Defense no longer wins championships

[mrsixer123]

Is it me, or has college hoops become the nfl and the nba in regards to doing everything it can to favor O over D via rule changes and how officials call games? Teams that put D first are being eliminated at a alarming rate, and this did not begin this year!

Question, who was the last team to win a national title that was a D oriented team?

As someone who grew up with big john being one of his idols for his numerous social stances, obviously i also adopted his bball principals as well.

That being said, i believe times have changed and the big john/joe gibbs way of doing things can no longer win you a championship for the reasons i mentioned above.

Consequently, i am worried that our conservative style of play on O and D that are meant to shorten the game and limit scoring, may be effective during conference play in the BE or big 10, but we have seen time and time again, officials in other leagues call a completely different game that gives the O the benefit of the doubt.

As a result, imo, we have to make major modifications to our O, but do we have the brain trust to do so? Jt3's strength is the princeton O, ditto for the asst that came from princeton. As for the 2 new assts, one was hired b/c he has a major pipeline to top local talent, and the other's main strenth is teaching D, imo. While i have no objections to either hire, who can jt3 turn to for much needed modifications?
Certainly no one from the big john era, or big john himself can help when it comes to constructing a modern O system, imo.

Thoughts?

[The Stig]

As much attention as Curry gets, Davidson is actually a defensive-oriented team.

See Bobby Knight inject some intelligence into the Davidson/Curry lovefest: sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3318506&sportCat=ncb

[hoyatables]

Didn't the Giants win the superbowl this year despite the fact that they were supposed to crumble before the offensively superior Pats?

[rccoleon]

have you watched kansas play? they are the most complete team in the tourny with the offensive fire power and the defensive abilities of chalmers, rush and robinson. there is a reason they are going to break the school record for steals this year.

[alleninxis]

Watch Louisville win tonight...

[RDF]

Defense wins games--you just need talent and skill. If you look at teams who win the National Title--they have at least 3 future NBA players on the team. I'd say Florida played good defense, the only year I thought a team didn't play great defense--UNC in '05 but they had enough firepower offensively to get by and played Illinois--who was too 3pt obsessed. They also had May, Felton, McCants, Williams, as future NBA guys--and you need NBA caliber talent to win a National Title.

If you look at Hoyas defensive ability--I think they are fine-it's the teams like Wisconsin that might need to change their approach. That team was slow, their bigs didn't like to play down low at all on offensive end, and they have a guy like Krabbenoft (sp?) that doesn't do a thing offensively. You can literally sag off him and dare him to shoot the ball from 10 feet out.

Talent/Skill gives you best chance to win championships--always has, always will. Those are teams filled with guys who can make plays on either end of the court and when you get a lot of guys who fit this mold, willing to play together, they are a tough team to beat.

[summersshowers]

defense no longer wins championships?
see florida, 2006 and 2007. also, ucla looks pretty poised for a title shot tihs year, and they are definitely the most defensively oriented team left in the tourney. kansas is going to win, though.

[Jack]

4 of the top 5 teams in Pomeroy's adjusted defensive efficiency are still alive: Louisville, UCLA, Kansas, Memphis. Only Davidson and Texas are outside the Top 30, and both are in the 30s. So I would say defense still matters a bit.

[SFHoya99]

I'm pretty sure you have to be pretty good at both to win a title.

[lichoya68]

davidsons d aint been too shabby in this tourney tho very quick beats the very large yup go davidson WIN IT ALL

[DanMcQ]

Mar 29, 2008 11:39:49 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

I'm pretty sure you have to be pretty good at both to win a title.

Damn - you beat me to it.

[DudeSlade]

While I think you've all pointed out the numbers supporting the fact that d still matters, I think mrsixer had a point in his initial post about the difference in how refs in different conferences call the game and how that affects the way defense is played. When you look at Georgetown, Wisconsin and others, the style of defense is to play rough, hard-nosed basketball, where players are bumped off screens, they fight down low, and physical basketball is key to forcing teams into low percentage shots and into shooting a low percentage as they physically wear down opponents during the game. Teams like Kansas, Memphis, and others are strong defensively in the measurable stats such as steals and blocks. They use their quickness and athleticism to create turnovers and to to turn them into transition baskets.

While both styles result in good defenses, they are different in how they accomplish the job of shutting down their opponents. It appears that the refereeing in this Tourney has leaned toward hurting physical defenses like ours, while it hasn't affected teams like Kansas. It appears that in the Tourney at least this year, where foul calling has been tighter, physical teams like us are more susceptible to come back efforts and great 2nd halves by other teams as we are forced to juggle our lineups with foul trouble. Louisville appears to be the type of team that straddles the line between the two with the ability to play rough in the Big East but with the right amount of athleticism and quickness to still play good defense when the foul calls become tighter.

It reminds me a lot of NCAA football, where the Big 10 and Big 12 constantly pride themselves on their defense and how rough and tough they are, especially in the trenches, and where everyone says the Pac-10 is all about offense, but that when teams from the Pac-10 or SEC like USC, Florida, or LSU face an Oklahoma or Ohio State, they smother them with their speed. I'm not saying we get smothered by these faster-paced teams, but I do wonder if NCAA basketball will become like NCAA football in that regards.

And do you foresee Georgetown, with the system we currently employ, having problems in the NCAA tourney like the Big 10 and Big 12 have in the BCS the last few years? Is this a wholesale change in the style of basketball being played and accepted by the refs and the NCAA? I also could foresee that potential problem being mitigated quickly by the great athleticism of players we have coming in now that we are once again a top program. Will we start seeing more statistical measurements of great defenses like steals and blocks going up or will we just continue to suffocate and hold teams to a low shooting percentage and low number of points as the main indicator of our great defense?

[RockawayHoya]

UCLA is playing a "physical" defense as opposed to an "athletic" defense tonight and it seems to be working just fine for them. It all depends on the crew you get assigned.

If Roy did the things Kevin Love has done this game in terms of initiating contact on both ends, he'd be fouled out of the game by now.