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Postseason (season over) basketball thread

Player to do list:

CMM - continue to work with his left hand. Did use it more during the year, but has to go all the way to the rack, two dribbles and switch back to the right is not enough. Work on some spots for his 3, like the very top of the key. Places where he has a better than even chance to hit when the d is playing off. Continue to work on playing off of the ball, and attacking from inside where surely he will have a smaller guard on him.

DT - work on the right hand. That is his weakness. Not being able to use his off hand creates these ridiculous looking turnovers where he launches into the defender and expects the call. Free throw shooting, and the short jump shot from the circle vs. the zone.

Dino's - add lower body strength so he can protect his place on the low block. Work on stronger hands, but don't get bulked up top. His stroke is too smooth to mess with that. Work on some go to moves inside to take advantage of high post low post, needs a couple of two dribble moves. Also constant drills to move his feet better on d. Was always a half step slow.

CRAB - more strength, and work on intermediate game with both hands. Had the burst to the right needs to add to it.

Mitch - get stronger,

GMac - has the tools. Has to be an outside threat so he can get angles to attack.

ROuntree, Dre, Madison - don't know what to say.
 
Add defense and decision making on defense for Devin. Dude won't even contest at the rim, but he will foul a guard 25 feet from the basket at least once a game it seems like.
 
You win college basketball games on the recruiting trail. Manning has a talented class coming in for next year, and at least we are in the running for some serious talent out of the high school 2016 class. I would say that is a great improvement.
 
Deadbolt said:
Add defense and decision making on defense for Devin. Dude won't even contest at the rim, but he will foul a guard 25 feet from the basket at least once a game it seems like.
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For this reason alone I wonder if Moore may get a fair bit of run next year, even if he's offensively challenged. We desperately need a presence at the rim - with the quasi emergence of Dinos, Crab and Wilbekin I think we've at least got a band aid on the 3 point shooting issue.
 
Until each member of this team makes a commitment to play outstanding defense as an individual and as a unit they will never significantly improve as a team. Once the commitment is made the hard part begins... the work necessary to fulfill the commitment.
 
I am perplexed by our defensive schemes. Is it by design our bigs "flash out" beyond the three point line to "challenge" a guard with the ball? Is it by design we switch man to man assignments on seemingly every position resulting in mismatches? I understand we appear slow and unable to "stay in front of our man", but it seems our whole approach to defense is incorrect with multiple switches resulting in mismatches and players out of position making a successful defensive stand nearly impossible. Good defensive teams such as VA never appear to place themselves in these predicaments. It seems to be more than a talent or effort problem.
 
"Is it by design our bigs "flash out" beyond the three point line to "challenge" a guard with the ball?"

Seriously?
 
Simply trying to understand our scheme (I am definitely not a basketball expert). I do not see other good defensive teams having their C do this 5-10 feet outside of the 3 point circle as DT does on a regular basis. Please correct me if I am wrong. If other good defensive teams are doing this, why do we always appear to be out of position after such a maneuver resulting in an open look or easy basket for the other team. Is the problem our rotations, the manner in which we "flash out" or the simple act of doing this as it certainly appears to the beginning of a poor defensive result? Not trying to criticize, but simply attempting to understand the logic in pursuing this particular defensive scheme.
 
Our hedging is one of the things we've actually really improved on this year. Devin has done a great job of hedging then rotating back to find his man. That hasn't been our problem. Even our switching hasn't really been a problem. It's our help defense that has killed us, both inside help defense and flashing out to the corner. A large part of that is the immobility of our PFs. They had slow foot speed and can't cover the corner and aren't rim protectors or even have decent footwork to be the help defender inside (this applies to Leonard, Dinos, and Tree - although Tree was moderately better getting out to the wing - but he often over pursued).
 
Correct me if I am mistaken. You believe our help defense will be corrected primarily by recruiting? Do you believe our new recruits will help tremendously in help defense and do you believe Dinos is capable of improving in this area to a serviceable level?
 
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Yeah not trying to be a dick it's just a really routine defense against on-ball screens that almost every team does. And Devin's actually really good at it when he doesn't reach. Dinos not so good.

If you were to go back and watch every hedge Devin made against Pitt, I think he got one reaching foul but did a pretty nice job overall and it didn't lead to many open looks inside because he falls back into position quickly. And if you compare to earlier in the season and previous years, our hedges were actually pretty solid.

We definitely altered our defenses drastically throughout the year - some teams we switched everything and lived with mismatches. Some we tried to hedge and recover, fight through screens, etc. Manning is obviously anti-zone, and you can certainly question whether the strategies chosen were the right ones - but there were definitely strategies and to me nothing really stood out as overly crazy design-wise.

Personally I would have switched a lot less since we seemed to lose track of shooters too easily, but I think Manning was going for some tough love this year. His subbing patterns suggest he likes teams with interchangeable parts and players that can defend multiple positions. Honestly we got killed all year on isolation sets and kickouts. We just have too many guys who can't stay in front of anyone.
 
Thanks for all the replies. The general consensus is we should be able to recruit ourselves into becoming a much better defensive team as the scheme is good to not bad?
 
I don't think big picture strategy should be sacrificed in year 1 to try and fix a flawed roster. We played fast this year even though we really couldn't, but hopefully the young guys moving forward will be on better teams and they had a whole year of learning on the job.
 
Fuck Your Couch said:
I don't think big picture strategy should be sacrificed in year 1 to try and fix a flawed roster. We played fast this year even though we really couldn't, but hopefully the young guys moving forward will be on better teams and they had a whole year of learning on the job.
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I would agree if I felt like there were a lot of players on the current roster who would be part of a fixed roster. I think a few more wins would be more attractive to recruits.
 
PhDeac said:
I would agree if I felt like there were a lot of players on the current roster who would be part of a fixed roster. I think a few more wins would be more attractive to recruits.
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I think the 4 frosh that played all have potential to play an important role on a good team.
 
Makes me feel much better about DM and our team going forward. It's kinda funny how I was so into DM, his coaching strategies etc until the last month when we seemed to revert back to the last 4 years. Hope can be a funny thing and everyone has helped me to understand I was being unfair to DM. Thanks for the basketball education lessons!
 
HowardDeanSux said:
Correct me if I am mistaken. You believe our help defense will be corrected primarily by recruiting? Do you believe our new recruits will help tremendously in help defense and do you believe Dinos is capable of improving in this area to a serviceable level?
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Answered somewhat already, but a combination of recruiting (especially with regards to interior defense) and having another year implementing the system so there is less thinking about rotations and more just response.
 
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