104 points!
The first time we’ve scored 100 points in a game since, well, the last time we played Marshall. This game was a tale of two-halves. The first half, in which we scored 61 points and held the Thundering Herd to 33, was a complete thing of beauty. This was the first game of the season that I watched on delay, and I kid you not that I just sat here staring at my laptop clapping at times. I felt legitimately emotional, in all of the positive ways, watching that first half. The vision of something coming together. The high level of energy and execution. The talent on this team showing up for each other.
We got a look at how the team could function when most of its parts came together and played well all at the same time.
Now the second half, on the other hand, did not have that same energy, and we actually got outscored by 2-points; giving up 45 in the process. None of the play was at the same level, especially not the effort nor the defense. Of course, you don’t often expect to be able to replicate a what we did in the first half; but you’re expecting to at least win the second. It is interesting, though, because even though it seemed like Marshall’s shot-making was better in the second half; it was actually better than the first – they just took 12 more free throws – and actually had more possessions to take more shots, which was the main difference. 9 fewer turnovers in that second half than the first – 5 more for us than in the first….
Despite all of that, we still won by 26 points and comfortably cruised after blowing the doors off of them, and this was the best opponent we’ve faced so far. They were undefeated coming in and, according to most metric sites, they are about the 150th best team in the country (meaning over 200 teams worse we could play). They also presented an interesting matchup challenge with the 7’4″, 245lb, Matt Van Komen – who started college back in 2019! That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have won handily. We should have. But there were some elements to this game that could have proved more challenging than they were. The totality of this game is absolutely how you want to look against these kinds of opponents; comfortably dominant, and we played our best game of the season against our best opponent… a game after playing our previous best game of the season against our previously best opponent. It’s a good direction to be heading!
With so many positives to discuss and not wanting this piece to take until the Greenbrier Classic to read once it’s published, I’m going to spend one section talking about some elements of our defense, good and bad. From there, I’m just going to scatter-shot around some things I was most encouraged by a few different players. Let’s get after it!
Defense
Game Planning
One thing we have talked about with this coaching staff but that I will want to keep emphasizing as time goes on is how they approach their Xs and Os each season.
For the past 15 years, we’ve known almost exactly what to expect from season-to-season. We were always going to run the Pack Line defense in very similar ways. Sure, we might double-team less from one year to next, we might compromise on some of our hedge angles depending on the coverage ability of the team, and we might throw a double team on DJ Burns at parts of the court where we wouldn’t someone else (even at the three-point line… which…). More or less, though, the goal was to practice and execute as much as possible and the defense became somewhat personnel and opponent agnostic.
Similarly, Odom has a core defensive system that he implements – which is a man-to-man drop coverage model. But what he does out of that base varies pretty dramatically depending on who he has on his team and who he is playing. For example, we’ve run full court pressure all season so far without trapping. Utah State almost never ran full court pressure. We’ve been fairly conservative with our help defense and disruption in the half court so far this year, while VCU was much more willing to proactively rotate and try to make proactive things happen on the ball (maybe more will come later for us). In the post-game press conference, Coach Odom talked about how we’re willing to allow some long two-point shots sometimes due to the nature of the defense (which I’ve covered in different elements in most pieces so far this year), but he also indicated that there is a limit on that and if the other team is having too much success, that they’ll change the coverage. He’s run zone as a change of pace with a lot of his previous teams (and we saw it in one game so far this year for us), etc.
We saw on Proving Grounds Episode 4, how Matt Henry is in charge of scouting reports and customizing defensive game plans for our opponents. Odom actually said, “his scouting reports are something to behold.” During the game, the commentators talked about how much time we spend on studying our opposition’s baseline out of bounds (BLOB) plays and preparing for them. This was the first game where that element became obvious, though, and you actually heard it in Odom’s press conference as well, talking about limiting their PF Wyatt Fricks (#2), and keeping their G Jalen Speer (#50) from shooting many threes. Speer was 0-4 from deep. We’re going to focus on Fricks, though, who in his previous game went 13-14 from the floor, and 7-8 from deep, for 34 points. In this game, he went 1-7 from the floor, 0-3 from deep, for 6 points!
The main thing was just, Thijs De Ridder did a really nice job of locking him down! But, there was some proactive switching and the team as a whole was very aware of him. Here’s a good first look. Frick is listed at 6’10” but TDR made him look small all game. Here, TDR is playing solid team defense, being aware of help need when Sam Lewis gets knocked down prior to recovering very much into Frick’s space when he catches the ball on the wing. When he slips a screen on Thomas, at first I thought Thomas and TDR were doubling the ball, but it looks more like TDR switched and Thomas was late recognizing. Either way, watch how aware Grünloh is of Fricks on the dive and how quickly he gets there to reject the shot and help us run out the other way.
Fantastic awareness of the threat and help defense from Johann despite a really sizable cover of his own.
One thing Marshall really loves doing is getting threes in transition, especially Fricks. Check out this runout here from them with De Ridder pinching in slightly to discourage a driving angle but remaining really close to Fricks to close out on that three-point attempt. He’s there on the catch and in his pocket on the release.
I really liked this scramble on the back end after our full court pressure which yields a turnover. Initially, to beat the press, they have to lob over Chance Mallory, which gets them at a sprint toward the hoop with Mallory and White chasing. Marshall throws a lob pass toward Fricks from even with the “V” but De Ridder is right there to contest the catch and make him touch-pass back to the middle. Grünloh is also there to deter the shot and TDR collapses in as well to bother the big in the paint. Marshall then kicks out to Fricks again, but Dallin Hall is well-aware and is right there on rotation. White is ready to rotate to Dallin’s man, and Marshall makes a mistake on the cross-court skip pass, throwing it to our bench.
It’s another turnover forced by speeding up the opponent but, again, notice the collective awareness of Fricks at all times.
Here’s a cool look with TDR out of the game. We have Sam Lewis on Fricks and he’s picking up full court. Lewis is able to be very aggressive here, and we see him force Fricks so far toward the baseline on the inbound that he starts falling out of bounds. This allows Chance to jump the return pass, save it back to Lewis, who finds Hall for the open three… then hounds Fricks on the dribble down the court again forces another turnover, and gets fouled in the process (leading to two free throws).
That’s just really nice effort and aggression from Lewis; making nothing easy for Fricks and not allowing him to get comfortable in any way.
This was my favorite because you don’t often see blocked three-point shot attempts and it shows you just how much TDR was often in Fricks’s pocket most of the night. It also showed how desperately Fricks was trying to get into the game because, surely, he could feel TDR breathing down upon him as he went into that shot motion. That’s really nice from Thijs as he gets around the screen, how he’s able to stop and cut down on that angle to get to the shot block.
In my offseason piece on De Ridder, I showed how he’s very good at disruptive close outs and is no stranger to a block on a three-pointer.
Marshall had some success in other ways that we’ll talk about shortly; especially in the second half. But, I liked how we had a plan going in to disrupt Fricks (and keep Speer from taking many threes) and accomplished both. And, while TDR still needs to work on limit his fouling (he did foul out of this one), I really loved the defensive effort and effectiveness he had being the primary defender here (we’ll see a little more from him later).
First Half Defensive Energy
It certainly wasn’t perfect, but I liked the energy we played with on the defensive end in the first half. You saw some of the clips above that showcase this, so I’m only going to include one extra here (but, relevant, note how little Fricks wants to do with trying to take TDR off the dribble when he has the opportunity).
This is a line up with our starters except Chance is in for Lewis. Marshall inbounds the ball against our press and we get back with Hall just doing some light shadowing. To begin the possession, they pass the ball around the perimeter some, with Grünloh notably playing out on Van Komen (#13) when he caught the ball on the perimeter despite him not having a three-point shot attempt in his career. TDR does a nice job of getting around a pin down screen and being right on Fricks on the catch. As the ball moves back over to the wing, Marshall attempts to set a back screen on Grünloh for Van Komen cutting to the block. It works to free him up for the catch, but Johann clears it well and remains in good defensive positioning on the catch. Van Komen starts his dribble but Chance collapses down to peck at the ball, and has to recover immediately to Landen Joseph (#6) – but he does so really well! Chance runs Joseph off of the three-point line but is still able to cut down the driving lane (with Johann threatening behind) to force a step-back long midrange jumper that was one of Joseph’s only 3 misses in the game (he had 22-points).
Historically when we’ve had smaller guards, these close outs were trouble for two reasons: Firstly, teams didn’t respect the shot blocking ability and shooters are more comfortable knowing they’ll likely get their shot off. But, secondly, our previous closeout strategy was the older school method of trying to get there to bother a shot while also not getting beaten off of the dribble when doing so. You’ll notice in this clip, that’s no longer the case. Chance aggressively sprints toward Joseph and runs him off of the three-point line as the first priority. We’re not going to worry about the blow by because we have good shot blockers in the paint and giving up a 2 is better than giving up a 3. It might look incorrect to more historical viewers who are used to chopping their feet as they get close, but it’s the current technique in favor due to the shot quality of it all. This was really nice by Chance because he made sure there wasn’t a three-point attempt and was still able to keep his man from getting too close to the hoop; only conceding a very poor-quality shot in so doing.
Pick and Roll Defense
I imagine that for those so used to watching the Pack Line, this is going to be the biggest adjustment to watching what we do; not the offense nor the full-court pressure. The reason is just that the strategy is very different and sometimes there will be open shots, as a result, closer to the hoop than we’re used to. Our defensive style used be more like a boa constrictor. The closer you got to the basket, the tighter everything should have been. We’d double team the post to try to get that kick out, we’d hard-hedge the ball screen to keep the ball handler from getting inside the arc and help on the back side. The goal was to keep you away from the hoop as much as possible and, in an ideal world, force a shot clock violation, but in most situations settle for a hotly contested three.
Odom’s defense is different. It knows that threes and shots at the rim are the most efficient shots in basketball, so those are the shots it’s trying to deny. Instead of keeping everything on the perimeter, we want to allow most everything to come inside of the three-point line. Not even just that, we’re trying to chase it inside of the three-point line with as much chaos as possible so that the other team isn’t even taking many three-pointers. Meanwhile, we want our mobile, 7-foot Centers, hanging back as much as possible so that they are aways around to contest anything at the rim. This is going to look a lot different to our 15-year-trained eyes because we’re intentionally allowing much more freedom of movement inside of the three-point line than we historically would. Now, it’s not like Odom’s defense wants to leave anything open. It’s still trying to fight over screens and stay as attached to the ball-handler as possible… but it knows that’s not always going to be possible. It’s trying to force contested mid-range jumpers and is comfortable that some open mid-range jumpers will be the cost of that. Those are still the least efficient shots in basketball. It’s almost as hard to pull up from the midrange as it is from the three-point line, and it’s practiced less by most players… and it’s worth one less point!
Of course, these looks can be defended well or not and still achieve a similar outcome. I want to spend a little bit of time differentiating good defense from bad within these conceptual ideas.
Let’s start with a more ideal possession. This is a great look at what the defense is trying to achieve despite the fact that Marshall makes this shot. Hall is on the ball guarding Speer (#50) while Van Komen (#13) sets a high ball screen on him. Now, this is far out enough that Hall could probably get over it, as he does, or quickly slip under; but most of the time you’re going to see our guys go over, as he does, because the priority is on keeping the offensive player from shooting a three. So often, you’ll see when guys go under these screens on the perimeter, they’ll give up the three-point shot – so we rarely will do that unless it’s in a more non-threatening position/depth like this one. Either way, Hall does a nice job of staying attached to Speer’s hip and both Grünloh and Lewis have got good defensive positioning; able to help pinch on the drive if needed while able to recover to their men. Grünloh, specifically will work to keep depth so that if Speer tried to take this drive to the rim, he’d be there to contest. Speer, being chased by Hall and with Grünloh in front of him slams on the brakes and takes a step-back jumper with a quality contest by Hall in his face:
It’s a great shot by Speer, but it’s also exactly the kind of decision we want. Look at where the shot comes from; just a step inside of the three-point line, which is ideal. It’s not set or comfortable, he’s having to step back after being on a full-sprint forward, and he’s got a hand in his face – Hall basically gives him a high-five on the shot.
If the defense can generate looks like that for most of a game, Coach Odom is going to be thrilled. Speer made that one, but was 3-9 from the game from the floor. If we can make the ones he does make difficult twos? That’s great!
Here’s another look; this time with another high ball screen on Hall after White slips through. He’s guarding Joseph (#6) this time while navigating the screen out by the sabre. You’ll notice that Joseph is hooking Hall almost this entire play with his left arm firmly behind him. Onyenso keeps good positioning, and Hall does a really nice job of taking the physical fight to Joseph, riding him to get back into the play. This probably could have been called an offensive foul but sometimes guys get away with it too – but you can see how the simultaneous pressure of Hall’s body contact with Onyenso looming throughout, eventually gets Joseph to cut off his drive. He ends up making a very difficult fadeaway jumper over another good contest
Again, we didn’t get the outcome that we wanted, but we’re still happy with that possession. We could have (and maybe should have) gotten a hook called, we deterred Joseph from getting to the rim, and we forced a two-point attempt, fading away from the basket near the foul line, over an out-stretched arm. I think Hall, despite not being one of our quicker defenders here (and we’ll see that crop up later), does a nice job of using his strength to lean on Joseph here to make the drive to the hoop seem even less promising.
Now, let’s take a look at what we don’t want to have happen. Here we’ve got Mallory on the ball getting screened closer to the three-point line. Notice that he has a harder time getting over and staying attached and the much bigger gap that forms from him and Joseph (#6). If you pause at 8 seconds into the clip, Joseph is moving past the elbow while Chance is back just inside the three-point line at the point. Grünloh is there, and does contest the shot, but doesn’t give enough credence to the angle and how far away Joseph is able to get the ball away.
So, that gave up the kind of shot we don’t want to allow – a shot at the rim. A lot of things could have gone better here. Communication with Chance could have probably been better to recognize the screen coming. Chance could have reacted sooner, trying to get over it and pinch through rather than letting himself get caught so far on it. Grünloh could have been a little more aggressive with his contest – both in general but also because Jacari was right there and between he and Chance trailing, a pass back to Erich Harding (#11) would have been difficult. Some better communication there between Jacari and Johann might have encouraged him to attack the driving path/shot a little more.
So, it can be like a snowball. A little too much distance created for the guard from the chaser and a slightly miscalculated angle from the shot blocker can quickly turn a shot we accept into a shot we’re trying to stop.
Here’s a different look that is absolutely not what we want – and it’s a variation because Marshall declines the ball screen – but it does tap into some of the fears about Hall’s footspeed on defense. Earlier, we’ve seen how his physicality in playing through screens has allowed him to play some pretty good defense. Here, though, he’s overly aggressive trying to pressure Joseph on the perimeter, likely anticipating the screen coming after the first was rejected, and he just doesn’t have the quickness to recover – right around that 10-11 second mark into the clip, you see he takes a misstep toward Joseph as Joseph is crossing over. This gives up the sideline, and then Joseph is able to use his speed to run away from Hall while avoiding the help for as long as possible. Lewis and Onyenso do converge, but Joseph is able to kick the ball out to the perimeter (faking White’s help out nicely in the process), which allows for a pass back to the uncovered corner where Eli and Dallin are too late to recover.
That’s what we are trying to avoid – three-point attempts of any kind, but especially open, set ones. Normally, we’re able to mitigate our guards getting beaten with help behind; I dedicated a whole section to it from the full court last game and have highlighted the halfcourt defense prior – but this was a situation where Hall lost contain away from where his help was best situated, and it put too much strain on back end rotations. Dallin simply needs to time his pressure a little better here while also making sure that his mark is having to use that screen/routing him toward the heart of the help if he does have to give a driving angle.
Here’s a final look and this one will be at the middle ground; a shot we’re willing to give up, but one that we’ll still feel like we needed to defend better. This time it’s Thomas navigating the ball screen against Joseph. He does an okay job of not getting hung on the screen, but has to take a more extreme trailing path to do so, and can’t stay quite as attached. Grünloh does a good job of deterring the drive and, away from the ball, TDR does a nice job of tagging Van Komen to slow his path into the lane to support Grünloh. Thomas still gets a contest on this shot on the flyby, but it’s nowhere near as bothersome as one coming from straight on and better obscuring vision.
So, this is one of those looks where we can absolutely do better defensively, but it’s not horrible and it still is a shot that we’re comfortable living with. TDR and Johann to well; Malik could stand to be more physical working through the screen and cutting down that recovery angle because he is a strong player. Still, he gets into the play at the end and does offer a contest.
Hopefully some good perspective on what to be looking for with our pick and roll defense – what we’re trying to stop entirely vs. what we’re willing to live with.
Communication And Rotational Gaffes
We are still struggling with our communication, at times. It’s getting better and most aren’t causing huge gaffes – but there are still some glaring lapses that we need to work through. Marshall completely airballs this shot; but it was probably the most wide-open shot of the entire game. It happens because around 9-10 seconds into this clip, Jacari White’s man sets a back screen in the paint on Malik Thomas. Thomas and White aren’t on the same page with what they should do here – with Thomas signaling that White should switch, while Jacari intended to stay with his. They both end up going to Malik’s man, and Jacari’s, Cal Hollenbeck (#15) is completely abandoned.
Malik and Jacari have been the two biggest offenders with regard to switch communication gaps this season, but they aren’t alone on this. With time, they should be more on the same page with assignments given game situations – but you’d also just hope that in the moment they could communicate through it without such a cluster. Once we are tighter with this, I imagine we’ll start layering in some additional wrinkles to the defense – so I’m hoping for more consistency soonish.
Here’s another blown coverage (and Thomas is the culprit again). This is that interesting sideline double from our Center when the ball screen happens out there as opposed to sagging off of that angle. If you pause at 7 seconds into the clip, you’ll see Ugo and Chance getting their double-team on in the corner. #11 is Erich Harding, their 6’10” backup Center who Ugo has left to execute the double. Malik Thomas is right there on the baseline and he should be looking to steal this pass while keeping an eye on his man, Noah Otshudi (#5) in the far corner. That’s a hard pass to see out of a double team, and you’d need to get mustard on a pass around Onyenso, and there’s recovery time if he does throw it. Instead, Thomas leaves the open man under the hoop alone and moves to recover to his own, allowing the gift of a bucket.
This is help defense 101. When you have to make a decision, you always take the most threatening player; which is normally the one closest to the basket. I don’t know if Thomas was just tunnel visioning on his own guy or what caused this, but this is another poor defensive decision.
Offensive Mistakes Hurting The Defense
I do think there’s been an element of primarily mental but also physical fatigue that has cropped up during certain stretches of sloppy play. The issue with running a system that is always asking questions of your opponent is that you always have to be ready for the answers. We’ve shown a tendency to lose our concentration for stretches. When we do that, because of the style of our play, sometimes the mistakes compound and make for pretty impactful score swings over a short amount of time.
Here’s a great look, up 23 with the ball, over halfway through the second half. Sam Lewis makes a fairly uncharacteristic drive from dribble isolation at the top of the key. It’s a nice cross-over that he should finish at the rim; but he misses. Both Hall and Carrère (who should be fresh) are asleep at the wheel re: recognizing the miss and getting back for defensive balance. The outlet pass beats them up the floor and concedes an easy basket. We make matters worse, though, by following it up with Elijah Gertrude jamming the ball into the lane off of a drive and turning it over again… again leading to a long outlet pass which results in a shooting foul this time.
This is just not being crisp – Lewis losing concentration on his finish, defensive balance being slow to recognize the play, Eli trying to do too much… defensive balance again being slow to react.
It’s too sleepy. There are some physical elements to it with Hall and Carrère’s closing speed… but most of those mistakes are from mentally relaxing/not staying locked in.
Here’s on, below, that seems more physical, to me. This is almost at the end of the game with the score out of question. White catches a rebound and pushes the ball ahead, with the guys running out. Hall sets him up for the flip back three-point attempt, but when he misses, watch how sluggishly all of Mallory, TDR and Grünloh get back up the floor. They look exhausted and, while still trying, don’t appear to have a high level of urgency given time and score:
These kinds of plays are probably going to keep happening, at least early in the season when the score in many games won’t be close, when the conditioning isn’t quite what it will be later on, and while Devin Tillis isn’t in the rotation so we’re playing a shorter bench. I also, think generally, some of this is also just baked into our playstyle where mistakes will prove to be more costly. All of that being said, we need to clean this up and how much of it crops up during closer games will be telling. One thing I loved about Odom’s VCU team last season is that they played with and sustained a high level of intensity all game long; being physical, trying to impose their will on their opponents. The occasional costly mistake was still there, but that feeling of every possession matters was also there.
When we’ve shown that, we’ve looked pretty darn good, but we haven’t shown that as consistently as we’ll need to – which is an area we should hope to see improvement in over the course of the season.
Ok. Now let’s just get into some quick hitters on some things I liked and wanted to spotlight from some of our players this game.
Thijs De Ridder’s Versatility
De Ridder lead the way with 23 points, but it was the diversity of ways that he put his fingerprints on the game that really jumped out to me. We discussed earlier the really nice defensive job that he did on Fricks, but watch this sequence where he jumps a passing lane, breaks out and dunks the ball… and then draws the offensive foul on Van Komen to create another turnover.
It’s a really nice pick-6, but we should also comment on how other teams seems to respond to De Ridder. He’s a fiery and demonstrative player on the court who also plays physically. He’s likely going to be the kind of player who gets under the opposition’s skin, at times. Here, the Van Komen foul was clearly out of frustration with Thijs – and if you’re getting your opponent to lose their cool and keeping your own, that’s normally a plus.
We struggled some, or were at least slowed down by the North Carolina Central zone a few games ago. A significant part of that was our bigs not turning, looking, and attacking the zone when catching in the high post. TDR seems to already have learned that lesson. Here, he catches and immediately knows where to go with the ball for a nice high-low with Grünloh.
And here, below, after a solid crashing rebound, he lands this nice little zone buster with the jumper in the middle:
Marshall did not run the zone for very long, a testament to how well we were handling it. And that’s nice, in general, that we likely won’t face ongoing issues against zone defenses (and we shouldn’t with our size, offensive rebounding, and shooting); but what’s most encouraging to me is that De Ridder appears to make adjustments and learn from pain points very quickly.
Finally, very late in the game, he actually scraps for an offensive rebound off of a missed free throw from a teammate, deflecting the ball off of the Thundering Herd and keeping possession. This, then, is the following possession, in which he nets our 100th point with a smooth little drive, stop (un-callable push-off), and floater.
Need him to keep those fouls under control – but absolutely love all of the different ways in which he affects the game.
Malik Thomas Arrives
I’ve already written that my biggest questions about Malik is how he defends and just that he limits some of his more reckless decisions. After De Ridder’s block on the Fricks three from earlier, Thomas threw a crazy long-bomb outlet pass in the general direction of Thijs, I guess trying to reward him. No need for that.
But until this game, we’d seen the offense cooking pretty nicely without him being at his best. For the first half of this one, we saw that Malik Thomas make an appearance. We made an effort to get him going early on baseline out of bounds (BLOB) plays, which I love to get him in flow. It clearly worked. This is just a simple set up where Thomas represents a back screen and then jets off of a screen from the Center to the corner.
Really nice shot on the move and without even thinking about it despite the form he’d been in with his shot.
Then they run a different set from the exact same formation but with Thomas as the inbounder and Jacari starting in the paint. This time White fakes the screen and floats away, Gertrude just takes the long pass out, and then Thomas cuts off another screen from the Center to the corner (just from different positioning) to drill another one.
I loved not only how they made an effort to get him going in the game, but how they had incremental looks that built off of each other but resulted in giving him a very similar shot from deep.
Then we started to see him get into his bag a little, with this nice spin move into the bank shot:
That’s a very confident move from a player who was now feeling it….
And then this was just a phenomenal heat-check after snagging a nice defensive board and running out himself and firing away after a ball screen:
I kept the film rolling to show him pick up that foul – because he finished with four and it was unnecessary. When he’s playing like this against better teams, the last thing you want is to have to sit and give him a cooler because of foul trouble. He plays defense with his hands a lot and needs to be smart about it.
But those aren’t just cherry-picked highlights from him jacking up a bunch of misses and then hitting some. He was an incredibly efficient 7-9 from the floor and 4-5 from deep for 18 points in just 19 minutes. It did look like the trainer was working on him some on the sideline, but I think he could have come back in if the game was closer… but he was very close to fouling out even still.
There are so many missing pieces, IMO, that can still be clicked into place for this puzzle to come into full picture. Malik Thomas getting on a heater, though, is a huge one. It was awesome to see him get one like this and it was great to see us clearly have a plan to try to get him on a more impactful scoring track.
Dallin Hall’s Prison Dribble
Dallin Hall is a strong guard, and he plays that way on both ends. He also finished with 18 points, by far his season high, on an ultra-efficient 5-6 from the field 3-4 from deep and 5-6 from the line. He’d been mostly a facilitator to this point in the season, but I’ve really liked how patient he can be with the ball in his hands. He has the awareness and the strength to use a ball screen like this one, get ahead of his man, and then use his body to pin his defender behind him (aka, prison-dribble because you put your defender in prison) while he surveys the play. He uses it here to hold off his defender and then uses the moment his man tries to get into better position to cross him over and weave his way around the rim for that reverse layup.
That’s just not being in a hurry and having nice awareness.
Here’s another look later in the game that’s actually a better view. It also shows a textbook example of the “Gortat Screen” (which is where the big seals his own player to create a driving lane) executed by Grünloh. Ball screen from Johann, Hall prison-dribbles to buy time, Gortat screen by Grünloh, Hall waltzes right in for the easy layup!
That’s a 7’4″ defender being walled off – but, again, I’m really liking how much control Dallin is showing navigating space around the rim. The willingness to have patience and the mind/physical strength to do so.
Jacari White’s Isolation Three
Now this is a great weapon to have in our arsenal. It’s not the kind of look we want to just draw up and run with all of the time. He’s almost assuredly going to shoot it at a lower clip than his “open” looks – but having a player like this who can just create a quality three-point look for himself in isolation is such a luxury. He does it, below, just within the standard game flow….
But I see it being most valuable at the end of a shot clock when the core offense hasn’t yielded a look we want… or maybe at the end of a half?
Dang, that one was fading away, too! He’s just got such amazing body control, which is something I talked about in my preview on his game, but he uses it with his jump shot to square off of the move, and his release which he fires not on the way up but after hanging for a moment, means that these kinds of plays aren’t as much of a challenge for him as they would be other players.
There are fortunately so many guys on this roster you could look to for self-creation in moments where we’re facing a tight clock; but these kinds of threes from Jacari are high up there in the pecking order for me in those situations.
Johann Grünloh Cooking a 7’4″ 250lb Dude
This was the most impressed I’ve been with Grünloh offensively, and that’s saying something. He made his first collegiate three, sure, but it was his ability to take the game to Matt Van Komen that I found most impressive. The thing that’s always given me most pause about Grünloh’s game is his physical strength. He got pushed around a bit on the inside against some 30-year-old professionals overseas, and didn’t always look fluid with his back to the basket.
I stood up when I saw this move:
I mean, it’s so skilled and smooth and he absolutely roasts. It actually reminded me of that TDR move from the first game. Not only was the flow and footwork excellent, but he’s giving up 4 inches and at least 20lbs here (probably more), and he’s able to counter that size discrepancy by being strong enough himself and through skill.
Very encouraging.
He wasn’t done, though!
That one’s like he feels he’s the one with the mismatch, which is awesome. It’s really slippery on the drive, too, taking the angle across the lane to finish on the other side.
And then one more look from his arsenal – he’s so good at running the floor that he can absolutely get out ahead of a guy like this and take advantage of the slower foot speed.
Grünloh finished with 16 points himself, almost doubling his season average, against his most formidable (at least in terms of the size) opposition. Watching him be able to go to work so effectively with his back to the basket and seeing him so willingly embrace the challenge of giving up so much size was very encouraging, to me, for his prospects against more talented frontcourts.
Sam Lewis Pull-Up Three
Sam Lewis is a fantastic three-point shooter. We all know this. He was in the top 100th percentile in catch and shoot opportunities last year, finished the whole season shooting 44.4% from deep, and is actually pacing that at 53.5% from range so far this year. At Toledo, though, he was always more effective spotting up and having the look created for him. He wasn’t one of these Jacari White, Malik Thomas, or even Dallin Hall-type players who were going to pull up off of the dribble from range. That appears to be changing a little, this season. This look, below, is the second time in as many games where Lewis has pulled up off of the bounce and been true with his shot.
I love seeing payers add skills to their portfolio. It’s great for them individually, but it’s also great for us because it adds versatility to the way we can pay and what defenses have to account for. If Lewis can be a threat to pull up like this, then you can’t sag off on his drive as much and it allows him to be move involved in the flow of the offense rather than primarily being that corner spot up option (where he thrives and we’ll still, no doubt, use him a lot).
In Conclusion
I’m really encouraged by this game. Not because it was perfect, because it wasn’t and yet we were still so convincing. The first half is not just the best half of basketball this team has played, I think it’s one of the better halves of basketball UVa has played for a good while.
We probably saw an example of us playing great while still not being completely polished. Knowing how much Odom’s teams have tended to improve over the course of a season, I’m thrilled to both see where there’s plenty of opportunity for that while the floor is already pretty darn high.
This weekend’s games will prove to be the first real challenges of the season, so I’m ready for them and I hope the guys are… but I’m buoyish.
*Cut’s note: I’ll be travelling this weekend and then backing into Thanksgiving so it’s unclear how much I’ll be able to cover from the Greenbrier Classic. We’ll see, though, I’d like to do something – maybe a combined piece.
Leave a Reply