Hi, there! I advised that I’d be back on occasion throughout the season to discuss things at a high level. This won’t be as high level and might resemble a game recap. In fact, it’s downright impersonating a game recap. BUT! Due to the CW not having an alternative way to watch the game when the predecessor went to triple OT, there isn’t the full game against Georgia Tech game on file.
Rather than do a standard game recap deep-dive, I figured I’d chat just a little bit about what’s changed with the team over the past couple of games with just a few Cuts to accompany and then try to put it all into perspective. It’s only been two games since the change has been really playing out; and that’s after five game losing streak in which we looked completely hapless, a one game reprieve at home against B.C. another catastrophe against Notre Dame at home, a win against Miami, the worst ACC team, on the road, and then a narrow loss against Virginia Tech (shudder) at home.
There may have been some glimpses of some of the improvement in some of those games – but some of it was also due to quality of opponent (and still some bad results against bad competition during that) and it wasn’t until the impressive win at Pittsburgh on the road that we fully adapted all of these changes; especially on the defensive side.
One thing is for sure, though, that the team HAS put some of the progress together, elevated its play and been better during these past two games; @ Pittsburgh and vs. Georgia Tech. The competition still isn’t what we saw earlier in the season; but Pittsburgh was a bubble team when we played them and GT had just snapped Louisville’s ACC win streak. But, more importantly, regardless of the competition itself – the quality of play is just overtly better regarding the eyeball test. First, I’ll look at some of the key reasons why and then discuss what I think that means in the overall state of things. Leggo…!
Playing Two Bigs
What do you mean, Cuts? We always play two bigs. Specifically, what I mean is that, during this stretch, we’ve had a much greater period of time where we’ve played two of Blake Buchanan, Anthony Robinson, or Jacob Cofie. Two guys 6’10” or taller, none of whom (outside of Cofie on occasion, but it’s not been a strength this year) are major threats to shoot from outside.
There will be things within this piece I’ll give the nod to Coach Sanchez for, so those are coming, but this change is not one on which I’ll give too much credit. We found this rotation during a stretch of games in which Elijah Saunders was out with an injury (from the Miami game through the Pittsburgh game and finally returning for just 11 minutes in this game against GT); one of necessity. More, we didn’t even turn to it at first – initially looking more toward four-guard lineups around one big before eventually moving away from that because the defense was predictably terrible. In fact, the ability to play Cofie alongside of Buchanan effectively, as well as the value of playing Anthony Robinson more than we were, has long shown up in the metrics this season – we just never gave it a serious chance until now. This has been, in part, due to the fact that Elijah Saunders has been a good player for us so we have wanted to play him, but also inexplicably to the unwillingness toward playing him at the SF this season.
If anything, I consider the lack of willingness to try two bigs more seriously until forced to via injury a detriment toward Coach Sanchez’s case because he was unable to find this among the need for dramatic change much sooner in the season. That being said, how he responds after finding it, will determine a lot. He didn’t rush Saunders back in this one; playing him only 11 minutes. I liked that in his presser after the game he mentioned not only Saunders needing to get back up to speed, but also that the other players were playing in a good rhythm and the need not to disrupt that. I like that. Not simply deferring to Saunders pre-injury or jamming the experienced guy back in for the sake of doing so, and being in tune with how the team is playing and how Saunders might disrupt that IS a credit to coach Sanchez.
What does this mean for Elijah Saunders, though? Surely there’s still a role for him and ways to utilize him which I’ll tackle toward the end of this piece but, for now, let’s talk about what benefits playing two bigs has brought to the table.
Truly, we’ll see it crop up throughout this piece in almost every section so, while this section is going to focus on it, I’ll highlight how the other elements are also augmented by it when we get there.
Rim Protection
I’ll highlight this more in our section on defensive changes, but the first reason it’s been so important to get two bigs on the floor is our rim protection and ability to protect the paint. It’s long been established this season that our guards are limited athletically and often struggle to keep covers in front of them. If and when they’re beaten into the paint, having Elijah Saunders or, worse, TJ Power on the floor at the four was not offering much in terms of intrusive rim protection. That would leave us only our Center to help and, if they did come over to attempt to block or contest a shot, that would put a ton of pressure on our offensive rebounding, as they were no longer attached to the opposition’s Center and we didn’t have the length or athleticism to support it.
By contrast, take a look at this play with Jacob Cofie and Blake Buchanan both on the floor. Buchanan is actually playing the 4 in this defensive scheme, guarding 6’8″ Duncan Powell (#31) on the perimeter, and Cofie is playing the 5, guarding 6’9″ Ibrahim Souare (#30), which is surprising but actually effective. Rohde starts out on the 6’9″ Baye Ndongo (#11), which, give some credit toward the versatility of his cover there. GT sets a ball screen on Ames who is guarding 6’3″ PG Naithan George (#1) and we switch this screen, putting Ames on Ndongo for a huge size mismatch in favor of GT (more on this to come later). On the catch, Cofie has already left his man and has come over to double team Ndongo with Ames – an action that isn’t atypical of our defense but one that isn’t normally necessitated because we’ve put our guard on a much bigger player. You can see that Buchanan moved like he was going to be the double at first, saw Cofie, and is now in the help side roll of being responsible for Powell on the wing and (#0) Lance Terry in the corner as McKneely has dropped down to front Souare. Ndongo throws a cross-court pass to Terry who is a 38% three-point shooter on the season. Buchanan recovers and his length is a deterrent to the shot, but his mobility is unable to cut off the driving lane baseline. Terry drives it and goes up for the dunk… BUT, Cofie is still around the hoop having just doubled Ndongo and he rotates over to contest at the rim and almost block the shot.
This resulted in a foul, but it just as easily could have been a block. Additionally, Terry hurt his wrist on this play. While that’s clearly not the intent, nor should it be, you do want your team sending the message that nothing will come easy at the rim, that it’s going to be physical, and that the other team is going to have to play through strong contests and shot blockers. This was a great example of how having multiple players with positive length can deter shots on the perimeter and can also challenge shots at the rim even when one of the two is taken out of the play.
Rim protection redundancy and not putting all of your eggs in one basket with shot blocking is valuable and is something we’ve compromised this year and in years past when we’ve fallen in love with the stretch 4. This lineup offers two guys who can do that for you which means that our double teams are more effective, can come from less distance, and are backed up by help behind them, and also that your guards have multiple support points if their man beats them. A huge boon for the defense.
Reverting to Sides
I don’t love that this is where we had to go given all of the offseason bluster about changing offenses and how that didn’t work as expected; but I do love catering your offensive style to your personnel and this personnel is incredibly well-suited to run Sides. Every single perimeter player is a threat to hit a three-point shot and are best moving without the ball (aside from Ames who is fine at that but better with the ball in his hands). It’s an offense well-suited to accommodate two non-shooters, which is basically where we are when we play two bigs (Cofie can and should still shoot open looks). The screening from these bigs is improved, more impactful, and carves out more space. Finally, the rim-running on pick and rolls is more impactful from these players.
Here’s a good look at us running Blake Buchanan and Anthony Robinson together. Robinson sets a good screen that gets Ames space on the top wing, then sets a ball screen for Ames again that takes George out of the play (you can see his body get turned and stagger). Robinson is quick to roll, forcing his man to show but fade back, giving Dai Dai the wide-open jumper from the elbow (and allowing Robinson to be in great offensive rebounding position if he’d missed).
Of note, even though Duncan Powell (#31) sags off of Buchanan and keeps Ames from getting a clear path to the bucket, the quality screening of Robinson still frees up Ames for the open jumper, which he hits, while creating enough confusion that even on a miss, we’d have been in solid position. Dai Dai may also have been able to throw the lob here like ARob hit monsterfully (yes, we’re creating words) earlier in the game.
So, that’s an example of the quality screening freeing up looks despite a lack of ideal spacing. These next two clips, below, however show what the rim pressure of two bigs can do for the offense. By rim pressure, I mean the need for the defense to cover them closely near the rim to defend against a lob, an offensive rebound, or an easy layup/dunk. When you have two bigs lurking like this, it commands defenders play them tight and fight for positioning, and offers multiple dangerous threats to convert off of facilitated opportunities.
Here’s a great look at this toward the end of the game, where we’ve run Sides through to kill the clock, but we run a variation at the end where Blake Buchanan steps up to set a ball screen for Rohde. Rohde draws the switch and makes a nice move to get baseline. As he gets under the hoop, notice how both Buchanan and Cofie pressure the basket by their presence on either side. He lays it off to Buchanan correctly, who draws the foul going up, but Cofie was also right there if he’d taken it farther and drawn Powell to try to shut down a reverse layup.
It just puts a ton of strain on a defense to collapse on a driver AND to have to keep two bigs like that from a catch and finish/foul or off of the glass on a missed shot.
And then, finally, here below just a little earlier after intentionally clock killing again, we run down toward the end of the shot clock. Buchanan sets a flare screen for Dai Dai and then moves to set the ball screen for Rohde again, but the pass to the wing causes him to drop to the block. This causes some confusion in the GT switching screen, and Ames gets Blake the ball in the post. This forces GT to switch off of Cofie to defend, allowing Jacob to dive from the opposite high post. Even though Blake doesn’t see it at first, the mismatch inside with the 6’3″ Terry (#0) trying to drop down to cover Cofie allows for a late pass to still be snagged and finished with a thunderous dunk.
Nothing like old school blocker-mover, am I right?
But I do just want to note again – this is more old school Sides. Last year this PF was either Dunn, who wasn’t a strong screener nor as good of a finisher inside when he wasn’t on the move toward the basket, or Groves, who also wasn’t a strong screener and was more of a pick and pop option. This is very much more in the realm of having that athletic/defensive 4… like Isaiah Wilkins paired with Jack Salt or Darion Atkins paired with Mike Tobey; but the trio of Cofie, Buchanan, and Robinson together are even longer and more mobile than those historic pairings.
The quality screening and rim pressure we saw more of in those days is being showcases with the two big lineups.
Rebounding
It should be self-explanatory that this helps with rebounding both ways. Added size and length will do that, and we’ll see the defensive side more later – but I want to focus on how increasing our second chance opportunities has helped a previously struggling offense.
That concept isn’t rocket science; it’s fundamental to most basketball principles. Protect the glass and effort to keep possessions alive. It is something that we’ve been notoriously bad at under our current system, though, only sending 1-2 guys to the offensive glass at a time and getting back for defensive balance. However, when your 1-2 guys are active and offer such length, that becomes a much bigger asset and offers an injection of opportunity you weren’t otherwise getting when missing shots (the same is true of how many second chance points we were conceding prior). In fact, Virginia is currently 278th in the entire NCAA in rebounding margin; giving up one more than they’ve gotten across all games this season. But over the past two, they outrebounded Pitt by 12, 33-21, and GT by 14, 38-24. It’s been a stark contrast with how it’s gone over the season playing smaller.
Here’s a look, below, of us running Sides again with Buchanan and Cofie on the floor. There’s not a ton here initially, but we take advantage of GT switching a lot of our screens with a guard/big switch between Rohde and Buchanan’s men. Rohde uses the mismatch to get to the rim but has his shot blocked. No matter, Buchanan is active and follows the play through a mismatch, collects the rebound and puts it right back in.
These are easy second-chance points just by our big staying active, having guys who can pressure the rim on either side, and enough screening to force mismatches.
Here’s another look, this time with GT going to a zone. Zones are notoriously challenging to rebound out of from a defensive standpoint because you can’t just box the man you’re already guarding, you have to locate the correct man in space and then box him out. This clip is not a great possession prior to the offensive rebound. There’s not a ton of movement on our end and some slow passing around the perimeter that doesn’t really make the defense move or work. I thought Sharma could have stepped in and pulled the trigger earlier as well, which would have been good because it would have forced their zone to stretch a bit more and not collapse around Cofie in the high post. Either way, Ames gets a pass over to Sharma who gets a shot up toward the end of the shot clock that doesn’t hit rim – but Buchanan is strong and alert inside, and quickly finds Dai Dai on the kick out for the second chance three.
Think about this play for a second compared to a lot of possessions earlier in the season. Having pretty stagnant offense with a forced shot has been pretty par for the course. In this case, though, it leads to three points because of our improved rebounding personnel.
Here are Cofie and Buchanan again with some high/low action against the zone, with Blake again pressuring the miss and this time drawing the foul. This time it’s Cofie’s shot after catching at the elbow. This draws the Center up out of the middle of the zone and leaves Blake with the over-matched Powell attempting to box him out, which he cannot do.
And, lastly, this one below isn’t even with the dual bigs as Saunders is at the PF – but it does illustrate Anthony Robinson’s insane athleticism and power and ability to punish on the offensive glass as well:
While it’s, unfortunately, a smaller sample size than a lot of the other pairings on our team right now (and you’ll also notice the STILL big case for more Sharma minutes), our top two most efficient player pairings are…
Anthony Robinson and one of the other two bigs! But it’s not just the defensive advantages of having such size – the offense has been working well too because of the benefits of size within Sides and second chance points as we’ve seen above.
This has been the single most beneficial change that we were kind of forced into but appear to have embraced and will hopefully continue to do so and we’ve mostly looked at the offensive side so far, but let’s also look at where it has complimented the new defensive strategy which is…
Switching Ball Screens
Yes, this is intentional (I’ve had many people ask me why our guards keep getting caught on bigs down low). No, this isn’t a mirage after years of insistent hard hedging. It’s a calculated strategy that has, so far in these two games we’ve committed to it (we saw hints of it against Virginia Tech but not like we’ve seen these past two), it’s been very effective accompanied by the bigger personnel. I wrote in the last section that I can’t give too much credit to Coach Sanchez for the two big lineups because he found it so late, it was born from injury, and he tried four guards first despite our guard play being the weakest part of our team this season on the aggregate. That being said, he gets full credit for this adjustment which is probably the biggest thing so far (aside from maybe how quickly Cofie played) to differentiate him from CTB’s style and strategy.
It’s not every time. We’ll still hedge on occasion, primarily when the ball screen isn’t good enough to force a switch, but it’s most of the time and it’s proactive. Here’s a good first look at the action.
On this defensive set you have Ames, McKneely, Rohde, Cofie, and Buchanan – likely our starting five for the foreseeable future. Rohde is guarding the 6’8″ Baye Ndongo (#11) as his primary assignment, which is a bold defensive choice, but highlights the pressure than playing 3 players 6’8″ or taller can have on a defense (hint, hint, Coach Sanchez!). Ndongo sets a ball screen on Ames, and Rohde switches onto George, leaving Ames on Ndongo. With McKneely right there in the lane, he proactively switches with Ames to put a little more size on Ndongo; but still leaving a mismatch. Notice Cofie shading off of his man in the corner at 21 seconds on the shot clock, though, in preparation for help. McKneely fronts but George eventually gets the ball into Ndongo; but Cofie is right there to help first double, and then switch. Cofie takes Ndongo and plays straight up from behind him, and McKneely recovers back to Souare. Cofie is able to get a good contest on the baby hook in the lane, forcing a miss, and Buchanan crashes down from his defense of the corner to absorb the rebound keeping the Souare mismatch from having an impact on the glass.
You’ll see this again in future examples, but this is how it goes generally. We’ll switch all guard to guard ball screens generally without action. If it’s a big to guard screen or a mismatched guard to guard screen (like in this one), we’ll still switch, but we’ll work to either proactively switch to get the smallest player off the big (like McKneely did for Ames above), or to double in the post and then switch with the big staying on the ball and the guard recovering out wherever necessary. In this case, we did both. Rohde switched the ball screen so iMac and Ames proactively switched to get Dai Dai off of the bigger player, Cofie was there to double on the catch, playing straight up from behind, and McKneely bolted out of there on the recovery as soon as Cofie was in defensive position. All of this augmented by Buchanan able to crash down to help support the glass despite being off the ball the entire play.
Those core concepts may seem like they have a lot going on, but it makes rotations easier and leaves the defense less vulnerable than our standard hedge and recover. Bear in mind that under a previous ball screen, the big would previously have to cut off the ball handler’s dribbling lane, remain big enough to deter a pass back to his man, and then recover fast enough with long arms to get back to his man, all the while forcing communication between help side defenders to stick with the big’s offensive mark and then recover back to their men. More intrusive if done well, but much more susceptible to exploitation if the experience isn’t there or the communication is off. Here, you just call switches out and there’s much less ambiguity over who should take what.
Let’s see some other examples of how this played out. Here, below, watch as Rohde switches a ball screen for Ames and takes George. Ames immediately fronts Ndongo, making a lob pass to him difficult. Cofie leaves his man in the corner and is there on the catch with Ndongo with Ames working to get back into the play. Note the defensive quality from Cofie here as Ndongo hasn’t put the ball on the floor yet, but he reads that he’s about to pass back to his man, and drops off of him to recover. Ndongo likely could have faked the pass here and had room to shoot, but Cofie read the intent correctly. All of this scramble speeds him up and he misreads his cutter from the corner, throwing the pass out of bounds. If you pause the clip at both 20 and 19 seconds to go in the shot clock, you’ll also notice that Blake has sunk into the lane from his defense on the corner, so he’d have been there to help even if Cofie had left incorrectly OR if he hadn’t recovered to his man and the pass had gotten there.
It’s a turnover forced by GT reacting too quickly and rushing to try to beat the switches, but it’s also an example of how the dual big back line was there for some stout resistance to back up Dai Dai’s switch.
Here, below, this time we get to see our first proactive guard/big switch up top. Ames is once again the screening target defending George and this time Cofie switches onto him. Ames passes Souare off to Rohde and comes back out top to take Ndongo; not much better with the size disparity but better with where they are on the floor. GT attempts to fake another ball screen with Ndongo and slip him to the hoop with Ames still guarding him, but Cofie does a nice job on the ball getting big with active hands, deflects the pass, and secures the steal.
Whether it be Cofie, Buchanan, or Robinson all three have done an admirable job being able to defend the point after switching onto guards. It’s a credit to their mobility and length/activity while also potentially catching our opponents off guard considering how we normally defend.
Here’s another good look at an Ames and Cofie switch out top. Ames switches onto Ndongo and fronts him with Buchanan in good position on the back end to come and double team if necessary. Meanwhile, Cofie plays suffocating defense on George and is so oppressive on his shot contest that George has to rethink his isolation attempt mid-air and pass it over to Powell on the wing. Powell launches a three over a quality contest from Rohde, and both Buchanan and Cofie crashing back down from the perimeter are in good position to help support Ames with the rebound.
Ames actually ends up tracking down this long board and we’ll see the other end of this play in a moment, but you can see how the defensive personnel is supporting the switching because there’s always a lengthy help side defender available to support the guard and because, again, our bigs are pretty good at getting a solid contest on isolation plays from the perimeter.
Here’s another really nice look, this time with Ames, Sharma, Murray, Buchanan, and Robinson on the floor. This time it’s Buchanan who gets switched onto George with Ames getting pushed under the hoop by Ndongo. George delivers the entry pass but ARob slides over, Ames fights to get in front and peck at the ball, and forces the travel. Of note, Robinson standing up Ndongo also helped to force the hesitation, and he would have blocked the shot, as well, had the violation not come first.
One thing I wrote about in my offseason preview on Dai Dai Ames was that he got switched to defending under the rim more than I would have anticipated at Kansas State. That had mixed results as they’d often leave him there afterward and he wouldn’t be able to help contest shots at the rim well. However, he did a really nice job fighting for position to front players and stop entry passes in the post due to his strength and toughness. He’s actually a much better defender for his size down low than he is on the perimeter. Now that we’re proactively switching ball screens big to guard, we’re starting to see this tenacity; but the strategy we employ of sending the double team and trying to switch the guards back out when possible is a much more sustainable one to support the switches.
Here’s a neat little twist where the defense is far from perfect but the collective length and mobility causes chaos and forces a turnover. Ames and Cofie set up a ball screen defense where an initial switch looks necessary but Ames savvily sees Cofie not in position on George’s driving angle and leaves his front of Souare to help cut off the drive. Taine and Sharma pinch in on the middle and Buchanan’s length reaches down from the perimeter. Now, Buchanan not being used to defending out on the perimeter he doesn’t get his head around to intercept the pass back out to his man and gets himself entirely out of position to defend the subsequent drive. But Ames hanging tight in the play, Cofie regrouping into a position right under the hoop and, more Buchanan recovering with long and active arms to deflect the pass attempt creates a loose ball situation that goes out of bounds on GT.
This is a great example of Dai Dai being able to freelance on defense a little more to do what makes sense and the play calls for. It’s also a great example of neither Cofie nor Buchanan executing the rotations perfectly, but their collective length and hustle creating very little room to operate around the basket and being disruptive with passes. Such a benefit to having both out there.
And, finally, this is a really nice look at everything coming together. First Rohde switches with Ames, putting Rohde on ball and Ames back with Powell. Cofie watches his man waltz through the lane to the opposite short corner, but stays alert and home as he sees the need for the double team coming. He shows on the catch, with arms up, denying vision toward the center of the floor with Ames behind Powell in a double team. From here, you can see Cofie signal to Ames to leave the double and find his rotation. Ames leaves and Powell attempts to take Cofie off of the dribble. The subtly cool thing about this play are all of the defensive musical chairs that happen behind this drive. Ames is rotating back to find Cofie’s man, Souare (#30). McKneely has left his man in the corner to front Souare in the meantime while Blake’s cover, the 6’8″ Darrion Sutton (#10) dives from the wing. Blake slides all the way down, with McKneely releasing Souare and taking responsibility for Terry (#0) in the corner again, Ames and Buchanan hand off Sutton and Souare so that Buchanan can camp the lane to support Cofie and remain in good rebounding position. Cofie doesn’t need the assistance, it turns out, as he slides very well with Powell and forces a very difficult fadeaway jumper with a strong contest. Meanwhile, Buchanan is in good position to box out the back side for the rebound and draws the foul getting shoved in the back.
That’s a great look at the rotational strategy of the way we’re currently playing defense along with some smart switches and clean communication from the group to keep all of our defenders in the best possible position. It’s worth noting that GT was regularly fielding a 3-5 of 6’8″, 6’8″, and 6’9″ in this one – but by returning serve with two of 6’10”, 6’11” and 7’0″ – we were able to counter-balance the need for support at the SF and still dominate the rebounding margin while protecting the rim.
I absolutely love this defensive change. It’s quicker to pick up, it’s easier to execute, and it leans on our ability to leverage these bigger lineups to support the rotations. It also has had the element of surprise. I expect that part will change relatively soon as teams start to scout this out – but our hedging defense teams were proactively anticipating and exploiting. In my opinion, this is the best tactical adjustment Coach Sanchez has made all season. Not that it’s anything revolutionary, mind. Most players play switch-heavy defenses in high school. But that’s another reason they can pick it up quickly and the culture of not compromising the defensive system (the most we’d do in recent years is maybe play a flat rather than hard hedge) is a barrier that Coach Sanchez has overcome in favor of results. Kudos to him for being willing to break away from tradition and make the change.
Of course, it hasn’t been entirely flawless and these opponents have gotten a few easy baskets against guards on the mismatch – but the number of these is relatively small compared to the rotational challenges we’d been facing previously as well as the personnel limitations on protecting the rim after one of our guards were beaten.
Playing Free Within Sides
Those were the two meatiest sections, but there are a few more things contributing to our recent developments that I want to highlight more quickly. One is our willingness to play more freely and to shoot earlier in possessions as a result of the comfort level (and personnel groupings) in Sides.
Again, Sides (tutorial if not familiar) relies on a lot more movement and screening away from the ball, coupled with pick and rolls, to create shot opportunities either on the catch and shoot or pressing an advantage created on the catch. It’s less reliant on our biggest weakness, ball handling against pressure defense.
In addition to having three good options as screeners and finishers as we’ve discussed above, all of our regularly used guard options (Ames, McKneely, Rohde, Murray, and Sharma) are dangerous shooters from the perimeter. Contrast this with last year’s team which neither had the quality of screeners/finishers and who had a bunch of players (Beekman, Harris, Rohde then, Gertrude) on the perimeter who were not plus outside shooters… and yet we still ran this offense quite often.
In fact, running this year’s primary offense last year and running Sides primarily this year would have almost assuredly been a superior choice. But, that’s neither here nor there and we’re back to bulk Sides now with this personnel grouping, which feels like the correct place to be (with maybe mixing a few other possessions in here and there).
The biggest difference is that the team seems to have finally gotten the message that it’s okay to be aggressive in hunting those opportunities. Here’s a deep three that Andrew Rohde takes with 20 seconds left in the shot clock after faking the fade screen action through Sides and stopping short.
Here’s another good look, below, with still half the shot clock remaining. Note Robinson and Cofie as the big duo, how the pin down screen from Robinson creates the angle for Rohde to drive the middle, and then the nice kick out to iMac who could shoot but unselfishly finds Ames in the corner for the better shot.
And then this look, below, comes at the end of the shot clock with us simply engineering a switch with Ames being guarded by a big. The confidence he’s playing with to take and make this step back three is notable and positive, though, as is having someone to turn to in isolation if our set doesn’t yield anything.
The defensive switching strategy has really just been in full force the past two games, but the offensive uptick has been creeping up for the better part of a month now. This, above, has played a role but has been driven by the improved guard play of Ames and Rohde coupled by more aggressive (even if less efficient) play by McKneely.
Over the past three games, Dai Dai Ames has scored 18.6 points per game, on an ultra efficient 64% shooting from the floor and 50% from three on 14 attempts. This compared to his season averages of 7.6 ppg, 45% from the floor and 42% from three. His emergence as a go-to and leading scorer over that span has been a key spark for the team and has taken some of the pressure off of iMac (and has more than made up for the lack of our second-leading scorer Saunders).
Over the same stretch, Andrew Rohde has scored 10.6 ppg with a whopping 25 assists to ZERO turnovers, shooting 42% from the floor and 50% from three on 16 attempts. This compared to his season 4-1 assist to turnover ratio (still very good but augmented by this run of 25-0), 9 ppg, and 43% from the floor and 41% from three. His scoring and efficiency has been pretty similar (we’ve previously discussed his huge uptick shooting the three from last season and scoring in general), but it’s his improvement distributing and taking care of the ball that’s helped to kick this offense into the next gear.
Meanwhile, over the same stretch, iMac has actually been in a comparative shooting slump by his standards, shooting just 40% from the floor and 33% from three on 24 attempts compared to 43% from the floor and 42% from deep on the season. But his aggressiveness and volume of shots he’s getting up within this offensive philosophy change has him at 15.6 points per game, up from his 13.4 on the season. The long-standing ask to increase his volume even if it means decreasing his efficiency seems to be coming to fruition and he’s being more assertive with his looks (which we saw early in the first half of the GT game as well).
It’s all gone hand-in-hand. The shift in offensive philosophy coupled with the shift in frontcourt personnel has helped our three current starting guards elevate each of their games and play well together (and the frontcourt/switching defense has also helped to reduce the defensive liability the trio represents). You can see it in the half court and you can also see it…
Running More Than Normal!
Ah, yes, the elusive and sometimes mythical transition baskets. Historically, we’ve only taken them when wide open even when we had ostensibly a team well-suited for running like we did last year. This year, there was talk early on about pushing after defensive rebounds. That was mostly that, just talk, likely for a lot of reasons between the pressure our ball handlers were taking and, probably even more so, our struggles to secure the defensive glass. But now, potentially aided by the improved rebounding and freer play from the guards, we are starting to see it show up more aggressively.
Remember that long rebound Dai Dai tracked down in the switching clips above? Well here’s what he turned it into with Andrew Rohde leaking ahead and pushing a nice extended finish away from the defense on the left-handed layup…
And here’s a nice look from Rohde making a somewhat risky pass over the defense and rewarding Blake Buchanan for running the floor with what ended up being a goaltend.
That clip above was the one that stood out most because, unlike the Ames and Rohde clip, we weren’t really behind the defense on a long rebound. This was a normal rebound, all give of GT’s defenders are between the ball and Rohde and the basket. Buchanan is not ahead of the play, he just hustles down the floor ahead of his man and isn’t picked up/offers a big frame to deliver the pass. Unlike the standard opportunism, this was intentional and pushing the play; and it created an easy two points out of nothing – at least nothing we’d have exploited in the past.
So, it’s been a while coming, and it likely took getting multiple bigs on the floor and getting them energized – but between our guards playing more freely and our bigs playing with energy, you absolutely can and should credit Coach Sanchez for keeping them all engaged and working despite the really rocky… well, most of the season to this point. Speaking of….
Energy
One of the things that was so disheartening about watching the majority of this season is how quickly the energy and effort seemed to go, the wind coming out of the sails. Sometimes it would be after a solid first half and just turn into a second half collapse – like against Tennessee, or Florida, or Louisville, or Cal. Sometimes it would just be that way from the jump like against St. John’s or Notre Dame, or Stanford (after the initial sharp-shooting)… but the energy was often not there and the body language was bad at times. I’m thinking about iMac looking defeated, Ames looking like he was box score hunting, Blake looking shell shocked, Taine looking timid, Cofie and Saunders being demonstrably frustrated and jogging to get back on defense.
But you see the energy and hustle across the board now. Players are hunting their shots, sure, but all of the bigs are playing with energy on both ends, crashing the glass, hustling to their rotations. Here’s a great example of this from the GT game that cemented for me that the attitude of the team was in a better place.
Cofie turns the ball over making a bad cross-court pass to Ames when Buchanan actually had Powell sealed. He doesn’t hang his head or get down at all – instead he sprits back, gets into the play, and disrupts the pass on the fast break, stealing the ball back and starting us running out the opposite direction.
It’s a little thing, but that’s the kind of effort we took for granted under CTB and that he demanded from his team. Certainly, being up 14 points at home can help with that morale, but it’s a collective mindset that the team appears to have finally embraced. Kudos to the guys for finding a way to mentally rebound, at least for the time being, and for Coach Sanchez helping them to get there.
Questions?
So, there are some outstanding questions from all of this.
Are we “good” now?
I’d pump the brakes on that. We’re certainly better than we were. For the first time this season we seem to have a cohesive strategy on both ends of the floor and are playing the correct player groupings to support that (I’d still like to see more Sharma than Murray but won’t pick nits here). I think that if we had figured some of this stuff out sooner; given Robinson more run early, played two bigs more often, used Saunders at SF more early on to pave the way for that (ahem), we might have some better wins on our resume and a few fewer bad losses. That being said, teams are going to adjust to what we’re doing before long and there will be some natural regression from some of these individual player performances. And, of all of these opponents we’ve discussed, none are overly good or athletic teams. Pitt is the closest thing to a bubble team and the rest are near the bottom of a down ACC.
We’re definitely improving and playing better. We have a long way to go in terms of sustaining this level of play against higher competition and being able to make adjustments to continue to adapt as the season progresses. That being said, it’s encouraging that the team didn’t quit after that back-breaking stretch mid-season including the trip to the west coast, and there’s room for optimism around these adjustments.
What Do We Do with Elijah Saunders?
This is the trickiest question for our staff right now, although I’ve been yelling from the rooftops about this all season. Ostensibly, Saunders had been one of our best players throughout the early part of the year. He’s our second leading scorer and had been one of two consistent places for us to find offense. It’s become apparent, however, that we benefit from having added size to protect the paint and attack the glass (that’s basically what this whole piece has been about). In my piece on him coming into the season (which has now lost most of the clips, unfortunately), I talked about how he’s a much better rebounder on the move, attacking the basket and tracking the ball than when he has to hold his ground against bigger and longer players on the interior. Often San Diego State would pull Saunders out of the game last season when protecting a lead because of his struggles to secure the defensive glass against opposing bigs. This happened very visibly at the end of their NCAA Tournament game against UAB despite the value he brings as a free throw shooter.
He’s too good and valuable of a player to just minimize in the rotation, though, and his physicality and scoring should still be able to augment what we do once he gets back up to full playing speed. So what, then, should we do?
The first thing I would strongly suggest, like a broken record, as I have all year, is to work him into playing the SF more often. Of course, that’s a little less enticing with our three guards playing so well at the moment and with Ishan Sharma also bringing value when he’s on the floor. Saunders has the ability to run off screens, stick open threes, and crash the glass, though, and could spell those players to our benefit; creating some size mismatches just like GT attempted to do to us with Ndongo.
I believe there’s room to work him into what we’re currently doing if we pair him with Anthony Robinson. Robinson is our most physically imposing rebounder and defender, so he can help to make up for some of what Elijah concedes there while still allowing for some of those pick and pop options we’ve run out of Sides the past few seasons. I wouldn’t lean too much into this at the expense of the other rotations we’ve had success with, but would include it.
Lastly, Saunders most efficient two-man pairing with another big this season has been with Jacob Cofie. Playing the two of them together allows us to change the way we play offensively and spread the floor out for more “new offense” and 5-out style looks. This is NOT saying that we should do this at mass volume considering how we just discussed that running Sides with two bigs has improved our offense, but it could be an effective change-of-pace look to run against defenses who were developing strategies to defend our Sides. It would place very different demands on a defense where they’d have to play much more in space and couldn’t focus as much on defending the paint against us. Mixed in well, it could be an effective way for us to give some additional and challenging offensive looks.
Coach Sanchez is going to need to be delicate here and not be disruptive to the flow we’ve gotten into or to minimize the benefits we’ve seen from playing the two bigs. That being said, between a mix of playing him at SF, running him with Robinson out of Sides, and running him with Cofie for a change-of-pace offense, I think you can find one sizable role for him out of all of those pieces. If his eventual minutes drop a bit from that 28mpg to closer to 20-25mpg, to accommodate all of this, that’s probably fine too.
What’s The Coaching Solution?
I’m happy the team is playing better, and I reserve the right to hold my final assessment until much closer to the end of the season. If the team is going to be giving this kind of energy, I want to take some time to celebrate that. That being said, it took 22 games, well over half the season, to find this solution as the result of an injury – and it’s one (playing bigger to support our guards) we’ve literally been talking about all year – since before the season when we thought Power/Saunders 3-4 could be an effective thing, playing Saunders at SF with Cofie and Buchanan since the buy games, and giving Robinson more run since the Bahamas, and increasing that discussion after losing the Memphis game when he was so effective in the first half and didn’t play the second.
In my opinion, while I’m glad we found this option, we were way too slow and reluctant to find it. Additionally, .500 basketball and a .384 record in conference play in a down season for the ACC can’t be the standard and can’t be something we ignore the totality of because we’re excited about a two-game winning streak. Expectations need to be set high and our overall assessment on where things stand shouldn’t be swayable on the game-to-game. If we really start to rattle off some success against this upcoming tougher stretch of conference play, maybe make a deep run in the conference tournament as only Duke and Clemson and Louisville are playing decently in the ACC right now, and this short-term trend becomes a clear upward trajectory against much better competition then, sure, I think you have to weight and include that as part of your national search. Until we get to that point, not much has changed with regard to my opinion on that.
In Conclusion
We’re playing better! We’re playing team basketball and we’ve made some adjustments that better fit our roster construction. It’s been a much more enjoyable experience to watch than we were seeing just a few games ago and I’m happy for the guys and to be able to watch some hopefully entertaining basketball down the stretch run. It is fun to see players like Dai Dai Ames, Andrew Rohde, Blake Buchanan, and Anthony Robinson playing the best basketball we’ve seen from them in a UVa uniform.
My overall outlook hasn’t changed much, nor do I think we should be easily swayable on this, but I’m open to new information as it comes in and I do find myself looking toward the ACC Tournament as a place where anything could happen (especially with a weaker pool of competition).
Let’s get some revenge on Tech this weekend!
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