What makes a great defensive player?

[jwp91]

Ok...here is a topic for conversation....what makes a great defensive player?

Let’s take blocks and steals off the table. Of course, a player with 10 blocks or 5 steals a game is likely a great defensive player influencing the game with those acts.

In an era where scheme may cause you to leave your man to man assignment and rotate leaving your player open , how do we deepen the criteria we use to evaluate players.

One criteria might be defensive versatility or more specifically the ability to guard a player effectively on the perimeter or in the post or a player that is both your size or an order or magnitude taller or shorter.

I have some other ideas too but I am interested in hearing the collective wisdom of the board.

Who are the best examples we can think of ....both Hoyas and non-Hoyas?

[saxagael]

Some basics for good defense are:
- Being able to cover outside so a player doesn't shoot over with effectiveness, which means hands up
- Staying with or just ahead of a player when they are driving and not letting them get to the basket or not without a challenge
- Deflecting passes or jumping passing lanes, which can mean just having offense think they have no chance at getting a pass through
- Knowing how can shoot from deep and staying tight on them from distance, while still having the ability to cut off a drive to the basket
- Inside it is good footwork to slide with hands straight up to challenge everything from a drive, floater, or fade away shot
- Inside awareness of where the magic circle is and staying out of it (magically it also helps with rebounding if the player can box their person out of that access)
- Inside never let a player through untouched
- Communications to call picks, screens, switches
- Great basketball IQ to know in what situations a player needs to switch or stay and lead others to take the others
- Diving for anything loose
- Good quick hands to poke out or disrupt players driving while not getting called for a foul
- Playing with foul difficulty and still preventing the player you are guarding from getting up a clean or any shot
- Knowing your range to close out on weakside skip passes and not leaving your player beyond that range
- Staying low and ability to slide to have leverage if your player tries to push in
- Knowing where the gaps are with your team's defense and shifting yourself and others to close that gap
- Knowing where your teammates are at all times as well as the offense, there should never be a wide open player (in undergrad I helped my college's team run off season drills a couple times where they would run plays and I would blow the whistle and they would stop and shut their eyes and I'd call out a player / position on offense or defense and they would have to point them out - this would run for about an hour, which after them running that drill for a year they didn't have to think where people were they kept track of it sub-consciously)
- Knowing the 3 point line isn't magical and defend outside it or in it depending what the player(s) you are covering can do
- Know tendencies of different offenses to know how to create problems for that spacing and passing lanes

[saxagael]

Mar 17, 2018 13:46:13 GMT -5 jwp91 said:

Ok...here is a topic for conversation....what makes a great defensive player?

Let’s take blocks and steals off the table. Of course, a player with 10 blocks or 5 steals a game is likely a great defensive player influencing the game with those acts.

In an era where scheme may cause you to leave your man to man assignment and rotate leaving your player open , how do we deepen the criteria we use to evaluate players.

One criteria might be defensive versatility or more specifically the ability to guard a player effectively on the perimeter or in the post or a player that is both your size or an order or magnitude taller or shorter.

I have some other ideas too but I am interested in hearing the collective wisdom of the board.

Who are the best examples we can think of ....both Hoyas and non-Hoyas?

Examples:
- UMBC put on a clinic for good defense against Virginia by pressuring guards / passers much of the game
- Villanova guards are good to watch for coverage, playing with hands up, cutting off drives with their feet, harassing other guards, protecting weakside skip passes, communicating (insanely good with this) and limiting passing lanes
- Today DiVincenzo of Villanova was incredibly good and doing all the good things really well
- Buffalo had really good harassing defense against Arizona
- Mo Bamba is incredibly good on defense as a big man, he is long, but also knows positioning and protecting the paint
- Wendell Carter is also a good big who covers the paint well, but also good with keeping a body on his guy and boxing out with a focus on denying an inbound pass

[glidehoyas (Inactive)]

Communication. Point communication. Players have to have the will to want to play defense.Taking charges.

[SFHoya99]

There's different priorities for different positions, but essentially (and not in any order):

1. Athleticism, namely lateral movement/quickness. Leaping ability helps, but is less important than I think most give credit.
2. Length. It just really helps to have long arms and height for your position -- it allows you to contest more shots, especially without overcommitting. It allows you to close passing lanes, etc. Look at any elite perimeter defender and almost any of them will have really long arms. Big men are better with height and long arms, but height and brains can go a long way -- Roy anchored top 10 defensive teams primarily on height and smart defending. Height on the perimeter positions is less valuable in college but very important in the NBA.
3. Defensive Awareness. See: Draymond Green. Or, for Hoya Fans, Otto Porter. Know where to be. Know how to play angles. Know how to use your length. Know when to commit to a block or a steal and when to just bother a guy. Know exactly how far to hedge to discourage a drive then recover for the pass. For that matter, our Head Coach had this in spades as well.

4. Strength. Less important in college as the refs don't allow as much bumping and everyone is younger, it's still important for positioning and not getting muscled.
5. Footwork. Can make a huge difference in making up for less than ideal lateral speed if you've at least got quick feet.

Defensive communication is super important as well, though I'd toss that in defensive awareness. Give me 1-3 and you should have a plus defender, 4 is earned in the weight room and footwork often comes with #3 as well.

I'm excited to see Leblanc. I'm excited for Pat to recruit defenders, especially at the 4/5.

[professorhoya]

Lateral movement, length, effort and slapping the floor help.

But with college it's much different since zone's are allowed and presses actually can work. So it's not as cut and dry as the NBA.

[KHoyaNYC]

Mar 17, 2018 18:53:19 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Lateral movement, length, effort and slapping the floor help.

But with college it's much different since zone's are allowed and presses actually can work. So it's not as cut and dry as the NBA.

Just says no to slapping the floor.

[saxagael]

Mar 17, 2018 21:03:21 GMT -5 KHoyaNYC said:

Mar 17, 2018 18:53:19 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Lateral movement, length, effort and slapping the floor help.

But with college it's much different since zone's are allowed and presses actually can work. So it's not as cut and dry as the NBA.

Just says no to slapping the floor.

One of my favorite things is watching players slap the floor then get beat badly because slapping the floor put them in a bad position to defend. Two or four years ago it happened in the Tourney twice, one of those cost them the game.

Being in a good defensive ready stance is far better than thinking slapping the floor does anything to help.

[saxagael]

A big piece of defense is wanting to play defense and get into it. A lot of players who played heavy AAU / travel ball schedules ease up on defense to save energy for offense and stats on that side of play. Playing 3 to 4 games in a day can leave a player with not much in the tank, so they find ways to save energy.

Putting focus on defense and putting effort there helped Otto Porter really stand out. Otto put it all in all the time.

One of my favorite examples for defense at any level is Marcus Smart of the Celtics. He goes all in on defense all the time and it disrupts things a whole lot. When he is not able to play it really impacts their success. Smart can easily cover a 1 to a 4. Smart takes pride in his defense.

[jwp91]

Ok..here is another thought to keep the conversation going.

DISCiPLINE is so key on defense. Discipline to hustle back and get behind the ball. Discipline to be in a ready position with your stance. Discipline to have your hands and arms ready to deflect. Of course, all of this requires tremendous FITNESS which I am not sure if we have explicit suggested.

Too often I see a non-challance about defending. Most recently I saw it with Mac and Haggans in their play-off game defense. They are both capable of great defensive plays but at times it almost looks like they are ‘cool defense chic’ standing too straight up and with their arms at their sides planning on their athleticism to make the great play.

I imagine both would be even better defensive players if they were a bit more disciplined.

[jwp91]

Mar 18, 2018 12:24:15 GMT -5 saxagael said:

A big piece of defense is wanting to play defense and get into it. A lot of players who played heavy AAU / travel ball schedules ease up on defense to save energy for offense and stats on that side of play. Playing 3 to 4 games in a day can leave a player with not much in the tank, so they find ways to save energy.

Putting focus on defense and putting effort there helped Otto Porter really stand out. Otto put it all in all the time.

One of my favorite examples for defense at any level is Marcus Smart of the Celtics. He goes all in on defense all the time and it disrupts things a whole lot. When he is not able to play it really impacts their success. Smart can easily cover a 1 to a 4. Smart takes pride in his defense.

One of the things I am hoping for as we increase our depth is that we re-establish our defensive identity. It is great to score at will and try to 100 points a game. An even better program is possible if you can shut down your opponents too.

[saxagael]

I miss the days of brutal end-to-end Georgetown press defense. Toward the end of this season Ewing went with a diamond press that worked rather well, as Hoyas weren't getting burned and it was disrupting the other team quite a bit. It was the half court defense where Hoyas struggled this past season particularly on pick-and-pop, which is not communicating well and not having enough players to can run it well. The other difficulty was the needing to have help defense for Govan.

[95hoya]

Making your opponent shoot an inefficient percentage. That's really all it is.

[the_way]

Attitude, ability, and agility.

[jwp91]

Mar 18, 2018 18:30:22 GMT -5 95hoya said:

Making your opponent shoot an inefficient percentage. That's really all it is.

If we score more points, do we win?

[SFHoya99]

Mar 18, 2018 15:29:24 GMT -5 saxagael said:

I miss the days of brutal end-to-end Georgetown press defense. Toward the end of this season Ewing went with a diamond press that worked rather well, as Hoyas weren't getting burned and it was disrupting the other team quite a bit. It was the half court defense where Hoyas struggled this past season particularly on pick-and-pop, which is not communicating well and not having enough players to can run it well. The other difficulty was the needing to have help defense for Govan.

This is probably not coming back.

Presses were much more effective in the 80s, period. There were fewer quality ball handlers, tighter carry/travel rules, etc. It's not to say it can't work. But it is less effective now than ever. Even mid majors often have guys who can singlehandedly beat a press.

And you generally have to have absolutely superior athletic talent ... or build your entire team around it. We're not going to have the former, not at the level we want to compete. And while the latter is possible, I'm not sure how that is going to jive with a pro-style offense.

Pat played in the pressing days, so maybe he will go that route when he has more athleticism and depth. But he's never going to be the cultural icon that Big John was in the 80s for recruiting. So it's going to have to be a tactical choice that the team is going to be a pressing team, with all that comes with it.

[lichoya68]

ok the answer i await for this is from MR DEFENSE THE CAPTAIN GENE SMITH HE WAS DEFENSE just ask cuse and others. if youre there let us here what YOU think is important.

[lichoya68]

I do think MEANARY is a big part of it Smart meanary helps GUTS hustle just energy and toughness among others

[Nevada Hoya]

I always thought that the way to play under man to man defenses was to deny the ball to the player you were guarding. At GU I played intramural ball like that. We never played zone, so I always made sure that I denied my man the ball. Footwork and quickness helped attain this goal.

[jwp91]

Mar 19, 2018 14:03:51 GMT -5 Nevada Hoya said:

I always thought that the way to play under man to man defenses was to deny the ball to the player you were guarding. At GU I played intramural ball like that. We never played zone, so I always made sure that I denied my man the ball. Footwork and quickness helped attain this goal.

I learned that too, but I think team defense, ‘helping’, and rotations have changed all of that.