Beard was, maybe, the harshest I've ever heard him in the postgame radio interview with Level. I haven't listed to his postgame press conference yet, but would suspect that it wasn't quite as direct as his comments to Level.
It's well documented that our defense has given us a schematic advantage the last 2.5 years. However, no scheme is perfect and it's impossible to take away everything. Our scheme is absolutely about taking away drives to the basket and shots at the rim. Watch the "low" man on our defense the next time you have a chance. It's the defender who's man is closest to the baseline or the lowest on the court from an aerial view. Other than maybe the on-ball defender, the low man might be the most important part of our half-court defense. If the low man is a big, he either tries to wall up in front of the driver for a charge or contests the shot; if he's a guard, he typically just walls up for a charge.
A product of being so concerned with stopping & helping on to drivers is a lot of frantic rotations near the basket. Frantic rotations lead to extremely tough box-out assignments for the other 2-3 defenders on the court (i.e., whoever isn't guarding the ball, the "low" man, or otherwise contesting the shot along with the low man) . Simply stated, because our scheme places so much help responsibilities on our off-ball defenders, that helper's man is often unabated to rebound a missed shot at the rim.
The scheme requires us to win a lot of tough one-on-one boxouts, with our guy usually at a size & positional disadvantage. It was masked last year by Tariq's length & shotblocking, and Norense's imposing 24 yo physique. It was also masked by Mooney & Culver's ability to keep drivers out of the lane.
Last year, we blocked approximately 12% of shot attempts at the rim. This year, only about 5%. Shots at the rim are giving us the most issues rebounding (because of what's described above). Not only are we playing smaller than last year and allowing more drivers to beat us off the dribble, but there are now a lot more shots bouncing off the rim (since Tariq isn't blocking them).
Beard's comments re: not being able to win in the Big 12 with 5 guards were interesting. I've posted all year about playing small ball offense, and our offensive tempo -- two areas I think are critical with respect to our ability to defend the post and rebound missed shots at the rim.
Personnel wise, we don't have the guys to bang down low with a handful of centers in this league. To negate their effect, we have to run offense in a way that discourages our opponents from playing those bigs for the majority of the game. We can negate the other team's big by playing at a frenetic & up-tempo pace offensively or by spacing them out in the half court & attacking the big on the perimeter, either in pick-and-rolls or on switches.
The up-tempo offense backfired on us in some ways during the non-conference. While we shot it well in transition, we could not keep ourselves from turning the ball over and allowing easy offense for the other team. We also had serious issues finding shooters in transition & setting up our half-court defense in time to stop quick post ups (see Iowa). In some ways, we scrapped the up-tempo option during the DePaul game.
We can still be effective enough in the half-court with small ball offense to eliminate the production of other team's bigs. But it's really hard to do in the Big 12, especially on the road or when we aren't making shots. WVU's bigs surprisingly fared very well against us on switches (plus we weren't making shots). Samuel did an admirable job defensively last night as well.
IMO, our rebounding issues can't really be solved by playing bigger guys or boxing out better. Defensively, we need to play better perimeter defense on drivers. And, offensively, we need to run extremely effective small ball offense.
We're still a really tough and odd matchup for many teams in the country. We're just also a really good matchup for a host of other teams (the ones with bigs that can defend on the perimeter, or the ones with guards that can get to the rim).
There's still a lot of season left.
It's well documented that our defense has given us a schematic advantage the last 2.5 years. However, no scheme is perfect and it's impossible to take away everything. Our scheme is absolutely about taking away drives to the basket and shots at the rim. Watch the "low" man on our defense the next time you have a chance. It's the defender who's man is closest to the baseline or the lowest on the court from an aerial view. Other than maybe the on-ball defender, the low man might be the most important part of our half-court defense. If the low man is a big, he either tries to wall up in front of the driver for a charge or contests the shot; if he's a guard, he typically just walls up for a charge.
A product of being so concerned with stopping & helping on to drivers is a lot of frantic rotations near the basket. Frantic rotations lead to extremely tough box-out assignments for the other 2-3 defenders on the court (i.e., whoever isn't guarding the ball, the "low" man, or otherwise contesting the shot along with the low man) . Simply stated, because our scheme places so much help responsibilities on our off-ball defenders, that helper's man is often unabated to rebound a missed shot at the rim.
The scheme requires us to win a lot of tough one-on-one boxouts, with our guy usually at a size & positional disadvantage. It was masked last year by Tariq's length & shotblocking, and Norense's imposing 24 yo physique. It was also masked by Mooney & Culver's ability to keep drivers out of the lane.
Last year, we blocked approximately 12% of shot attempts at the rim. This year, only about 5%. Shots at the rim are giving us the most issues rebounding (because of what's described above). Not only are we playing smaller than last year and allowing more drivers to beat us off the dribble, but there are now a lot more shots bouncing off the rim (since Tariq isn't blocking them).
Beard's comments re: not being able to win in the Big 12 with 5 guards were interesting. I've posted all year about playing small ball offense, and our offensive tempo -- two areas I think are critical with respect to our ability to defend the post and rebound missed shots at the rim.
Personnel wise, we don't have the guys to bang down low with a handful of centers in this league. To negate their effect, we have to run offense in a way that discourages our opponents from playing those bigs for the majority of the game. We can negate the other team's big by playing at a frenetic & up-tempo pace offensively or by spacing them out in the half court & attacking the big on the perimeter, either in pick-and-rolls or on switches.
The up-tempo offense backfired on us in some ways during the non-conference. While we shot it well in transition, we could not keep ourselves from turning the ball over and allowing easy offense for the other team. We also had serious issues finding shooters in transition & setting up our half-court defense in time to stop quick post ups (see Iowa). In some ways, we scrapped the up-tempo option during the DePaul game.
We can still be effective enough in the half-court with small ball offense to eliminate the production of other team's bigs. But it's really hard to do in the Big 12, especially on the road or when we aren't making shots. WVU's bigs surprisingly fared very well against us on switches (plus we weren't making shots). Samuel did an admirable job defensively last night as well.
IMO, our rebounding issues can't really be solved by playing bigger guys or boxing out better. Defensively, we need to play better perimeter defense on drivers. And, offensively, we need to run extremely effective small ball offense.
We're still a really tough and odd matchup for many teams in the country. We're just also a really good matchup for a host of other teams (the ones with bigs that can defend on the perimeter, or the ones with guards that can get to the rim).
There's still a lot of season left.
