Well, well, well… after a long offseason with the most transfer pieces ever, and a half-season hiatus due to all that was… last season, we’re back with a piece on a game that counts! I’m going to try to make these a little shorter this year on a game-by-game basis, especially prior to conference play, with the goal of delivering on these a little more quickly and sustaining throughout the year (self-editor’s note: I wrote this and then proceeded to Cut 30 clips!). We’ll see how that goes, though, as I’ll often tell myself that and then have no control over these fingers. As such, though, there are going to be lots of topics I don’t get into from this piece. I’ll touch on the stuff that stood out most so far and was most relevant to this game – but there will be lots of elements that we get to in future games as they’re more relevant.
I’m very excited for a new year, a new style, a new system, new players, new energy, and seeing everything coalesce together. So, let’s get into it right after a…
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Public Service Announcement: During our own free throws, our student section does this thing where they hold their arms up in the air in unison and then, after the make, there’s a joint celebration. Cool. Love the coordinated effort and participation. One thing they’ve either started to do this year, or it was way more noticeable if they did it last year, is they yell, in unison, “Hands up!” after our player gets the ball at the free throw line.
Now, I’m not saying this is why we shot free throws so poorly in this game. We just shot poorly in general and it was probably a first game thing; but the reason players go through pre-shot routines is that they’re trying to turn off their brain and leave the shot purely to muscle memory. Most any shooter will tell you that they shoot better when they aren’t thinking too hard and are just letting the repetition/practice they’ve put in cash the shot. This is why big shots at the end of the game are harder, because you’re thinking about it so much, which can often cause you to try to guide or over-feel the shot.
All that to say, when our own students are yelling something in unison on the catch, there’s a good chance that our player is hearing it, taking notice, thinking about what was said; just generally thinking about something that can disrupt the mental element of the pre-shot routine. It’s basically unintentionally icing our own player.
So, if you know any of the students, or are one, I’d kindly and lovingly offer: do the hand gesture but don’t shout. Don’t do anything that will get the attention of the shooter once they have the ball. Just all start putting your hands up before the ball gets there and everyone will follow suit. OR, if you’re really set on yelling the thing, do it before the player has the ball in their hands.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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High-Level Thoughts
This Rider team wasn’t good; but they weren’t an especially undersized team with a 7-footer, and at four other guys between 6’8″ and 6’10”. Yet, we ate them alive inside with 22 offensive rebounds, 42 points in the paint (to their 16). It was the kind of game where we were favored by between 25-27 points depending on where you looked; and won by 34 despite shooting 26.7 from the three-point line and 55.9% from the free throw line.
Basically, we were more dominant than expected while converting our opportunities at a much worse clip than should be expected over the course of the season; especially with the guys we have shooting it. I’m not worried about the shooting splits. It was the first game of the season and the first game under the new coaching staff. Many of these looks were clean, and we drew 34 attempts from the charity stripe.
All of that being said, it still wasn’t close on the back of the baseline of our talent, the quality of our players; especially in the frontcourt, and the effort and energy with which we played. There has been some concern raised by yours truly and others prior to the season, and even some in the first half of this one (which I think was slightly misunderstood and we’ll discuss) about the quality of the perimeter defense. But, with 6:37 to go in the game, Rider had scored 4 points in the entire second half. That number eventually got up to 21, and wasn’t quite a “Tony” (less than 20-points allowed in a half) but it would have been if not for some late buckets against backup players and a deep three at the buzzer.
It takes locking in and having some potential as a unit to achieve that kind of defensive half against any competition at this level. To be frank, and not to pick on him overly because it’s unclear how much he’s going to factor into the true rotation of the team (and certainly played more with Devin Tillis out), a significant amount of the defensive breakdowns came from Martin Carrère, who just doesn’t look ready to defend on the perimeter at this level.
Speaking of Devin Tillis, it was surprising to see him on crutches in the pre-game, but it sounds like he’s projected to be back on the court around conference play, give or take. While I haven’t been overly high on Tillis in my offseason content, his absence does create a question on how to fill the minutes that Thijs De Ridder is resting. In this contest, we turned to Carrère; but I don’t think that’s going to prove to be a viable option against better competition, at least not for long stretches. We also opted to play Sam Lewis at the PF position some; and even had a four-guard look without Lewis on the floor around Onyenso at Center. In the postgame press conference, Odom discussed the potential to try Johann Grünloh and Ugonna Onyenso (our Centers) together; but opted against it in this one to get some other players some time. It will be interesting to see if that’s something they try in this early non-conference schedule. It’s not something for which I advocated pre-Tillis injury; but given what they’ve both put on tape with their ability to shoot and move, it might be worth a look.
Given that this is our first live action with a game that counts under Coach Odom, my temptation is to cover everything we did. Instead, I’m going to highlight two players who I thought had the biggest impact on this game, briefly showcase our transition game, and then dive into a couple of elements about our team defense. Enough pregaming; let’s get to the Cuts!
Thijs De Ridder’s Complete Offensive Game
It wouldn’t be right to start this piece, or maybe even this season, without a focus on what De Ridder is bringing to the table on the offensive end. I spoke about his efficiency and skill in my offseason preview, but there were just mild glimpses of it in the scrimmages. There were some early questions about what his role would be on the team, how much he was willing to call his own number, how much the team would feature him, how quickly he’d adjust to this style of play, etc.
Those questions were answered pretty quickly on Monday night, as De Ridder went for 21 points on 10-14 shooting (71% and 4 more attempts than anyone else on the team) 1-2 from deep, filled out his double-double with 10 rebounds, and contributed a couple of assists to top it off. He put a good chunk of his offensive portfolio on display; showcasing the polish and completeness of his game. What was also notable, though, was the number of back-to-the basket post ups the team ran through him (and how that eventually commanded double-teams), designs they ran to get him open around the rim, and how he was encouraged to play make.
One vulnerability of recent CTB teams was a lack of players in the frontcourt who could make something happen in isolation around the rim. Points by bigs were almost always set up by the guard play, either at that stretch 4 position or on a dish after drawing the defense. This was both a function of Sides at times, but also an element of the skill and limitations in those positions. There was an element to that that created some vulnerability for us against lesser opponents, if our outside shots weren’t falling, or our guards were struggling to create, getting easy points was difficult.
De Ridder (and to a lesser extent in this game, also Grünloh… and Onyenso chipped in some easy buckets too) showed how that baseline of having such a skilled and polished big can limit some of that vulnerability. This was one of those bad shooting nights. Some of our guards (especially Thomas) had uncharacteristically rough finishing on the offensive side that aren’t likely to be replicated often. It didn’t matter. This was no Northeastern game.
What I especially liked about this game for De Ridder wasn’t just his efficiency; it was the variety of ways in which he contributed. Some of it was through pure hustle and effort. Here, for example, he chases down his own free throw miss, pivots between two defenders, and finishes at the rim.
That’s not unique for him – he’s got a really good feel for where the ball is going to come off in general, but especially when he’s shooting, and there are some cool clips of him overseas absolutely demolishing some put backs like this.
And here he is playing with good motor, working to the rim after the Onyenso miss:
Strong, forces his way in, good coordination with the left-handed tip.
It’s nice when your most polished and accomplished player is willing to get in there and grind it out; and there were a lot of these moments from him throughout the game, including this just manhandling on the offensive glass:
This attitude, how he just engulfs the guy, and the way he rips the ball after, I’m all about – and it was contagious throughout the team.
But aside from grind, he put a ton of skill on display in a variety of ways. Here, he showed off his footwork and feel in the post; looking to drop step off of his right pivot foot, presenting like he’d shoot, and then spinning back the other way for the clean finish.
I can’t tell you (or maybe I can, just read the legacy game reviews) how often I begged for our post players just to develop a little drop step; and here we have a counter off of a drop step when the defender reacted.
He showed nice vision with his back to the basket; passing out of double teams when they came, but also keeping eyes up and finding Grünloh around the rim a couple of times after bullying his way into the paint – in the clip below, against the mismatch:
He showed his explosiveness when catching the ball on the move in transition – in this one he was trailing the play but caught the ball on the run. That’s a quick and fluid attack of the paint; nothing plodding about it, to draw the foul:
He showed off his ability to put the ball on the deck without his back to the basket a few times, but in this clip below, showcased it with that gorgeous spin move to get all the way to the rack:
I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about the offensive sets in this piece, but it’s worth highlighting here that this could provide some problems for our opposition. Grünloh gets the ball as the hub around the top of the key, and Dallin Hall sets a pin down for De Ridder who wraps around and takes the hand off. They’ve run this set a few times across this game and the scrimmage. It allows De Ridder the ability to shoot if he wants, which he could have here, but also allows him to play the pick and roll with Grünloh, forcing the opposition’s 4 and 5 to defend. Rider opts to switch the action here, which allows Grünloh just to slide down the lane while sealing, and TDR to take advantage of the mismatch with the spin. Smart set leaning on De Ridder’s flexibility.
This one, below, was a similarly schemed up play to get him open on the block (and they ran it a couple of times to great success for easy buckets). With Grünloh again being used as a playmaking hub (a great role for him which I’m sure we’ll focus in some future piece), Hall passes to him and takes the handoff back just as Thomas, who initially faked taking an off-ball screen from Grünloh and then cut down through the lane, is setting a block-to-block screen with De Ridder. The timing confuses Rider’s defense, and syncs up well such that Hall can deliver to TDR as he opens on the block. The rest is just smooth and easy finishing with a quality hook shoot, reacting to the defender.
One thing Thijs does really well is that he always has a good sense of spatial awareness and where he is around the rim. When he catches the ball, he never has to pause and assess, he knows immediately where he is in relation to the hoop and keeps the pressure on the defense by seamlessly continuing the logic of the play. His suite of offensive moves allow him to go to whatever the defender is giving him (or reacting to) rather than trying to get to a specific comfort move.
Here’s another great example of that idea, and he showed this one overseas often. The defender, likely reacting to getting beaten off of the bounce, gives some space in the mid-post. Thijs recognizes this and simply takes what’s there – the face up jumper.
That’s the skill element that allows him to just react. If you pressure him, he can go by you or back you down. If you play off of him? Okay, he’ll just take that look.
And then, while he only took two in the game, he did get an opportunity to showcase that outside shot as well – in this case off of the secondary break where Thomas got an outlet, was able to probe the defense, and kick it out:
It’s always a challenge in the early season to wonder what is going to translate when the competition gets tougher. We don’t have to wonder that with Thijs De Ridder, though. He’s already proven that he can do it incredibly efficiently against some of the best players in the world overseas. The skill and talent are there; and he should be very competitive against most of the best talent in the college game.
The bigger question was how that would transfer here, what would his role be, and how would the offense feature him. I do think we have some early indications of those answers here. He’ll get the ball in isolation on the block, and we’ll run things to get him open around the rim or to get the ball for the purpose of play making on the perimeter. I expect that we’ll see him function within the offense and take what makes sense – just like it made sense to outclass a lesser Rider team. That being said, I also wouldn’t be surprised if we see him heavily featured down the stretch in some close games in the future.
The broader assumption is that it might be, “Malik, go get a bucket” in those big moments; and I’m sure that will still be true… but I bet “Thijs, go get a bucket” will also be heavily featured and might actually be the most percentage-friendly option especially if we don’t need more than two points.
I’m just really fired up about watching TDR play this year. He’s skilled and efficient, but also fun and powerful.
Chance Mallory’s Energy and Approach
The team’s local fan favorite PG sure did put on a show Monday night! It was legitimately cool to see Chance on the floor. It wasn’t all hype, though, he added some really important contributions through a real and defined role across 24 minutes of play, which was tied for as many as anyone on the team not named Dallin Hall. I suspect at some point, given the conversation surrounding Chance, that I’ll either need to make the case defending Hall as the starting PG, which I do still believe is correct… or maybe I’ll change my tune on that as the season progresses. But, also… maybe not?
I’ve railed against the dual PG situation in the past as it related to Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark and the minute share that each received; but Mallory and Hall complement each other better as a tandem. At 6’4″ Hall’s size on the defensive end can be moved off the ball well, but neither player has any issues getting into their shot when open (Dallin has hesitated occasionally at times, but at others has launched confidently, and Chance appears to be full send at all times). The only 6 turnovers for the game (two late into the second half) highlighted some of the possessional value they can add as well. You’re kind of in a situation where you can have either on the ball, but don’t need either to be – and there have even been situations where both are off the ball and someone else is bringing the ball up the floor. It’s very possible we just end up viewing them through the lens of any other guard where, you’ll almost always want at least one but it might not be exactly one.
We’ll cross that bridge later.
For now, let’s revel in the absolute lightning bolt that came off of the bench against Rider. If you’ve followed Chance at all, you know that he can shoot the lights out, and we saw it on display against Rider, both on the catch and shoot:
And utilizing the screen and pulling up off of the bounce:
There’s no hesitation and I love the footwork on the last shot to get himself balanced. He can really launch.
That’s an incredibly valuable skillset from your PG (and he has deep range which we haven’t seen yet), he had an assist (to Dallin, actually) that we’ll see later. I think his offensive game is going to be a significant spark for us throughout the season, and you see the passion with which he celebrates and plays; but I also want to highlight where I think he also brings so much to the team with just his infectious energy and effort.
The first example comes from the offensive end as well. I mentioned that we grabbed 22 offensive rebounds in this game. Here are two on the same possession, both from Chance:
Offensive rebounds are energizing for a team and crowd in general, but when it comes from the shortest guy on the court who is just hustling, aware, and tough, it’s even more so. He actually drew a foul on the last one by overpowering his man on the way to the ball.
This next one reminds me of the easy TDR hustle buckets – anticipating how to make a play on an unsuspecting rebounder but in his own way.
It’s opportunism and reading the development of the play and where he can insert himself.
I saved the best for last. This was just absolutely awesome live – I mean look at this! His full court pressure almost nets the steal, that dive to save the basketball was legit, you can’t really see it from the angle but pure sacrifice of the body, hustles back, almost jumps the passing lane for a return pass, fights over a ball screen and absolutely buckles his man’s knees on the defense at first, then jumps over a second time and stays right in his man’s pocket, forces a prayer of a heave and gets the defensive rebound!
That’s the play that snowballed into the breakout and De Ridder three, as well.
Neither Chance nor TDR are the only energy guys on this team. I’ve been really pleased with how much that shows up across the board; but this level of effort and visible passion is absolutely contagious and the team (and crowd) feed off of it.
Chance is an incredibly talented player, especially on the offensive side of the ball and he’s got a great feel for the game. I’m sure we’ll talk about all of that in the months (and years) to come… but this spark right here is exactly the mentality with which this team needs to be playing and it’s awesome to see him leading by example. There are going to be so many games in the future where the microwave scoring or just the extreme peskiness are going to be boons.
Offensive Transition
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this as there will be plenty of opportunity to later on; but I don’t want to write a first piece ever on Ryan Odom’s tenure without discussing the offensive transition game. After just one game, this team is still only 332 in adjusted tempo in the country… but it felt like night and day on both ends. We’re going to spend some time with the defense, but offensively, we absolutely took every opportunity that we could to get the ball up the floor quickly and look for a defensive breakdown and wide-open opportunity before the defense got set. Basically, force the defense to be perfect getting back as often as possible before you run your offense and punish them with a shot at the rim or three-pointer when they’re not.
This is a great example. It’s after a make, it’s not lightning quick, but TDR inbounding to the nearest guard (in this case, Lewis) not necessarily the Point Guard allowed Lewis to get the outlet pass up the floor to Hall. The defense converged, actually sending three men at him, and ignored Grünloh wide-open under the rim for the easy dunk.
This had nothing to do with physical ability on our end or fast transition. It was simply us asking the question of the defense and when they didn’t match up correctly, taking the easy basket.
We got a lot of early and open threes this way off of makes and misses, but this was also something I noticed that we did several times and picked up multiple fouls on the floor (which often led to cheap free throws because we were in the bonus). This is off of a missed free throw and Chance takes the outlet, goes to full speed in the open floor, passes it to Hall, and then keeps his momentum off of him running full speed and taking the flip back.
Chance drew a couple of fouls like this. We’ve seen Eli do it as well; I imagine most of our guys can and will. What it does, though, is force the defense to communicate a switch very quickly and make sure the switch defender can cut off a drive from a player already at full speed; typically from more of a standstill position themselves. It makes the defender much more likely to foul because they’re getting caught off guard and also can’t accelerate that quickly.
Again, I’m sure there will be tons of time to really get into our transition game; but it’s absolutely a thing, and I like how strategic we’re utilizing it. This isn’t just “play fast and chuck up a shot” – it’s following a core set of ideas to keep the defense on their toes, take easy opportunities… and then just running good offense if those don’t materialize from the initial effort.
Defense
Okay, so it wasn’t lost on me that the loudest cheers during the game were off of the shot clock violation we forced, the many turnovers we generated, and Chance’s pure hustle. This is still a defensive minded fanbase! That being said, I think there’s a lot to sink our teeth into around Ryan Odom’s defensive strategy and what that could look like in both the short and long term. I mentioned earlier that after allowing 32 points in the first half, we held Rider to only 4 points for the first 13:30(ish) of the second half. And, while we didn’t sustain that level of intensity throughout the game, that’s still some CTB-level of smothering regardless of opponent for over a fourth of the contest!
For this piece, I want to focus on two main elements of what Odom is trying to do with this defense – creating through which the offense has to navigate, and then how we defend the pick and roll. Let’s go ahead and start with:
Creating Chaos
Ryan Odom’s defensive system is all about attacking the offensive players, speeding them up, and getting them to react to you rather than being able to dictate what they want to do at their leisure. You’re trying to get them to play faster than they want to and make mistakes, while still holding onto some core defensive principles focused on taking away three-pointers and shots around the rim. This is why we see full court pressure on virtually every possession. In addition to making the other team work and testing their endurance, we try to steal the inbound pass early and see if we can turn the other team over. If that doesn’t happen, we don’t linger or trap (at least, we haven’t so far, that will likely be a wrinkle we add later on); but the man on the ball will pressure the offensive player up the court.
Here’s an early look at Hall in this function. Now, Dallin isn’t riding the ball overly aggressively here, but in trying to beat him, Rider sets a high ball screen around the logo and get a running start toward the lane. Hall ends up on his man’s side and trailing the play; but this is completely fine by us. What Rider ends up doing is running at full-sprint toward our mobile, 7-foot, rim protector in Johann Grünloh. Grünloh steps up to stop the drive/block the shot, and Rider attempts a wrap-around pass to his man, going full speed. Hall, reading the play and at a full-sprint himself, jumps the pass, gets the steal, taps it back to Grünloh; and defense leads to offense with us pushing the runout the other direction (and drawing two foul shots).
Is Hall beaten on this play? Yes… and also no. It’s better if he’s getting over the screen, cutting off the driving angle, and harassing the dribble. BUT, playing aggressively on the ball and getting beaten at this kind of pace is also very much a part of the defensive design. The defense is empowered to take chances and play close on the ball handler because everything is designed to funnel players into the shot blocker. Odom calculates that taking chances early in a possession (and I am aware this wasn’t Hall taking a chance, this was just him getting beaten, but it’s one in the same and we’ll see more chances later) will lead to some positive plays. If we are beaten, there’s also a chance that the offensive player will misread or make a mistake when they’re moving so fast – like Rider did here – AND there’s a reliance on having quality rim protection guarding the back end, which we do in Johann and Ugo. So, in this case, we didn’t necessarily get our primary goal out of the full court pressure, but the silver lining was still forcing a turnover and creating a fast break opportunity of our own.
Here we see White pick-up full court (also notable, TDR is really nice on the ball in these situations). He can’t get to the initial pass, but does shadow the ball. He does a nice job of reacting to the Rider player’s drive (who is sped up enough that he trips himself trying to do something quickly). As he goes to the ground, Chance jumps the passing lane and is immediately out the other way feeding Hall for the layup.
This next example, below, shows a different look at how they try to make a proactive play in the half court. They have an option to trap in the half-court at the wing after a ball screen and did it a couple of times in this game. Here, Chance shadows the ball, Grünloh’s man offers a pick and pop option, but Johann stays home, along with Chance to trap the wing:
Replay it and watch the help side defense, as they’re clearly in on it and basically go zone read from here. Sam Lewis is covering space more than anyone specifically. He’s making a pass over the top look unappetizing as well as presenting in case there are any ideas of splitting the double. Jacari has dropped down on the opposite block to front the man there, and Malik rotates over in good position to have a chance to steal a pass back to Johann’s original man or to recover to his own. Lewis basically takes over the center-field role, and both Malik and Jacari are reading the play. Rider decides to attempt a cross-court pass, which Jacari baits, jumps, and is off the other way for another trip to the foul line!
They did this a couple of times in the same area, but it’s one of many different kinds of looks we’ll see (and that Odom has shown on other teams) to do something proactive to take the opposition’s ball handler out of their comfort zone; trying to use either proactive help or other creative rotations to cause confusion.
Here’s another look, below, this time with Chance pressuring the ball up the floor and then Jacari picking up after half. Chance does probably the best job of our guards so far of staying connected to the dribbler, and gets over that high ball screen Rider was setting. As Jacari picks up on the wing, Rider represents a ball screen toward the sideline, which he jumps to try to cut off the drive. Antwan Wilson on Rider (#14) instead rejects the ball screen and gets a clean drive down the lane with White scrambling to catch up… but this time and even more formidable rim protector in Ugo is back there waiting (shout out to his 4 blocks in 14 minutes). Elijah Gertrude does a decent job of pecking in at the drive, but Ugo is the headliner here as he ties up two offensive players at once; deterring the shot and then stealing the pass attempt back to his own man:
Again, this one wasn’t by design in terms of the goal of the possession. White was just beaten off of the bounce from the wing overly trying to anticipate and react to a ball screen. BUT, the design of the defense and quality of the Center cleaned up the mistake, AND it shows how the perimeter defenders can feel empowered to gamble or try to make something happen (as White did trying to cut off the sideline) because of that rim protection and how everything comes together.
It’s also worth noting here that we were playing four guards (Mallory, Hall, White, Gertrude) and neither of them were Lewis nor Carrère. It worked pretty well matching up with Rider, but it was also fine because of the quality rim protection on the back end. While I’m not sure this is a look we’ll want to see a ton – there’s value here in the right matchups.
Alright, and now we’ll take a look at the most sustained of these possessions. This time Lewis is on the inbounder with Hall guarding the ball handler up the floor (along with our starters TDR, Grünloh, and Thomas). Again, Rider presents that high ball screen, and this time Lewis and Hall switch it guard-to-guard. Rider presents another ball screen which TDR shades, anticipating a potential switch of his own, but Rider thinks better of it and reverses court. As the ball goes to the opposite wing Hall then gets a ball screen from Grünloh’s man; and we see that same trap on the sideline that we saw earlier but this time with Dallin at the point of attack. Lewis rotates over to Dallin’s man, but can’t quite steal the return pass, leaving a scramble on the back end to rotate back. Grünloh and Thomas trade, and then eventually Grünloh and Lewis do proactively – which creates some confusion for Lewis but it doesn’t burn us. All of that action forces Rider to reset their offense with just seven seconds left in the shot clock, which allows Thomas to play aggressively (a strength of his when he doesn’t have to sustain) and attack the dribble of his own man; causing disruption and forcing the first shotty violache of the Ryan Odom era!
This was the loudest the stadium got all night and I love Thomas’s emotion after the play as well. But, yes, the competition is Rider and better opponents should have more success. That being said, this is exactly how our team wants to be playing defense. We’re not necessarily built to play honestly on the perimeter, at least not many of our starters. But all of the proactive elements – forcing the offense to deal with the pressure up the floor, forcing them to deal with the trap in the corner, and then going after the dribble as the shot clock wound down rather than playing on our heels… all of that forced Rider to run out of time where more traditional straight-up man-to-man almost certainly would have at least allowed them to get a shot up.
It’s not the same execution as the Pack Line by any stretch – but in this one case, the result was familiar – and it’s a good glimpse into where the program wants to be strategically on the defensive side both short and longer term.
Ball Screen Defense
Okay, so let’s take what we discussed in the previous section and apply it to ball screen defense more universally. Aside from that sideline trap and perhaps some other wrinkles that we’ll put in, most of our ball screens we are switching 1-4. This means that sometimes De Ridder is asked to cover a smaller, quicker player, which is something we’ll consider more closely as the season progresses, but he’s shown capable of doing overseas (although we do want to protect him from foul trouble). With Tillis’s injury, it’s going to be interesting to see how we navigate this in the future when TDR is off the floor – but in this game it was mostly with Lewis and Carrère – both of whom could theoretically do this (although Martin was struggling with most defensive assignments).
When the Center’s man sets the ball screen, though, we will play drop coverage, leaving them to stay home in the paint and requiring our guard to ideally fight over the screen, or dodge under quickly, but sometimes leaving them chasing the play. It’s important to keep two things in mind when assessing this from a defensive standpoint:
One – the goal of the defense is to eliminate three-point shots and contest anything that gets deep into the paint. It’s comfortable allowing, and is designed to do so, midrange, pull-up jumpers. In a world of basketball efficiency, these are bad shots, and we’ll let you take them. But…
Two – some of these plays can absolutely still be poorly defended and the midrange pull-up jumper that we do allow can be easier/less contested than is ideal.
So, let’s take a look at a few of these, the first being here, below. Generally speaking, I think Hall and White are having the hardest time navigating these screens so far. White does a nice job in this Cut of pressuring the ball at first, but then gets uncomfortable and takes a false step backward to get depth when the ball is passed away from him. This makes his angle hard on the recovery, where he should ideally be pressing up on the cutter to get between him and the big, making the handoff challenging. Alternatively, he could read this a little better and cut quickly underneath in the gap between Ugo and his man, likely cutting off the drive (some of that decision has to be dependent on how good of a shooter it is).
But Ugo keeps good depth on the play and Mallory does a nice job of helping off of his man to discourage any optics of an actual driving lane. Zion Cruz (#0) sees all of this, and takes the space, pulling up off of the move just outside of the elbow and missing the jumper.
So, for those of us so used to the hard hedge with the big aggressively cutting off the opposite side of the ball screen, this is new, and two things are true about it. White could have defended this better, stayed more attached to Cruz, and contested the shot better. Also, this is a shot the defense is willing to concede and both Mallory and Ugo did very nice jobs positionally (now, Ugo didn’t get a great box out here and we ultimately gave up an offensive rebound – but that’s another topic for another day – he was in the right position to make that play on the rebound if he had executed that element of it).
Here’s another look from Jacari that’s pretty similar. This time he doesn’t see the screen coming and really gets caught up on it. Grünloh keeps backing away making sure that he doesn’t get beaten to the rim, Thomas is able to give a half-hearted swipe toward the ball, but neither he nor Jacari can really get into the play to impact the shooter.
So, yeah, we’re comfortable allowing this shot. Johann is charged with keeping Cruz (#0) from building off of that advantage and getting to the rim. BUT, White getting so snagged on this screen, not seeing it coming, and Thomas being pretty late to react to the advantage both made this shot a lot less contested than it should have been; or would have been by design.
Here’s a look at Eli, who had some really nice defensive moments of his own in this game, staying more attached through the DHO. Ugo’s man has the ball and Eli’s cuts around him, taking the hand off. Eli does pretty well to fight through the screen and maintain contact on the hip of Antwan Wilson (#14), which partially obscures his vision and forces him to work to extend and get off a scoop shot. All of that allows Ugo to come over from his help position and absolutely swat the ball into the crowd.
See, that’s the shot we aren’t willing to accept; the running layup attempt. Ugo’s positioning, and reach, and verticality, allow him to be in great position to block the shot, but Eli’s positioning make it much harder for his man to see the shot blocker coming, to say even less about finding a return pass to Shemani Fuller (#3). Wilson still probably could have taken a pull up jumper here – but it would have been a much less quality look because Eli was still in his pocket and he’d likely have needed to be fading on the shot. So, from this clip, we can see two things:
This isn’t a shot our defense is willing to concede and Eli’s aggression/physical ability to stay attached through the screen made the whole play more difficult and even discouraged the look we’re willing to accept to be rejected for a blocked shot attempt. When I talk about how Elijah Gertrude has a real path to potential playing time on this team through his defense, this is what I mean. He has the best combination of the physical ability to be disruptive on plays like this through both his quickness, length, and verticality, of any of our guards.
Okay, here’s how it looks when it really doesn’t work with regard to the perimeter defense, but how our Center play can cover for a world of sins. I’m not going to spend much time highlighting or picking on Martin Carrère until it’s clear his defense is hurting us in games that matter; but it’s definitely worth putting on tape the clear concern with his perimeter mobility.
We’ve got Hall guarding up the floor and TDR giving depth from his man on the high ball screen to support. Now this is a situation where our PF is defending the ball handler who screens and then feeds the cutter; and our Center remains at home around the hoop to defend – so it’s not exactly the same. We would typically switch a screen between the 3 and the 4, but since TDR’s man was both the screener and still had the ball, most likely, it was Carrère’s job to fight through the screen and stay with the cutter as you wouldn’t expect TDR to dive to the cutter and just leave the ball before the pass. Either way, Carrère gets absolutely annihilated by the screen to the point of staggering; and is completely caught out of the play. Watch how well Grünloh navigates this; staying attached to his man for as long as possible and then getting out to get a nice contest on the shot, prior to collapsing down and securing the rebound himself (Carrère fighting to contest a potential rebound back to Grünloh’s man).
This is a big reason I don’t expect us to play without one of our two true Centers very much, if at all, this season – especially now that Grünloh’s shown that he has the conditioning to go for 25 minutes plus on any given night. The ability of these mobile bigs to protect the rim is foundational to the defense.
Let’s close with a look at what really good perimeter defense can look like within this system design (I mean, no different than most really great perimeter defense, but still). We’ve got Hall there on the initial catch, and then Mallory does a nice job recognizing and ducking under the screener with the ball. Then we have Eli on ball again, and this time his man sets up and rejects the ball screen with Johann’s man. From there, we get the joy of watching Gertrude play straight-up perimeter defense, cutting off driving angles, being physical with his body, being active with his hands on the ball, keeping good positioning throughout and, ultimately, blocking the shot on the release.
And off we go again, pushing up the floor! The way Eli played defense on that possession was so impressive but is exactly the kind of physicality and disruption that Odom strives to get from his guys.
Don’t get me wrong, holistically, this is still a concern of mine; specifically the perimeter defense. There are a good deal of physical mistakes; some you’re seeing above, some I highlighted after the Villanova scrimmage. And, there are also still a lot of communication/learning the defensive responsibility mistakes, like here, for example, where Chance and Malik just kind of confuse a simple perimeter switch and give up a wide-open three.
There was a different look where Malik Thomas came off of his man to try to double at the top of the key and get a steal and… just gave up an easy return pass and wide open three.
It’s far from a polished product (on either end). That being said, I’m slightly more optimistic about where the end product could land on the defensive side of the ball than I was before this game. It’s not because we beat up on a lesser team and so we looked better; it’s because the best and most intense stretches were good no matter the competition, because our Centers should be really nice safety nets for us all season, because some of our individual defenders like Eli, Chance, and even Lewis are showing some general and matchup-specific promise. Finally, because you’re starting to see the philosophy for the defensive system come into focus and the plan is both leans into our roster strengths while having intention around minimizing our weaknesses.
In Conclusion
These early games are a great opportunity for a team with so many new pieces, such as ours, to figure some things out in a “safe space” – but it’s nice to do so and still look comfortable and dominant, even while obviously not being overly crisp. While this competition is considerably worse than we’ll face later on (and have already faced); I do think there are some things that will translate positively and some things we can learn about how the team intends to play and what it’s figuring out about itself.
From a Cuts perspective, I’m thrilled to have so many new elements to tackle; but I’m having to restrain myself from wanting to tackle it all at once. This idea of highlighting couple of players and then diving into some elements of our team strategy seems like a good place to start. Hopefully that will allow us a decent baseline as we progress through the non-conference schedule and then we can see how things evolve over the season and how improved competition changes the perspective.
As always, thanks for your honor (especially if you got through all of it!). Next up, a NC Central team that just gave up 114 points to N.C. State. Until then!
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