On the surface, what’s not to like about a 26-point victory that clears the spread by 11? On a season where none of our victories have been overly convincing; here’s a point margin that was. Some of our guys had really good games, especially at the much-maligned point guard position (Ames and Rohde had our two best performances). But there’s something disconcerting about having such a physical advantage in a game and eventually going to a four guard lineup to matchup with our opponent as opposed to just asserting our will inside.
This was mostly a game to forget for our post players. In a game where our opponent didn’t start anyone over 6’6″ and whose largest player to get minutes was 6’8″, we should have absolutely dominated inside. And we really didn’t. Many of the baskets our bigs did get were moving away from the hoop, and we missed a bunch of bunnies on the inside just by not being quite comfortable enough taking the shot – either rushing or just not executing. And, mentally, we just weren’t consistent across the position; missing some rotations and falling asleep on some rebounds. In fact, the group played poorly enough at times that we actually trotted out a four-guard lineup alongside Blake Buchanan at Center at one point, to match Holy Cross’s personnel. I really didn’t like that decision. Small ball is very personnel-specific and that’s not where our strength is this season – but, more, we were up 17 points at the time. Is that four guard lineup good or something we’re likely to be able to get away with against higher level competition? I really don’t think so. Instead of playing to match our opponent in a situation where the game wasn’t in doubt, I’d have preferred to see us force the issue. Play through the mistakes (accept them) and make it a point to try to exert our will on the inside so that we learn and grow from the experience. Anyway, we’ll talk about that more with some general thoughts on what to do there.
It was a game where our guards played well. Not surprisingly, given the lack of athleticism of the opponent (and how that’s been an issue of ours this season) nor the rim protection inside, we had some success touching the paint from players who don’t normally (not featured as much in this one, iMac had some productive drives either scoring or getting to the line).
My goal in all of these is always to focus on what translates toward a higher level of competition, like the kind we’ll see later today, and what will help us be the most competitive version of this team both throughout and especially by the end of the season. As such, in this piece I’m going to mostly focus on thoughts on how best to utilize the rotation. This is still a time of the season where experimentation is necessary and expected; but we are starting to get some good signs as to where to start in that area. It’s become clear that we have six guys who should be getting the bulk of our minutes (Ames, McKneely, Rohde, Saunders, Cofie, Buchanan); but you can’t play a full season grind by just running six, and so there’s a lot to tackle in how we use that core group and then how we choose to augment from outside of it.
But before we tackle those two meatiest concepts, two quick player points and kudos to call out again. Let’s get into it!
Dai Dai Ames – Unique Skillset For This Team
Ames had a really nice game in this one, I thought, and it’s becoming clear that, while he’s struggled as much as any of our main three guards against athleticism and pressure (especially with turnovers), that he possesses a unique skillset on this roster. Namely, he can touch the paint with more fluidity, but he can get to his own shot off the bounce, can be really creative with the ball, and has significantly improved as a shooter from the previous season. And yes, I realize that he began to show improvement in this area toward the end of last season as he increasingly played on the ball and got more comfortable – but it’s great to see that it’s apparently carried over into this year.
This play below was really pretty. That behind-the-back dribble can sometimes get Dai Dai into trouble but it sometimes catches the opponent off guard and creates a lot of space. Here there’s a full triangle of Holy Cross players around Ames, but he’s able to use that dribble to create a driving lane, weave through the group, and then finish with a nice Euro-step at the rim with his off hand.
Notably, the quality spacing of this lineup (all five guys are threats to shoot from outside) creates a situation where the back end is open for Ames to finish after he makes his move. Rohde has some ways to be effective on his paint touches as we’ll see in a moment, but no one else on the roster is giving you the ability to navigate traffic like this with the ball off the bounce.
In this next clip, we see a glimpse at how he can be careless with the ball, putting Rohde in a precarious position with that pass to the wing. After getting the ball back, though, he does a really nice job of using a ball screen, taking an angle to keep the help defender engaged, and then absolutely breaks the man’s ankles with that step back into his midrange jumper.
That’s comfortable and fluid and it’s gratifying to see the defender stumbling toward the basket as a result of Ames’s pacing on his drive with the control to pop back out.
That step-back has always been a part of his game, and it’s good to see him using it. But this step-back is new and represents improvement and confidence. As I wrote in my piece highlighting his game Dai Dai hasn’t historically been a comfortable three-point shooter. I don’t mean that in his actual percentage shooting, which was 33% last season, I mean that in the sense that he preferred to get into the lane or to get to his midrange jumper. Those moves came naturally to him and there was no hesitation. When he had looks from deep, on the other hand, he’d often hesitate, and it was almost like he had to be mentally prepared to shoot from out there in order to do so, he wasn’t able to just react to the moment.
But here, in this clip below, we see him come around a ball screen from Buchanan, see his man playing conservative flat coverage to stop the drive, and he steps back not once, but twice, to retreat all the way beyond the three-point line to sink a beautiful three!
I circled in my notes that this was my favorite play of the entire game in terms of how relevant I think it is for the future. Ames pulling up from deep off of the bounce was not really a part of his game before; and now it is. If he proves to not just be a plus shooter from outside (which is a boon in and of itself from where we could reasonably expect coming into the season), but a player who can get to his own shot inside or outside of the arc, that’s a significant enhancement to our offensive firepower and will be relevant in any game. He’s already proven to be a quality spot-up shooter from deep this season; but this is new.
Finally, creation for others hasn’t been where Ames has thrived so far this season. Turnover rate aside (which has been a significant issue), his assist rate has been low – at just 2 per game across 28 mins. In fact, his assist to turnover ratio is basically 1 to 1, which isn’t good, and all of Rohde, McKneely, and even Buchanan (across 6 fewer minutes – Buchanan has actually been a solid distributor within the offense) have more assists per game than Ames. That’s not what you really want to see from your primary ball handler, although you’ll gladly take the scoring.
But here, below, you’ll see the high-risk-high-reward style and skill that he has if he can just become more consistent with his decision making and execution. While running a pick and roll with Buchanan, the window he has to fit this pass is very small and he creatively sends his bounce pass at a very low angle to get the ball under the hands of both defenders. Blake is able to collect the pass and go up for the and-1 layup.
Ames has been and I think is showing the confidence to increasingly be an effective scorer for us. Where he needs to really improve his game is through his court vision and his decision making – but as you can see, there’s a fine line between a turnover and a fantastic pass; and given the lack of assertiveness we’ve had at times and our struggles with creation on the whole, I’m supportive of him continuing to err on the side of making something happen while trying to find that line.
There will be more opportunities to focus on his defense in the future. There’s room for improvement; but our path to the best version of this team absolutely includes Dai Dai Ames logging big minutes and putting more offensive responsibility on his shoulders. I was definitely encouraged by his performance Friday night.
Rohde’s Post Game
While I was discouraged with the performance of our frontcourt, especially in light of my assertions that I’d like to see us run the offense through the post more frequently (and I still would), it was cool to see Andrew Rohde continue to make an effort and find success on the block. Worth noting, his primary defender in these clips is the 6’6″ Max Green (#10) who I thought was the most impressive of the Holy Cross players. So, while I’d still classify this as a mismatch because Rohde was just bigger and savvier in general (Green is still a Freshman and pretty slight), it wasn’t the significant length advantage that I expect we could see more regularly when he’s acting as the primary ball handler (or if teams are sending better defenders after McKneely and Ames).
As an aside, I need to mention and feel bad for not covering it, but I thought Rohde did a really nice job as an on-ball defender in this game. He gave Green, who had some nice handles and got going shooting from outside of both McKneely and Murray, fits on that end.
But let’s take a look at how Rohde impacted the game from the post and the versatility of how his skills translated down there – which I do think will be beneficial against higher level opponents, especially when he’s at the point and when we play maximum shooting lineups.
This first clip, below, he makes it look easy – and I wish all of our post players would take note. He catches the ball with his man behind him, turns and takes one quick dribble, and uses a nice baby hook to finish over his defender quickly.
That’s a very similar move to what Saunders often attempts to use, and tried to multiple times in this game to varying levels of success – the main difference is that Saunders often pounds the ball and takes multiple dribbles to try to set this up. His defenders can see it coming, can try to draw the offensive foul, and can offer more resistance on the shot. Rohde, meanwhile is moving toward the rim at a good angle as soon as he starts his move, and shoots it quickly, which eliminates his defensive space doesn’t give his man time to react. We’ll look at this with Saunders later as he attempted it more – but it’s also an issue with Buchanan and Cofie who often go up moving away from the hoop instead of moving toward it like Rohde does here. Anyway, back to the Rohde focus….
This is the next offensive possession and clearly Rohde made a decision to attack this. This time, he spins baseline on the catch and works his way back toward the lane. Holy Cross has a help defender more ready this time, pecking down at the ball and sagging off of Saunders. Rohde keeps his dribble the entire time, faking the move into the lane twice before throwing a nice one-handed pass to Saunders on the dive. Of course, ideally, Saunders goes right up into a shot here. He puts the ball on the floor and loses it, but Cofie recovers. His fadeaway is pretty dramatic, again, I’d like to see our guys use their size advantage being more aggressive attacking the basket, but it’s still a made shot and one set up by Rohde drawing the help and making a nice pass out of the post.
In the second half, here, we again get him in the post, this time holding off Green with his left hand as he spins baseline, drawing help from Buchanan’s man, who Rohde hits on the dive. Buchanan does a nice job of catching this on the move and going up for the dunk here.
And, finally, this isn’t working out of the post, but I still wanted to showcase Rohde in his bag, coming around a screen from Cofie and using a nice prison dribble to hold Green behind him while occupying Cofie’s man before knocking down that silky little floater that he’s proving is reliable.
Rohde has an advantage against most opponents who will be guarding him when he gets in close to the rim (really anywhere near the paint now that he’s got this floater on lock) due to his skill at using his length and body control to his advantage. The biggest problem he faces is the quickness he concedes against superior athletes and being able to get to those spots on the floor off of the bounce. So this is a great work around to that – passing the ball into him on the block lets him works from an effective position from the jump. Given that this roster won’t afford other teams crowding the lane (and if they do, Rohde is a good passer and can punish that), I really like the development of this strategy and hope we make it a staple.
Figuring Out the SF Rotation
Now we’re starting to get into the stickier stuff and you’ll have to forgive me for speaking plainly:
Taine Murray got the 5th most minutes on the team on Friday (21). He was 0-3 from the floor with 1 rebound, 4 assists, a turnover, and pretty subpar defense.
In 11 fewer minutes, Ishan Sharma went 0-1 from the floor with 4 rebounds, 4 assists, no turnovers, and at least as good, probably superior defense.
In 7 fewer minutes, TJ Power went 0-1 from the floor with three rebounds, and two assists.
In a 26-point victory, UVa was +5 in the over half the game that Murray was on the floor. They were +15 with Sharma on the floor and +19 with Power on the floor.
It’s not just a one game sample-size. Sharma, for example, has been in all of the most efficient player pairings on the team. And, although his sample size has been smaller, it’s a great case to increase his opportunities and see how that goes. It’s been extreme – here are all of the qualifying two-man pairings in terms of their adjusted efficiency on evanmiya.com:
Sharma is in ALL of the top seven pairings. The only player who gets regular time that doesn’t share this efficiency is with Murray… and that combo is dead last!
On the flip side, Murray is in six of the bottom eight pairings and his only two with even a positive efficiency are with Ames (at +.3) and with Power which is actually a solid +29 (still a massive gap between the +87.3 and +81.2 that Sharma has with Power and Ames, respectively).
It’s time to stop beating around the bush: Murray has been the most common denominator when the team isn’t playing well this season and, conversely, the team has thrived during the run that Sharma has seen (and Power’s efficacy has fluctuated, as has how he’s been utilized, but is more solid than you’d expect given some of the more visible mistakes he’s made).
So, it’s not just that Power and Sharma are higher upside players who you’d like to give more reps to so that we’re in a better spot at the end of the season, it’s that the arguments for the short-term value to play Murray for his experience and tenure aren’t aligned with the on-court results. Frankly, there’s been neither a short-term nor long-term argument for Murray to be getting the minutes he has been getting. And here’s the thing, too… none of these three have been shooting at expectations. All three are cold by their standards. Murray has been shooting the best at 33% from deep, down from 45% last year. He’s playing more passively and is passing up his own looks from out there as we’ll see momentarily. Power is shooting just 26% from deep and Sharma just 17%! But that’s what’s even crazier – the team is playing significantly better with either one despite those shooting trade-offs.
I can hear people typing at me now, “Taine Murray is going to win us some important games this season!” Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s possible. He’s had a penchant for a big shot or moment in the past. But he’s playing both passive and mistake-laden basketball this season (turnover rate is the highest on the team on a per minute basis) so who’s to say he won’t also hurt us with significant minutes. He has been. Also, who’s to say that neither Sharma nor Power can’t hit some important shots as they get more opportunity to do so? Either way, it’s been better having them on the floor.
For now, I’m just going to focus on Murray vs. Sharma as that’s where the most stark difference between team play and minutes earned has been. Power is a bit of a different beast better tackled at a later date as we try to best figure out where to use him at SF or PF and how. I still hold that the best versions of this team would include TJ figuring things out and us figuring out how best to use him but the factors with him are more complicated and muddy the waters a bit.
Let’s first start with what Murray has done best – which has primarily been to drive a close out and find an open man. This first clip, below, was probably his best play of the night. The action on the play is effective as Cofie’s ball screen late in the possession for McKneely sends him moving toward the point and pulls Taine’s man away from him to help the threat of Cofie’s dive since he’s between his man and the hoop. McKneely passes to Taine in the corner who does well to attack the close out, blow by it, and dump a nice pass off to Cofie.
The best version of Taine we’ve seen on offense is like the above. He’s a threat to shoot, and he can be decisive attacking downhill toward the basket. He doesn’t do it from parity, but he can do it well when the offense has created an advantage.
He also has experience operating offense with our guys. Here he is, for example, not doing anything fancy but still dribbling to the right spot and making a well-timed and accurate bounce pass to free up McKneely for his and-1.
It’s the higher floor, experienced operator argument, in that Murray is familiar with how we do things and hits his marks.
But even in some of those examples that would appear positive, there is some cause for concern. For example, this play below ends up with a pretty slick one-handed pass from Murray on the baseline to Rohde for a wide-open three. It’s a dart and it’s well-executed – but he’s also wide-open on the catch and makes up his mind to drive it well before the close out would be a concern.
He doesn’t have the confidence right now and is deferring. Generally speaking, you’d want Andrew Rohde driving on the defense and kicking out to Taine Murray; not the other way around. Not this year, apparently. And, just to be clear, this is a nice pass and often the extra pass is the correct play – it worked here. But usually that’s preferable when you’re trying to get the ball to the better shooter. This was a really good look for Murray and he deferred to Rohde. If Murray isn’t acting like your better shooter than anyone but McKneely, then that’s a tough pill to swallow with all other elements of the game considered.
Here’s a different but similar concept from earlier in the game but this time you see how all of the different elements compound. Firstly, Murray is really not a threat off of the ball screen. Cofie sets one for him and he immediately moves away from the hoop and passes it over to Ames. He’s comfortable attacking a close out, but he’s not really comfortable dribbling for an extended period of time navigating ball screens and hedge defense. As an aside, you’ll notice it when we push the ball up the floor after makes, too – Murray is one of our guards but when he gets it it’s like hot potato as he’s quickly trying to dump it off to someone else to handle the dribbling. Anyway, after Ames gets hung up baseline and kicks it back out to Saunders, Murray and Ames are both on the strong side perimeter. Murray takes the pass from Saunders and goes into a shooting motion but his eyes don’t sell it – he’s looking at Ames the whole time. I’d have liked to see a backdoor cut by Ames here, for the record, that would have been better on his part, but this is a pretty lackluster pass from Murray as it doesn’t really put and pressure on #0 as a defender from Holy Cross (who is the 5’10” Tyler Boston). Murray could have driven the close out here in the wide gap to his right and kicked back out to Ames or dumped off to Cofie if the help had come but instead, this pass to the corner not covering much distance allows Boston the ability to defend both of them despite the defense being behind the play. Ames drives the baseline a little, drawing Boston away from Murray, and passes back out to him. At 13 seconds into this clip on the catch, that’s a very clean look for a three-point shot for Taine and yet on the catch he’s not looking to shoot again, looking around for a pass and identifying the close out. This time he gives a slight shot fake and does drive to his right hand, but now he’s tunnel-visioned on the hoop and if you pause at 15 seconds into the clip, McKneely is as wide-open as he’ll ever be for a three (and that’s the best shot we can get as a team, an open McKneely three), but Murray passes it up to jam his drive into traffic. It’s not a bad shot overall – it’s one he can make – but he doesn’t and it’s passing up the best shooter on our team for a contested shot in the lane.
For a fourth-year player, he’s just not playing with much confidence right now and it’s really hurting his decision-making. In both of those last two plays, his reluctance to call his own number was less than ideal and then, in the second play, when he finally did, he did so with such a one-track mind that he couldn’t see the floor.
It’s like he’s both deferring, and then he’s pressing, and when he’s pressing it causes the above or, more commonly, sloppy turnovers like this one below:
I made the point earlier about how he’s typically reluctant to do more than reset the ball after taking a ball screen. It’s never been a strength of his game nor something he’s been asked to do often with us. In our old offenses, it’d never been his responsibility to take a ball screen, more to move without the ball and spot up. Basically, Murray is one of our few players better suited to Sides and Inside Triangle than our current offense. But here he makes the decision to drive but it’s so slow to develop and he’s really putting his head down and leaning in, to the point where he can’t identify and doesn’t react to the help side defender stripping his dribble.
Okay, so Sharma also missed his lone three attempt in this game and was 0-1 from the floor as opposed to 0-3. If he’s not shooting well either, why would I consider him an upgrade?
Well, here’s a look at a similar play from Sharma. In the same offensive role as Murray, he’s hanging out in the corner for a spot up opportunity for much of the possession. When the ball eventually gets to him on the wing, though, his man isn’t wildly out of position or closing out on a rotation. His man simply takes one misstep being overly worried about his shot. Similarly, the drive from Sharma is every bit as straight-lined and efficient, is quicker, he takes it deep under the hoop and makes a really nice pass to the opposite corner to find Rohde.
At the absolute least charitable, one would have to say that this play is certainly on par with what Murray offered at his best above but there are subtle differences that make it more encouraging to me. The defender was less out of position, the first couple of steps on the drive itself were quicker, and the decision made sense in the context of the play i.e. he wasn’t passing up an open look to drive into a crowd, he was blowing by a close defender to draw defenders and then kick.
But here he is also after a defensive rebound, one of his four in just 10 minutes (he’s out rebounding Taine on the season on a per game basis in just over half of the minutes), but here you see that he’s more comfortable with the ball in his hands running offense. He’s comfortable bringing it up the floor, he navigates two ball screens and is under control, and he pulls the defense after the final ball screen from Saunders and hits him with the return pass on the pop for a tasty three.
So, he’s just generally more comfortable putting the ball on the ground more often, which is valuable in this offense where all of the guards are going to be asked to navigate ball screens more often and when our goal is to push the ball more quickly after rebounds.
And then here he is (WARNING! SIDES ALERT!) threatening the defense coming off of a pin down screen and then being comfortable running the point in the offense until Ames comes off of his screen and hitting him with a timely pass for the three (way to go Dai Dai!).
Defensively, he’s just a step quicker, too. Watch here, below, the sag help into the lane and recovery and then he does well enough to get over the screen and contest the three – with some room to grow.
Taine is still getting absolutely staggered by the threat of the drive in year four. His change of direction and body control are still slow:
His BPR (EvanMiya’s ultimate measure of a player’s value to his team when he’s on the floor) is the worst on the team by far, and the only negative….
He’s fouling at a higher clip than Sharma and he’s turning the ball over at a higher clip – two things you wouldn’t expect if you’re valuing experience. He’s getting fewer boards, steals, blocks, and assists just outright at 16 mins per game vs 10, and he’s scoring less on a per minute basis. Basically, by any measure whether it be the eyeball test, box score stats, or advanced metrics, Sharma is outplaying Murray and the team is playing better when he’s in the game.
So, yes, I’m laying it on a little thick right now – but after seeing Murray get 21 minutes against a team we were handling comfortably, Sharma get 10, Power get 14, and Cofie get 17; after seeing us go to a four guard lineup in each of our last two games… we really need to move away from Murray as a core part of the lineup. I think it’s taking opportunity away from higher potential guys both later in this season and beyond, and isn’t even an improvement (quite the opposite) in the present.
Give Sharma a considerable increase in time and see what that does for his confidence and shooting; see how the team plays over a more extended period of time. I’d keep working Power into the mix too. See which of those is playing better and has more favorable matchups on any given night and, if the answer is neither, look at even bigger lineups or just give Ames and Rohde more minutes in that game.
But this is going to be a test of how much Coach Sanchez differentiates his style from the ways of yore. Can he avoid the pitfall of playing experience for experience sake or, the “paid your dues” motto when the product on the court hasn’t benefitted and there are more talented players sitting who would benefit from the opportunity?
Frontcourt Play and Rotations
This was a game in which Coach Sanchez seemed to move away from the concept of a more fluid frontcourt and, instead, played our four main guys in very specific roles. Buchanan and Cofie played Center, with Blake logging 20 minutes and Cofie logging 17, never being on the floor together. Saunders and Power mostly played PF with Saunders getting 25 minutes and Power getting 14 (Power did see some time at SF and there was also time when neither were on the floor when we played small).
No one was in any real foul trouble so this was pretty clearly intentional. Whether it was matchup-specific, or to more clearly define roles, or to find more time to play Power in the frontcourt is unclear; but I hope they change that up. It’s not that there’s a problem with pairing Power or Saunders with either of Cofie or Buchanan (although defense will force us to limit Power in the frontcourt depending on the matchup as it will force us to limit him at the SF, depending on that matchup); it’s that Cofie AND Buchanan can also pair well together. In fact, those two together with Ames, McKneely, and Rohde has been our best five-man pairing across too small of a sample size.
Cofie is so versatile in who he can guard and a team like Holy Cross is small enough that it’s surprising we didn’t put both of our 6’10” + guys on the floor at any point and see how that would go; especially with Saunders not having his best game on the interior.
Saunders was struggling to score inside and was pressing. He did get called for a pretty weak offensive foul because he’s strong and moved a Holy Cross defender off his spot with the greatest of ease (and a slight dip of his shoulder), but he also was a bit of a black hole forcing shots up at times even when the double team came:
I want to play more through the post and Saunders may be the biggest single part of that; but he’s got to be able to scan the floor and look for kick outs, too. He can’t be predetermined that he’s going to shoot whenever he gets a post touch; there’s got to be some reading of the defense.
He also rushed some close shots and missed badly:
And he didn’t always have a good plan for what he wanted to do when he made his move or a natural looking shot around the rim (find a way to use the glass here):
It’s not like he was terrible all game – he shot 4-11 from the floor and did eventually figure it out such that he looked more natural in the post. Here, for example, his move is much more fluid with a purposeful jab step and dribble into his baby hook shot.
But this is game in which Saunders should have probably eaten inside as he’s not likely to have the length advantage inside and has to play off of his quickness and strength; here he had all of the above but missed a lot of chippies. It kind of felt like he was too focused on getting his, especially when he had a few disappointing early possessions, and so he was playing tight and pressing with the ball.
He also had some mental lapses on the defensive end, this one being the most glaring. In it, he’s switched onto Green at the beginning of the possession and does a nice job of deterring any drive, which is notable considering Green was testing just about any new or favorable matchup he got out there. But after Holy Cross missed the three from the corner and got the long rebound, Saunders fell asleep on his man after the second shot from the perimeter. Green streaks right by him and gets into rebounding position and, while it’s amusing to see how effortlessly Elijah pushed him out of the way on his recovery, the foul on the defensive glass was less amusing.
Elijah Saunders losing track of entirely and resorting to fouling a Max Green on the defensive glass shouldn’t happen.
Now please don’t mistake me, everyone has bad games and I still think that Elijah Saunders is one of our most important and versatile players. But he has had some struggles on the glass both mentally and, in the Bahamas, physically – and when he’s a little off like this (and even when he’s not) I think twin tower mode is an appealing option.
Cofie also had some mental mistakes in this one like here, as an example, where he helps on a drive (notice, good defense by Rohde on Green) but also falls asleep on his man who cuts to the hoop. Power actually recognizes the development and attempts to dive with him but isn’t quite athletic enough or quick with his hands to secure the board – but Power wouldn’t have had to be in the discussion if Cofie had boxed his man.
Cofie also looked more hesitant taking his open three than usual (which wasn’t great to see him hesitate like that and I hope he gets out of his head quickly) – but he made some nice plays around the rim too and, most importantly, he continued to flash his plus defensive potential from a team defense standpoint.
Here’s one example of him taking away two players in drop coverage on the pick and roll. He sags the lane such that he’s always a threat to block or contest a runner and then when Holy Cross dumps the pass off, he’s quick to recover, stand up to the offensive player, and force the travel.
And here’s another look, below, where he steps under Rohde while defending his man on a drive, shuts down multiple driving angles from his man, steps up to clog the lane when Ames’s man drives as Ames has to get around a screen, and then recovers to his own man again, forces the reverse layup attempt, and blocks the shot.
That’s just really nice defensive mobility, body control, and functional length. And if you pair that with this kind of possession below from Blake Buchanan…
That’s a really nice defensive duo where Cofie could take the more mobile frontcourt player or even a guard, but either can provide quality rim protection at the same time. Simultaneously, Cofie can still provide you the needed spacing on offense but we’ve seen them able to play a little high-low, together they might be able to help our offensive rebounding woes a little, and you’d have increased opportunities at finding size mismatches.
Not to be crass, but it should be an even higher priority when your alternatives are Power defensive possessions like this one or not even playing a PF and running the four guards.
So, yeah. It’s interesting that Cofie came into this game after less than a minute and a half for Buchanan who had given up one fadeaway turnaround jumper and hadn’t fouled… but that he never came in for Saunders (when Blake was on the court) for any of the missed bunnies and offensive fouls or mental mistakes. But I think there’s a lot of juice there playing Buchanan and Cofie together and it’s something that could be a distinct advantage for us against the higher level of competition because it could help protect the paint and mitigate more of our physical limitation on the defensive end at guard, could help us get some cheaper points, improve on the glass, etc.
It doesn’t mean that you need to or should play Saunders less or that you should put Cofie in the starting lineup or anything like that – just that it should be fine sitting Saunders when he’s not playing well if you can leverage Cofie and Buchanan together and that you can probably collectively up the minutes for both. It may mean less time with Power at the PF – but that’s okay too. Power’s probably better suited as the post-up mismatch SF anyway who you can trade off with Saunders or Cofie defensively where needed, and who should be competing with Sharma for those minutes anyway.
In Conclusion
If all of the above were to come to fruition, that would leave us at a (mostly) 8-man rotation with Taine as more of a break glass in case of emergency situation. Ames, McKneely, Rohde, and Sharma rotating through the guard position with the starters logging the lion’s share; Saunders, Buchanan and Cofie logging the bulk of the frontcourt minutes, and then TJ Power as like a .5 option in either direction that you supplement where needed on any given game in case of foul trouble or specific matchup advantages.
I can hear the response now that it’s only been seven games, c’mon Cuts, let this play out more; why are you burying the guy! Seven games is between 1/4th and 1/5th of the season. It’s not like you could never play Taine if you were really struggling, if you were desperate for some kind of spark, or if you gave the proposed changes a legit amount of time to shine and it didn’t turn out better. When you formulate a plan like this, it doesn’t have to be 100% rigid. But I’d give Sharma as a primary at G and Power as a secondary (across 3 and 4) a much larger chunk of the backup minutes and see where that goes for a while. Based on all of the factors we’ve seen, I’d be very comfortable playing toward that purpose and making most decisions supportive of that vision.
It’s time to play both for the present and future – as the future might be years, but it also might just be this season. Nothing is guaranteed. So, yes, I’d love to see a lot more Sharma as soon as tonight. Also, especially against Florida’s size and athleticism, I think those Cofie/Buchanan lineups will be most relevant and helpful for us to give a try tonight.
Looking forward to watching tonight. Go Hoos!
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