1. Did We Invent a Defense?
Daryl Dora was on Tech Talk this past week. Level asked him some good questions about our defensive scheme, and Dora's responses confirmed my suspicions the past two years. I know our base defense is the pack-line, but it just looks different than other teams that run it. I'm done trying to figure out what it is exactly that we do different. I just know that it's a lot of fun to watch. Especially Mooney.
We don't always do this, but sometimes we refuse to let teams initiate half-court offense with a 3-man weave. Kansas does it a ton, so does Iowa State. The guy guarding the ball simply blows up the hand off. Try to watch Mooney the next time we’re doing this. He's incredible at it. He has excellent anticipation, quick & strong, and is a perfect fit for Beard's pack-line system. There's not a lot of free lancing allowed, but off-ball defenders (particularly on the weak side) play sort of a free safety role to deflect or intercept kick-out passes when guys get in the lane. Mooney is so freakin’ good at this. Gets a ton of steals & deflections without gambling much. Teams with really good guard play can penetrate the pack-line, force some rotations, and find a shooter for a half-decent look. I've watched a lot of basketball but never noticed any particular defender's closeouts on a 3-point shooter. Again, watch Mooney next time he closes out on a shooter. He gets out there in a hurry, but also does this judo chop maneuver with his hand darting out to several inches in front of the shooter's face. There are a lot of smart basketball people that will tell you 3-point defense is a meaningless stat, that there's not much you can do to defend the 3-point shot (other than limits attempts). There's even some data to support this theory. See https://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponents-3p/. Even if that theory is true, I think Tech's an exception. We're second best in the country (to Virginia, who runs a very similar scheme) at defending the three-point line.
Back to Dora's comments. Essentially, Mark Adams had an idea last year to tweak our defensive scheme to better suit how long and athletic our guards were. Dora said we tried it once exclusively in non-con and it was very successful (I'd bet money it was the Northwestern game). At some point, we committed to it totally, and it's really jacking with people. I posted after last year’s Kansas game that I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing, but I wanted it dubbed the half-court Press Virginia.
Here's some of Dora's quotes:
"People think it's very weird looking and don't understand it until they play against it.... it's just a different type of defense... they get confused... nobody really runs (this defense) the way we run it... Adams spends a lot of time teaching when to do different things with it in different situations (referring to how we treat screens)... we didn't run it at all during Beard's first year.."
Dora has buddies in coaching that call just to ask what in the hell it is that we're doing on defense. I wish I knew. Dora explained it some but, unless you’re a coach or former player, it’s difficult to follow the terminology. From my eyes, we play an ever-changing pack-line defense. Sometimes we switch all screens (Duke). Sometimes we blow up all dribble handoffs. Sometimes we play in a very conservative packline, with off-ball defenders camping out in the lane, and the on-ball defender denying entry passes to the post. We never, ever allow an entry pass into the post from the middle of the court. Sometimes it's that super-aggressive, zero blitz packline that we did so often last year with Niem at the top. I particularly love this 2-3 zone look that we start out in but, as soon as the other team initiates offense, we switch to the pack line. I think that is to combat teams running decoy action to force us into aggressive rotations before doing what they really want to do. That doesn’t work because we’re just sitting in a 2-3 zone the first 10 seconds of the shot clock.
It's a team-oriented way to defend. Most teams in a traditional man defense leave the on-ball defender and the guy guarding the screener to navigate ball screens. If the screener can shoot, fight through the screen; if the screener can’t shoot, hedge the screen or switch. We don't let offenses dictate the action like that. Unless we're switching all screens (which we might on Wednesday), the guy guarding the ball will often "ice" the screen, meaning he steps up in front of the screener, giving the ball-handler a fairly easy route to the basket by refusing the screen. However, the other 3 guys on the court are watching this (not their man), and I imagine they’ve watched some film and have an idea of what’s about to happen. One off-ball defender's job is to "wall up", meaning sprint to the basket, get position and stand with arms straight up in the air. We're lead the country in drawing charges because our guys know where the driver is going to come from. Some pack-line schemes call this the tunnel. You force drivers to only beat you into the paint by denying everything but a drive into a designated tunnel. Once we have a guy "walled" up, Tariq slides over to block the guy's shot. That happens a ton.
A commonly-played version of Tech's pack-line forces these driving tunnels to be the base line. I think Dora was calling this “siding… we side teams.” If the driver is smart, he drives baseline, gets to the rim, draws the "waller" and Tariq, and then kicks it to a guy standing in the opposite corner for a wide open three. That doesn’t work against Tech. We prep for that. Our last defender in the rotation, oftentimes Mooney or Moretti, leaves the top of the key and races over to the corner to deflect or intercept that pass while it's traveling along the base line. It's happened at least ten times this year. Texas had something for that yesterday. Their driver would get to the rim, go up like he was passing to the corner, but then make an awkward pass to a shooter at the top of the key (who's man had just left him to race to the shooter in the corner). Roach hit one wide open three doing this, and Ocetkowski missed a few wide that were wide open.
In the most simplistic sense, there’s only a few things that can happen when a team runs the pick-and-roll: (1) The driver takes the screen (Tech denies this), (2) the driver goes on top of the screen to shoot (by icing the screen, this becomes a contested shot); (3) the driver refuses the screen (Tech baits team into doing this); (4) the screener slips the screen/pops out to the three point line for a shot (Tech closes out hard and lives with that shot); or (5) the screener rolls to the basket for a lob pass (Tech lives with this, for the most part; Texas did it a ton, but it’s hard to consistently execute, like the one they botched late in the game). Unlike most defenses, Tech tries to dictate what the offense will do in these situations. Other teams are just reacting to what the offense does.
I heard Shaka call out "Buffalo" one time when they were in the half court. That's a common offensive set run in college hoops, and many call it that to pay tribute to a Buffalo coach that made it famous in the 90s. I wonder if teams that run Tech's version of the pack-line in the future will call it "Tech", or "Beard", or "Adams." I kinda hope they call it "the Niem"... "we're going to Niem this screen.. play all Niem in the half court.. their athletic guards make it really tough in that Niem."
2. 16 Straight Games Giving up Less than 1 PPP.
Texas came so, so close with those garbage buckets to scoring one point per offensive possession. They scored 62 on 64 possessions, which is the most efficient anyone has been against us. Give Shaka credit.
Regardless, we are now tied with 2006 Illinois for the 3rd best streak to start a season in the modern basketball era. Doing it against Iowa State may be the toughest task to date, but if we pull it off, it will tie us with the 2006 National Champ Florida team that had Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Al Horford, and Mo Speights. Decent company.
If this keeps up for another 3-4 weeks, people will, and should, be considering this Tech team to be one of the best college basketball defenses of all time.
3. Moretti & Mooney
Shots are starting to fall. They are 15-36 from three since conference play started. Morro is 44% and has taken the most of anyone in the conference (albeit with an extra game). We're nearly impossible to beat if these guys continue to shoot this way.
Mooney is on pace to shoot over 100 less threes than he did last year at South Dakota. I want him to shoot more. The guy can flat out score but is recovering from some voodoo curse that’s causing many of his shots to rattle around and magically jump out the basket. It’s happening less now, though. I don’t want to see any hesitation. If there’s 15 or less seconds on the shot clock, and he has any breathing room, the shot needs to go up. He has the potential to take over games from the three-point line with how much attention Culver and Moretti are getting.
Daryl Dora was on Tech Talk this past week. Level asked him some good questions about our defensive scheme, and Dora's responses confirmed my suspicions the past two years. I know our base defense is the pack-line, but it just looks different than other teams that run it. I'm done trying to figure out what it is exactly that we do different. I just know that it's a lot of fun to watch. Especially Mooney.
We don't always do this, but sometimes we refuse to let teams initiate half-court offense with a 3-man weave. Kansas does it a ton, so does Iowa State. The guy guarding the ball simply blows up the hand off. Try to watch Mooney the next time we’re doing this. He's incredible at it. He has excellent anticipation, quick & strong, and is a perfect fit for Beard's pack-line system. There's not a lot of free lancing allowed, but off-ball defenders (particularly on the weak side) play sort of a free safety role to deflect or intercept kick-out passes when guys get in the lane. Mooney is so freakin’ good at this. Gets a ton of steals & deflections without gambling much. Teams with really good guard play can penetrate the pack-line, force some rotations, and find a shooter for a half-decent look. I've watched a lot of basketball but never noticed any particular defender's closeouts on a 3-point shooter. Again, watch Mooney next time he closes out on a shooter. He gets out there in a hurry, but also does this judo chop maneuver with his hand darting out to several inches in front of the shooter's face. There are a lot of smart basketball people that will tell you 3-point defense is a meaningless stat, that there's not much you can do to defend the 3-point shot (other than limits attempts). There's even some data to support this theory. See https://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponents-3p/. Even if that theory is true, I think Tech's an exception. We're second best in the country (to Virginia, who runs a very similar scheme) at defending the three-point line.
Back to Dora's comments. Essentially, Mark Adams had an idea last year to tweak our defensive scheme to better suit how long and athletic our guards were. Dora said we tried it once exclusively in non-con and it was very successful (I'd bet money it was the Northwestern game). At some point, we committed to it totally, and it's really jacking with people. I posted after last year’s Kansas game that I didn’t know exactly what I was seeing, but I wanted it dubbed the half-court Press Virginia.
Here's some of Dora's quotes:
"People think it's very weird looking and don't understand it until they play against it.... it's just a different type of defense... they get confused... nobody really runs (this defense) the way we run it... Adams spends a lot of time teaching when to do different things with it in different situations (referring to how we treat screens)... we didn't run it at all during Beard's first year.."
Dora has buddies in coaching that call just to ask what in the hell it is that we're doing on defense. I wish I knew. Dora explained it some but, unless you’re a coach or former player, it’s difficult to follow the terminology. From my eyes, we play an ever-changing pack-line defense. Sometimes we switch all screens (Duke). Sometimes we blow up all dribble handoffs. Sometimes we play in a very conservative packline, with off-ball defenders camping out in the lane, and the on-ball defender denying entry passes to the post. We never, ever allow an entry pass into the post from the middle of the court. Sometimes it's that super-aggressive, zero blitz packline that we did so often last year with Niem at the top. I particularly love this 2-3 zone look that we start out in but, as soon as the other team initiates offense, we switch to the pack line. I think that is to combat teams running decoy action to force us into aggressive rotations before doing what they really want to do. That doesn’t work because we’re just sitting in a 2-3 zone the first 10 seconds of the shot clock.
It's a team-oriented way to defend. Most teams in a traditional man defense leave the on-ball defender and the guy guarding the screener to navigate ball screens. If the screener can shoot, fight through the screen; if the screener can’t shoot, hedge the screen or switch. We don't let offenses dictate the action like that. Unless we're switching all screens (which we might on Wednesday), the guy guarding the ball will often "ice" the screen, meaning he steps up in front of the screener, giving the ball-handler a fairly easy route to the basket by refusing the screen. However, the other 3 guys on the court are watching this (not their man), and I imagine they’ve watched some film and have an idea of what’s about to happen. One off-ball defender's job is to "wall up", meaning sprint to the basket, get position and stand with arms straight up in the air. We're lead the country in drawing charges because our guys know where the driver is going to come from. Some pack-line schemes call this the tunnel. You force drivers to only beat you into the paint by denying everything but a drive into a designated tunnel. Once we have a guy "walled" up, Tariq slides over to block the guy's shot. That happens a ton.
A commonly-played version of Tech's pack-line forces these driving tunnels to be the base line. I think Dora was calling this “siding… we side teams.” If the driver is smart, he drives baseline, gets to the rim, draws the "waller" and Tariq, and then kicks it to a guy standing in the opposite corner for a wide open three. That doesn’t work against Tech. We prep for that. Our last defender in the rotation, oftentimes Mooney or Moretti, leaves the top of the key and races over to the corner to deflect or intercept that pass while it's traveling along the base line. It's happened at least ten times this year. Texas had something for that yesterday. Their driver would get to the rim, go up like he was passing to the corner, but then make an awkward pass to a shooter at the top of the key (who's man had just left him to race to the shooter in the corner). Roach hit one wide open three doing this, and Ocetkowski missed a few wide that were wide open.
In the most simplistic sense, there’s only a few things that can happen when a team runs the pick-and-roll: (1) The driver takes the screen (Tech denies this), (2) the driver goes on top of the screen to shoot (by icing the screen, this becomes a contested shot); (3) the driver refuses the screen (Tech baits team into doing this); (4) the screener slips the screen/pops out to the three point line for a shot (Tech closes out hard and lives with that shot); or (5) the screener rolls to the basket for a lob pass (Tech lives with this, for the most part; Texas did it a ton, but it’s hard to consistently execute, like the one they botched late in the game). Unlike most defenses, Tech tries to dictate what the offense will do in these situations. Other teams are just reacting to what the offense does.
I heard Shaka call out "Buffalo" one time when they were in the half court. That's a common offensive set run in college hoops, and many call it that to pay tribute to a Buffalo coach that made it famous in the 90s. I wonder if teams that run Tech's version of the pack-line in the future will call it "Tech", or "Beard", or "Adams." I kinda hope they call it "the Niem"... "we're going to Niem this screen.. play all Niem in the half court.. their athletic guards make it really tough in that Niem."
2. 16 Straight Games Giving up Less than 1 PPP.
Texas came so, so close with those garbage buckets to scoring one point per offensive possession. They scored 62 on 64 possessions, which is the most efficient anyone has been against us. Give Shaka credit.
Regardless, we are now tied with 2006 Illinois for the 3rd best streak to start a season in the modern basketball era. Doing it against Iowa State may be the toughest task to date, but if we pull it off, it will tie us with the 2006 National Champ Florida team that had Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Al Horford, and Mo Speights. Decent company.
If this keeps up for another 3-4 weeks, people will, and should, be considering this Tech team to be one of the best college basketball defenses of all time.
3. Moretti & Mooney
Shots are starting to fall. They are 15-36 from three since conference play started. Morro is 44% and has taken the most of anyone in the conference (albeit with an extra game). We're nearly impossible to beat if these guys continue to shoot this way.
Mooney is on pace to shoot over 100 less threes than he did last year at South Dakota. I want him to shoot more. The guy can flat out score but is recovering from some voodoo curse that’s causing many of his shots to rattle around and magically jump out the basket. It’s happening less now, though. I don’t want to see any hesitation. If there’s 15 or less seconds on the shot clock, and he has any breathing room, the shot needs to go up. He has the potential to take over games from the three-point line with how much attention Culver and Moretti are getting.
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