back where he just stood and watched for a second was obvious and frustrating to see live. He should have been quick to respond and cut off that break out, but it was clear how exhausted he was. He also wasn’t under a ton of pressure when he made this pass, but the token pressure from Campbell caused him to read that pass incorrectly, make it sooner than he probably wanted, and misread where Saunder’s defender was. It’s definitely concerning that this sort of non-pressure pressure forced him into such a mistake. This was his worst play of the game.

But it wasn’t just the big turnovers. As the game progressed, Campbell became less and less fearful of the drive from our guards; especially Rohde. They turned up the pressure on the ball (also trying to get back into the game from behind). Our unwillingness or inability to punish this by taking the ball to the hoop caused for some of our stagnated possessions and bad shots. Here’s a great example, below, which ended up in FT attempts, but was a scramble. Let’s also start discussing the new offense here.

First thing about this clip, notice how slowly we break this token full court pressure from Campbell. That’s a Rohde limitation. We saw the loose handle turnover above, and he’s not going to blow by anyone or punish this pressure. It’s going to be a methodical working of his way across the timeline, in this case utilizing Cofie’s (can’t wait to talk about him!) ability to help and handle the ball to fully break the press. The result is that we have just over 20 seconds to start the possession, which is normal for our offenses as a whole, but negates the philosophy we’ve touted during the offseason (and we tried when able in this game) to get into quicker shots. We simply can’t have Andrew Rohde breaking the primary way we break a full court press for 33 minutes a game. It’s not that he can’t do it at all; but it’s exhausting and it’s not his strength. This is something Dai Dai should be much better suited to deal with and one (of many) reasons to mix him in more aggressively.

So, after bringing the ball over half court Cofie actually sets up the offense. Notice the initial formation with Buchanan on the elbow and Rohde and McKneely groupe pretty closely on the weak side. Murray comes up from the wing and takes a DHO from Cofie who sets a screen on his man and fans to the wing himself. Murray, dribbling with momentum, now has options. Buchanan is positioning himself in case he wants to use a ball screen, McKneely is cutting through the lane, and Rohde is coming over for his own DHO in a weave-like action. It’s starting to be a cool set up because Buchanan is setting himself up with Murray to offer potentially a stagger screen for Rodhe, but Rohde’s man jumps the DHO, forcing Rohde to cut back. It’s a good read by Rohde, but his man does this because he’s not afraid of the drive. In fact, the play draws a switch, putting a Campbell big on Rohde, but he still makes no attempt to win that isolation off of the bounce there (and if you pause at 10 seconds, it’s a wide-open lane to attack). So, that’s a clear point of weakness when your PG isn’t attacking a frontcourt player with that much space.

A neat action follows where Taine cuts through and BB attempts to set a ball screen creating a cluster around Rohde with different breaking options – but it’s not executed well as there’s too much space and the ball screen doesn’t stick. Rohde passes to Cofie who runs it back to iMac and attempts to set a ball screen but Campbell moves to trap McKneely. Cofie smartly rolls to the hoop and McKneely continues to retreat while passing him the ball. As Campbell’s help comes, Cofie hits a diving Buchanan who should probably be more ready for this and needs to go up stronger, but draws the foul and FT attempts.

Phew! Please stick with me, as mentioned, because I’m going to be walking through a lot of our new offensive actions while also talking about other things. Here, I thought there were some good ideas throughout that ended in a shooting foul through the advantage that we held inside. But the execution of the build-up was poor, and not having players 1-3, but especially at the PG position, who would or could drive the opportunities.

Here’s another, more obvious, look below. It came later in the game in a crucial situation that resulted in a very poor-quality shot. First, as Rohde brings the ball across halfcourt, the Campbell defender attacks him right on the timeline, almost causing a backcourt violation. It may go without saying but I should stress here – we’re going to face A LOT better athletes than Campbell is offering in these situations. So, the exercise of even starting the offense is tenuous. Saunders passes to Power on the wing and runs to set a ball screen with under 20 seconds to shoot already.

Saunders then cuts through to the post and Power retreat dribbles and passes to Buchanan outside of the three-point line. Notice how aggressively Campbell is playing on all of our perimeter players. And Rohde cannot take a return pass nor when he cuts off of Buchanan for a potential DHO. Instead, he runs and sets an off-ball screen for McKneely cutting up to Buchanan who also rejects that hand off and passes it back to Rohde. On the catch, Rohde spins toward the basket and actually catches Campbell’s defenders off guard. At the 17 second mark you can see that there’s a driving lane there where he could draw the defender under the rim and likely kick out to either Power or Saunders outside of the three-point line. But, instead, he crosses back over and rejects the opportunity, allowing Campbell to get back into position. He just wasn’t confident trying to touch the paint here, and having McKneely and Power on the floor didn’t help our ability to penetrate either. Buchanan slips a screen but can’t get a return pass and Rohde, again, heavily pressured by his man and not attempting to drive has to pass it to McKneely all the way out on the logo with 5 seconds left to shoot. All of this ends in McKneely taking a ball screen from Buchanan and launching an airball from DEEP on the wing that results in a shot clock violation.

This was a terrible possession when trying to protect a lead and it was a direct result, not of not having ideas, but of Campbell putting pressure on our ball handlers and pushing our offense far away from the hoop because we didn’t have the willingness, or ability, or energy to attack the aggression. That’s a McKneely and Power issue, sure, but it’s mostly a PG issue because that’s where you need it to come from reliably and the opportunities were there.

Now, by contrast, I don’t have a ton to show you from Ames and that’s simply because he didn’t play that much and he didn’t make a huge impact while he was in. But he also didn’t hurt the team (1 assist and no turnovers compared to Rohde’s 5 assists and 4 turnovers) and what he brought to the table was visibly different.

Here’s a look with Ames at the helm of our new offense. Alongside of him are McKneely, Murray, Power, and Buchanan (some of Power’s rare minutes at the PF). McKneely runs off of a Buchanan screen and Ames passes to Power on the wing. McKneely and Buchanan represent a stagger screen for Murray, who instead cuts through the lane baseline with McKneely then turning and running off of the screen from Buchanan who then dives to the rim himself. It’s a cool little action that’s new and probably has quite a few wrinkles, but it doesn’t work and Power resets to Ames who has rotated up to the wing with Murray occupying that corner. And here is where you see the value of Ames without it being anything extravagant. He isolates his man and attacks him off of the dribble. It’s not much, but his man has to respect it and is on his back foot, and it draws help from Taine’s man in the corner. Upon seeing the help, Ames passes to Taine who then attacks the close out and makes a nice little jumper in the lane.

Murray isn’t often going to take his man off of the bounce from a net neutral position, but he does attack a close out well in straight-line drives as we’ll see again later in the contest. This play was nothing special. The offense was different but it didn’t really lead to this aside from the spacing on the floor. All of this was just Ames’s threat of touching the paint, Campbell responding, and the opening that created for Murray.

Here’s one more, below. Ames opens the possession by receiving a ball screen from Buchanan with McKneely, Power, and Murray spread around the arc – basically our old Flow formation but on a pass to McKneely, he attempts to drive the ball from the wing with Buchanan having slid down to the block. McKneely gets stymied in the lane and passes it out to Ames who has relocated. You can see him get into the lane on his penetration quickly, but McKneely’s defender is still there to help shut it down. Ames passes out to Buchanan who leaves it for Power and I think he should have shot it from the corner here. He doesn’t and the play basically has to reset to Ames.

Now, that’s one opportunity that we passed up taking which is worth commenting on the whole passing up good for great discussion. An open three from the corner should be what we’re looking for with TJ and that was facilitated by the multiple drives to the paint, the most effective by Ames, causing the defense to react. But, after a reset, Buchanan again sets a ball screen for Ames and this time he rolls while the two defenders stay on Ames. He jumps and throws just a beautiful touch pass to Buchanan worthy of Joe Burrow. I’d like to see Buchanan collect himself and dunk this like Cofie was all night. Or really just not rush and throw up something weak that could be blocked – but the play generated free throws in the end.

Nothing amazing – but still a good look at Ames having touch on his passes and how his ability to touch the paint can open some things up for the offense.

And, yes, my conclusion is that we need to play Ames a bigger share of the rotation – maybe 18-22 minutes depending on the needs of the contest and potentially increasing as the season goes on. But, why not just advocate for him to swap minute shares with Rohde for this game? I’ve gotten that question quite a bit – why does Rohde play at all and he shouldn’t get any PG run.

Two main reasons – his ability to coordinate and grease the wheels within the offense (which we’ll tackle now) and his ability to play with length on the ball defensively.

First, offense. In this clip below, Rohde shares the floor with Cofie, Saunders, Murray, and Ishan Sharma. Saunders occupies the far side elbow with the rest spread aroud the arc. This is in the first half now with the game closer and Campbell is playing farther off of Rohde. He takes a ball screen from Saunders and assess the roll, but then fires a dot across the court to Murray, forcing his man who was helping on Saunders, to recover to the corner. Murray again attacks the close out and finishes with a nice baby hook runner in the lane.

Again, Murray attacking a close out with a nice drive and a good look at the spacing that lineup offered – but that entire play was set up with one delicious pass from Rohde that put their help side defense in peril.

Here, below, we see the same lineup, and this time Rohde is willing and able to attack his man off of the bounce. I strongly think this has to do with the fatigue factor and speaks to the need to share minutes. The offense is a shooters shell with Saunders working the high post and everyone else fanning around the arc. Rohde takes the pass as Murray runs to the corner and Cofie cuts through the lane away from the ball. As Rohde attacks his man off the bounce, and gets by him, he draws Cofie’s man’s help. I like that Rohde completes the drive here rather than passing early, which forces Cofie’s man to hold his ground throughout until the jump stop near the block, and forces Sharma’s man to collapse down on Cofie. This leaves Sharma open and Rohde whips the pass to him. We absolutely HAVE to comment on this release as it’s a thing of beauty. He doesn’t bring the ball down at all and basically fires away on the catch.

So, yeah. Rohde is fully capable as a distributor when playing with energy and, while he may not yet take the ball all the way to the cup, he has the ability to create quality looks for his teammates within this offense.

Let’s take one more look (and there will be others we’ll see in later sections). This is just simple four-around-1 basketball. Rohde is with McKneely, Sharma, Cofie, and Buchanan. I have to call out what a luxury it is to have teams have to respect Cofie from out there as we’ll see later. Buchanan is on the block, posting up, and Campbell is sagging just a little too far off of Sharma to help. Rohde absolutely darts a cross-court pass to Sharma who, again, is crazy with that quick and pure release!

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I have to pause here to talk momentarily about Ishan Sharma who I am not doing a whole separate section on. He played only 9 minutes but those 9 minutes were by far our most effective offensively. I wrote in my notes during the game, “Rohde, McKneely, Sharma, Saunders, Cofie was our most effective lineup.” Afterward, I just checked myself on this and, sure enough…

And Sharma was all across our top player pairings for the night:

Basically, that lineup just went off… and of course it’s the tiniest sample size – but that’s what we’re hoping TJ Power would be at that SF position and is a lineup (especially pairing McKneely and Sharma together) I’m going to want to keep an eye on moving forward. If Ishan continues to play like that, he’s going to earn more minutes in a hurry!

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But, yeah, Rohde can absolutely be effective greasing the wheels within the context of surrounding him with good shooters and within the new offense and these spread lineups. He’s just got to have the batteries charged and the opposition can’t have had the ability to adjust to him all game. In my opinion, we’ve got to mix it up with these two (at least until Bliss becomes relevant in the discussion and then we’ll see there).

Even at the end of the game, we see him thread a really nice bounce pass through a trap to Buchanan, holding just long enough to get the help side defender to recover. It’s great manipulation of the defense and technical execution. You’d like to see Buchanan go up with this against the size mismatch but, instead, passes to Taine who again attacks the close out but misses a bunny. It’s a good opportunity either way and it’s Rohde with the most difficult part of the set up.

And here he is slipping a screen himself and then finding a nifty bounce pass to the diving Buchanan, also at the end of the game. Of note, notice the increasingly familiar set with four around the perimeter and Buchanan at that high post.

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Now, I’ll talk more about defensive cohesion in a bit, because that’s where most of our defensive issues came into play in this game. But Rohde’s presence on the defensive was effective in limiting drivers and also in helping out on the glass. He only collected 3 boards himself, but he had a block and his presence on the floor lent to us having some pretty huge lineups at times and he was actually quite effective when on the ball. Let’s take a look at our two shot clock violations drawn in the game and his role within them.

First, on this play, he and Buchanan do a solid job of navigating the ball screen. Of significant note, Buchanan plays drop coverage rather than hard hedging the ball screen so far away. This was a pain point last year so I wonder if this is a Sanchez tweak. Rohde is able to slide his way back into the play and then use his length to deter a shot on the block. Campbell offers a haphazard kick out and then attempts to run another DHO ball screen this time with Murray and Buchanan. Buchanan plays flat and does a pretty good job of recovering to his man and making a shot just hard enough to get up to force the shotty violache!

In this next look, below, we see him get over a screen and then under a ball screen before shutting down/smothering his man on the drive probe. He rotates weak side the rest of the play, but you can see especially at 9-10 seconds into the clip how looming his frame is on Campbell’s Jasin Sinani (#13) who is 6’3″ himself.

Buchanan is the real star of this clip, again, working through multiple hedges and chasing his man around the floor, ultimately forcing a leaning jumper that misses badly.

I’ll have some more defensive clips later where you’ll be able to watch Rohde – didn’t do a deep dive this game because of the focus on the new offense, but I’ll say that Rohde wasn’t often just beaten himself without there being some other kind of confusion. There will be matchups where the quickness factor will get the better of him, but he IS a better on ball defender than off and it should be noted with the way you see him hovering over 6’3″ ball handlers that his length will be a positive there in many matchups. To reiterate a point I’ve made in the past – this is a player who rendered Ryan Nembhard ineffective when he was still playing against Creighton and defended the PG well (unless your name was Max Abmas) throughout his time in the Summit League.

PG is probably going to be an area of scrutiny all season because I think it’s where we’re the least talented now that we’ve lost Jalen Warley. Candidly, it’s probably going to be a steep hurdle. When we see lopsided losses, it’s probably going to be because we’re outclassed across the guard position and unable to get things initiated. But I do think that there’s room for Rohde to be effective and make a positive impact at this position as long as it’s actually PG by committee and not him just playing starter’s minutes as we saw against Campbell.

Work Ames into the mix much more aggressively and keep opponents on their toes. Allow both to keep each other fresh and provide change-of-pace looks as defenses will have to defend either significantly differently. I don’t think that either are good enough to command a full game’s worth of responsibilities and both have weaknesses (Rohde clearly does, Ames hasn’t had the opportunity to put his on display yet); but if you were to combine them, you’d have one heck of a PG – so I think our best bet is going to be a heavy rotation not allowing our opponents to get comfortable with either for prolonged periods. You likely don’t need to go away from Rohde entirely – but 30+mpg of him in that role is a concerning thought and certainly not one we should consider the preferable strategy, I don’t believe.

All of that being said and, even though I don’t think it’s going to happen, I would like to see Ames get the same kind of audition against Coppin St. that Rohde got against Campbell. See what that looks like in a relatively low-risk situation prior to facing Villanova.

One last point I’ll note before moving on, and I’ll try to call these out as the season progresses, but it does seem like the utilization of Rohde and Ames under Sanchez is an either-or kind of situation. He only played both jointly for 3 minutes – something CTB would likely have been more tempted to do.

Jacob Cofie!

Normally, I’d say that writing almost 5,000 words before even getting to a debut like Jacob Cofie would be burying the lede… and it would be if our PG situation wasn’t so glaring and likely to be the biggest pain point for the upcoming season. But, man, what an impressive debut! Cofie was 7-8 from the field for 16 points, including 2-3 from three, had 6 rebounds, an assist, a block, and this steal…

… in a sterling 28 minute debut. You’ve got to love the quick hands there and then the fluidity in the open floor.

Of course, some of his playing time was due to Elijah Saunders being in foul trouble for much of the game and only playing 18 minutes, but he only played one fewer minute than Buchanan, and TJ Power – oft thought as a potential PF – only played 19 minutes. Anthony Robinson did not play at all; likely cementing the idea that he’s on the outside of the rotation looking in at least in the early season.

This, perhaps, represents the biggest change between Coach Sanchez’s approach and CTB’s – as Cofie was allowed to play through quite a few mistakes on the defensive end in favor of keeping his talent and ability on the floor… and I’m here for it. When the season is over, I wouldn’t be surprised if we think of Cofie and Elijah Saunders as our two best players and keeping him out there despite the occasional breakdown was well-worth it in both the short term and likely the long term as he continues to learn and grow through on-court experience.

As a long (6’10”) athletic, and skilled PF or as a true stretch 5 at Center (without giving up much size), Cofie represents a myriad of lineup flexibility. Let’s take a look at some of that through the lens of our new offense:

In this first Cut we see a now pretty familiar starting point where we have Buchanan and Cofie on either high post and then you have two wings/guards flash in front of and behind them respectively to kick off the play. Buchanan pops out to the three-point line which is an interesting choice out there as he can set up some DHOs from there but isn’t a big threat to drive or shoot. From there Cofie fans out to the wing and we have a full five guys around the perimeter. You can tell the action in this offense isn’t fully scripted because Buchanan looks unsure of what iMac is going to do and looks like he’s trying to read that as he passes it to him. iMac runs off of the screen and Buchanan slips, catching the ball on the block. From here, he’s got the option to pass the ball to Power in the corner or, instead, to hit the diving Cofie down the middle of the lane for a comfortable finish.

I like how Cofie wasn’t content to spot up here and read the opening in the defense. It’s also cool to see that he and Buchanan can play with each other; making for a very sizeable frontcourt when they do (even bigger with Power at the SF). Buchanan had FIVE assists this game which speaks to the offense running through him some and he only had one turnover to boot.

In this next look, we have the Rohde, McKneely, Sharma, Saunders, Cofie lineup on the floor. Saunders plays at the high post despite Cofie being there, which is interesting. Cofie crosses in front of Rohde and takes the pass while Rohde runs off of a back screen from Saunders. McKneely and Sharma are stationed in either corner. The ball goes to Saunders who pops out, then passes to iMac on the wing, and Rohde attempts to set a back screen for Cofie before then running off of a pin down screen from Saunders. All of this has a similar feeling as Inside Triangle with Saunders, Rohde, and Cofie in the mix and iMac and Sharma on the wings, but then when Rohde gets the ball back at the point, Saunders goes and sets a pin down for Sharma which is not in keeping with that offense, and iMac sprints all the way through baseline to take another screen from Saunders with Cofie popping back out to the wing. They finally reset into what looks like Flow with Saunders setting a ball screen for Sharma who drives and kicks it out to Cofie who absolutely buries a high-arcing rainbow three.

This was a really interesting offensive set because it had actions that resembled all three of our offenses from last season but with subtle differences (except for Flow at the end). But, punctuated by the fact that Cofie has the range and willingness to take those catch and shoot opportunities while playing Center, which is a huge luxury in a lineup with this much shooting already.

In this next look, below, we see him able to play alongside Buchanan again, still with McKneely, Rohde and Sharma. They have similar spacing with Buchanan around the high post, but this time Rohde takes the ball on the wing and Cofie cuts through to the mid post. He faces up, then takes one dribble with his back to his man, then kicks it back out to Rohde who passes to iMac. iMac takes a ball screen from Buchanan and whips a cross-court pass to Cofie in the weakside corner. On the close out, Cofie passes back out to Rohde, who drives his own close out, drawing help, and kicks it back to Cofie in the corner who this time buries the three.

One thing I’ve noticed in the B/W scrimmage and we saw a ton during this game, is their willingness to just post a man (and from any position if there’s a mismatch) out of this offense. We’ll see more with Saunders later, but that’s been seriously missing from our offensive repertoire over the past few seasons. You could argue that we didn’t have the personnel to do it previously… but I would challenge that given some of the mismatches we faced at times and the just complete lack of volume of attempts. Was Jordan Minor backing his man down with power dribbles really going to be that much worse than Saunders doing it? Seems more just like a willingness and re-commitment to get those touches and looks into the offense, which I’m also enthusiastic about.

Anyway, that’s a bit of a tangent as Cofie didn’t make a huge impact in the post, but I love the flexibility to start the possession with that look and then to just be able to effectively spot up in the corner himself and knock down a shot when the opportunity presented itself.

In this last Cofie-specific look at the offense, we see him once again catch a pass on the wing opposite of Buchanan in the high post. He passes the ball to Taine Murray while Rohde clears out the side, and then attempts to post his man once again. His man aggressively fronts him to keep him from getting the ball, but Murray passes it to Buchanan who flashes across just inside of the three-point line. This gives a nice angle to Cofie who seals his man and takes a nice high-low lob pass from Buchanan. He takes his time (as he did several times this game) and dunks it.

A few things about this – I love the versatility of having two bigs of this size, especially when one can shoot it like Cofie and one is passing as well as Buchanan was. I really like the structure of the offense having the big around the elbow so often but not just using him as a screener as we would have in Sides – running the offense through him a lot as a DHO option and as a passer. I think it’s going to keep our frontcourt players more engaged throughout the game and focused as they have more responsibility in conducting the offense. But I also love how when Cofie would get the ball deep, he wouldn’t rush, and he often dunked it. Often Freshman, and we still saw this from Buchanan in the earlier clip, will try to rush the finish as soon as they catch the ball. It makes their timing predictable and allows shorter players to coordinate their jumps to block shots. Cofie’s patience, waiting for the defense to clear and then finishing powerfully is a skill you’d often see from a more experienced player.

These were just a couple of a variety of clips, including second chance points and other finishes around the hoop – but it helps to illustrate why Jacob Cofie is such an exciting piece to have actually being utilized this season. As that 6’10” athletic shooter with ball skills, he unlocks a lot of lineup options without having us compromise in size/length – which is something that if you’ve read this blog much, will know that I’ve been clamoring about for years. I’m intrigued by both his ability to be a Center in an ultimate shooting lineup like we saw with Saunders and Sharma on the floor, or by his ability to play alongside Buchanan in kind of a twin tower situation without compromising spacing. It’s kind of unfortunate that he has some overlap with possibly our best overall player in Saunders – but he may be in that discussion by the end of the year and I’ve no doubt they’ll find ways to co-exist.

That being said, one thing that might have kept him off of the floor for CTB and that will hinder our defense some is the mental mistakes on that side of the floor. This wasn’t just exclusive to Cofie, but it clearly was an issue (which is to be expected with so many new players and young ones). Let’s take a look in the next section across the board.

The Defense Is Not Yet Gelled

This is to be expected but many of the defensive breakdowns in this game, with a few exceptions that we’ll talk about, came from mental mistakes or miscommunication. There’s just so many raw pieces coming together. I’m focusing more on the offense and the new pieces today, but just wanted to show a couple of quick examples to highlight the point.

Here we’ve got the very big lineup of Rohde, McKneely, Power, Cofie, and Buchanan on the floor together. Initially, Power and Buchanan pretty awkwardly defend a series of ball screens, but you can see that their length does play an issue as Power is able to deter a shot by jumping by with a contest. But if you watch away from the ball on this play, McKneely releases his man to the opposite corner to stay in the lane for potential help defense and Cofie plays off the ball with his man on the wing. Cofie appears to relax, possibly even lose concentration, and ends up taking iMac’s man and leaving too much depth on his man at the wing. iMac is still shading his original man as you can see him dropping back into the lane, but upon seeing Cofie’s positioning, audibles and sprints out to attempt to contest the three- just too late for the shot. The shot misses, Buchanan doesn’t secure a long rebound, and we see he and Power defend yet another ball screen where Power’s length is able to get his hand on a pass again to knock the ball out of bounds.

This one didn’t end up burning us, and it’s actually a great example of a veteran like iMac being alert and switching on the fly in attempt to catch the shot, but it’s also an example of a less seasoned player like Cofie falling asleep on his man/rotation.

A point of note here – this may be the biggest single difference that I’ve noticed between Coach Sanchez and CTB to date. Last year, we witnessed a talented player who contributed when he played in Elijah Gertrude get benched for prolonged periods of time for, among ball security happenstances, missing his rotations. But Sanchez never benched Cofie for this, instead letting him play through the mistakes (and for better or for worse did the same with Rohde’s late game turnovers). I love this approach with your most talented players – if their contributions on the floor are outweighing their mistakes, keep playing them! The lesson can still be learned in the film room and experience is often the best teacher. That was always one of the Catch-22s of our program in that we placed so much value on experience but were often not willing to invest the minutes and live with the mistakes that provided that experience. We appear to be now.

Here’s another example, below. This time we have Ames, McKneely, Murray, Power, and Cofie on the floor and, as I type that, I’m starting to think that we do have quite a few lineup options to tap into this season and with which to experiment. Anyway, this is a really good defensive possession by both Cofie (and Power) wasted by a mental lapse. Cofie defends his man in the post, Power shows down and then closes back out to his man, and still cuts off the drive on the close out. Cofie inserts himself again by reaching at the ball, and then takes his own man when the ball goes back out to the wing. The ball resets to the point to McKneely’s man but this time, when Cofie’s man goes to set the ball screen, Cofie offers no hedge whatsoever. McKneely can’t get back into the play and is beaten off of the drive, and Ames doesn’t offer rim protection from his help side, allowing for a Campbell finish at the rim.

“We’ve got to be continuous.” I hear CTB in my head! But that’s exactly what this means – it’s a great initial defensive possession lost to a mental mistake at the end. Cofie will learn to help shut down this drive as the season progresses.

Here’s another look where Cofie just kind of gets lost after a hard hedge. His man plays a two-man game with Sharma’s man on the wing and Cofie hedges to shut down the drive back up to the point – but he lingers far too long and takes a bad retreat angle. Saunders recognizes this pretty alertly and switches onto Cofie’s man, but Cofie can’t locate or identify Saunders’s man, stumbles through the lane, and concedes the wide-open three.

There are more examples but you get the point. Freshman big in a notoriously difficult defense to learn has not yet… fully perfected the defense. This is one of those things that I fully expect will improve over the span of the season which will be encouraging because his physical ability as a defender and the extra rim protection that he represents (and mobility at the Center when he plays there) will be a big help once it’s refined.

But he wasn’t the only one still figuring out how to gel within the defense. Here’s one at the end of the game where Rohde and Buchanan, two players who did play together within this defense last year under CTB, still get their wires crossed. After playing some good hedge defense, Buchanan and Rohde have what Rohde clearly thinks is an opportunity to trap his man on the baseline corner, but Buchanan leaves to recover to his man, creating a clean driving lane to the bucket for the previously stopped player. Saunders comes over with what I thought could have been called a clean block, but fouls out of the game instead.

So, it’s not just the new/young guys – this was a crucial possession in the game and we just had a pretty significant miscommunication leading to the parting of the Red Sea.

I’m not that worried about these kinds of lapses after game one, to be honest. The amount of time it takes to gel will be part of the season’s story but there’s no hard cap keeping that from happening. What does concern me are physical defensive limitations. Which brings up the question of…

T.J. Power

Power had an inauspicious start to his UVa career. At 3 points on 1-3 shooting, three rebounds, and an assist in 19 minutes, he was the only player on the entire roster with a negative +/- at -7(!). It didn’t help his case the Sharma, who ostensibly was in the lineup to do the same thing – shoot the ball – was +10(!) in just 9 minutes.

I didn’t think he looked horrible on offense. Wasn’t a huge threat to drive but made a three we’ll see later and had a decent pass – but he did struggle on the defensive end and much of it was just pure foot speed while primarily guarding the SF. It’s not always the on ball defense but it’s often those close outs that can really get you, as we saw from Rohde last season.

Here on Campbell’s first bucket of the game, we simply see him giving help under the rim and struggling to close out on his man in the corner. It was a good distance to cover but it’s also that you see him breaking down too early because he’s worried about the blowby drive on his close out. Changing directions so dramatically comes slower to him so, rather than explode to get there to challenge the shot, he starts breaking down too early and can’t explode into his contest. Despite his length, his man drains this one.

This next one, below, is similar but in transition. He doesn’t identify the need to close out as early as he should here so this could fall under mental mistakes as well; but he also doesn’t close out aggressively enough once he does identify.

I will say that he didn’t suffer a ton of isolation this game nor give up that many buckets off of the bounce (as opposed to the close out), but here was one such of those, below. Honestly, you still probably live with this shot difficulty and that it’s a long two-point shot, but the way he staggers on the cross and full on has to regroup before contesting exposes a real vulnerability down the road.

If there’s any player whose stock took the biggest hit from this game, it’s probably TJ Power. Mostly because the thoughts of playing him at the PF look fleeting. Elijah Saunders was in foul trouble most of the game and Power still only played 19 minutes because of the emergence of Cofie and his ability to play alongside of Buchanan. Power will probably need to hold down that SF position more often than not – which could be exciting if he can figure it out and hold his own defensively. But he’s going to have to hold off Murray and, probably more pressingly, Sharma who will be earning himself more opportunity. I’d like to see Power be far more aggressive on offense when he plays. That’s why he’s in there and that’s where we’re definitely going to need him.

Alright – let’s knock out a few quick-hitters before closing:

Blake Buchanan In Space

I thought, all things considered (he needs to finish stronger under the rim) Buchanan played admirably Wednesday night. He was put into hedge defense throughout the night and faced down a slew of mobile, undersized stretch 5s. We didn’t have a ton of flexibility in this one with Saunders on the bench so much due to fouls – but 29 minutes for Blake chasing guys around the perimeter may have been a bit much. It’s situations like these when opponents go small that I am (broken record) glad for Cofie and where we might even have been able to get away with a Power/Saunders 4-5 lineup without it costing us.

But here’s what I mean. This clip, below, is a big ask of Buchanan, especially if he’s still working on his mobility. He does pretty well here throughout, but all it takes is a little stumble, too deep of an angle, and his slower recovery time to give up a three like in this clip below.

And here, below, he’s kind of put into a blender a bit. He lapses on getting back into good close out depth when the ball is away from him, and then he struggles on the close out without giving up the drive, and fully has his back to his man by the time the spin move comes.

I’ve been about as staunch of an advocate against how heavily and, I’d argue, inappropriately, we’ve used small ball over the past few years against teams that would crush us on the interior. But against smaller teams who stretch the floor across all five spots and run the same, we may want to mix and match our defensive matchups a little bit more.

Having Blake run around like this for almost a full 30 minutes is a tough ask.

Elijah Saunders – Post Game

I mentioned our willingness to post up guys earlier. Coach Sanchez mentioned that this was strategic because of our opponent – which I’m all for! Let’s play more to the scouting report and less within our system than we have been in recent years. But, also, Campbell’s frontcourt went 6’8″ and 6’9″ so it’s not like they were just completely tiny – and that’s a good sign as well.

Saunders showed off a nice little back down game with a silky jump hook that he appears to have paired with a turnaround jumper he showed at SDSU.

Here’s a look I enjoyed because it reminded me of old school basketball with two post players. You can see Blake looking to post up on one block while Saunders looks to do it on the other. Blake rotates up to the high post and then when Saunders gets the ball on the block, he dives to the opposite block to occupy his man and threaten the rebound. Truly a throwback offensive set capitalized by a nice baseline baby hook from Saunders.

Here’s one from a little earlier where he sets some screening actions but then gets into it, catches a lob pass from Rohde, and backs his man down into that baseline hook again.

And this one, below, he just pops out to the wing, passes to Rohde, and cuts through and posts again. He backs his man deep into the lane with a power dribble and lands that right-handed hook shot again, this time toward the middle of the paint.

In the wake of last year’s offensive struggles, one thing we’ve needed is a place to go to for easy points. The post game is often one such place because you don’t really need a ton of set up to get the ball in there. This team has plenty of shooters to keep defenses from helping on this a ton and, if they do, Saunders is a good enough passer to punish it. I like the development as an option that we can rely on especially if the concerns about creation from our guards is merited throughout the season.

Elijah just needs to avoid reaching so much so he can stay on the floor!

Attempts To Push The Offense

All offseason we heard about the attempts of the team to push the ball up the floor more and take the open shots that were available. Watching this game, you hardly saw much of that at all. I believe that was mostly due to Campbell’s press and Rohde’s style of having to cautiously break it, which hampered our ability to get into almost anything fast. Just to reiterate, that is an issue and is another great reason to use Ames, who can get the ball up the floor quickly when he wants to, more.

But there were a couple of times that you saw glimpses.

Here is Power’s lone bucket of the game and it comes off of one such look. He grabs a rebound and outlets to Rohde who utilizes a ball screen from Buchanan well toward the center of the floor (this is the same offset transition Flow we’ve seen in past seasons). Rohde draws the defense and kicks to Cofie in the corner, who swings it to McKneely who kicks it right back in pretty ball movement to Power at the point, who buries the three.

A shot with less than 10 seconds elapsed on the shot clock! But, you could see the intention there.

Here’s one more and it was a miss, but Rohde outlets the ball to Power in transition who pushes it ahead to Saunders in the post, who shoots a quick turnaround jumper. It misses, but Buchanan was in decent position to contest a rebound had it come off of the opposite side.

This was really the only play of the game that felt uncharacteristic of our team and seemed to be trying to get a shot up quick – but I really actually appreciated it for that purpose.

Early returns make me think that the improved pace is more of a mirage while the change in offensive system is very real – but let’s see if we run into a team that doesn’t pressure the ball full court what that looks like.

In Conclusion

There’s so much more to get into but I expect we will and trends will start to develop. There’s more newness to cover than ever before since I’ve been doing this and I’m looking forward to the opportunity.

I do think that the PG problem is real. I don’t think it’s entirely unsolvable. Playing more of a committee, playing the hot hand, leaning more into Ames, Bliss’s health can all help there… but it’s still probably the thing that hard caps our ceiling the most this season. But, man, I think I’d be downright optimistic on where this team could close the year if we still had Warley on the team and that’s a shame.

I left the game in person feeling pretty bleak about the result and, especially the backcourt but, on rewatch, am more encouraged by the team’s potential to develop than I was. There’s real talent in the frontcourt and at the SG position. We’ve got good spacing, the potential to absolutely catch fire shooting the ball, and many interesting lineup iterations to explore.

Preliminarily, I really like the idea of playing McKneely and Sharma together and just letting them rip. I like the potential for getting all of Saunders, Cofie and Buchanan on the floor together. Power is still a wild card who could inject the team with a real spark at some point…. And through it all, we’ll get to learn about how Coach Sanchez differs from his predecessor as he auditions for the permanent job against a national field.

Looking forward to really sinking my teeth into it with all of you this year!