dajuan's explanation on our rebounding

[mrsixer123]

not sure if this has been posted. if not, any thoughts on dajuan's quote?

NOTES, QUOTES

"Hitting the boards has been a season-long problem for this team. Coach John Thompson indicated that shoring up that weakness would be a priority, even if it required the guards to take on more of a rebounding role instead of sneaking out on offense to try and create points in transition."

QUOTE TO NOTE: "It's a little more of a challenge in a zone because your guy isn't naturally right there on your hip." –- Georgetown forward DaJuan Summers told the Washington Times, attempting to explain his team's rebounding issues."

www.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/bigeast/home.htm

[Hoya TMF]

i'm not sure if he's talking about on offense or defense, but we don't play zone defense that often. tis also seems like a weak excuse because it's not that we aren't in a position to get rebounds, we just lose them, there were several plays tonight where we were in position to get a rebound and it was poked away from us or we just missed it. that problem seems correctable by sheer force of will.

[PopeJohn2]

little confused too. if its due to us playing zone defense, it would seem that at worst we have a 50/50 shot of getting the rebound (unless other teams like ODU have found a way to predict where the ball is going to rebound to). and since we face zone defense a lot, i dont see that translating into 15-20 offenseive rebounds for us despite our high FG%.

also, most of the dreadful lack of rebounding has been within 5 feet of the basket on multiple put-back attempts which to me says the competition is doing a MUCH better job of crashing their offensive boards. i think coach needs to work on some team rebounding drills with all four big men around the boards. we mentally have own the area around the rim.

[lichoya68]

they did good vs. depaul shoulda done even better but it was great to hear rich say one time EWING BOXED OUT and then when ewing got called for over the back at least he went over got the rebbie and put it in soooooo keep getting better no excuses just hustle box out positioning and rebbies REBBIES GOH OYAS BEAT UCONN NEED TO DEFINILTY OUTREBOUND THEM GO HOYAS

[blueandgray]

here's a theory: one possible cost of being the best defensive team in the country is that we have a tendancy to over play the passing lanes, over commit while closing out, and are out of position to grab the board when playing help defense. here's another... we're pretty darn small when going to the wallace, sapp, and freeman linup.

[casualhoya]

I watched the game pretty closely last night to see what was causing our rebounding woes. On the defensive end, while Depaul did miss numerous 3s which result in long rebounds that could go either way, I actually thought that it was Summers who allowed his man to grab the offensive board here and there. I haven't checked out the numbers yet, but to me everyone else did a very good job of boxing out and crashing the boards last night. On the offensive end, grabbing offensive boards still seems to be an issue, but in defense of the boys last night, we didn't miss that many shots.

Casually.

[theexorcist]

I don't like responding on these mrsixer-generated quasi-Socratic threads, where the question sort of leads to an assumed answer. But this is a rebounding question

So. A question. This isn't specific to this year, and it's actually less prevalent than past years. Every so often, Georgetown will take a shot - almost always a three - and no one from the Hoyas will come in to contest the rebound. People will instead head back on defense (when this happens, the screen usually will show three or four players from the opposing team on the Hoyas' end of the court and nary a Hoya in sight). This works very well when the shot goes in. It doesn't work well when we miss.

I was always taught to contest the rebound. Is there a reason or logic that justifies this different approach? My assumption is that heading back earlier gives a better chance at a coherent defense, but it's just strange. As I've said, this was more prevalent in previous years under III - I assume that a better shooting percentage has reduced the times when it's noticeable.

[Boz]

I'm certainly not a basketball coach - nor did I even stay at a Holdiay Inn Express - but I would think that not attacking the glass on a long jumper is generally a good strategy, as missed long jumpers, including threes, tend to lead to long rebounds.

(unless you are DePaul, in which case, missed threes could end up in the stands, on the scorer's table, at the concession booth, in the Chicago River, etc. ;D )

This is not an excuse for Georgetown's bad rebounding, not at all. It was good to see (or, more appropriately, hear) Patrick's aggressiveness on the glass last night even if he did go over the back, Roy's improved positioning for defensive boards and going hard after his few misses, more rebounds from the guards, etc. These are all improvements that were needed.

In general, though, attacking the glass is better served for shots in close, yes? Ironically, Georgetown doesn't seem to miss too many of those, so maybe they've been coached not to be too aggressive going to the glass and are now making some corrections to that coaching.

(Again, doesn't explain the lapses on the defensive boards, which are all about positioning yourself between a man and the basket; I'm not sold on Dajuan's explanation either; I think Jeff Green and Jay Bilas were more on the mark in saying that it just required increased effort, which we saw last night)

Anyway, just a thought. As I said, I'm just this guy, you know? Don't really know what I'm talking about.

[I Bleed Hoya Gray]

How much you want to bet that what happened was something like this:

People were talking about rebounding during the press conference. They asked the players a question or two about the rebounding problem, giving up offensive rebounds in particular. Somebody asked if playing zone makes it harder. DaJuan said that quote.

I don't think he's making excuses. And the team's better job on the boards yesterday shows that whatever the cause, they want to improve.

[joey0403p]

Rebounding has a lot to do with mentality / desire. Look at Denise Rodman...he made a career out of fighting for the rebounds. You're going to tell me that he did a good job at boxing his guy out - but the ball still has to come your way. BUT if you have the mentality of going after every ball you increase the likelihood of coming down with the board.

So last nights results are encouraging.