Post game thoughts (Rutgers)

Just finished watching on TiVo. I have been too busy to watch anything live lately and so I usually don't get to the games until the next day. Hence no post game threads so far.

1. We defend the dribble drive about as poorly as I could possibly imagine. We don't defend over the top. We don't defend the baseline drive. We don't defend the dribble pull-up. It was not coincidence that when we finally decided to defend our man and give early help to dribble penetration that we held them without s field goal for about the final 6 minutes.

2. We could be a great rebounding team if we want to. With the return of CMM hopefully around the corner and oversized lineups aplenty I love our ability to rebound. If only we could defend better.

3. Devin is really good.

4. Our guards outside of Wilbekin played like dog crap. Hudson was particularly awful. If he doesn't make that last shot he would have been completely worthless. Crawford made mistake after mistake and still has a long ways to go. CMM will help him more than anyone.

5. Collins is better than Dinos right now. He should start. I understand why he doesn't but both are awful defensive players at the moment and Collins doesn't really on a 22 foot jumper to be valuable on offense. Collins defense is getting better and he will pass Dinos eventually in this area (although he had 2 REALLY boneheaded defensive plays tonight). It was good to see that Danny had a quick hook with Dinos in the second half. If he is ice cold he has to come out of the game.

6. Van Horne is putrid. He simply can't play at this level. He made one nice pass to Collins tonight but everything else was garbage on both sides of the ball.

7. I thought manning got us into good offensive sets for the most part. Our zone offense is very effective. We just missed a to. Of wide open threes and continually threw the ball away for no reason. Defensively I would love to see our principles improve. Last year it was about this time that we started playing with better fundamentals. Most of those have not carried over and that is disappointing. We don't close out with our hands up and then break down. We don't do a good job of jumping to the ball and we open up driving lanes way too easily off the dribble.

8. This could be an NCAA tourney team if CMM comes back strong and we tighten up our principles.

9. That was an ugly game. But so much fun to leave with a win. These kind of games happen. It is vital that we sneak out wins when we aren't playing our best.

Trying to think of more but that is all I have at midnight on a work night. Peace.

Thank you for your analysis. To your first point though I actually thought our defense tonight was much improved.

Thanks Wrangor. I didn't see the game, and I doubt I missed much. Any win is important for us, especially a road win.

sailordeac said:

Thanks Wrangor. I didn't see the game, and I doubt I missed much. Any win is important for us, especially a road win.

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It was pretty brutal to watch.

Wrangor, thanks as always.

On your first point, Wilbekin's defense is simply awful, and so is Dinos's. And Hudson's isn't much better. Hard to have good team defense when they are getting beaten repeatedly by Rutgers players who aren't very good.

I thought Wilbekin did much better last night comparatively. Crawford and Hudson were both playing olay defense. Was really pitiful. Film room will not be fun for either of those two.

We have the potential to be a very good defensive team with our combination of length and quickness. Danny needs to start putting the pieces together.

I think Hudson and Watson are decent at defense. A lot of that has to do with length. MW, Dinos, McClinton, and TVH are really bad at defense.

Wrangor;2291994[B said:

thought W]Iilbekin did much better last night comparatively[/B]. Crawford and Hudson were both playing olay defense. Was really pitiful. Film room will not be fun for either of those two.

We have the potential to be a very good defensive team with our combination of length and quickness. Danny needs to start putting the pieces together.

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Really? It looked to me like his man beat him again and again. (He also doesn't block out worth a crap.)And I may be wrong, but it looked to me like his man got a really good look on the second to last shot because Wilbekin couldn't stay with him. That would have been the game and we got lucky. I think he is trying--just doesn't move laterally very well from what I can see. I would like to see him be a microwave guy off the bench, not a starter, if Hudson would get his game under control.

Deacsfan27 said:

I think Hudson and Watson are decent at defense. A lot of that has to do with length. MW, Dinos, McClinton, and TVH are really bad at defense.

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McClinton also had two pretty bad TO's. I had higher expectations for him. He is bringing nothing to the table and DM is correctly phasing him out of the lineup.

Sorry, but that was a hideous game to watch both ways. Nice to get a win, but we're still an awful defensive team, and we don't value the ball on offense. It's good that Devin is buying in, but Danny needs to tell him the same thing that Songaila should have been told - you dribble it more than once and you're getting pulled. Thank goodness for FTs the last few games. The record is pretty good, considering the pretty tough schedule, but I really need to see improvement on the defensive end in order to start believing we're out of the woods.

simosfrostyone said:

Really? It looked to me like his man beat him again and again. (He also doesn't block out worth a crap.)And I may be wrong, but it looked to me like his man got a really good look on the second to last shot because Wilbekin couldn't stay with him. That would have been the game and we got lucky. I think he is trying--just doesn't move laterally very well from what I can see. I would like to see him be a microwave guy off the bench, not a starter, if Hudson would get his game under control.

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Yeah he has negative lateral foot speed.

Also watched the game late last night.

Rutgers is a terrible basketball team. Up 17-8 in the 1st half we had every opportunity to run away & hide, but couldn't do it (poor shooting, turnovers, lack of defense). Was no surprise when Rutgers finally starting hitting a few wide open shots in the 2nd half to take a lead. Not a good showing for anyone (Devin played well most of the time). Glad we won and looking forward to the next one, but that was just awful.

Oh, and we are officially #1 in Kenpom... for Luck.

"Luck - A measure of the deviation between a team’s actual winning percentage and what one would expect from its game-by-game efficiencies. It’s a Dean Oliver invention. Essentially, a team involved in a lot of close games should not win (or lose) all of them. Those that do will be viewed as lucky (or unlucky)."

The guards defending off the dribble is definitely a concern given what the ACC has at those positions, but I thought the bigs did a much better job of simply hedging over to make the Rutgers guards take difficult shots rather than completely selling out and collapsing as we did several times against Indiana. While Rutgers' guards were content to throw up contested, flailing shots over bigs, better teams will kick it to the open man. So I think they did a better job of making the life difficult for the penetrating guard, while also being able to recover to their man (usually in the corner/short corner).

Fortunately we have a PG that is getting healthy and should help in that area particularly. CMM won't fix everything, but he will help alleviate some of the pressure.

Wrangor, I have been very frustrated with our lack of 1) getting a hand up in the shooters face and 2) our terrible close-outs on the perimeter. It's basketball 101 and Mannings defenses don't do these two things.

It continues to amaze me that ACC caliber players come out of HS/AAU without a clue how to properly defend.

DeacsATS said:

Oh, and we are officially #1 in Kenpom... for Luck.

"Luck - A measure of the deviation between a team’s actual winning percentage and what one would expect from its game-by-game efficiencies. It’s a Dean Oliver invention. Essentially, a team involved in a lot of close games should not win (or lose) all of them. Those that do will be viewed as lucky (or unlucky)."

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somewhere rj's head is exploding, over and over again, like it's stuck in a gif loop

i am going to reserve much judgment from this game other than they gutted out a win. I know it's been a week...but the first game back after playing in Maui is a pain in the ass, especially on the road. Legs looked tired to me defensively...rhythm seemed off. I'll be more interested in how we play our next 2...

I really don't understand why we switch so much on defense. Manning still seems like a coach who will just hammer away at a square peg in a round hole. In Wilbekin we have a player who has to be on the floor for his shooting but creates a horrible matchup defensively with anyone who can shoot over him. He looks fine on defense staying in front of guys, but if someone has a stepback jumper or can just shoot over him he looks terrible. But we run a defense on the perimeter where we switch everything and guarantee offenses can get the matchups they want? Not even screens - we switch on just basic rotations. It still looks like Manning's ideal team has 10 interchangeable guys with loosely defined roles and he can just run whatever combo he wants at an opponent, but that also means every player has to know the scouting report on every opponent.

Maybe it'd make more sense if a team is lights out from 3 and getting caught up in a pick meant 3 points, but Rutgers can't shoot at all. We could have dropped under screens all night. Instead we just lost guys on dives to the basket in the 8th switch of a possession, or they waited for the inevitable mismatch and took advantage.

Luckily Rutgers is terrible and we stole the win, but we can't let good teams dictate matchups and expect to beat them. At least not until we have a Crawford/Codi/Crab/Collins/Devin lineup on the floor.

Buttermaker said:

It continues to amaze me that ACC caliber players come out of HS/AAU without a clue how to properly defend.

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Really?
Most of these kids are so far above their level of competition in HS they don't have to defend. They make up for bad technique with exceptional athleticism.