Well, in our first contest away from home, against major competition, we passed with flying colors; beating Villanova 70-60 in a game that didn’t feel as close as 10 points. The Wildcats have quite a bit breaking against them right now, with the loss dropping them to 2-3 with losses against Columbia and St. Joe’s, and a fanbase seemingly at its wit’s end with their coaching staff. Nevertheless, it’s a veteran and talented team, and we started the game trailing 9-2 until we went on a 21-5 run from there and basically never looked back.
The game felt like the kind of win we hadn’t really seen all of last year; where both the defense and offense played well and we felt comfortably better than at least solid (we’ll see with Villanova as the season progresses) competition. Maybe you could argue the Syracuse game last year was a bright spot, but most of the solid wins were squeakers on the back of the defense and it felt like we were absolutely clawing for each positive while some of the bigger losses were just never in question.
Friday night, there were much welcomed good vibes… almost across the board, really. Andrew Rohde had a redemption night, iMac was fully in his bag, Ames played well after ascending to the starting role, the defense continued to gel and improve, the bench was full of energy, and it just seemed like whatever cloud of tepidness that was hovering over the team was gone. To his well-deserved credit, Coach Sanchez coached a nice game. I commented afterward that, for the first time in a few years, really, we utilized our roster and lineups in the exact way I would have hoped in this one. Not having us do something counter-intuitive or turn to some kind of lineup that felt like it was handicapping us on size or some other element was incredibly refreshing. In fact, everything we’re seeing develop with our eyes over the first few games – Ames as a starter, the value of having Cofie on the floor a lot, Taine not bringing the energy we need at the moment, Power showing glimpses but needing to scale back on his time a little until he figures it out a bit – Coach Sanchez appears to be in lockstep and making timely adjustments to address those developments. So, not needing to guess at motives or invent reasoning for certain decisions has been incredibly refreshing as it’s all logically followed.
We did, once again, struggle with pressure and turned the ball over way too much, which will be the main constructive piece we’ll touch on – but the rest of this will focus on Rohde, iMac, Ames, and then some cool offensive and defensive possessions. Let’s get into it!
Starter Ames
Andrew Rohde played 28 triumphant minutes, which we’ll talk about momentarily, but he did not supplant Dai Dai from the starting lineup upon his return and, what’s more, Ames was on the floor for 36(!!!) minutes in this one. That means that he and Rohde played together for at least 24 and it was decidedly not terrible. I’ll focus on that element a bit more in the Rohde section, but wanted to call it out first here.
Ames actually had a really strange game because a big reason I thought he’d be essential in games like this, breaking pressure, turned out not to be a strength of his. He turned the ball over 4 times, some of which were silly and avoidable (we’ll see a couple later), didn’t often look comfortable against the pressure, and would often clear out on his own during a press situation and allow players like Rohde, sure, but also iMac, Sharma, and even Power bring the ball up against ball pressure themselves. He was far less assertive in this area than I’d have liked and wasn’t overly effective when he took the role on.
What he did do was offer pesky defense on the quick 5’11” Jhamir Brickus (#2), forcing him into 4 turnovers of his own and 2-5 from the field, but also had quite a few big momentum plays in the game where he called his own number.
In this first clip, below, we’re down 2-9 after a very slow start. Ames throws a bit of a wild pass back out to McKneely that is tipped by a Villanova player prior to going and settling in the corner. We’ve got a shooting lineup on the floor as Sanchez put Cofie in for Buchanan immediately after he picked up his first foul – like two minutes into the game.
(Quick side bar here: I love that decision to get Cofie in right away to change the momentum of the game early when we were trailing. Far too often in recent seasons it would seem like CTB was following pre-prescribed substitution patterns in the first half and sometimes even early in the second irrespective of who was playing well or what the game script called for. I’m thinking of the Duke game last year off the top of my head. Coach Sanchez seems very plugged into game flow subbing patterns and – from starting Ames to turning to Cofie so early to sticking with Rohde when he was feeling it – I thought he pulled all the right levers in this one).
Ahem. Anyway, back to the clip, below, we have Ames, iMac, Power, Saunders, and Cofie. All five are threats to shoot from outside, which is glorious, and is a quality development from Ames. We swing the ball around the outside after Saunders fakes a ball screen with iMac and slips to the point, forcing the Wildcats to continually close out. Eventually it goes from Cofie on the wing to Ames in the corner, but the pass is low and he has to grab it at his feet. Not letting that break his rhythm, he rises up and knocks down a big three to cut the lead from 7 to 4 early.
These next two clips give a look at his effectiveness at getting into the lane and scoring, along with how clean these lanes are and how valuable it is to have some much space in which he can operate.
Here he is much later in the first half with us up 9 at this point. We have Ames, Rohde, iMac, Saunders, and Cofie on the floor. If Rohde is going to shoot like he did in this one (3-5 from deep), again an all-shooter lineup. One quick first thought – notice that Ames and Rohde are both on the floor but Rohde is breaking the pressure (the clip starts just after he’s gotten the ball over the timeline) – so that’s notable. But Rohde sets up the offense by eventually passing it through to Ames on a cleared out wing and then cutting through. iMac is in the opposite corner and Saunders is setting a pin down for Cofie on the opposite wing. All five offensive players are beyond the arc and, if you pause the clip at 9 seconds, look at how much space there is in the paint. It’s just gaping. As Rohde passes, Ames uses that as an opportunity to drive his man into that open lane. He beats his man and ‘Nova’s help defense makes a token swipe at the drive, but none of them are comfortable enough to leave their guys. Ames comes to a jump stop and shows the ball on the right side of the rim, gets his man to leave his feet, and pivots all the way back to his left hand to finish on the other side of the rim prior to drawing the foul.
It’s a really nice move and finish – but it also really highlights the benefit of how much shooting we have on this roster in that he has all day to work in there with no help, and he alternates between using both sides of the lane, methodically, while doing so. Kudos to Ames, the offensive design, and the lineup composition here.
Finally, in the second half now, this next bucket pushed the lead back out to 15 (it had been as high as 17 a couple of times) with just over 4 minutes left to go in the game. It’s a similar move and drive, taking an angle against a defender, but this time after a ball screen switch. But this time, instead of spinning back and crossing the lane for a layup, he spins back toward the middle of the lane and makes a nice little turn around jumper.
We’ll see how Rohde capitalized on the space a little later, but Ames offers a unique skillset on the team in that he can comfortably get the ball in deep, play under control, get to his shot, and finish around the rim.
The team needs someone who can consistently do this kind of thing and work within the space that the roster offers, so I’m expecting and hoping that Dai Dai will build off of his biggest workload yet moving forward. This is especially true considering that he did play well alongside Rodhe, although that was mostly because of how Rohde was playing. Speaking of…
Call Andrew Rohde “Shiplap” Because He Was Refurbished
What is it with UVa players breaking out of a funk when they get hurt? Kyle Guy’s ankle… Andrew Rohde’s back? I’m mostly kidding here; I don’t think we can yet expect that Rohde is going to immediately transform into a knock down three-point shooter… but imagine? The biggest reason I’ve advocated against Rohde playing off the ball, and the biggest reason that it didn’t work last year (inclusive of him not being able to drive against SFs in the ACC who offer size and strength) is that he shot so poorly from the floor. If he wasn’t a reliable conversion point, then he was often a place the offense would stall after creating an opportunity.
That was certainly different on Friday where he went 3-5 from three and one of those misses was a difficult step back. But, what’s more, is that Ames appearing to have improved his outside shot (both are at least confident taking it) allowed Rohde to actually play on the ball a good deal when he was in the game with Ames playing off (in fact, we have five guys on the roster shooting over 40% from deep in this young season and none are Ishan Sharma or TJ Power!).
Now, don’t get me wrong, this was a positive development for one game and looked convincing. It was also a positive stride because it looks early on like we’re going to be searching for a solution at that SF role all season. At any given point, I could see it being Saunders and playing big (what I was advocating for last week), I could see Power coming on stronger later in the season, but having Rohde be viable there would be a considerable positive if he approximates that kind of play – especially if we continue to face down perimeter pressure. Let’s grab some looks:
In this first clip, below, Rohde is running the point with iMac, Sharma, Power, and Buchanan. We see ‘Nova play under a first screen from Buchanan. Rohde no doubt notices this as he sets the screen up the other way and this time just steps into a pretty three.
We’ll see this later from McKneely, but the Wildcats were playing pretty extreme drop coverage on screens most of the game. It was great to see Rohde both realize this and have the confidence to step into the shot.
Here’s another example, below, of his distance shooting with a few things worth of calling out in this clip. Rohde is playing with Ames and Villanova is forced to make some defensive assignment decisions. They put the 6’4″ Tyler Perkins (#4) on the 6’1″ Ames and the 5’11” Brickus (#2) on the 6’6″ Rohde. Clearly they hoped Brickus’s quickness could neutralize Rohde while the size of Perkins could bother Ames. We just go to a very simple set in this one, though, and I love the willingness to do so. Rohde gets the ball on the near wing and simply plays a two-man post game with Saunders in the post. Rohde slides from the wing up to the point and spots up well beyond the three-point line. As Saunders backs his man in, Brickus is shading to help, but doesn’t even stray that far. On the kick out from Saunders to Rohde, though, Rohde is ready to shoot and isn’t worried about the close out at all due to the size differential.
This is just smart offense. Keep things simple and play to your matchups. Conversely, we could have posted Rohde on Brickus; but I like that he was feeling his shot and knew that he wanted to shoot if the kick out came (while giving Saunders an opportunity to make a play as well).
If both Ames and Rohde continue to be credible shooting threats, this does have the potential to be a positive development as many teams will be forced to make difficult choices around how to guard both (keeping in mind that McKneely is still likely drawing the best perimeter defender).
It wasn’t just his improved shooting, though (although that’s 100% the dynamic that changes how we might consider his role). Rohde continued to use his passing (it got him in trouble a couple of times as we’ll see later) to put real pressure on the Villanova defense. In this clip, below, we see him again with Ames, alongside Sharma, Saunders, and Cofie. Saunders grabs a rebound and notice Sharma and Ames sprint ahead because we’re fine with Rohde bringing the ball up the floor. This enhances our ability to get into transition when you don’t always feel compelled to wait for the same player to start the offense. We could opt to just walk the ball up the floor and initiate offense, but instead Rohde fires off a pass from opposite the half court line and hits Sharma in a threatening position on the wing. Sharma could have been justified in shooting this and, if he was on his game (which he’s been in a small shooting funk), he may have. Instead, though, it forces the ‘Nova defense to react early. Sharma passes back out to Rohde who then quickly swings it over to Cofie for the three from the wing.
This is another example of us being willing to get into early offense and take the open look early in a shot clock – but this opportunity was ALL Andrew Rohde and illustrates how you don’t always have to be quick-footed to put pressure on a defense. The ball travels faster than a person. And by simply being willing to ask the question of the Villanova defense with his outlet to Sharma, he got them out of position to answer the second question in the quick pass over to Cofie. If you’re not willing to probe like this, you’re running base offense again and don’t get a cheap opportunity.
This next one, again, shows his quality vision and willingness to make a long pass. This time, he’s breaking the press at the end of the game, and his court vision allows him to identify, after taking the pass back from Ames, that Cofie is unguarded under the hoop. It’s very good identification and I like the confidence to make this pass as there are many who will play it safe and just attempt to get the ball across half court, not taking the easy opportunity.
Lastly, below, we’ll talk a little bit about this floater that he was willing to go to in this one. He had this shot as a Freshman:
So, why wasn’t this something he went to more frequently last season? For one, I think it’s more of a rhythm shot when you’ve had the ball in your hands quite a bit and are seeing it go through the hoop – a confidence thing. But, secondly, notice the spacing in that clip above. It’s a very similar offensive look and spacing to what we’re showing now – ultimately a ball screen around the point with three shooters occupying their men in the corners and on the wing. The lane is clear and he can make a play.
Now let’s look at Friday. We have Rohde with Ames, iMac, Cofie, and Buchanan on the floor. In theory, coming into this season, we might have thought that only iMac was a true spacing threat with this group – but that’s not the case, the spacing is great. I’ll also point your attention to Cofie being hounded on the wing to start the possession and using Buchanan at the high post to break the pressure and set up the offense. We saw this a lot on Friday because Villanova was so aggressively dropping their Center under the hoop, but even when it wasn’t as extreme as this, we often saw Buchanan as that safety valve right there, at the high post/just inside of the three-point line with a spaced floor. I really like that, because now, it sets Rohde up on a DHO, helped even more by a pin down screen from Ames (this appears ad-libbed). Rohde’s man is in full chase mode after the Ames screen, and when Rohde curls around Blake after the hand off, he could either flare and shoot the three or, do what he does, drive into the lane. He’s got several options at the 11 second mark – he could continue his drive and kick out to iMac or Power for three, he could continue the drive and he’s got Buchanan open rolling… but instead he shoots this pure little runner that hits nothing but the bottom.
It’s excellent shot-making from Rohde, as that’s not an easy shot to hit with that kind of touch; but it’s also a really cool look from the offense. Buchanan as a high post safety valve to pressure into an Ames pin down screen and Rohde DHO created a world of options and a pretty clean floor despite the fact that Villanova was choosing to camp their big man. It’s aligned with the offensive style in which Rohde was effective at St. Thomas.
Here’s one more, below, and these should really be in the “Sweet Offensive Set” categories as well, but there’s time for those and this is a spotlight. This time Sharma is left breaking the press (questionable) with Rohde, iMac, Saunders, and Buchanan on the floor. As Sharma takes pressure, note, again, Buchanan there to help break it from the high post/three-point line extended. This time iMac runs in for the DHO but Buchanan keeps it, meanwhile Rohde has come off of an effective pin down screen from Sharma that jars his man into going over top of it. Rohde has a clean path to the lane but Buchanan’s man is still camping so he runs toward the ball and flares out to the wing again, only to curl entirely around Buchanan again, with his man fully trailing! I absolutely love that push-through dribble at 10 seconds to split his man trailing and iMac’s man helping, and now it’s he and Blake both running full-speed downhill in a two-on-one. The Center stays home on Buchanan, so Rohde hits the runner again.
People were skeptical about how serious we were about changing the offense…. That look is entirely different. Rohde’s man was put in an absolute blender and Buchanan was incredibly effective as basically the point Center throughout this, with multiple of our guards running off of his screens while he had the ball and him making decisions on when to distribute. It was exaggerated because ‘Nova was dropping so far back… but if they weren’t now you just have a more open lane for someone who takes the hand off or a slip from Buchanan for an open dunk or something like that. This set would be hard to defend regardless and it’s because of the scheme, the reads from players like Rohde and Buchanan and, once again, the spacing provided by the complimentary personnel.
So, yeah. I don’t know whether or not he’ll be able to sustain that kind of shooting (certainly not the 60% he shot Friday… but can he be a mid-to-high 30% shooter?), but the most important element to it will be if defenses have to respect it. At this point they are, and I believe that they will. Either way, what I think many including myself have been sleeping on is how committed they appear to be to this new offense, the cool looks and spacing that it can generate, and how much Rohde’s game benefits from working within the new digs.
If the first unexpected boon for the season was the emergence of Jacob Cofie; I’d look here for the next. Not that I think you just lock him in as the starter at SF, mind you, but that his contributions appear like they can be real and that he can offer you a viable option at the position when he and Ames are shooting the ball well (and you’re still trying to figure out how and when to best leverage others) as opposed to just playing him as the backup PG as I’d previously advocated.
I’m still going to want to see how TJ Power develops his game, especially on the defensive side of the ball, but offensively as well as he gets more comfortable. Those 15 minutes feel correct right about now, though. You’re still going to want to see Sharma get some run, especially when he gets his shooting touch back. Despite just shooting 25% on 8 attempts so far this season, Sharma has been our best +/- guy on a per minute basis (we’re outscoring our opponents by .65 points every minute he’s on the floor)… so while that might night be directly correlational to his contributions, it quite literally hasn’t been hurting the team to try him out. And I still hold out hope for the ultra-big lineup with Saunders, Cofie, and Buchanan all together….
But this development might become old reliable, and I won’t be upset with that at all as long as we’re willing to keep trying other things and to get away with it when it’s not working or well-suited for a matchup. Rohde being a healthy part of the solution to the question would be very welcome. Nay, faith, I won’t be upset with it at all!
iMac Off The Bounce From Deep
McKneely was a human flamethrower in this one; shooting 8-9 from the field and 6-6 from deep. The major development in this one, though, was his exploitation of Villanova’s drop coverage by continuing his dribble off of a ball screen and shooting from deep off of the bounce. We think of McKneely as mostly an elite conversion point whose outside looks are created for him within the flow of an offense – but he was creating his own in this one. In fact, four of his six made threes in this game came under these circumstances and we’re going to look at all of them.
In this first one, we see Buchanan at the helm of the offense again! This time, we swing the ball around the perimeter a few times and McKneely cuts through from the nearside wing to the opposite corner as the ball approaches him. Sharma resets to Buchanan as Power cuts through to the short corner, and that gets us into a nifty stagger screen for iMac, first from Rohde, and then after taking the pass, from Buchanan. With his man trailing and ‘Nova dropping, McKneely keeps his drive out deep and simply dribbles into his outside shot a good several feet beyond the arc.
The bounce served him very well there to keep his momentum and create maximum space from his defender who got caught navigating two screens.
On this next one, below, the difficulty ratchets up! It comes at a crucial point in the game, too, while we’re working to fend off Villanova’s comeback attempt that started with momentum to close the first half. The starters are in the game and this is simply a cleared out strong side with Ames, Saunders, and Power requiring Villanova to pay attention to them around the arc. McKneely takes a pin down screen from Buchanan and then sets up a ball screen going the other direction. With Villanova playing drop coverage again, the primary defender tries to chase iMac over the screen but to no avail. McKneely accelerates his dribble toward the corner and pulls up while still drifting toward the baseline to sink the dagger.
That shot is a HIGH degree of difficulty and it came with over half of the shot clock left! But, it’s a great shot! McKneely is a ridiculously good shooter and should be hunting like this. He should be striking terror into the hearts of opposition that if they give him just a sliver of space, he’ll take it and knock it down. Frankly, it’s the kind of shot that I don’t think we get under CTB (maybe we do under the new offense but I still doubt it) and points to the confidence with which iMac is playing and how Coach Sanchez has been able to give authority and freedom to players within this system.
This next one is kind of the same exact thing, just on a different part of the floor. McKneely, Power, and Ames break the press and Ames probes the lane. Villanova’s defense collapses around him so he kicks it back out to iMac who motions for Buchanan to come up and set a ball screen. After taking it, he makes no attempt to turn the corner at all, he just keeps dribbling to a spot and elevates for the shot before the contest can get to him.
It’s the same idea as before, just pressing a slight advantage away from any help and utilizing his incredible skill to convert the chance.
Lastly, this one really highlights how extreme Villanova was dropping their coverage. It makes sense on a surface level because they didn’t need to worry about Buchanan shooting from out there and this could serve to gum up the lane… but these looks from McKneely (and we saw Rohde do it earlier as well) busted this strategy right up. We’ve had enough success with it that we’re prioritizing it now. McKneely has the ball out at the point and Buchanan works to set a screen on his man initially, regroups and tries again. Blake’s man is literally just standing outside of the restricted area, not really in the play. But Blake catches Perkins (#4), who really is over-extended on defense trying to pressure McKneely’s handle, with the ball screen. This gives McKneely an opportunity to take a couple of dribbles in toward the three-point line and line up his shot with no contest coming.
Of course, this was a flaw in Villanova’s strategy and they really needed to adjust to this action earlier in the game. Bad coaching. But, it’s still a great development for us. Historically, McKneely wouldn’t have been your first choice to set a ball screen for; but with this illustrated ability not to have to got into the lane but to dribble into a three rather than just spotting up… that will open a lot of things up for us. Teams are going to have to start much more aggressively hedging screens, which should open more up on the inside for a rolling Buchanan or for other cutters without the ball.
This is exactly what iMac needs to do for this team to hit its offensive ceiling and it’s fantastic to see him calling his own number like this in non-desperation situations.
Sweet Offensive Sets
Okay – spotlights on individual players out of the way, I want to spend some time dedicated solely to our offense. In our first game, I touched on the new offense within the context of player developments. In our second game, we played against a matchup zone so while there were some similarities, we didn’t get into the same actions that we do against man-to-man. So, for this section, I’m just going to call out some of my favorite offensive sets on the night to showcase the new offense and how the players are executing. It really is fun to have so much new on this side of the ball to sink our teeth into! What’s also fun is that the team is getting more practice running it and is getting more comfortable, which should only improve as the season progresses as long as they can maintain their positive morale throughout.
Okay, here’s a first look, with the starters. The possession starts with Ames breaking pressure, passing it to Saunders on the wing, with Power on the strong side, Buchanan at the weak side high post, and McKneely in the weak side corner. A lot of our offensive sets, especially those with Buchanan on the floor, look similar at the beginning with the Center at the high post, two guys in the corner, one at the point, and the wing offset away from the high post player. Saunders passes to Power and the exchanges with him after setting a ball screen. Power quickly passes it out to Ames at the point who then uses a ball screen from Buchanan to attack the top side. Buchanan gets clipped and slowed up on the screen a bit so he trails the play and, when Ames’s momentum gets stopped, he passes it way back out to Power. Power then passes down to Saunders and runs off of him for a DHO option, which Saunders keeps. Note, I like how the ball is moving here and we’re moving off of it. If something is deterred, we’re quick into trying something else. Power, playing the SF, posts up his man after running off of Saunders. I love this. Not that Power has shown incredible skill in the post yet, but he’s got the 6’5″ Jordan Longino (#15) guarding him, who he’s got 4 inches on. This is exactly what I called for us to do so often last year – post up Groves when he had small guards on him – and it forces a potential mismatch. It’s also why I am optimistic about the role Power can have in this offense at the SF because it can force these kinds of mismatches. Now, I comment on all of that but this isn’t really the best example of it in practice! Power backs Longino down a bit but Villanova sags off of Buchanan to clog the lane and, even when Buchanan dives, there’s help there. Power picks up his dribble after not having made a ton of progress and passes it out to Ames and the offense resets. But here’s where it gets really interesting – Buchanan sets a sneaky back screen on Wooga Poplar (#5) who is guarding McKneely as the latter sees it and fades to the corner. Ames throws a really nice lob pass over Poplar to McKneely, who catches the pass, drawing help from Enoch Boakye (#13), Buchanan’s man. As soon as his feet land on the ground after the catch, McKneely almost touch-passes it back to the diving Buchanan, who goes up strong over two contests, misses the shot, collects the offensive board, and misses the put back.
Of note, Saunders does a nice little job there of creeping down diagonally through the lane to be in threatening position to grab the second offensive rebound, even though he doesn’t. Buchanan doesn’t convert the opportunity, but it was a really positive look created by the offense and he easily could have drawn a foul there or put back the second chance.
I chose to showcase that set because I like how many quality ideas there were and how quickly we went from getting into a full reset to making a quality probing pass and generating an attack downhill from our Center at the rim. The defense had to defend a ball screen for our point guard, a mismatch post up, and then a quality back screen for our shooting guard with a well-execute roll with our Center attacking the rim and their Center out of position to defend.
I also want to take a moment to shout out Blake Buchanan here as he’s taken and I believe will continue to take some heat for the finishing end of plays like this. He’s made a nice hook shot or two, but he still looks a little unsure/unsteady when he bets the ball inside. And… that’s fair and fine although I’m optimistic he’ll continue to grow in this area as more opportunities present themselves. But he really is helping to quarterback our offense when he’s in the game. His screening decisions aren’t nearly as prescribed as they were in Sides or our historic offenses. He’s reading what the defense is doing and playing off of that/communicating with our guys to make it happen. They’re consistently impacting the defender and moving them off their line (as we saw quite a bit with the McKneely section but also the Rodhe section). What’s more (not featured in this clip but we’ve seen it earlier), he’s often doing so with the ball and then laying it off at good times for our guys. Buchanan isn’t just a rim protector and screener this year as he mostly was last year; he’s becoming a valuable part of the offensive coordination. What Cofie is bringing to the table has been visible this season and so it will be tempting (and often correct) to play him at Center to maximize our spacing this season – but there’s a huge and necessary role for Buchanan this year, too, and one that he’s quietly playing well early on.
Okay, this next clip, below features Ames, Rohde, Sharma, Saunders, and Cofie. It’s a cool grouping and, with Buchanan on the bench (he struggled with foul trouble and eventually fouled out in this one – although some of the calls were bogus I don’t mind saying) Saunders takes that high post roll and it adds a different dynamic. Ames breaks the pressure and finds Cofie as a release valve (he did well to present himself in that area all game). Cofie dribbles right into a DHO with Rodhe who immediately resets to Ames. Ames sets up a ball screen from Saunders, and notice how Cofie has positioned himself under the hoop – different from how someone like TJ Power would play this role. The ball swings to Sharma in the corner who now has Cofie because of his positioning as an option to set a ball screen for him. The ball goes back to Ames who now sets up a ball screen with Saunders going in the opposite direction, but this time Ames carries both defenders with the threat of his dribble and Saunders pops to the three-point line, taking the return pass and burying the three.
Our predominant ball screen offense the past couple of years has been Flow. Where we’ve worked to set up the attack from our primary ball handler at the point with spacing around the outside. Often, we’d use this (and still do, I believe) as an early-offensive set and then get into something else. But here, we run not one, or two, but three successive ball screens across two different ball handlers and two different screeners. The first time the space isn’t there because the screen doesn’t catch the defender and, also, Cofie’s defender is in the play because of his positioning, the second serves more as a way to force the defense to respect that area of the floor as the ball cycles back to Ames, all setting up the third to be effective because now the defense is still adjusting, the space under the rim is cleared out, and Ames is attacking a different angle. Saunders being a shooting threat to punish the drop coverage is all we need.
Consider that clip above for a second in the context of Villanova’s drop coverage and contrasted with McKneely and Buchanan earlier. In those clips, Buchanan set the screen and McKneely attacked the three-point line, looking for his shot. Here, Ames attacks the paint, forcing the big to hold to occupy him and his own defender to recover, while Saunders pops to attack the three-point line. Different execution because of the different personnel and skills – but the same result of getting the ball into the hands of a quality three-point shooter with an open look.
Okay, let’s take a look at another clip, below. This time we’ve got Ames, McKneely, Sharma, Saunders, and Cofie. Another quick plug – I’m really liking how you can have the same group as above with Rohde or iMac and the spacing is good either way. This is one of the few times Villanova didn’t play aggressive drop coverage on our ball screens and you can see why this was a conundrum for them. The 6’11” Boakye (#13) is guarding Saunders with the 6’8″ Dixon (#43) out on Cofie. Jhamir Brickus (#2) is guarding Ames. We set up a ball screen with Saunders and Ames and this time Boakye flat hedges to cut off Ames. Saunders dives down the lane, bringing Brickus with him. Now, this would be a huge mismatch as Brickus is a small player trying to trail Saunders. Seeing this, the 6’5″ Longino (#15) who is covering McKneely on the wing, drops under the hoop to tag/protect against the Saunders dive. Brickus, now, has to identify that the open man is McKneely right on the break and recover to him in time. Ames swings it to Cofie while communicating the pass to iMac, Cofie delivers a crisp pass, and McKneely is able to easily knock down the catch and shoot over the smaller reach of Brickus.
This is a great example of McKneely being that elite conversion point on the catch-and-shoot, but unlike those clips above where he created the play, this play was created by the versatility of Saunders to be a threat either popping or rolling off of the ball screen coupled with Cofie commanding enough attention at the three-point line. The lane had no reasonable defense to getting Brickus switched onto Saunders outside of McKneely’s man leaving him, which is rarely a good idea.
I love the nuances of this stuff combined with just the modernization of our offense and the positional flexibility that we have!
Alright, this next one came at the start of the second half with the starters back in the game and we see some concepts that build on the above. McKneely ended up breaking the press with Ames on the court (still notable), but takes a ball screen from Buchanan and drives toward the hoop this time with Buchanan rolling. McKneely hits BB in stride and he catches the pass but runs right into Boakye. This is probably where you’d like Blake to make a move and take his man, but instead he gets jostled off of his spot and passes back out to Ames. Ames makes a half-hearted attempt to drive his man before resetting through Buchanan again on a DHO, followed by a reverse ball screen going the other direction, which Ames actually rejects (did you follow that? A lot going on). Instead Ames moves toward and passes it to Saunders while exchanging and Buchanan takes that opportunity to dive and draw his man under the hoop. Saunders passes to McKneely who has rotated up, fakes a ball screen himself, and slips to the three-point line. This is the winning action as Dixon lingers to defend iMac on what he assumes is the screen, and Saunders is left unguarded, forcing a hard recovery from both iMac’s man and Power’s. Power drives closer to the break to increase space, Saunders hits him with a nice pass, and it’s a wide-open look from deep, which TJ knocks down.
That’s really good offense! Again, Saunders making a really smart slip on his screen and iMac being such a threat was what forced the break down, but Power was able to get this one to fall and gave some insight into the number of quality outside threats we have at our disposal.
Okay, in this last look, below is probably the most pretty and epitomizes the team basketball that we were playing. Ames, Rohde, McKneely, Saunders, and Cofie are on the floor. All five are spread around the arc. McKneely brings the ball up the floor after a rebound and passes to Cofie to passes to Ames in the top corner. Cofie moves to set a ball screen for him on the perimeter, but Ames rejects it, spinning toward the baseline, driving and drawing two defenders. He finds Rohde in the opposite corner, who swings it to Saunders, who swings it to iMac, who swings it to Cofie, all ahead of the defensive rotations, who buries the three.
That’s just a thing of beautiful team basketball with the ball returning to the exact same spot on the floor that the play originated after making the defense chase it around the horn. Of note, Cofie’s height in shooting over that final close out was crucial and his confidence to take that shot was spot on.
There’s just so much to like from this new offense, enhanced by our shooting capabilities and the intelligence of our players, and I don’t think we’ve even really scratched the surface. There are five-out elements, ball screen elements, DHO elements, zoom elements, a full compliment of screening actions away from the ball (stagger screens, pin downs, flares, back doors), complex multi-screen actions, playing through the big outside of the arc, posting up any position on the block and clearing out… there’s a lot to like and dive into! Almost all of it has maintained good spacing and much of it is unlike other offensive systems we’ve seen here.
Of course, better defenses may be more disruptive and their ball screen strategies will almost surely be more effective, but so too we can evolve. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how that progresses as the season does.
Defensive Rotations
It wasn’t perfect but it was much improved and cause for positivity. So, in this section, we’re going to look at some of my favorite defensive possessions from the game and break those down. We’ll see how these pieces are working together and where they’re starting to compliment each other.
In this first clip, we have Ames, iMac, Rohde, Saunders, and Cofie on the floor. Saunders hedges a ball screen from Villanova’s Eric Dixon (#43). If you’re not familiar, Dixon is Nova’s primary scoring threat as a 6’8″ 265lb 5th-year Senior who is averaging 25ppg (and had 20 in this one). He can score around the rim or on the perimeter – so him slipping this screen is a real threat. McKneely makes Wooga Poplar (#5) put some lob on his pass to Dixon, and Cofie does a nice job of switching off of his man and stepping up to take while Saunders recovers. If you pause the clip at 5 seconds, you’ll see Rohde in solid help position between the two open Villanova players on the weak side and Saunders scrambling to recover, but identifying quickly that Cofie has made the switch. Saunders takes Moseley (#0) in the corner and Rohde moves up to take Longino (#15). Interestingly, Dixon takes just one dribble but doesn’t really attempt to take Cofie off of the bounce, instead whipping a pass out to Poplar who takes a contested three over iMac. Saunders does a nice job of securing the glass on the back end.
Good communication between Saunders and Cofie here, I thought, in passing off their biggest scoring threat in Dixon. Two new players making this read. Good back side with Rohde whose experience and length didn’t make a pass obvious. Finally, very encouraging to see Cofie in one-on-one defense with a player like Dixon and not have Dixon attempt to attack it right away. Good interchangeability between Saunders and Cofie.
This next look, below, is a look at that post double team we’ve used historically but not as effectively of late. When done right, the double team is an attack element of the Pack Line that tries to overpower the offensive player, block sight lines, and cause him to retreat away from the hoop, resetting the offense while we recover back to our respective matchups. It hadn’t been as effective in recent years, though, as our post players who were doubling were often not big or athletic enough to obstruct sight lines and opposing bigs would pass over or around the double team to exploit the back side of the defense. Sometimes, they’d mistime the trap, so the defender would see them coming, etc. But here, when Dixon gets the ball in the post against Cofie, Saunders leaves his man, and Cofie obstructs view enough that when Dixon attempts to pass baseline, he doesn’t see that McKneely has rotated down to steal the pass.
Once again, two new players executing the double team with an experienced player holding down the help side.
Here’s a different look at a post trap, again with Saunders and Cofie. This time it’s Saunders starting on Dixon and Cofie coming over to trap. Cofie times it well and gets there on the catch, forcing Dixon to turn his back to the play and dribble out and around. Cofie probably rides Dixon just a tad too long, and turns to look to recover to his man. McKneely has dropped down behind to help, but Cofie’s frame on the recovery with his out-stretched arms makes a pass into Boakye difficult. Dixon attempts to whip one by the outstretched arm of Cofie, but it’s too hot and leads to the turnover.
I like that we trapped again and forced a turnover out of it but, more, it’s encouraging that Cofie didn’t execute this perfectly – he was late leaving/recovering and didn’t shut down the angle for Dixon to retreat dribble – but his length and effort still made the play hard enough to force the positive outcome. I think this is going to be a team that’s going to be more successful double-teaming the post again, which is encouraging as we don’t have anyone in the pure shut-down big-man defensive mold just yet.
This next one I thought was a more extended and complete version of the above, and some nice rotations again by some new pieces. Here we have Ames, McKneely, Sharma, Saunders, and Cofie. Ames is pressuring Brickus (#2) out by the logo to start the possession, who passes to Poplar (#5) on the wing, guarded by iMac. Boakye (#13) comes up to set a ball screen, which Cofie hard hedges, aggressively enough that the pass from Poplar out to Dixon (#43) almost trickles out to half court. Cofie recovers to his man, having performed a quality hard hedge. Dixon reverses the floor back to Brickus and sets a ball screen for him which Saunders also hard hedges to cut off the angle. This time Dixon slips the screen again, though, but Cofie is even quicker on the rotation to pick him up as soon as he catches the bounce pass. It’s good anticipation by him to see that rotation coming. Sharma has done well to stay low so that he can front Boakye, so Dixon throws a skip pass to Longino (#15) in the corner. This is the lone point of confusion on the play as both Sharma and McKneely attempt to rotate out to Longino, but Sharma recognizes this one the close out and changes course back out to Poplar prior to the pass being thrown. This allows him to get a quality contest on the shot, which Cofie cleans up on the defensive glass with a quality box out of Dixon and high pointing the ball.
That’s some quality movement within the Pack Line and Poplar might not have even been able to take that shot if not for the very brief confusion from Sharma on his rotation. Still, he caught it and course corrected fast enough that he could get a quality contest. Good work all around!
Here’s another one, below, that I thought stood out as a clean defensive possession. McKneely shuts down a ball screen rejection early, and Cofie hedges/switches onto Longino (#15) after another ball screen. As he passes Longino back to McKneely and recovers to his man, Ames has done a nice job of sticking to him like glue in the lane prior to recovering back to his man. Dixon looks to start to back Saunders down but instead kicks it back out to the 6’9″ Kris Parker (#1) who Rohde was guarding, while Tyler Perkins (#4) attempts to set a pin down screen on Rohde. Ames reads the play, and he and Rohde switch so that Ames ben be incredibly intrusive on his contest (he’s right on Parker’s hip as he shoots). The shot misses and iMac does well to crash down hard for the board.
Finally, below, we have just a neat little piece of defense from Rohde using his savvy and length effectively. Saunders stonewalls Dixon in transition who resets the ball out to Brickus. Dixon then sets a ball screen on Ames while Saunders plays drop coverage (interesting to see us mix up coverages here – and you can see Saunders repeatedly tapping his chest as if communicating which coverage he’s playing). Saunders is unable to stop Brickus’s progress before Ames gets back into the play, though, as Brickus hits him with a little inside-out dribble and Saunders is seemingly trying to recover back not to give up a three to Dixon. Cofie rotates into the lane to stop the drive, but Rohde has also slid down deep from his man as well. Brickus sees Cofie and attempts to dump it off to his man, Boakye, under the hoop, but Rohde is able to deflect the pass which goes off of the back board and he collects the ball himself from there.
That’s a really heads up rotation from Rohde there and quick hand eye coordination as well to deflect the pass and be alert enough to recover the ball off the backboard.
All-in-all, I thought we defended much better than we did in the previous two games against steeper competition. Dixon is legit and, although he got his 20 points on 50% shooting, he only took 12 shots, almost half of that total came once the game was already decided, and no one else on the team got much going; shooting just 35% from the floor. The effort was there and the mental aspect of the rotations was improved. Of course, it wasn’t perfect and I’m sure we’ll focus on that more in games later in the season, but I wanted to focus on the positive in this one because it was such a positive effort while the team is still gelling. I was worried about this team defensively, but with the emergence of Cofie, Buchanan and Saunders playing their roles well, there are some solid building blocks here. Ames, McKneely, Rohde and Sharma have held up pretty well so far, although I’m sure they’ll be tested more in time to come. The biggest question mark among those getting regular minutes is still Power – and we’ll continue to track his progress, but there’s the potential for an advantage there if he can get comfortable and use his length effectively.
Charm City Turnovers
I couldn’t go an entire piece without mentioning anything constructive, and this was the clear most glaring and impactful issue of the game. We had some sloppy and… just bad turnovers in this one, twelve in total, which gave Villanova life at the end of the first half, and kept them in the game late. They made the game closer than it needed to be or was competitively.
I mentioned how surprised I was that Ames didn’t take on as much of the press break responsibilities as I’d have thought; but it seemed intentional because he didn’t always look comfortable in that role and had more than a few bad moments.
Here he was getting his dribble poked away from him when we were attempting to hold for alate shot at the end of the first half (to give Villanova just a few seconds coming back the other way). This led to the Dixon and-1 three-pointer (which shouldn’t have been a foul, but still) at the end of the half and took the game from a 9-point lead with a chance to score and get the game back out to double digits to taking a mere 5-point lead into the half.
Way too careless with the ball here in what was a huge momentum killer and could have burned us on a different night.
And then here he is getting a little too fancy and loose with the press break, trying to go behind his back, and just getting picked clean by Brickus, having to foul him as a result.
That was really bad, and he had another later where he attempted to pass the ball to Rohde, thought better of it, and carried the ball. If there was any one thing about the night that left me feeling a little concerned, it was this. If Ames isn’t reliably that guy who we can throw the ball to break a press off of the dribble, then we likely just don’t have that guy on the roster. Defeating pressure and getting reliably into our sets may be an adventure all year long. I’d love to see Ames work on this and take on more opportunities.
As a result, we had lesser ball handlers attempting to help break the pressure and it often went awry. Here’s TJ Power attempting to do so early.
Again, Dai Dai is there but he passes Power into a trap and is pretty lax about getting open to help him out of it. Power is also pretty weak with the ball and runs it right into the trap. Bad in general, but you really just can’t have Power be the ball handler (and he’d brought it up against one-on-one pressure a possession or two before which we should have caught and remedied).
Here’s Rohde getting the ball ahead to iMac, but McKneely kind of just melting down with the ball and getting it taken from him.
And, finally, here’s a possession below earlier in the game where Rohde attempts a too casual reset pass to Buchanan who is being pressured. Boakye loses the handle on the run out, so it doesn’t hurt us on the scoreboard, but this is a pick-six in most instances and an unforced error.
It’s kind of ironic that one of the arguments against starting Rohde at point is how he struggled to hold up to pressure and he was so methodical beating a full court press, delaying our ability to set up offense. And yet, Ames actually looked worse trying to beat full court pressure and often defaulted to Rohde (and other players) to help beat the pressure.
This seems like it has the potential to be an Achilles’ Heel all season, and I fully expect our more athletic opponents to test us with this on the regular. How do you keep UVa uncomfortable in their offense? Keep them from getting into it cleanly. So, this will be a huge thing on which to keep an eye.
In Conclusion
The next “real” test may be the first “real, real” test when we play Tennessee on Thursday night in the Bahamas. We know that the Volunteers are pretty darn good and athletic, while Villanova has already lost to the likes of Columbia by the same margin we beat them. That being said, I wouldn’t and don’t dismiss this victory outright. Villanova has talent even if they aren’t optimizing it at the moment. They’re experienced and physical as well. And our guys shot the ball well, ran crisp offense often, looked much more comfortable playing defense, and were playing with the confidence, energy, and enthusiasm that we’ve yearned to see.
I still don’t know what to expect from this tournament – it could get ugly or perhaps show us we’re farther along than expected (any anything in between) – but this game, winning convincingly on a neutral floor against a prideful opponent, was something to be encouraged by. It gave us more potential answers than questions, and showed us more than a few positives around which we can try to build this season.
Hopefully, that progress will continue southeast of Miami in a couple of days, and we’ll get to see a continuation of solid tactical decisions from Coach Sanchez, crispness within the new offense, and continued strides on defense. More, it’ll be good to get a better sense of how well we stack up against two of three top 25 teams!
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