Post by FLHoya on Jan 11, 2005 23:36:23 GMT -5
Channeling your Inner Braswell.
There seems to be a consensus developing that tonight's game felt like one of the past few years--except Rutgers played the role of the Esherick-era Hoyas. This game took me back too, but a little bit further back--all the way to the last year of Generation Burton.
For a while, I expected to look over to the bench and see Craig Esherick waving Lee Scruggs, Victor Samnick, and Nathaniel Burton out to the scorer's table. For every three that rattled out in the high-tempo second half, I expected to see Anthony Perry jogging away.
And for just a split second, I could have sworn I looked across the court at our point guard and saw a "1" added to the back of his jersey.
I wonder if JT3 learned the fist play?
(Answer: No. The dominant play calls from the scoring run all required the full use of both arms).
Saturday's game taught us the lesson that nobody's perfect--that coming back from 20 leaves you little margin for error and even the smallest mistakes are magnified. I think the best lesson from tonight's game is that chipping away at a smaller lead is best when you play smarter than your opponent and let THEIR small mistakes catch up to them.
There seems to be another theme developing on the early recaps on the board that Rutgers was "just waiting for the RUN to happen" and let the game slip from their grasp in the final minutes. I tend to disagree--in this sense. That RUN was waiting to happen the ENTIRE GAME--we just waited until later on to pounce on it ourselves.
Rutgers shot 36.4% for the game (38% in the first half), they turned it over 9 times in the game (7 in the first half), and shot 30% from three point range. We outrebounded them 39-21 (42-30 adding in those team rebound things). It wasn't like we were being run over by an efficient opponent. Rutgers was for most of the game playing a modified version of streetball. They weren't determining whether or not we went on a run--WE determined when we went on that run by finally waking up and making them pay for their small mistakes and inefficient style of play.
Rutgers and St. John's have always been painful teams to play--and sometimes downright dangerous to us--because they are surprisingly proficient at playing an unattractive and inefficient style of basketball predicated on individual effort and crazy jump shooting. They'll make some shots they have no business making, and you had better be able to shut down dribble penetration or they WILL take you to the hole all night long. But they will, without fail, hover around 40% shooting or worse. And if you limit their opportunities, you can take them out of the game.
Unfortunately, in the first half, we permitted Rutgers too many 2nd chance opportunities, often off of inefficient shots or, worse from my view, solid defensive plays that we simply did not follow through on the glass. This continues to be a trend for us, and there are any number of reasons for it. I choose to highlight two:
1. The tendency for two or more interior defenders to contest the same shot. In Brandon and Jeff Green we have two aggressive players who will try to block anything that comes into their area. I noticed Jeff's aggressive play this summer--he loved to contest everything in the Kenner League. And he loves to contest shots and go for the block. The problem here is that he and Brandon often rotate into each other's area in the normal motion of defensive help, and both will attempt the blocked shot. So you've got two guys in the air, and a weak side open. When I feel Jeff and Brandon (in that order) are good enough to contest shots on their own out of the post and in face ups.
2. Ironically, given my distaste for the shocking cover-up of Josh Boone's defensive liabilities (or, more fairly, "too much credit where it isn't due") perpetuated by the ESPN family of networks, we could probably use watching that stupid vignette from last night's halftime show of the OU-UCONN game. Just for the part where the cornrowed one explains to us that you gotta shove your butt into the other guy and get low for position. We have a team of jumpers for rebounders, who all love playing the tip drill. None of our players play the Sweetney-style butt in your face box out rebounding style. They want to use their natural leaping ability. But you've got to GRASP the magic orange bean, not tip the sucker. So many of our offensive boards surrendered are tipped by one of our guys!!
To their credit, Jeff and Brandon got their act together and were playing above the rim defensively in the second half. If you ARE going to leap instead of box out, you better darn well get up there. And sure enough, when you look at the box score you will find both of our heroes with double doubles tonight.
Perhaps the more appropriate culprit behind our deficit at the half--stop me if you heard this one on Saturday--was our failure to execute and create good shots on offense. I looked at the game log on ESPN.com before I started writing this, and I found we shot 0-10 from 3 in the first half. Some were decent, some were not, I'd hardly call any of those looks "great".
But to even GET looks at the basket in the first place was a challenge for us. You want the stat of the game, perhaps it was cutting TOs from 10 to 6 between the halves, and to almost none in the closing minutes.
Rutgers, to their credit, began with an aggressive man-to-man defense that pushed our guards far further out beyond the 3 point line and provided more consistent on ball pressure than in any game we've played save possibly Illinois this year. This confounded and hurried our guard play, leading to few probing passes and far too many handoffs. It seemed at times the only solution to get the Scarlet Knights out of our grill was to hand the ball to Roy Hibbert beyond the 3 point line, for his man wouldn't stray that far from the basket.
I felt Rutgers' smaller lineup gave us fits early on. Roy Hibbert was clearly out of place in the first half--offensively, it was as if he and Jeff were running into each all the time, at the very least occupying the same space. Roy was merely an intermediate stop on the way from Jon Wallace to Ashanti Cook on the perimeter. When that lane was even open, as lazy passes led to steals throughout the first 20 minutes.
On the defensive end--again, in a repeat of the UConn game, the defense itself earns a solid passing mark. Rutgers--owing as much to our play as their lack of size--never established an interior presence on the night (Ollie who?). Their offense often consisted of 25 seconds of dribbling punctuated by one-on-one moves. It seemed as if they hit a number of tough looks and wild shots, but in truth they shot only 38% for the half with 7 turnovers, stats we should take against any team.
My biggest defensive concerns in the game were occassional lapses in zone defense and the failure to stop dribble penetration. Wiggan, Douby, Webb, most of the Scarlet Knights had their way getting into the paint--where they often met stiff resistence and a number of thunderous blocks from Hibbert and Green. But that they achieved the lane so easily--and no GU backcourt defender is immune from criticism tonight--is cause for concern.
GU did move to a 2-3 zone late in the first half with moderate success, though GU doesn't rotate as well in this formation as a Syracuse (well, duh). The result is I'm constantly on edge watching a shooter set up for a spot up corner three, fearing the skip pass, as our wing man in the "3" line shades too far in.
So what do you do when your offense is stumbling and you can't keep the pesky 38% shooting team down and make them pay for their mistakes?
(BELOW: The exciting 27-letter answer to that question in the conclusion of Recap Part 1.)
There seems to be a consensus developing that tonight's game felt like one of the past few years--except Rutgers played the role of the Esherick-era Hoyas. This game took me back too, but a little bit further back--all the way to the last year of Generation Burton.
For a while, I expected to look over to the bench and see Craig Esherick waving Lee Scruggs, Victor Samnick, and Nathaniel Burton out to the scorer's table. For every three that rattled out in the high-tempo second half, I expected to see Anthony Perry jogging away.
And for just a split second, I could have sworn I looked across the court at our point guard and saw a "1" added to the back of his jersey.
I wonder if JT3 learned the fist play?
(Answer: No. The dominant play calls from the scoring run all required the full use of both arms).
Saturday's game taught us the lesson that nobody's perfect--that coming back from 20 leaves you little margin for error and even the smallest mistakes are magnified. I think the best lesson from tonight's game is that chipping away at a smaller lead is best when you play smarter than your opponent and let THEIR small mistakes catch up to them.
There seems to be another theme developing on the early recaps on the board that Rutgers was "just waiting for the RUN to happen" and let the game slip from their grasp in the final minutes. I tend to disagree--in this sense. That RUN was waiting to happen the ENTIRE GAME--we just waited until later on to pounce on it ourselves.
Rutgers shot 36.4% for the game (38% in the first half), they turned it over 9 times in the game (7 in the first half), and shot 30% from three point range. We outrebounded them 39-21 (42-30 adding in those team rebound things). It wasn't like we were being run over by an efficient opponent. Rutgers was for most of the game playing a modified version of streetball. They weren't determining whether or not we went on a run--WE determined when we went on that run by finally waking up and making them pay for their small mistakes and inefficient style of play.
Rutgers and St. John's have always been painful teams to play--and sometimes downright dangerous to us--because they are surprisingly proficient at playing an unattractive and inefficient style of basketball predicated on individual effort and crazy jump shooting. They'll make some shots they have no business making, and you had better be able to shut down dribble penetration or they WILL take you to the hole all night long. But they will, without fail, hover around 40% shooting or worse. And if you limit their opportunities, you can take them out of the game.
Unfortunately, in the first half, we permitted Rutgers too many 2nd chance opportunities, often off of inefficient shots or, worse from my view, solid defensive plays that we simply did not follow through on the glass. This continues to be a trend for us, and there are any number of reasons for it. I choose to highlight two:
1. The tendency for two or more interior defenders to contest the same shot. In Brandon and Jeff Green we have two aggressive players who will try to block anything that comes into their area. I noticed Jeff's aggressive play this summer--he loved to contest everything in the Kenner League. And he loves to contest shots and go for the block. The problem here is that he and Brandon often rotate into each other's area in the normal motion of defensive help, and both will attempt the blocked shot. So you've got two guys in the air, and a weak side open. When I feel Jeff and Brandon (in that order) are good enough to contest shots on their own out of the post and in face ups.
2. Ironically, given my distaste for the shocking cover-up of Josh Boone's defensive liabilities (or, more fairly, "too much credit where it isn't due") perpetuated by the ESPN family of networks, we could probably use watching that stupid vignette from last night's halftime show of the OU-UCONN game. Just for the part where the cornrowed one explains to us that you gotta shove your butt into the other guy and get low for position. We have a team of jumpers for rebounders, who all love playing the tip drill. None of our players play the Sweetney-style butt in your face box out rebounding style. They want to use their natural leaping ability. But you've got to GRASP the magic orange bean, not tip the sucker. So many of our offensive boards surrendered are tipped by one of our guys!!
To their credit, Jeff and Brandon got their act together and were playing above the rim defensively in the second half. If you ARE going to leap instead of box out, you better darn well get up there. And sure enough, when you look at the box score you will find both of our heroes with double doubles tonight.
Perhaps the more appropriate culprit behind our deficit at the half--stop me if you heard this one on Saturday--was our failure to execute and create good shots on offense. I looked at the game log on ESPN.com before I started writing this, and I found we shot 0-10 from 3 in the first half. Some were decent, some were not, I'd hardly call any of those looks "great".
But to even GET looks at the basket in the first place was a challenge for us. You want the stat of the game, perhaps it was cutting TOs from 10 to 6 between the halves, and to almost none in the closing minutes.
Rutgers, to their credit, began with an aggressive man-to-man defense that pushed our guards far further out beyond the 3 point line and provided more consistent on ball pressure than in any game we've played save possibly Illinois this year. This confounded and hurried our guard play, leading to few probing passes and far too many handoffs. It seemed at times the only solution to get the Scarlet Knights out of our grill was to hand the ball to Roy Hibbert beyond the 3 point line, for his man wouldn't stray that far from the basket.
I felt Rutgers' smaller lineup gave us fits early on. Roy Hibbert was clearly out of place in the first half--offensively, it was as if he and Jeff were running into each all the time, at the very least occupying the same space. Roy was merely an intermediate stop on the way from Jon Wallace to Ashanti Cook on the perimeter. When that lane was even open, as lazy passes led to steals throughout the first 20 minutes.
On the defensive end--again, in a repeat of the UConn game, the defense itself earns a solid passing mark. Rutgers--owing as much to our play as their lack of size--never established an interior presence on the night (Ollie who?). Their offense often consisted of 25 seconds of dribbling punctuated by one-on-one moves. It seemed as if they hit a number of tough looks and wild shots, but in truth they shot only 38% for the half with 7 turnovers, stats we should take against any team.
My biggest defensive concerns in the game were occassional lapses in zone defense and the failure to stop dribble penetration. Wiggan, Douby, Webb, most of the Scarlet Knights had their way getting into the paint--where they often met stiff resistence and a number of thunderous blocks from Hibbert and Green. But that they achieved the lane so easily--and no GU backcourt defender is immune from criticism tonight--is cause for concern.
GU did move to a 2-3 zone late in the first half with moderate success, though GU doesn't rotate as well in this formation as a Syracuse (well, duh). The result is I'm constantly on edge watching a shooter set up for a spot up corner three, fearing the skip pass, as our wing man in the "3" line shades too far in.
So what do you do when your offense is stumbling and you can't keep the pesky 38% shooting team down and make them pay for their mistakes?
(BELOW: The exciting 27-letter answer to that question in the conclusion of Recap Part 1.)
