vs. N.C. State 12/31/2024

The last game of 2024 brought with it some interesting and new considerations. It was a tale of two halves but, in reality, it was a 14-minute stretch in the second half where we went from down 14 points to up 12 points. From there, we took the air out of the ball too early, scored just three points over the final 5:02 of the game, struggled on the defensive glass, and clung onto the three-point victory

There’s way too much that happened in this one to go through it all in detail. For example, that end of the game was rough. We tightened up too early and we really struggled to compete on the glass. That being said, that’s something I’ll speak to from time to time, but won’t really dive into in this one.

Similarly, all of Rohde, Murray and Sharma played well (for the most part there were mistakes across the board too but the net was good); especially on the offensive side of the ball. N.C. State came into the game leading the ACC in turnover margin, and we finished the game with only 7, to their 11, despite not playing with Dai Dai Ames for 31 minutes of the contest (how did no one ask Coach the Sanchez about that during the post-game press conference? Our beat folks legitimately seem like they’ve been scolded out of asking anything meaningful)! Presumably, Ames was still dealing with his ankle (it looked, to me, like he was grabbing at it after the last time he came out of the game), but haven’t yet heard that on the definitive. Still, I’m overdue some more individual focus on Taine’s positive developments and Rohde had his best game in a while; but both will have to settle for that within the context of other broader themes in this one.

I will say as a quick prelude and detour before really kicking things off that I was very worried about the press break when we were leaving Taine on an island to bring the ball up against pressure, like this (this was a pretty glaring mistake to have McKneely, guarded by Michael O’Connell, clear out and leave Taine alone):

But then, the very next play, we made an adjustment to have McKneely set a ball screen for Taine, force the switch, and have him bring it up against O’Connell (#12):

Generally speaking, our core press break strategy was to find O’Connell’s man and break it against him, which was a solid tactic. But, also, when N.C. State upped the pressure, we did a solid job of having more people help, including both Saunders and Cofie, of which we’ll get glimpses later.

I was pretty pointed in my criticism of our coaching on social media during the first half, while levying praise on the second half. After being able to re-visit and scrutinize this game, though, I’ll say that, assuming Ames was unavailable due to his injury, which was (and still is) unclear, that it wasn’t that stark in input although the outcome was much different. The second half was more about who was playing and some pretty subtle adjustments to what was happening in the first half. For what it’s worth, the first half did have several decisions I would consider “unwise,” but for the most part, we did respond to them with changes pretty quickly when they happened. That press break above was one, but I’ll show a few others in a bit.

What I want to spend the majority of the time talking about today (and then will have a few other sections later), though, is the use of our Inside Triangle offense for the first time in earnest this season. Aside from a few designed plays and a mix-up look here and there, we spent the majority of the game in this offense; marking the second legacy offense (Sides being the other) we’ve reverted to this season. So, I want to spend much of our time today with that.

Inside Triangle Re-Visited

I mentioned that this was a tale of two-halves; we scored 29 points in the first half and 41 in the second (downright prolific for us) using the same offense – so what was different? One difference was that Elijah Saunders played the entire second half, resting all three of his minutes in the first, and Jacob Cofie also outpaced his first half minute total by 3, from 11 to 14. That’s six full game minutes with more of them on the floor and, the more you can play of both, probably the better. But it wasn’t just that we played them more, it was also how we were utilizing them. In the first half, the offense was initiated much more through the guards, looking for opportunities either driving the ball or passing to our open guys. In the second, we played much more with the ball in both Cofie and Saunders’s hands to initiate the offense and to force the issue with them inside – especially through Saunders who had a very favorable matchup against N.C. State’s four guard lineup.

But, let’s first back up. My gut reaction to us feeling as though we need to revert to old offenses is not a positive one. It feels as though, rather than innovating and modernizing, we’ve been unsuccessful doing so and are using a legacy offense as a crutch. That being said, I’ve also always called for adaptability to do the thing that will put you in a position to be successful given any circumstance. This was definitely that. Now, whether or not this will be something we go to in the future and whether or not it will be successful in a matchup agnostic situation remains to be seen; but it was a very nice lever to pull in this situation.

Why is that? Our weakness offensively over the year has been through our guard play. Specifically, teams have been able to pressure our dribble and be aggressive with passing lanes to disrupt the flow of our offense. The Inside Triangle mitigates that by dramatically limiting unnecessary dribbling and passing. It often freezes the ball on the wing while the guard holds the ball and the rest of the offense moves and cuts away from the ball. Additionally, we tend to focus more on creating and looking for mismatches when running it, are more inclined to post players up (even though our other offenses have plenty of room for it), and there’s more room for playmaking with the ball in their hands from our frontcourt, should they choose to utilize it.

This is a big reason that our turnover numbers were so low; because there was far less burden on our guards to have to create something off of the bounce throughout the game (and we’ll see later on how as we increasingly minimized this, things got better). I’ll also say that I thought that the guys collectively ran the offense with a good deal of freedom and inventiveness; being willing to step outside of the conventional positioning structures at times and alternating between pulling the action both close to and away from the hoop. I’m not sure how much they’ve kept practicing this throughout the season, or whether it was a significant add over the holidays, but they looked comfortable and well-oiled operating within it, for the most part. Much better confidence was on display identifying open shots or being willing to make an intuitive pass and that stretch in the second half was the best offensive basketball they played all year.

Okay, let’s start by looking at what went well running the offense within the first half:

Here’s a nice look at Saunders setting up Cofie for an easy bucket with a nice high-low pass. As we’ll see later, getting both Cofie and Saunders involved from the “mix” (the interior three screeners vs. the two wing players) became an increasingly effective tweak; but we did it some in the first half as well. We start the offense with Ames passing to Saunders who kicks it out to McKneely on the wing. Ames moves opposite wing and now you can see that we have iMac and Ames on the wings and Rohde, Cofie, and Saunders in the mix. The players in the mix can screen for each other, post up, cut, or set ball screens either for the wing or others within the mix. We’re still getting our feet wet here but iMac reverses through Rohde to Ames on the other side. Cofie sets a ball screen for Ames and draws the switch, such that when Ames kicks it back out to Saunders now at the point, he’s got a great line of sight pass straight down to Cofie who beats the recovering Huntley-Hatfield (#1, at 6’10” 240 – I’ll abbreviate as “H-H” from here as we’ll talk about him a lot as N.C. State’s lone true Center due to an illness on the team) to the hoop.

The play works in no small part because the Wolfpack switch two different screens – the ball screen on Dai Dai and an off ball screen to put O’Connell on Saunders. This gives him a really nice line of sight to pass over his defender and deliver a nice pass to Cofie inside.

Here’s a familiar action out of this offense as many might remember Kihei Clark waiting until his defender fell asleep and then blowing by them from the wing. This isn’t the same quickness on the get by, but it’s trademark Ames on the spatial awareness being able to use either side of the rim and Cofie does nice work initially trying to bother the ball defender and then getting away to pull H-H away from the action so that he’s not able to get there to contest the layup on time.

Here’s a look, below, as mentioned earlier about how they’re more comfortable going to isolation out of this offense. This time Saunders has the ball at the point and McKneely sets a screen for Cofie, allowing him to curl up to the high post, take the ball, and attack H-H off of the dribble, where he has an advantage. A really nice job resisting H-H leaning on him and stepping through for the layup on the other side of the rim.

And here’s a neat little look, below, where Rohde took his man right down the heart of the defense with a slick little spin move. Having both Cofie and Saunders as credible shooting threats pulls their defenders with them – in this case Saunders demanding that his man stay high while Cofie could remain in solid rebounding position around the block.

Now where things fell short in the first half, and you’ll have to trust me for now as there are more examples in a different section later, is that we still played too much through our guards as ball handlers and initiators. Some of that was personnel – like when we put both Blake Buchanan and TJ Power in the game at the same time.

I’ll touch on this later, and Buchanan in general is likely not the best fit in this offense once teams scout it, because he can’t pull people outside of the lane when they cheat and doesn’t offer as much offense on the post up, but there was an ugly stretch of the game when we were down by one, Power came in the game to join Buchanan, and we were almost immediately down 6. This was part of that timeline. Compare this clip below with those seen earlier. Power and Buchanan are running around without purpose and McKneely isn’t threatening off of the bounce. Finally, Ames decides he’s just going to try to make something happen himself and gets tunnel vision, missing a potential pass to McKneely and an open cut by Buchanan prior to settling for a turnaround jumper that barely hits the rim.

To his credit, Coach Sanchez got away from this after a couple of possessions and got Cofie back in alongside Power – but if we’re going to try Power at the PF, we really shouldn’t compliment him with Buchanan at Center. It wasn’t just those two in this play though, it was a combination of the flow putting the ball in McKneely’s hands to create off of the dribble, which isn’t his strength, and then everything falling on Ames who reaches a point in a possession where he’s not looking to pass.

With that grouping on the floor, we’re probably best served running other offenses, but one of the biggest differences between the two halves is that we did still play too much through our guards, especially McKneely, who were not as effective as creators. This seems like a good moment to take that quick detour before returning to the Inside Triangle in the second half…

McKneely Off The Bounce

Coach Sanchez has said multiple times that they’d like to see Isaac McKneely use his dribble more to set up plays and to, hopefully, draw fouls and get to the free throw line. It’s great, in theory, because anytime a player is that much of a shooting threat, defenders tend to give them less space to shoot which eliminates the defensive buffer they keep between their bodies and the player. This makes driving easier because there’s less room for reaction time from the defender. The problem is that this really isn’t McKneely’s strong suit – but we’ve asked him to do more of it because it’s also not really the strong suit of many players on the roster.

To be very clear, this isn’t me saying that I never want McKneely to attack by putting the ball on the floor. You have to be able to take what’s there in any given situation and when it’s wide open, you do it. I just don’t think the solution to improving our offense is going to be to try to get iMac to be more aggressive with his dribble drive and to force more opportunities. I’d look for him to dribble off of screens and fire away from three sooner than I’d look to prioritize him attacking the rim. Think about the SMU game where we became over-reliant on trying to get offense through him toward the end. That’s the offensive dynamic we want to avoid and we saw some of it on display in this one. There was the clip above where the offense stalled out.

Firstly, he does often get his drive shut down prior to getting all the way to the rim, which leaves him with a decision/the need to find a way to get a shot off. If McKneely can’t get the layup off he mostly goes to this turnaround, fadeaway jumper. He makes it here, and it’s a nice shot, but your opponent is going to live with that all day/encourage the taking of such difficult/low percentage twos. Basically, you’ll take this when you have to and be happy when it yields points, but you don’t want a steady diet of these attempts.

His 1.7 turnovers per game has been the highest mark of his career, but his assist rate of 3.0 is also the highest of his career. And, actually, he’s got the third best assist to turnover rate on the team behind only Sharma and Cofie. Most of that has come from taking what the defense gives in response to him as a shooting threat and within the flow of the offense. Where he gets into trouble is when he’s trying to force things. We saw some of the wild passes he was throwing against SMU – here against N.C. State he just comes around a curl screen tentatively and without really having a plan or good awareness of the defense around him.

I don’t mind this drive, below generally. Sharma isn’t aware of it coming and just kind of trots his man into help defensive position; but you can still see how McKneely has made up his mind to go and doesn’t have the ability to call an audible. Marcus Hill (#10) from N.C. State does a nice job impeding the drive, going straight up, and not fouling. Isaac could have finished this, he strong arms it at the end, and it’s reasonable that he could have drawn a foul; but it’s generally out of control and feels rushed/forced.

We saw that later in the game and have seen it several times earlier in the season and throughout his career where he just seems to tense up when trying to finish around the rim. Like he’s rushing the shot because he’s worried about it getting blocked or, just generally, is in his head about it:

And then, similarly, back in the first half again, this is a bad runner where he just kind of flings it up in the general direction of the hoop – way too much arc to try to anticipate the shot blocker and it doesn’t hit the rim. He’s actually got Robinson there for a lob if he can see to throw it. He’s just rushing and, again, panicking a bit. Just out of his element.

To be clear, it’s not iMac’s fault that he took that opportunity above. He had to as the shot clock was ending, and it was a nice move up front to shake O’Connell, and of all of N.C. State’s guards, that was the one to attack. He just showed his lack of comfort once he got to the moment of shooting or passing in the paint. Additionally, this is another good example of playing too much through the guards in the Inside Triangle in the first half and it yielding a poor opportunity, as iMac initially was hounded at the logo and Taine got pushed out there as well.

So, this is the logical extension of all of the above, below. This is a really neat play design, in my opinion, to end the half. They spread the defense out and use Robinson to fake the ball screen on Murray and then go screen for iMac with the goal of freeing him up to presumably either drive the lane or drive and kick. The problem is that McKneely doesn’t set his man up very well on the screen, but also you just see how his defender gets right in his pocket on his drive and disrupts it all the way through the action. Murray almost hits a well-contested three (he had Rohde in the corner there for one more pass), but a cool play design is ineffective due to execution and because it’s relying on McKneely off of the bounce.

Both Rohde and Murray are probably better suited to be the drivers in this situation, especially with N.C. State’s worst perimeter defender in O’Connell on Rohde (and getting him switched onto Saunders which iMac didn’t identify on his drive).

Coach Sanchez says we want to get iMac more shots; and commented positively on his 14 taken in this game. But, it’s important that they’re not just any old shot. Isaac was 5-14 from the floor, but 4-9 from three. That means, math, that he was 1-5 from two. I’d love Isaac to be even more aggressive about hunting his three-point shot when he gets just a sliver of space, but we don’t need him taking 14 shots if a chunk of them are fadeaway midrange shots or forces in traffic. And we shouldn’t view one of his main responsibilities within the offense as a main creator, even if we’re desperately wanting for those (I, too, remember running through the wet grass). As we’ll see more of in a moment, there are other ways to attack teams that keep iMac involved in the offense but don’t rely on him to put the ball on the deck a ton, certainly not as a primary point of design.

I want to close this section, as I know there’s often bristling at McKneely criticism by saying that, yes, this is criticism of an element of his game – but it’s more the tension between what he’s good at (and not) and what the team is asking from him. He’s an elite shooter and is incredibly valuable to have on the floor moving without the ball, using screens to get open, ripping his shot from the perimeter whenever he has a sliver of daylight. But our lack of perimeter ball handling has created a situation where we need a solution. None of our guards are great at this and, while Ames is much better than the rest, his court vision/awareness is also lacking such that he becomes less of a distributor and more of a scorer in those situations. I don’t think an effective solution is going to be forcing this responsibility toward iMac, though. He should absolutely be taking the open chances that are there and playing within the flow of the offense. But we can’t try to force him into the square hole just because we’re lacking there across the roster. There are other ways to run offense.

Speaking of…

Second Half Inside Triangle

Now we get to the really fun part where everything was clicking. To re-visit, it’s not like we never did this in the first half, and some of this is availability, but our offensive execution improved in the second half because we increasingly played through Jacob Cofie and Elijah Saunders. Not just in the post, though, which we did do – and were more disciplined about attacking the Saunders mismatch, which I loved (how many times do I write about attacking mismatches?), but also in helping set up and initiate the offense. We saw Cofie help beat the press on the clip above with the missed layup, but he took a lot of passes on the perimeter and either initiated off of the bounce or found a good pass. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. If all of our guards are disadvantaged by the ball pressure that other teams provide (as they were in this situation with Ames out) but are very good shooters, running the offense through your bigs makes a ton of sense. Specifically, Cofie is going to have an advantage with his handle/mobility over most players guarding him, but Saunders also has the versatility to use his handle against bigger defenders or his size/strength against smaller – as he faced in this situation. Playing through these two as a focal point opened opportunities up for everyone else as well, and all of Rohde, McKneely, Sharma, and Murray did a nice job of exploiting those opportunities and playing intelligently.

Sanchez referenced “inside out” basketball when talking in the postgame which was music to my ears because, candidly, we haven’t really played that way for much of the CTB tenure. Our structures and offenses have almost always been perimeter-dominated heck, in Sides our predominant offense over the past 15 years, the ball is almost always in the hands of a guard. So, even though it’s a legacy offense, this is a good example of Coach Sanchez putting a little bit of his own philosophy on it.

Let’s jump in:

Here’s one of the first possessions of the second half. Notice the intention. Cofie comes all the way out to the logo to be the release valve for Rohde. This isn’t him hanging out at the three-point line after some cuts, this is him going to get the ball for the purpose of setting up the offense. For one, now H-H is pulled very far away from the basket so their lone rim protection isn’t around the rim. This won’t be the case with every matchup we face and is extreme in the case of N.C. State – but it’s good to take advantage of it. Now watch Cofie dribble over to get an angle… but he doesn’t need to bother getting the ball to Murray here. H-H can’t leave him entirely because he will shoot and, even though he didn’t make it, I was happy to see him take a couple of chances in this one, but he isn’t pressuring Cofie because Cofie has the advantage on him off of the bounce – so the pass is easier to make. Saunders simply seals his smaller defender in front of him, takes the lob pass and finishes.

Simple. Intentional. Smart to shift the role of the initiator over to Cofie.

This time we run more of the offense and in setting a back screen for McKneely, Saunders gets matched up with O’Connell. We identify this, and both Cofie and Rohde, who end up in the mix, go to the three-point line. Cofie gives it over to Rohde who has a better angle to, again, lob pass to Saunders who has an easy bucket being defended by a PG.

What I most like about that play is the recognition and how both Cofie and Rohde made a point to get themselves into position to clear the lane for Saunders and to look for the best passing angle to him.

Here, below, we once again see Cofie coming up to help break the press if he’s needed. Notice on this possession that the wings never touch the ball (in the first half and historically, normally the ball sticks on one wing as we cut) but, rather all three of our guys in the mix take turns rotating the ball through each other on the perimeter prior to Cofie setting up the entry pass for an isolation of Saunders against his mismatch. Note, also, how McKneely’s man is basically trying to face guard him/ball deny him throughout the possession while Murray’s man is sagging much farther off into the lane (which makes some sense because he’s weak side, but also is much more aggressive due to the nature of the matchup). This gives more space for Saunders to operate on that side as iMac’s man is staying home and iMac does well to rotate up once he gets it in the post to pull his man even farther away.

You may be inclined to point out that this is working so well because Saunders has a natural mismatch at his position and you wouldn’t be wrong. Keep in mind, though, that the main way that teams adapt to defend this is to switch all of the screens in the mix. We see N.C. State doing it some already and I expect that to be even more pronounced as the scouting report gets out that we’re using this offense again. If that’s the case, this would allow Saunders or Cofie to post whoever is covering the guard in the mix after a few screen switches OR to have some pretty tempting cuts if the opposition doesn’t.

Okay, so now with the post threat of Saunders established without the ball denial/pressure on the wings mattering, that starts to open everything else up. Let’s take a look at that now:

Here’s things opening up with Cofie now switching it up and setting a ball screen for McKneely. Saunders and Rohe both stay clear of the lane and having the gravity to draw their men (also, of note, either can be the wing and it’s fine). Taine’s man has to leave him to help on the Cofie roll as there’s no backside defense and iMac reads it well, slings a pass over to Murray, who then drives the close out. It’s a nice finish and Taine does a really nice job of straight-line driving against an advantage. Notice, also, though, that Cofie and Saunders have both crashed and are in good rebounding position should the shot come off.

We get Cofie not being content as just a passer on the perimeter, but attacks him off of the bounce, early in the shot clock, and draws the foul prior to what would have been a pretty dish to Saunders for a dunk.

Cofie is so fluid with the ball for his size and I love it. Nifty draw and dish.

Then you get the progression of Cofie being available to help against the press, representing the ball screen with iMac but taking the pass and swinging the ball going over to Rohde in the corner. Cofie cutting down then lane and then straight posting up himself (nice finish on the other side of the rim again).

And then, just the next play, after Cofie deflects the ball for a steal, iMac sets up a back screen for Cofie, who draws the attention of both N.C. State defenders, allowing iMac to immediately sprint out to the wing to drill the open three.

All of this is great interplay between the team, building on what they were doing after establishing the threat inside and after taking the pressure off of our ball handlers by playing through Cofie and Saunders. It allowed the savvy and game sense of our guards to shine.

Last look from this section, I thought this one illustrated a couple of things. Buchanan is now in the game for Cofie in this one. We fall into the trap of a little too much dribbling from the guard position again and less purposeful and intuitive screening in the mix. Saunders has taken a spot on the wing, which, notable that he’s fine doing so for future situations, but isn’t setting us up very well to get much going on the inside. What saves this possession is that Rohde has the freedom and decision making to wrap all the way around from the opposite wing, a position that’s normally static and locked onto one side of the floor for spacing purposes, to offer a catch and shoot option for Saunders.

Rohde has been really nice on the catch and shoot this year. His release is so quick and there’s limited movement. He does a really nice job of not wasting much motion from his catch getting into his shooting motion. This was an example of the base offense not really working that well because of the personnel change (Buchanan for Cofie) but the team playing with a ton of confidence and adapting to find a solution.

I’m reticent to call Inside Triangle a permanent solution to our issues. In the past, it’s normally been more of a band-aid that provides a spark mid-season but then, if we over-rely on it, teams adjust. Teams start switching screens and, in some cases, will leave a defender sagged off of our worst shooter to clog the lane around the screening actions.

We most frequently used this offense recently in 2022-2023 (have some every season for a while but it was most featured in that one). Then, we used BVP as our man big, either hanging Ryan Dunn on the wing, playing with Jayden Gardner or Kadin Shedrick in the mix, or playing him alongside of four guards. Each of these posed challenges. Teams learned to cheat off of Dunn on the wing, neither Gardner nor Shedrick could pull defenders outside of the three-point line, and four guards gave us huge defensive problems.

This team is better suited than that one to run the offense, given the use of specific personnel, because both Elijah Saunders and Jacob Cofie demand coverage on the perimeter and can be effective posting up in the paint and handling the ball without giving up glaring defensive concessions. Additionally, this should be an opportunity for TJ Power as long as we aren’t pairing him with Blake Buchanan as we did in this one. Power can play the SF in this offense because he can either operate within the mix or stay stationary on the wing, whatever the situation calls for, without running into the same issues handling that he has previously.

Conversely, this offense is less of a fit for both Buchanan and Robinson. Given enough time to scout, teams will sag off of them in the lane as they run their screening actions, gumming things up. You can still try some things by shifting most of your screening actions closer to the hoop and/or either posting either up or camping either on the weak side block… or by setting more ball screens or screens on the perimeter with them out of it. Here’s a good look at that being effective with Buchanan setting a nice screen for iMac:

But, generally speaking, the offense works best when all five players are shooting threats. I’m also not sure that this offense is best suited for Dai Dai Ames, when healthy. He can hang out on the wing and drive the baseline, as we saw in one of the earlier clips – but his passing and court awareness aren’t his strengths and you might be better suited running things where he’s operating off the bounce when he’s in. All of that said, Buchanan and Robinson’s lack of shooting are bigger obstacles to running the offense than stationing Ames on a wing. And, generally, this could be an effective way to mitigate our ball handling issues when Ames is out of the game, as it was in this one.

While I don’t think Inside Triangle is the solution to the season, by any means, I do think it’s a lever we likely can and should pull with the right lineup on the floor; mixing it in so that our opponents can’t plan for or adjust to it as dramatically as they have in seasons past. It was a good thought by Coach Sanchez coming into the game and he made quality adjustments even to how we played it as the game progressed (or, the team did, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t have a hand in the intentionality around how the second half started). What remains to be seen, is how he’ll view this moving forward; how much of a staple offense and whether or not he agrees with the same limitations around how players operate within it.

Blake Buchanan, for example, only played 13 minutes in the game; appropriately so, but he also had four fouls. So, how much of that played a factor? Speaking of Blake…

Blake Buchanan and the Center Position

Blake Buchanan has been having a rough go of it lately. He’s always had challenges on the offensive end where his lack of touch around the rim, lack of strength in the post, and lack of a jump shot have made it a challenge for him to regularly contribute in that area. He has become a better passer this year and he’s been able to contribute on the offensive glass, but that’s been a work in progress.

We saw in some of the clips above how having him on the floor was a detriment to the offense, but it’s the defensive issues that have cropped up that have had me more concerned. Last year, even when he wasn’t playing his best, you knew that he was going to be flying around and giving you energy on a play-by-play basis. That doesn’t appear to be the case now. Keep in mind, that he only played 13 minutes in this game so his motor and energy should have been full-fledged when he was on the floor.

Yet, here’s a defensive possession from his first stint on the floor. He hard hedges a ball screen but that recovery back to his man is way too lax and way too slow – and he gives up the easy bucket.

This was something he was very good at last year – his mobility and disruption hedging on the defensive side was better than Jordan Minor’s, for example, and helped to make up for his struggles on the defensive glass.

Here he is on his very FIRST defensive possession of the second half. Said clearly, there’s absolutely no fatigue on this play; he’s completely fresh off of the bench. We end up securing the third defensive rebound after Blake gives up the first two to his man… and it’s really all just alertness and hustle at the root cause.

So, that’s concerning to me. Yes, he just recently lost his starting job to Jacob Cofie, as he should have. I’d expect him to be flying around while he’s out there to try to get it back/claim a bigger role. And, really, that’s how he can be most valuable for us – as an energy guy.

The other element that’s a concern is that he’s still struggling to hold up physically on the inside, and it causes him to give up fouls and buckets. We’re about to see a series of defensive plays with him matched up one-on-one with H-H in the post and on each he’s either giving a foul or a bucket. Here, for example, he gets his back turned to the ball and doesn’t see when it gets rotated back up top. This keeps him from getting into proper defensive position and allowing the catch in the lane but, rather than playing straight up, he panics and holds trying to scramble back into position. He’s being shielded/held off too easily here as well.

Similarly, this is trouble with body control and strength. First, he just stumbles badly to get out of position tripping over H-H’s leg, but he cedes ground on the way in and still doesn’t go straight up, reaching out over H-H (likely because he’s already in that position trying so hard to hold him off physically), and committing the foul on the shot.

We saw it later in the game quite a few times – when he didn’t give up the foul, he often gave up the positioning and the bucket like here backed down and giving up the turnaround:

And here faced up, giving up the baseline and then being muscled out of position for the finish.

Don’t get me wrong – Cofie also picked up some fouls giving up physicality to H-H on the inside and his inability to secure the defensive glass was costly down the stretch. But, his better body control to more effectively contest shots around the rim forced more misses and we saw the contributions he was offering on the offensive side. He was much better on the offensive side and a little better defensively.

That brings us back to Anthony Robinson. I wrote in my last piece how it was a head-scratcher that Robinson is still being viewed only as an option when our main guys get in foul trouble. We did see that foul trouble at play with Buchanan, and so he got two minutes of play in this one. In coming in, he picked up two pretty quick fouls in short succession and I saw a lot of commentary discussing it as “evidence” as to why we “can’t” play him at this point. Here’s what I’ll say – both of Robinson’s fouls were mental mistakes, not physical ones.

He shuffled and set a moving screen, seen here:

… but he absolutely wrecked Breon Pass (#4) in the process. Look at how shaken he was afterward. That’s the kind of punishing screening that we don’t have anywhere else on the roster and, frankly, haven’t had since Jack Salt. Everyone sets moving screens from time to time, H-H had one in this game that we’ll actually see in a moment; it’s not a problem unique to Robinson and is one with some reps he should refine. But having our shooters flying around these should make defenders more cautious on their chase.

Defense is where our main focus is with him, though, and this absolutely WAS a bad foul. He takes a bad angle helping on the drive, allowing the offensive player to go around him, and compounds it by fouling attempting to block the shot.

Again, though, there’s no physical limitation in that foul. Both Buchanan and Cofie were fouling as well; and they were doing so because they were struggling to hold up to H-H’s physicality on the inside legally. But this was a mental mistake and one that can and will be learned through reps. The other edge of that coin, though, is that there’s absolutely no physical or strength limitation here.

Recall, how well he held up against the Memphis frontcourt who were absolutely killing us on the glass until he entered the game, and now look at how huge he looks compared to H-H in the clip below (and remember how BB and Cofie looked against him)!

H-H gets called for a moving screen of his own here, but he never tried to post Robinson up as we saw him try with the others and you can see why – it’s a much different proposition from a size and strength standpoint (there also weren’t a ton of possessions). Robinson was around two additional turnovers made by Louisville during his stretch on the floor as they played sped up around him, as well.

I’ll just say this – Robinson is still raw and is going to make mental mistakes, but he also offers an ability to match (in most cases, likely surpass) an opposing team’s physicality inside in ways that no one else on our roster can. Cofie and Saunders are firmly entrenched in our frontcourt and, although I still argue Saunders should get some run at SF (a few examples on that to come below), but there’s a clear role for Robinson, in my mind, that isn’t just “play when someone’s in foul trouble.” I think there’s a role for Blake, too, as an energy guy who has at least a little more offensive skill than ARob. But, when Blake is giving you the kind of effort he was in those first two clips or is unable to guard the opposing team’s Center without regularly conceding quality looks or fouls, that’s when I think we need to be much more willing to let Robinson get his run. The more reps he gets in game, the more comfortable he’ll get and the fewer mental mistakes he’ll make. Even with a very limited offensive skillset, the upside for him is very high. It’s not like the opportunity cost is too great if we turn to his physicality when we need it, and it’s not like effective inside scorers and offensive rebounding haven’t been significant problems for us this season using the group we’re primarily turning to now.

Obligatory Elijah Saunders SF Clips

If we’re going to be turning to the Inside Triangle more often, this becomes a less pressing issue but, with the desire to have the flexibility to use any of our systems and to also create mismatches with our size, I just wanted to pull a couple of clips that continue to make me think he can be effective in that role (aside from his good shooting and inside/out game).

Here are two looks at him playing very solid perimeter defense after getting switched onto or matched up on 6’4″ Marcus Hill (#10) out there this one shooting the gap and switching a perimeter ball screen:

This one just having been switched on him and defending the isolation:

And then, offensively, here’s one with him navigating the ball handling side of a ghost screen from Buchanan and delivering a nice pass to him:

And here’s one of him blowing by a guard defender (Hill again) from the three-point line and effectively using his first step and strength/size to shield his drive to the hoop for the quality finish:

I’ll make more noise about this again when we need some new solutions but wanted to tuck this in here now just to say – the (old) new of the Inside Triangle might be where we’re headed in at least the short term – but I still think this would be a great weapon to put into our arsenal for when we need it.

In Conclusion

Some scattered thoughts, but mostly a positive step for the squad. I thought the decision to bring the Inside Triangle back for this specific matchup as well as the way we continued to refine it throughout the game was sharp, and probably the second-best tactical choice Coach Sanchez has made this season (behind playing Cofie early and often). It was encouraging to see the team play more freely on the offensive side of the ball and to have one of our big liabilities (ball handling) get mitigated, especially with Dai Dai Ames on the bench more than 3/4ths of the game.

There were some questionable choices in this one, especially in the first half, but I appreciated how we responded to most of them fairly quickly and made appropriate adjustments that led to good outcomes. We still sat on the ball and tightened up too early, which has been a common element to our style of play in this system, and we conceded way too much on the glass (out rebounded by 12, having to withstand that flurry at the end). We were an N.C. State foot on the out of bounds line away from having to defend another possession, up only three, with just a handful of seconds left. All of that is true. But, there were glimpses of a quality of play we hadn’t yet seen this season.

Against Villanova we played well, but we mostly took advantage of a flaw in their defensive strategy. In this game, we made an offensive choice and executed it well/imposed our will on our opposition – at least for 14 glorious minutes.

There is a lot to refine. Who we play, when we play them, how we play them, what we run, and there are just some limitations on the roster that are going to be hard to overcome against certain matchups. But, in this game, there were signs for positivity and visions toward a path forward that could lead to some better basketball for the blue and (hooray, finally) orange this season. Perhaps none bigger than, after trailing by 14 points early in the second half, a half that’s typically been our worst this season, we found it within ourselves to rally in an incredible (26-point swing over 13.5 mins) way. That’s the kind of heart that it’s easy to root for and I love seeing how Coach Sanchez has kept the team playing hard and engaged despite everything so far this season to date. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can continue to bring to this team that’s unique to his preferences and evaluation as the season progresses.

Alright; an even bigger test upcoming against Louisville later today. Chucky Hepburn should be a real test. It’ll be interesting to see how much the strategies from the N.C. State game carry into this one. Looking forward to discussing it with you on the other side. Go Hoos!