I was travelling this weekend, the games were on CBS, it’s two in a short window of time, and we’re headed into Thanksgiving. All of these factors converged into this piece unfortunately including no video clips. No Cuts in a Cuts piece? Sadly.
I did want to give some initial thoughts and musings over the weekend’s games, though, where we went a somewhat disappointing 1-1 against two solid programs; beating Northwestern and losing to Butler. The win over Northwestern was hotly contested and showed good toughness; with us coming out on top despite atrocious shooting from the floor and from three and after our two best players in the game (De Ridder and Mallory) fouled out. The Butler game, on the other hand, we could never quite figure out despite battling back from significant deficits at times. We struggled containing the opposing team’s PG in both games; especially getting burned by Butler’s Finley Bizjack who, despite shooting just 2-10 from deep, finished shooting 50% from the floor with 25 points.
Since we don’t have video, you’ll have to take my word for some of these. We’ll keep it high-level and look at what went well and what didn’t with broader topics and themes. It’ll still be good to put a pin in some of these topics and then revisit later as we see how they evolve over the season.
Perimeter Defense
This is the big one that has been brewing but cropped up significantly. Jayden Reid, the 5’10” PG from Northwestern, had 25 points as did Bizjack. Reid was less efficient in getting there, going 6-15 from the floor, but made a living at the foul line – going 11-14! Both had success punishing our pick and roll defense and either drawing fouls or scoring in the mid-range. We even had very stout back line defense behind – with Onyenso blocking 8(!) shots in the Butler game. He should have played more in the Northwestern game, too. But this was proof (which we already knew) that we cannot simply rely on our Centers to make up for all of our mistakes and we will give up too many points if we can’t improve our ability to fight through screens and stay attached.
Don’t get me wrong here, all of our guards struggled with this at times (Eli didn’t play enough to really be able to tell), but it was especially bad from Thomas and Hall. Neither have the lateral quickness to stay with these kinds of guards and so, when they’re both on the floor at the same time, it can create some significant defensive challenges for us. Hall actually fouled out in just 11 minutes against Butler, and was constantly picking up cheap ones trying to get back into a play or get around Bizjak’s prison dribble (don’t get me started on the refs… pointless to complain about re: where we need to improve). Mallory was better, and is certainly better in the full court, but still often got caught on screens and would have a hard time getting back into the play without fouling. Especially in the second game where he played 34 minutes due to Hall’s foul trouble, the fatigue was real.
We did start to switch screens a little more aggressively later in the Butler game, and it sounded like Odom may be looking at the coverage schemes some from the comments he made in his presser. Keep in mind, this is a coach who tweaks a lot and isn’t afraid to change elements of what he’s doing to fit his players. All of that said, and we’ll talk about this more in the next section, I think we needed to play a deeper bench than we did to help account for some of this. All of Jacari, Sam, and Eli bring with them more defensive potential. Jacari still hasn’t been great on that end; but more reps and fresh bodies who are more physically suited to defend certain matchups should help our ability to both stay fresh and just make things more difficult.
Rotations
This was an odd one because Coach Odom typically plays a deep bench. He kind of got away from that a little over the weekend. Elijah Gertrude was almost entirely out of the rotation (he got 2 minutes vs. Butler). Ugonna Onyenso only played 9 minutes against Northwestern (prior to getting a hefty 23 against Butler). Sam Lewis played a decent stretch, but I thought his impact was significant and would have liked to see him even more. Potentially worst of all, though, was that Jacari White only played 32 minutes total across the two games.
Some of this is that the trio of Hall, Mallory, and Thomas are eating a lot of minutes. It makes sense; Dallin and Mallory have been effective together and you often want one point guard and Thomas offers some scoring that you feel like you want on the court. Hall had a quiet game against Northwestern for much of it, and then showed up BIG down the stretch, hitting multiple threes when we couldn’t seem to buy a bucket, down the stretch. When he played so little against Butler, Mallory played a whopping 34! He was electric off of the bench, provided a pop to the offense with his self-creation, and a lot of energy on the defensive side. Thomas averaged 30 per each of the two games; and was our leading scorer against Butler with 24. There’s a great case to be made for all of these guys getting heavy minutes and it makes sense that Odom leaned more heavily on them in more competitive games. That being said, I think we need to shave a little bit of time from each of them. For one, it’s not a great defensive trio. Hall and Thomas specifically don’t complement each other very well on that end. But getting more run from your other three guards, especially Jacari who was on fire from deep in his 19 minutes against Butler (4-6 with some step-backs on a weekend where no one else was shooting well from out there), is important. They all offer unique things and keep each other fresh; which is so important with our full-court pressure. You may be worried about Eli’s shooting, for example – but you need his legs if you’re going to seriously run this style.
Additionally, and we’ll talk about this in a moment too, but Thomas and Chance have a tendency to over-rely on isolation basketball, at times, forcing things. There are benefits to that when the defense gets sticky, but the consequences are that we don’t move the ball as well as a team and fewer players get into the flow of the game. I think it’s completely fine to like what all three of those guards offer, at times, but it’s still important to keep your rotation deep and not over-rely on any of them.
On the plus side, Devin Tillis unexpectedly returned from his knee injury, nabbing 7 and 10 minutes, respectively. I thought he offered some interesting things against Butler in terms of his ability to create mismatches, and I didn’t see where he hurt us much at all on the defensive end – so something to monitor. He was even used at the SF some in the Butler game, which I didn’t like considering our other PT issues, but was still interesting to see some of the positional ideas.
Shooting
I’m not, at all, worried about this team’s shooting after a rough weekend in a ballroom. People will say to me, “Cuts! You can’t blame the ballroom – both of our opponents shot 40% or better from deep and they had to deal with the same conditions!” Completely fine. It’s not an excuse for losing, and different teams adjust to different things… well, differently. This isn’t “Cuts from Clark Street” or “Cuts from Chatham.”
I do know that we were bothered by the number of wide-open (I’ve seen some discussion that we didn’t have a lot of open looks… we missed a ton of open looks), not just misses, but airballs that weren’t even close. There was also that pocket driving down the right side of the lane going from right to left on the coverage screen where so many of our guys were just like not even hitting anything with close shots. Almost no one looked comfortable in the Northwestern game… a few adjusted for the Butler game. Sam Lewis was shooting over 50% from deep coming into this one is a career 44% shooter and went 1-7 on the weekend.
Why does it matter so much for us? Well, Northwestern and Butler took a combined 31 threes against us. We took 51! As a team, we’re still shooting 35% from deep on the year despite going 13 for 51 over this weekend, which is now a third of our games. No, I don’t think we’re, all of a sudden, a bad shooting team after a bad weekend and fully expect, with the players we have and their career averages, we won’t see many stretches like this.
“Now, wait a minute!” you say. Cuts, aren’t you the one who never likes to cite poor shooting after a loss and talks about all of the things that lead to that poor shooting, normally? You are correct. And it’s certainly no excuse for the loss. For example, we still beat Northwestern despite even worse shooting than against Butler because we crashed the glass so well and got to the line (more on that to come). There had to have been a better path toward beating Butler that we could have found (I’d have argued playing inside more often would have been the way to go). BUT, what I’m saying is perimeter shooting, though variable, is nowhere near the top list of concerns for me, at the moment. The team is too talented, has too good of a track record, and had been shooting well previously. If we continue to struggle over a more prolonged stretch playing in, you know, real basketball venues… at that point I’d be more willing to entertain the topic.
Other Offensive Challenges
Now. This is the point worth discussing, IMO. It was my distinct feeling throughout the game that if we did create an open look on the outside, that shot wasn’t going to go in, as it often didn’t. Oddly, some of our highest volume of makes were just Jacari White doing something crazy back there. As previously discussed, I don’t think that will be the case for most of the season. However, we did need to be able to find other ways to score. That came on the offensive glass in the first game, finding ways to the free throw line in both games, and through a lot more isolation in the third game.
De Ridder carried us hard in the Northwestern game with 26 points on 9-15 shooting and 8-9 from the FT line, despite fouling out with over 5 minutes to go. He did not have the same level of impact in the Butler game despite us having a significant advantage on the inside size-wise. Some of that was playing through a blow to the face that needed treatment throughout the game, but some of it was also facing the challenge of Michael Ajayi, whose athleticism was greater than anything TDR had faced to date (in the U.S., not in Europe). That’s the kind of game where we need him to exert his will a little more – maybe even try to bruise with Ajayi a bit to negate his quickness and even get him in some foul trouble.
But, far more disappointing, was the play of Grünloh. Johann scored just 5 points against Northwestern (in 31 minutes!) and 2 against Butler despite ostensibly having a size advantage across both games. I thought he looked overwhelmed, at times, both with the physicality of the play around him, and with the speed. He seemed timid to try to exert his will, and it didn’t seem like the offense ran through him nearly as much as I’d have liked to see. At one point he threw a terrible outlet pass that as stolen and killed some of our momentum. He was picking up loose fouls hedging in the full-court press, and he was playing weak with the ball. Not being able to really turn to him on the offensive end to offer another solution in games like these was a significant deal – and I’ll hope it’s something he learns and grows from. He’s got to be assertive. Meanwhile, Onyenso didn’t offer anything more offensively in his run against Butler; but he did pick up those 8 blocks. His defensive presence is going to be increasingly important, all things considered, if Grünloh’s offensive contributions aren’t as reliable against major conference competition. To be clear, far too early to think that will be the case; but he is going to have to shift the mentality with which he plays and, as a team, we’re going to have to get the ball in his hands more often.
The other thing I’ll say is that, Mallory was absolutely electric off of the bench in these games, especially against Northwestern, and gave the team an offensive punch that it much needed. His ability to drive, draw fouls, command shot respect, and get into the lane was on full display. Similarly, Thomas showed that offensive gravity in the Butler game, touching the paint, getting to the charity stripe, looking to finish in traffic and in transition. These are skills that we haven’t seen a ton of (at least with that level of quickness) against good competition. The problem was, because it was working well at times, and because of the pressure of our opponents, and because the shooting was going so poorly, we grew to over-rely on these two to create offense and it wasn’t overly efficient. Thomas was just 3-11 from the floor against Northwestern with four turnovers because the shot selection was pretty difficult and he was trying to force things too much. His game against Butler was better, almost matching Bizjak’s productivity in fewer minutes. Mallory was the reverse, scoring 16 against Northwestern on 3-7 shooting but going 9-10 from the FT line… only to go 4-13 from the floor against Butler with three turnovers. Both players had moments where they were absolutely essential to keeping us in the game… but both also had moments where they were black holes with the ball, forcing it into traffic, becoming inefficient with their shooting and turning the ball over in trying to do too much.
Coach Odom lamented after the game that our passing needed to get a lot better; and some of that was careless turnovers, but I definitely believe some of that was this element where, as a team, we felt like our only answer was to have one of these guys create something (or TDR). I go back to my rotational section when thinking about this. Sam Lewis and Jacari White have more they can contribute here, IMO. This is also why having Hall available helps, too, as he’s been better about keeping everyone involved. But, generally speaking, I think just flattening the minutes out a bit more, certainly getting Jacari on the floor more, and even getting a little more Eli (who can help crash the glass and help with your defense especially if one of Chance/Malik/TDR are in a ball-dominant phase) will help.
Offensive Rebounding
Quick-hitter – we got TWENTY-ONE offensive rebounds against Northwestern… only four shy of their entire rebounding total. Against Butler, we still got an impressive eighteen offensive boards, but conceded 14 as well and were actually outrebounded in the game 43-39. That was one of the more disappointing things, to me, considering we seemed to have a more significant size advantage over Butler.
Full-Court Pressure
I’ve seen some debate against our full court pressure and whether or not we should discontinue it. Personally, I don’t think so, and have covered it quite a bit in my earlier pieces this year. I believe it represents minimal risk and mostly upside. For example, we were still able to generate a few turnovers out of it in both games by speeding our opponents up – a pass off of the leg in the Butler game that came at a significant momentum swing for us; simply because they were rushing. I think Northwestern’s offensive swoon at the end of that game can be attributed, at least partly, to their legs from having to navigate our pressure all game.
This game, against Butler, though, was the first game where I thought the pain points were real. There were more struggles than usual recovering to decent defensive position, some of our guys picked up some cheap fouls out of it, and we appeared to be the ones experiencing fatigue more so at the end of the game. I will say, Dallin Hall only playing 11 minutes and Mallory playing this type of basketball for 34 minutes certainly played a big role in this. But, again, this goes back to what I was saying earlier about keeping your depth in the game, even when the contests are so close. I’d always prefer we play with one of the PGs on the floor – heck, playing both together has been good – but we don’t have to have one of those guys out there. Thomas has played PG before and can bring the ball up the floor – Jacari could do it as well. De-centralizing the playmaking might actually be good sometimes given everything we’ve discussed previously.
I don’t think we’ll run into too many situations where one of our guys gets into such extreme foul trouble in so little time… but it’s certainly possible. I like the strategy and the ancillary value that it can bring – but if we’re going to do it, we have to have fresh bodies out there. We’ve got to have Jacari, Sam, and yes even more like 5-10 minutes of Eli out there coming in waves to wear the other team down, soak up some fouls themselves if necessary, make the other team work. Having access to Tillis should help with this too, giving four legit frontcourt players – but will also mean that we’re even more mindful of finding time for Sam Lewis if he won’t be at PF as much.
In Conclusion
I just spent a lot of time primarily talking about ways in which we can improve… because, well, that’s where much of the focus often goes. I’m not feeling pessimistic, though, nor do I think we should be. We’re just six games into the season and we’re trying to tie all of this stuff together.
There are some things like shooting, TDR not having a bleeding eye, and both Tillis and Gertrude getting up to full speed that I think will start to sort themselves out automatically. That being said, there’s still a lot of work to do. I believe Coach Odom is going to have to tweak/play with his defensive coverages on these ball screens to some degree AND he’s going to need to sort his rotations out, especially in the backcourt. It’s hard not to look at how awesome Mallory has been off of the bench, Hall’s steady leadership, facilitation, and clutch gene, and Thomas’s scoring talent and not feel like we should have those three on the floor as much as possible (I’m talking about from a coaching perspective – but worth noting that trio along with TDR and Johann have been our most efficient five so far). BUT, defensive limitations, freshness, and the unique skillsets of the three guards in waiting need to be worked in more aggressively and, I hold, mesh well with the other three.
I’d like to see us trust that depth more in these meaningful games; because I do believe the benefits of playing these guys will help their ability to contribute long term, and will help our ability to keep a high level of energy on the floor at all times.
Okay, I’ll be at Queens live and will also have access to the recordings as we face our final tune-up prior to Texas. Thanks for reading an abridged piece, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
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