We’re still not on our “A game” at the moment, despite winning this game by 20-points. The 67-47 contest seemed like another frustration in shooting… heck, the announcers got the memo and were talking about it all game in weird and nonsensical ways, but I won’t examine that too closely. Yet, we ended up finishing at 35% from three for the game which is… completely acceptable.
Optically, it looked like the offense was lagging in this one given the final score; and there were plenty of times where we were kind of standing around and we were also passing up shots I’d have wanted us to take – looking a little tentative with respect our recent shooting issues. Gradually, over the course of the game, though, that shifted – and actually every single player who got on the floor except for Jacari White hit a three in this one (never would have bet on that). The offense itself finished with 1.14 points per possession… which was better than both the B.C. and N.D. games – but still removed from the 1.2+ mark set against UNC, SMU, and Louisville in the games prior. It does seem to be the case that things are coming just a little more difficultly on that side of the ball; so hopefully the shots start falling and we can build off of some of the momentum that came toward the end of the game.
The more encouraging thing that happened in this game was the resurgence of the defense after having rough showings in three consecutive outings. Regardless of how you feel about the Panthers’ offensive skillset (and I have been saying recently that they’re the unfortunate combo of being both small and poor outside shooters), we still held them to an alarming (for them) .78 points per possession! That’s good regardless of opponent… and the 108th-ranked offense in the country isn’t like we were playing Rider (who we actually allowed .83ppp back then, by the way).
So, it was good to see the defense locked back in again and carrying a game for us where we could exhale and there wasn’t so much pressure to score. Recall, before that frustrating collapse against UNC we had been on a stellar defensive run where that side of the ball basically fully caught up to the offense in terms of efficiency rankings (it’s since dipped after the three prior to this).
What caused the change in defensive quality? It was actually a lot of different things, despite what the one variable we’re about to spend the majority of this piece on would lend you to believe. For one, Jacari White was absolutely locked in on that side of the ball which was great to see given how he’s been since his return from injury. Where that’s been a vulnerability, he was getting in guys’ pockets, harassing the dribble, and switching and closing out with tenacity. We’ll see some of that in other clips and I’ll call it out when it’s there. He was 0-8 from the field, scored zero points, and yet played 20 minutes and was +15 in his time because of how well he was playing in every other way. Chance Mallory made some really great plays, and we will see those. We had some nice rotations. Guys were locked in. A significant difference, which ties back to my last piece about his recent defensive struggles was that Ugonna Onyenso again played over half of the game – 21 minutes to Johann Grünloh’s 19 – and Ugo’s run again went significantly better, especially on the defensive end.
This inevitably ties into the recent debate of the moment, which is whether or not we should start Ugo with the goal of minimizing some of these slow starts that we’ve been dealing with in conference play. While I’d reject the notion that all of our slow starts have been primarily Grünloh’s fault more than anyone else’s (and even some of our slow offensive start in this one was more due to Malik Thomas forcing things again), this most recent stretch of slow starts against N.D., B.C. and Pitt can be greatly tied to his play.
I’m going to go ahead and make the case why I don’t think it’s time for a change just yet (but am more than open to it if things don’t change for the better soon) after showing some of their respective play from this game. Let’s go ahead and talk through some of the clips and how things went down and then have that discussion after. This will be the majority of this piece, but I’m also going to do a mini-showcase on come of Chance Mallory’s cool stuff at the end as well as a couple of quick one-clippers on two other topics.
Johann Grünloh
Defense
Pitt got out to a quick 7-3 lead again in this one, just as things have been going recently, we sat Grünloh for Ugo (and Hall for Mallory and Lewis for White) and we promptly went on a 12-0 run. Hilariously, as soon as we put Johann back in the game after that stretch, Pitt breaks their drought. This kind of juxtaposition coupled with yet another poor start probably highlighted the conversation, but there’s no shaking some of his early struggles.
In this first clip, the first play of the game, Pitt immediately attacks off of the pick and roll. You see Johann playing extreme sag defense, trying to get low and wide… but he just gets too much depth. He gets caught in no man’s land both too deep to step up and bother the would-be runner and still too far committed (and also deep) to be able to get back to the lob pass.
There are some other things you could call out there, like Thomas being a little slow to get back into the play after having an initially decent angle around the curl – but this is almost entirely on Johann’s depth and reactions.
Okay, next, we’re starting to get the sense that he’s trying to play a little more active here than he has in recent games. He got too much depth earlier but he was bouncing around a bit and here he drops down to help double a guard post up. On the kick out, Sam Lewis does a nice job of helping and kind of threatening to contest the shot prior to recovering to his own. The problem is just that Grünloh is too lax in his own recovery, keeping too much of a buffer maybe worried about the blowby, and conceding the outside shot.
At 36%, the 6’10” Cam Corhen (#2) is Pitt’s 3rd best regular three-point shooter; so it wouldn’t have been in the scout to let him take this.
So that was 5-3 just on what I showed, they got another clean bucket and Johann sat. This is his first possession back after our 12-0 run:
Now, that’s a very fortunate roll for Corhen on the dead-iron… but it’s still way too much space to shoot the shot. If I had to pinpoint the issues vs. what we saw from Johann’s defense when he was at his best, I’d say that he’s less aggressive, less decisive, but also just a little slow with his ability to get to his spots. Maybe the legs are a little fatigued, or maybe he’s in his head.
Okay, adding some quantity here since we’re showcasing both players just to show that these weren’t a few isolated one-offs. In this next one, you could also say that Hall could have identified this and pinched down on this earlier, too… but it’s still Grünloh getting sucked into turning his back to his man altogether.
I’ve got the least issues with that one of any that we’ve showed so far, because at least he’s trying to make something happen aggressively, it did take a very nice play from Pitt, and better help defense could have also bailed him out. Still, the timing and technique was all-or-nothing and required that he anticipate and get a block correctly here… which he didn’t.
Now, here’s the thing, though… all of these clips are around the first 10-minutes or so into the game. There were other moments I could have pulled, including shooting fouls, etc., but most of the glaring and most obvious weaknesses were early. I did think that as the game started going on, he settled in a bit and was also being more aggressive in general.
Here’s what he was going for on the play prior where he sags in the lane and slides down to block TDR’s man (after a 4-5 screen) on the block – triggering a runout the other way for us (good pass by TDR).
It’s easy to just look at the result and say this was good vs. the other, but the angle and the way he engages with the drive are both much better.
Here’s another play, where this time he was whistled for the foul… and, I mean, I don’t have beef with the call; it does look like he gets the man with the body, fair enough. That being said, it was really clean and proactive up top and there are a lot of refs who would have let this go because of that.
There are a lot of places I mind our guys getting fouls – but making the ref call that where he just kind of wolfed the shot attempt down at the rim – I’m very comfortable with that. I thought he slid his feet much better on this one, too, and covered a lot of ground in order to be there convincingly on the challenge.
All-in-all, still very wanting in this area compared to what he’s been previously and to what Ugo is turning in when he’s out there. So, how was the offense looking to supplement?
Offense
There were some moments but, turns out, also pretty wanting. I’ll qualify that by saying that defense is the big difference between the two at the moment. Grünloh actually finished with more points in this one; but this is really supposed to be his big differentiator. He’s still been finishing decently recently when he gets the ball around the rim (shout out this Mallory navigation, below):
But his scoring down there has really not added much more than Ugo has provided… which we’ll see soon.
At the end of the game, he hit this three off of a pick and pop and you see him kind of clap at the end like “thank you” kind of vibes. So, that’s great in the sense that you want him to build confidence and hope that this starts heading in the right direction.
It’s odd, though, because most of us think and talk about Grünloh as the stretch-5 on the roster who adds more value… and I’m not going to be showing the Ugo three later (but know that he also made one)… but Grünloh shoots 31% from deep and Onyenso shoots 29% – it’s not that glaring of a difference outside of perception. Johann has hit 14 threes to Onyenso’s 7; but he’s also looked for his own shot more often i.e. there’s still a sense that when he shoots an open one that it’s a quality look and when Ugo shoots one it’s an adventure. Neither of these percentages are ones we want to prioritize over other looks… but both are such that if they’re just wide open out there than you need to force the defense to defend you.
An area that I think Grünloh has been a little worse lately, as well, is being sure and confident with the ball near the rim – which does also happen with Ugo, he had a travel in this one being indecisive turning into the lane, but not as regularly lately. Here’s a look, below, where we pass the ball ahead to him on the break (Mallory was chastising him about this after) and rather than keeping the ball high, he brings it down and gets it stripped:
Here’s a different look where he doesn’t get it stripped, but he doesn’t use his length to his advantage and tries to force a weak shot up through contact that looks more like a prayer:
It’s not even the misses that are the issue alone – it’s just the lack of quality on the shot like this when the opportunity should provide something higher percentage.
This last one is neither a turnover nor a bad shot. In fact, it’s a pretty good feed to the corner on a three we could have made. The problem isn’t the pass… it’s that he gets the ball SO deep and with momentum, and with only 6’0″ Demarco Minor between him and the rim. He needs to try to dunk this, draw some contact, finish at the rim over the smaller player… play with size and momentum!
To me, maybe more than any other offensive look in this game, says that he’s not playing with confidence right now and isn’t trusting himself to be aggressive. If Johann gets the ball so close to the hoop running at the rim like this, I want to see him take off and try to posterize someone.
Keep in mind, Grünloh is still the fifth-highest scorer on this team. He’s had moments of quality when he’s playing freely on both sides of the ball that have been truly positive – for several games in a row – but then he’ll kind of shrivel up like this sometimes… this being the most pronounced so far this year. It’s safe to say that the questions about his performance, despite it being a relatively low number of games, are founded in reality. So, let’s look at…
Ugonna Onyenso
Ugo! I am mostly going to focus on the defensive difference between the two in this piece, because I still don’t think there’s a ton of difference offensively at the moment. Onyenso is probably playing with his most confidence on both sides of the ball right now, though, and is converting things more efficiently than Johann over this period of time.
He also made a three in this game… and his other two-points were from this slick alley oop that makes for an easy conversion point when his teammates create something:
It’s not perfect, certainly, but he’s playing with confidence and a high motor and, if you do go back and look at the more recent piece against B.C., you’ll see some pretty impressive finishes without much break in momentum (I’m thinking specifically about that dunk in traffic after the one slip screen and how much that contrasts with Grünloh’s pass to the corner above. Fine, what’s the point of having such an archive of Cuts if you can’t search it up and pop it in here?
That’s absolutely an improvement… but, like I said, the defense has been the main thing. Remember how we went on the 12-0 run when he first came in the game, well that was because of his impressive mobility and rim protection, illustrated below as he peels off his own man to help and sends the shot off the side of the backboard:
He’s been getting to more shots and he’s been bothering more shots, but lost in all of it sometimes is that players are making more mistakes just around him when they do have the ball because they’re rushing anticipating the shot block. He’s that kind of intimidating presence.
Here’s Cam Corhen getting going too fast trying to drive by him at the end of the possession. I’ll also just note the really nice team defense beforehand, including Ugo being a formidable presence in his sag defense early on and Jacari White navigating those switches well.
Corhen is absolutely pressing there… and we saw it later in the game too (unfeatured) as Pitt blew a clean transition layup because they were aware of Ugo’s presence trailing.
They’re worried not just because he can be absolutely a menace down there… like here (shout out to Chance’s pressure early):
But they’re also worried because they can feel his presence in there… he slides really well and he’s just around everything even when he’s not getting there.
I do want to be clear that it’s not without any mistakes. He does allow some baskets through from time to time… like here, below, when I don’t think he believes that Pitt is really going to try to go coast-to-coast against the set defense here and is late to slide over:
But the overwhelming reason right now that the defense went from being a bit slushy early in the game to absolutely locking things down for a long stretch… and then throughout the game, is because of Ugo’s high quality of play back there when he was on the court coupled with Johann’s drop off in quality as I showed earlier.
What Do We Do?
One of the more common discussions from fans right now is this idea that we should start Ugo and bring Grünloh off of the bench. The idea being that we can’t afford to keep having these slow starts to the game, and Unyenso’s presence is the biggest defensive differentiator at the moment, while also being in better offensive form as well).
I’m chuckling in my own little world right now because before the season I wrote that I’d want Ugo to be our starter and play slightly more of the minutes between the two. At the time, that was not met well… some folks even trying to shame me into changing my opinion or something, idk… it was weird. And NOW that there’s a lot more momentum for this, I’m going to sit here and say, “Not yet. Let’s be a little more patient.”
Something, something, irony. The reason I don’t want to make a change yet isn’t because I don’t think Ugo is playing better at the moment, he clearly is, but it’s more of a contextual thought process around what’s happened in the season so far vs. what’s happening now and some speculation on what is more likely to happen from here. I’ll start with the background:
This is a pretty small sample size of games given the full season of play. Metrically, Grünloh has been our third best player over the span of the season if you believe EvanMiya and our actual most positively impactful defensive player to have on the floor. That’s accounting for the full season, even this most recent stretch. So, that’s the kind of “how things have actually gone, adjusted for competition when he’s on the floor” baseline that we shouldn’t dismiss just due to recency. But, if you’re not in love with sort of that weight-adjusted BPM/style model, I’ll vouch for this having scoured the film all year. I believe that our best basketball this season has been @Texas, and then the stretch of games from @N.C. State through @SMU. The most things were clicking for us during those windows – but that’s in no small part because Grünloh was also playing great during those stretches. He was playing fantastic interior defense, standing up to some very formidable bigs, especially @Texas and SMU, and he was doing well on the offensive end too – highlighted by the 16-point effort on crazy efficiency @Louisville and the 15-point performance on similarly crazy efficiency against Texas. These were the games where we seemed on another level.
Now, Ugo has been pretty steady all year. He’s probably playing his best basketball right now, but the roller coaster is pretty flat for him at a quality level. You’re getting more consistency with a higher floor and a lower ceiling. My desire, then, is to try to get Grunloh back to paying closer to how he was then – because ultimately we want things to click and hope that we’re hitting our ceiling come March.
One rebuttal might be challenging that Grünloh at his best is actually better than Ugo at his best… but I don’t really feel like I need to give that rebuttal too much energy. The seasonal numbers and highest points of quality kind of speak for themselves, in my opinion. There are absolutely things that Ugo just does better than Johann… but when Johann is playing his absolute best basketball; he gives a lot more offensive firepower without sacrificing much on the defensive end (and in some cases playing better for stretches).
The rebuttal that I do give more time, though, is this idea that we can agree that Grünloh offers a higher ceiling and that Ugo is playing much better right now… so why not just start him now?
This response is a little more squishy and based on vibes. It’s true; we could try that… and maybe it would motivate him and then you could get him back in the starting lineup (or use him as a bench pop… you’re still playing these guys pretty close to half of the game no matter what order they come in). If we were playing a Tournament game tomorrow or a matchup like @Duke where it felt like we needed to pull out every advantage to win that game without looking into the future, then I would do just that right now… but I don’t think Syracuse at home and @FSU meet that criteria yet.
It would be one thing if our starting lineup was fluid all year with players moving in and out given their form. If that was the precedent, I’d be less reticent. But, no, we actually haven’t changed the starting lineup all year except for one single player (Lewis) in one single game (@VT). This includes keeping Malik Thomas in the starting lineup all season despite scaling his minutes back dramatically when he was slumping and struggling on defense. In fact, Thomas’s relative poor form lasted much longer and was more negatively impactful than Grünloh’s has now… and all of this with literally the most impactful player on our team by metrics (Chance Mallory) coming off of the bench all year.
It seemed to work pretty well for Malik, and Chance for that matter. Thomas was basically told that we still trusted and valued him through never pulling him from the starting rotation, but that we would adjust playing time accordingly. He worked his way back into absolutely fantastic form for a while there, and now is still playing much better than he was earlier in the year. Meanwhile, Chance has played his role incredibly well, has provided a huge spark when he comes into the game – much like a Manu Ginobili, if you will, and has still played starter’s minutes for the season (25mpg).
Now, Thomas is a Super-Senior, Mallory is a Freshman, and the opposite is true of our Centers. What worked well for Malik may not necessarily be the same approach needed for Grünloh… but making that move, in effect, says that how he’s playing now and Ugo’s impact are bigger than the disparity Thomas and Chance had (or Hall, if you prefer that argument – but I think Thomas is more appropriate) and that we don’t think we can afford to have the same confidence/patience. That would be a pretty big pill to swallow, I think, after just a 3-4 game stretch of lesser quality play. The number of minutes either Center plays isn’t really at issue here. Ugo played 24 to Johann’s 15 against B.C. He played more in this game. Removing Johann from the starting lineup would keep him from immediately squaring off against the opposition’s starters, sure, but that could naturally happen anyway – and in this game he was out before the 4-minute mark. No, IMO, given how the season has played out and how much we use our bench, making that move would be more about sending a message and trying to motivate.
Maybe it would work! That’s where the coaching psychologist has to come into play a bit and you have to try to figure out how best to motivate each individual player. If you think that would light a fire under him, then by all means. There’s also the risk, though, that he could look at how the starting lineup has been handled all year and it could hurt his confidence. Whenever you bring a point like that up, so often people say, “So what? If he’s not mentally tough then he shouldn’t be out there anyway!” But that’s kind of pointless chest-thumping, in my opinion. Look at Onyenso last season, for example, he completely lost confidence and motivation given how poorly he was being utilized/not. People wrote him off as a talented player who was soft and couldn’t live up to his potential. I even heard the whole “bad attitude” thing being thrown around like he was sulking or something because he was genuinely negatively impacted by how crazy Jerome Tang was. Now that we’ve seen him, is that a kid with a bad attitude… or is that a kid who just needed someone to believe in him and empower him/give him confidence? These things matter and don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution.
But, given that the long-term priority should absolutely be to get him back to playing his best basketball (or close to it) because of how much better we play as a team when he is (not to mention the positive international recruiting narrative), my gut says that the best way to do that is to keep him with the starters and let him work through it. So far, Odom appears to be in the same boat – if and when he does decide to go to Ugo, though, I’m not going to bat an eye at this point; I’m going to assume he’s weighed all of these things.
So, for all of those reasons, I’m leaning toward riding with Grünloh as the starter for a little while longer until it gets worse OR until we feel like we can’t afford to NOT make the change. As I said, I just don’t see the urgency now. If we can’t beat Syracuse at home after a slow start for the first 3-4 minutes of the game, then it’s not going to be solely Grünloh to blame. The same is true for @FSU. The first game I’d consider doing it if nothing changes is the neutral site OSU game (unless you do lose one of the others) but, if I had full autonomy over this situation and all other things equal, I’d probably try to keep him working through it until the Miami game at home on 2/24. They are a very good 2-point shooting team, vibes should be good for the court dedication ceremony, and it comes at the start of our toughest remaining three-game stretch with N.C. State (who is playing well right now) coming to Charlottesville prior to the trip to Duke. That’s my personal litmus test for, “Okay, we can’t wait on this any longer.”
But, yeah, we’ll see how it plays out and I’ll try to scale back the Center conversation for a little while at least until there’s a change to how either are playing (or utilized).
Time for a palette cleanser.
Chance Mallory Magnificence
Often when I’m writing these things I try to focus either on sort of the debates of the moment (like the above) or like deeper cut kinds of things that aren’t necessarily obvious. Defensive issues/rotations, cool offensive sets, player combos and utilizations, etc. I try to focus on things that are most at the heart of creative things we’re doing well or things that could be a liability and that need some consideration for changes.
That tends to mean that I don’t often spend as much time as maybe I should on the stuff that’s obviously good or that most casual observers immediately see. Well, today, I’m going to course-correct at least for this segment just to give some well-deserved praise to how awesome Chance Mallory has been at injecting life into the game on both ends for us. I do think Thijs De Ridder has been our BEST player this year… but Mallory has been metrically the most impactful and it is hard to argue with him.
The biggest thing that I didn’t know how it would translate for him was his defensive game, as high school tape isn’t always the most informative on how guys will be able to match up/effort at this level. Chance has been one of our better defenders period. Third on the team in impact, actually ahead of Ugo on the season, while being the single most important piece to our offensive success. There are the splash plays that he creates, like this one below, where his nose finds the ball and he is opportunistic to force a steal (and, in this case, a run out for a layup):
I’d be remiss not to highlight Jacari White’s defense on that play, too, though. His harassing the pass to the post and then quick switch onto the man in the corner made me sit up in my chair live… this was different from him.
Anyway, back to Chance, it also feels like he has one or two of these plays a game… the Jose Alvarado-style sneaky steals on an unsuspecting player (and this one sets up a nice no-look from Tills to… who else?).
Those plays are incredibly valuable from a game momentum standpoint. They lead to easy points and they’re just cool, so the crowd gets into it.
But the thing that I’ve found interesting in watching this year and having had some thoughts on smaller PGs in the past, is that there hasn’t been the same hidden liability or sacrifice. Mallory’s strength and athleticism have kept most players from just attempting to back him down and they don’t have the same comfort level just shooting over him as you’d expect. And, oftentimes, if they attempt to force the issue, they end up with something like this and the ball going the other way:
In fact, rarely do you even see our opposition go after Mallory on that side of the ball – they’ve apparently determined that’s not where the best advantage is to be found. Occasionally, you’ll see a little something here or there where someone hits a jumper on the sag screen action or after a rebound where he isn’t able to contest quite as well, but it’s very distinctly not an ongoing issue and we have other perimeter defenders who are considerably bigger concerns. So, that’s all pretty cool, especially considering that he’s also a very good rebounder from the guard position.
Maybe I’ll do a full defensive spotlight when a game merits it sometime soon… but I also wanted to touch on his offense some. Mallory’s shooting has come back down to earth a little, but he’s still shooting almost 37% from deep and over 76% from the foul line on the year. Both of those – needing to be accounted for from outside and being able to get to the line – are huge assets. The biggest way that he helps this team, though, is just his ability to create something from nothing – or to kickstart something on his own. This offensive possession, below, started with Jacari dribbling with his brace hand and ended up with Chance being harassed pretty hard on the perimeter with less than 10 seconds to go on the shot clock… until he just took it on himself to beat his man to the hoop and finished creatively through contact.
And then this next one, he swoops in for the defensive rebound and is then off to the races with a gorgeous spin-move to finish at the rim again:
I mean… that’s really not an open lane. Ugo’s man is right there too… but the deceptiveness and then the explosion were on point.
So, yeah, we’re incredibly fortunate to have had Mallory be such an important contributor this year – much more than I expected before the year started. He offers a fantastic skillset in general, but also such a complementary one with what this team needs. Huzzah positive things!
Alright, two quick one-clip topics before we wrap:
Offense Is Playing Hesitant
Odom called an appropriate angry timeout after this play, below, and things started getting hot after that, including Sam Lewis coming alive from outside. I think this possession kind of sums up the kind of off vibes around our offense at the moment, though, even though the scoring efficiency is still pretty good (just not as good as it has been at times). The play sets up Lewis in isolation here but, after he doesn’t make much headway and kicks the ball out, we pass up not one, not two, but three looks from the three-point line that were better than the one Sam ended up with a man in his face in the corner having to hoist some junk up as the shot clock expired.
I don’t actually mind the Thomas pump fake and pass because there was an aggressive contest right there and it created a wide-open Hall look… but Hall needs to be comfortable taking that shot and, when he didn’t TDR definitely should have.
It’s just got that vibe right now that some of our guys aren’t feeling overly confident in their shot, despite the fact that everyone on the court in that clip made one in the game and everyone except for Thomas, actually, ended up shooting 50% from three in the game (Sam 4-8, TDR, Hall, and Ugo 1-2).
Insane Offensive Rebounding Clip
Let me write a sentence that is both true and kind of unbelievable that I can do accurately: “We rebounded just over 39% of our misses in this one… just above our yearly average.” We’re still 5th in the country at this! Of all of the changes that have come from the Ryan Odom era… the one I probably wrote about the least coming into the season and also the one I’ve probably most enjoyed watching is our success on the offensive glass:
Firstly, it’s fun to watch effort and physical imposition… but it’s also just one of the best things you can be doing tactically. It bails you out of bad possessions, too. White’s first shot in that clip above was a desperation one after we didn’t get a good look and then we got two more, drew a foul, and then scored two-points after inbounding the ball (clip not included).
Great offensive rebounding cures whatever ails ya… like that shot and possessions like the one from the previous section too. Even though we did give another leak out bucket, we still outscored Pitt 18-8 in transition despite sending so many guys.
In Conclusion
It’s a long season and players go through cycles of quality. The hope is that the timing is such that most, if not all, players are firing together at the end of the season. I’m personally of the opinion that head down and staying the course is the best way to get there but, despite the lengthy discussion, I’m not actually very passionate about this one and if Odom decides that he does want to shake things up, I’m open to that too.
I don’t think he’s going to… at least not for a few more games. Okay, noon tip, I’ve hardly given you enough time to read so I’ll fire this off now.
Go Hoos!
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