Who even played well, by their set standard in this game? Sam Lewis and Ugonna Onyenso most would confidently say? I’d say Ugo for sure. Sam played quite well offensively but not the most complete game on defense.
Point being, it still wasn’t even close to one of our most polished games this season, we are still working through the effort of getting everyone to click at the same time, and we still won another game comfortably that was kind of right in line with where the metrics expected while holding a conference opponent to their lowest scoring output of the season.
When you talk about floors and ceilings for teams, this is what it looks like to have a high floor. This was an average team (maybe not in the ACC but they’re around 70th in the country metrically) and we were not playing at our best.
I wondered what I was going to talk about with this one… but then I saw a few things in the online chatter world that made me do a bit of a double take around…
Thijs De Ridder
Things like, “he struggles against athleticism” or in one discussion I was having that he’s more often a liability on defense than he is a difference maker. That last one completely blew my mind. And, look, I get it… when the most recent game you see is him playing one of his worst games of the season, these kinds of discussions happen. I imagine that when people say things like that, they’re thinking about how he got blocked twice and had a few awkward looking shots, about how he fouls more than he should, and how he sometimes decides to throw the ball over Jacari White’s head five rows into the stand.
Those are all things you’d love him to clean up… but I’m here to tell everyone that this is both our best player AND the player with the worst bench depth behind him. If he struggles against athleticism… how did he do against UNC and their flood of athletic 6’10″+ dudes in the frontcourt? 20-points on 7-11 shooting? How about in the second best domestic professional league in the world? Did he look like he struggled against athleticism as he tried to dunk on top of the 3rd leading shot blocker in the country and drew a foul?
He would have if not fouled, too:
No. That’s silliness. He doesn’t struggle against athleticism. Maybe at the NBA level he would… but not here. He’s too much of an athlete himself – too strong too.
The reason he struggled in this game was because of the Syracuse zone, which they were double teaming him out of (defending him was the primary focus of their game plan), coupled with us not moving very well at times when he had the ball, some bad passes on his end… and then just generally he didn’t have his shot.
He leads the team in scoring by almost 4 ppg despite also being the primary player the opposition is trying to stop and has the most efficient FG% in so doing outside of Onyenso. That should hopefully speak for itself… and we’ve got so many clips throughout the season to show this import. If you’re going to someone to try to get you a bucket in a clutch situation, it’s probably De Ridder. He’s also the only guy whose minutes almost never fluctuate (outside of foul trouble) no matter how well he’s playing… because his baseline is still so important for us. So, perhaps it’s good to take a game where he didn’t light up the scoreboard to illustrate how much he’s helping even when he isn’t scoring the ball at his best (though 9-points isn’t nothing).
As a team, we got an offensive rebound on an insane 46% of our misses. De Ridder also leads the team in total rebounding, but trails only Johann Grünloh (by 2, 62-60… Ugonna Onyenso is next closest at 33!) in offensive rebounds for the season. Everyone on the team does this pretty well as a point of emphasis, but the two of them drive the attack and the results on that end.
Here are two looks below, the first highlights what a poor shooting TDR had, especially in the first half, but the motor to make up for it, keeping his own free throw miss alive, missing another three in the corner, but following that by collecting the tip back by Dallin Hall to eventually rock the thunderous dunk:
This next play could be called, “Show why UVa is a great offensive rebounding team this year,” but TDR is in the mix again, overpowering his man to grab the final board and then drawing the goaltend (still can see his finishing was off). It’s also worth noting in this one how he commands the double team when he goes into his bully ball mode, which allows for the nice look to be created for Jacari.
It’s also worth noting in that clip above, though, how stationary our four around the arc were when he was in back down mode. It didn’t really matter for the quality of this one because Syracuse opted to leave one man guarding Jacari and Sam in order to keep TDR from finishing this take, but Ugo being near-side did allow his man to lurk around the play more and didn’t really make him a threat.
This next clip, much later in the game with just over two-minutes left. This time he gets out ahead helping to break the press and takes the ball into the post again. This time his back down occupies two defenders and the eyes/attention of three. Mallory does a nice job of moving in this situation from more the top of the key down around the break, creating distance from Naithan George (#11) who has his eyes on Thijs. This makes for the easy kick out and Chance knocks down the opportunity to bump the lead up to 9.
Teams are really making it their beeswax to not leave De Ridder defended one-on-one anymore, which should create more opportunities like the above two, especially when we can rotate away from the ball some to free up more space.
We’ve seen the outside shot, his ability to handle the ball and attack off of the bounce, and his skill in the midrange throughout the season… but this is a nice go-to when he’s not making the jumpers that still threatens a defense and causes them to collapse/drawing them away from their own responsibilities.
What I most want to talk about, though, is his defense, though. It’s really good! So good, in fact, that there aren’t many opportunities to showcase it from this game because Syracuse tried their hardest not to test him more than they had to. Donnie Freeman, (#1) the 6’9″ Orange PF averaged almost 19ppg for the season before this one, and now averages under 18 because Thijs held him to 5 points on 2-11 shooting and none of those 5 points were actually scored on De Ridder! In fact, he really didn’t even try to challenge TDR much, with the Orange opting to play through their three guards in the pick and roll with a Center. When he did, this is the kind of resistance he met, below. Thijs contests on the catch far away from the hoop, gets over the screen, then cuts off the driving angle and forces the really rough fadeaway shot baseline.
If you’ve noticed, that’s a TDR staple where he keeps his hands high and moves his feet really well low, but uses his lower body strength to kind of guide and impede his opponent’s drive. I’m going to use some examples of past games here, which I don’t normally do, but to show the similarity in this against similar opponents since Syracuse just didn’t really test the waters that much:
That’s him absolutely locking up Caleb Wilson and then here’s one that looks very similar to the Freeman play, above, on Quadir Copeland:
This is dominant stuff against some of the very best offensive players in our conference. You can go all the way back to him holding Nick Martinelli, who averages almost 23ppr, to 9 points on 3-12 shooting. His ability to make it hard on opposing power forwards is very good.
That would be incredibly valuable for us by itself… because there is no bigger difference in defensive quality between starter and backup option than between TDR and Devin Tillis. Tillis sometimes has the strength, but he doesn’t have the mobility or the verticality to contend with the same athletes, and is often buried in isolation/offers far less resistance around the rim:
That was a switch onto J.J. Starling, which brings us to yet another strength of De Ridder defensively… he is the only player on the team who can effectively switch 1-5. Preferably, he just switches 1-4 and we have a Center on the court holding down opposing Centers… but he’s shown he can be helpful when helping on 7+footers:
Or playing against small ball Centers… but the fact that our 6’9″ almost 240lb PF can switch onto just about any ball handler in the league and give them fits is such a scheme luxury.
Again, ‘Cuse really didn’t try to test it very option, choosing to target elsewhere, but here’s a direct comparison in the clip below with Starling who took Tillis to the rack, in the clip above. First, we get a nice look at how disinterested Freeman is at trying anything against TDR to start the possession. He takes a dribble toward the lane, gets cut off, and just passes it out to George. The Orange attempt to clear Freeman out to the opposite corner but then end up using him as a ball screener which switches TDR onto Starling. He’s still got 5 seconds left on the shot clock when he shoots, but J.J. simply decides he’s better off taking a pull up three than attempting the drive here… but TDR’s contest is really nice and the shot falls way short.
He’s done this all season; my favorite being this switch onto Boopie Miller in the SMU game:
In most games you get the bulk scoring… but even in those you don’t, you get the offensive rebounding, the gravity to be able to play through him and, IMO, the best and most versatile defense on the team switchable 1-5 who is rarely scored on as the primary defender and who leads the team in helping to secure the glass.
I mentioned in my last piece that I don’t often spend as much time writing about the obvious things, instead preferring to focus on specific themes or trends or areas that we could improve. But it’s still worth reiterating from time to time how much Thijs De Ridder brings to the table, sure, in some of the games we’ve seen in the past, but even when he doesn’t have his best game!
Guard Defense
Lost in some of the Grünloh defensive slump recently is that our frontcourt is still our core defensive strength when TDR is on the court (I specify because it does become more dicey with Tillis). You get his ability to switch the ball screens and lock up some big-time scorers, as seen above, and then you pair that with two of the best shot blockers in the country holding down the fort on the inside. That’s been a really nice base to build around all season.
I would say, to a player, all of our guards have improved their defense significantly as the season has progressed, but none of them are still that kind of lock down presence that that drive the strength of the defense. That was on full display in this game as Syracuse’s three guards, Naithan George (19pts on 8-9 shooting), J.J. Starling (13pts on 6-14 shooting), and Nate Kingz (13pts on 5-11 shooting) absolutely drove their offensive production and scored 45 of their 59 total points. They kind of got it going against all of our perimeter defenders in turn, which jives with how often we switch, but also with how they’re all kind of vulnerable in their own way.
Common wisdom says our best perimeter defender is Chance Mallory. It’s probably true, depending on the assignment. Not because of his rebounding, which is great… but all of our guards do that quite well and are in that 3-4rpg range… but because he does make more splash plays that the others that have such a momentum-changing impact on the game. He leads the team in steals with some of the heads up, hustle/savvy plays like this one where he just collapses down on the roll and rips the ball:
Or like here, below, where every once in a while, he’ll get a rip in full court pressure that will lead to more points. Shout out the offensive rebound after making the steal to keep the play alive too:
He’s also gotten really good at, and I think he’s improved this over the year, baiting the offensive foul. Like here, below, stopping the fast break and then needing to stand up to the back down in the half court, he does a nice job of drawing this offensive foul call (and Dallin Hall did this later in the game and didn’t get the call… despite that I think that also was an offensive foul… it looked like more of a flop).
That’s standing up to the back down, but this next one below, where he takes a really nice angle to cut off a drive and force another charge I think is even better:
He really does use that quickness as a weapon and understands driving angles really well. It really does seem like he’s good for several splash plays like this per game (it’s four alone in this one that I just showed) where his imprint and impact is so obviously over everything. It probably is the best differentiator around “best” at this point.
But, I will say, that the highlight plays still come with some struggles as well especially navigating ball screen defense against skilled, guards with a little size. Syracuse had them across their trio, so they tested everyone on our roster. In this clip, below, you can see how Chance does sometimes get lost in traffic, shielded off, and can have trouble bothering the shot. The 6’3″ George (#11) is just kind of able to effectively keep Chance on his hip and use his size advantage to get a shot off outside of the lane.
Here, below, he just kind of loses his edge trying to get around a screen and knowing how hard it’s going to be to catch George here. George uses the separation to get to an uncontested midrange jumper (Johann could have been way more convincing here but it is hard to defend when the recovery is on the ground).
Here, below, it’s that similar challenge of trying to be bothersome on the contest when having to recover back from the screen and being contained well by the prison dribble. He ends up in good defending position as the shot is being taken here, but George has depth at that point and doesn’t have to worry about his shot being blocked.
And here’s another, below, where all it takes is George to get him on his hip again, and he can fight off the recovery, draw the Center, and throw the lob:
Sometimes, I think it could be Dallin. He’s definitely our best team rotational/help defender at this point, and he also holds up to physicality really well with his strength and length. In this clip below, the 6’5″ Nate Kingz attempts to back Hall down, dislodge him with a forearm, and shoot over him, but Dallin stays tight and gets a really good contest on this one:
But Dallin does better when guys try to play him like that and feed into his size and physicality. He still loses his angles against quickness too often (although he’s gotten better):
Sam Lewis has the tools to be the best perimeter defender on the team (and had some nice spot moments on Freeman in this one, too) with his mobility and length… but he’s still not mentally consistent throughout a contest – here, below, getting frustrated with himself for giving up an offensive rebound only to distract himself and give up a spin back to the basket for a layup:
He also got himself in foul trouble early just being too physical away from the ball… twice. And here, late in the game, he just kind of gets beaten straight out of isolation with a quick first step – opening his hips and allowing a clear path driving lane down the left side of the paint:
I believe that the biggest thing with Sam is he doesn’t quickly enough identify when his man is a threat; like he’s not always on high-alert expecting that he’s about to be tested. When he is, he does a much better job… but too often he’s surprised.
Jacari has been the worst defender metrically throughout the year, and had really struggled since returning from injury… although I do think he’s been working on elevating that side of his game and it’s been showing up over the last few contests. That being said, I wouldn’t put him in the discussion yet, either, as he still over-reacts to fakes on the perimeter and concedes clear driving lanes himself:
Having players like Ugo and Grünloh behind them still does a lot of lifting when you get your hips completely flipped and allow a driving lane like this, but he makes the floater untenable:
Or when you can concede a back down and have to try to reach from behind in desperation, only to have your man basically have to abort his shot mid-air because of the looming presence:
I think the answer probably just is Chance because of all of the splash plays and because they all (Thomas, too, but that’s more well-documented) have their vulnerabilities. Metrics prefer he and Dallin together in our best defensive lineups. They don’t really like Sam and they really don’t like Jacari (they actually prefer Malik to both but I don’t think that passes the sniff test at least re: Sam – Malik is the best rebounding guard though).
But it is interesting because you know you want TDR and one of the Centers (current trend, Ugo, yearlong numbers, Johann) in your best defensive lineups… but with the guards there really is a hot-hand kind of feel like with scoring… but for defense. I wouldn’t say that the Syracuse trio just basically hard lifting all game is overly concerning. Points have to come from somewhere and we held this team to their season low. But I still don’t love that we could search all game and not find a clean answer to Naithan George almost being perfect from the floor despite such high volume of scoring coming from the guard position.
Maybe it just doesn’t really matter if we’re so successful at shutting down the frontcourt offense. I think back to the Cal game where Camden, Pippen, and Ames each got theirs (15, 17, and 18 respectively) but we literally shut out their PF and C and held their bench to 10 points. It’s really the games where our opponents haven’t had to just rely on their guards to carry the offense where we’ve lost. Something to keep pondering because I would still classify this game as a quality defensive performance. It does feel vulnerable not really having a defensive stopper at G, though. This is where I was encouraged by some of the more havoc-inducing proactive rotations we were playing with during our hottest defensive stretches. I’d like to see more of those as we’re feeling a little more vanilla in that way lately.
Something to keep an eye on.
Slow Start But For Different Reasons
It was yet another slow start, this time going down 8-4 (nothing like the N.D. or B.C. games, though). I will say that not all slow starts are created equal because, unlike some of those games, I didn’t think this one had much to do with Johann Grünloh. One thing I’ve noticed in the others that appears to be a trend, but that stood out to me in this one, is that we seem to either really try to get Malik Thomas going early in the game… or HE seems to really try to get going early in a game. Perhaps it’s intentional re: if he can get on a heater, things come a little more easily.
Whether it’s strategy or whether it’s just Malik being ultra-aggressive early on, I don’t like it. Thomas has shown throughout the year that he’s more effective when he lets the game come to him… and he’s also shown that he’s never shy about shooting an open shot… so I don’t see much benefit in trying to get him hot early when he’s just as inclined to shoot a shot later. Here, for example, I mean this is just a 1-on-4 fast break!
I know we still haven’t played a minute yet and that the wild thing is that he could have finished this shot… but I’d much rather do something like that if points were already proving hard to come by later in the game. Here you’re just delaying the rest of your teammates getting into any kind of flow early, running some offense, getting some touches, etc. Love fast break opportunities – don’t need us jamming things into a crowd of four with no one on our team around.
This next one, below, I don’t mind the second shot at all… that’s a wide-open look orchestrated cleanly by Dallin Hall… but the first one is more like a heat check and he wasn’t hot.
Now, I write that, and he literally follows that up by stepping into this shot on the following possession when the Orange defense falls too far back after their press:
He made it, right? I simultaneously love that Malik Thomas had the confidence to shoot this shot right after missing the previous two, and also was cringing live about not trying to get better shots early already starting to sport a deficit.
And, just wrapping this one up, you don’t fault him for this drive given the shot clock, but we’re back to him being sloppy in the lane and turning the ball over or forcing a rough shot too often again:
It’s a roller coaster! Thomas went from slumping, to a crazy heater where it looked like the game had slowed down for him and he’d figured out exactly how he needed to play on both ends, to looking closer to his early season form again (although not quite that bad, he did hit some nice momentum shots in this one, like the one two clips ago).
It’s wild to me that both of the team’s leading scorers can go for under 10 points, Chance goes for 5, Johann too… and yet we still end up with a comfortable 72 because of the next man up. Ugo rocking the 10-point performance was big as was.
Sam Lewis Lasers
This offensive possession was off-schedule and didn’t go anywhere and Sam Lewis bailed us out with 3 of his 16-points by freeing himself up for a pull up three.
I’ll show more Sam Lewis finishes in the final section, but wanted to include this here as a standalone because it has started to become a bit of a trend. The shot to send the N.D. game to the second OT was very similar to this from a similar location. So, two points, I don’t love so much isolation basketball but it’s cool to have a guy like this who has started to rise to the occasion more than once. Alright, last section.
Dallin Hall
I think Dallin Hall is under-appreciated right now, probably primarily because he’s not Chance Mallory. And, to be clear, he’s not Chance Mallory. Chance does some things that no one else on the team can do, at least as consistently, and is the best on the roster at opportunistic defense, and dribble penetration, while also being very good at most other things. I don’t think it’s a problem that he starts, at all, because Chance’s punch off of the bench has been so effective all season. If I had to pick one to have in the game to close, I’d pick Chance… but that’s the other thing… you don’t have to pick because most of the time they’re both out there.
Dallin, also, does some really nice stuff. He leads the team in assists and assist-to-turnover ratio. He manipulates the defense with his eyes, and I think has the best court-vision on the team. Here, below, watch how he holds the pressure zone at the end by looking to TDR and then firing the pass to Lewis in the corner – which makes all of the difference in providing such a clean shot vs. a more closely contested three:
Here, he sees Martin Carrère making his CUT FROM THE CORNER (sorry, you know I have to include a clip if it’s Carrère getting a bucket while doing the name of the site), and leads him into the dunk perfectly, while threading the pass through the zone.
And here he literally makes Naithan George fall with his cross prior to hitting Lewis cutting into the lane:
I showed some of his defense above and highlighted his improvement with his help defense in an earlier piece. If you’re trying to get your best defensive lineups out there, he’s absolutely on the floor.
The biggest concerns with Hall today are his outside shot going dormant (which, hopefully, this shot in transition can help build on recovering… but it may be a journey back):
And, I think, tangentially… or even, fully, related to the above, is that we could use him being more aggressive in trying to make more plays himself. I think Chance being so good with the ball in his hands along with so many mouths to feed on offense have made him reluctant to attack himself.
And yet, so often in clutch moments in games… like this one, below, he’ll turn it on and put it on himself to go and make a play. That’s a nice first step with the ball, straight-line drive to the rim, and finish through contact.
We saw him go for 20 against Maryland when the rest of the team was cold. My point is basically just two things – I think Dallin has carved out a very nice role for himself among his minutes and does so many things to help us win games without carrying a huge scoring role. AND I’d like to see him be more aggressive and do believe that he could carry at least a little more of a scoring roll. Stop pump faking wide open threes, attack with his drive more often looking to finish. If he starts doing those things even just a few more times a game, I think it’d be positive.
In Conclusion
No wild summary here other than I think TDR is somehow still a little underrated… and Dallin Hall is definitely underrated. We’re up to #15 in the country and are squarely on the 4-seed line while battling atop the ACC and we are nowhere near playing to our ceiling. Think about all of the things that didn’t go amazingly in this game:
- De Ridder was slumping on offense
- Thomas is out of form on both ends again
- 3 of our 4 stop scorers were well under their averages
- Jacari White is still working his way back from his injury and is still wearing a brace
- Johann Grünloh is still not playing his best basketball although seems to be improving from recent previous games
- We did a pretty poor defensive job on all three of their guards
13-point conference win. That’s one of those things where if even some of those things that we’ve seen before and know can turn start to swing positively, all of a sudden we’re starting to feel a lot better about the way we’re playing again. In the meantime, 20-3 and 15th in the nation isn’t too bad while trying to recapture our form.
This game tonight will probably be a test, on the road again, in another lower energy arena. FSU has been playing well in their past five – winning four of them; one of which was @Miami and the narrow loss being @SMU. It’s a recipe for more hand-wringing. Of course, I’d love for us to turn some corners and start to look really polished again. But, really, I’d love us just to get through this trap game without looking ahead to Nashville and OSU.
Until later, friends!
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