Matta's smart defense

[GIGAFAN99]

Alright, here's something I could have sworn I saw last night from Matta that was really smart and I'm not sure how much we've seen it this year.

OSU would start off in zone and pretty much like clockwork around 17 seconds switch to man. So while we'd be reversing the ball in the zone we'd suddenly have to change to our man offense which takes a lot of time to get a look. It worked in the first half and bought him a lot of minutes, some shot clock panic, and even a few turnovers.

Second half we'd just set up a screen and roll whenever they switched and Wallace would knock down a three or Roy would be wide open to operate one-on-one. Nice adjustment, but Thad Matta had nice a gameplan versus Princeton to start off.

[VictorSkyPage]

This is a great call Giga, I noticed this as well...

I attribute OSU's win to Thad (and a little Mr. Conley) - he did a hell of a job all game and made me feel dumb for disrespecting his coaching leading up to this game

[canissaxa]

I didn't notice this, and it is definitely a great call.

The thing that really struck me on the defensive end was how much Roy's presence has allowed Jeff room to operate this year. OSU was the first team all year that had a real one-on-one answer to Roy (I don't count Pitt) and that allowed them to double Jeff. I don't recall seeing anyone consistently double Jeff this year and I don't think that he was used to it.

[Madgesdiq]

canissaxa said:

OSU was the first team all year that had a real one-on-one answer to Roy (I don't count Pitt) and that allowed them to double Jeff. I don't recall seeing anyone consistently double Jeff this year and I don't think that he was used to it.

While that is a nice theoretical argument, it didn't happen on Saturday. Green spent plenty of time on the court without Hibbert or Oden.

[Filo]

Yeah, but whoever was guarding Green was still getting lots of help. Ewing / Summers being so off really hurt in this regard, and Wallace was being chased all over the court to prevent him from getting good looks.

[GIGAFAN99]

madgesdiq said:

canissaxa said:

OSU was the first team all year that had a real one-on-one answer to Roy (I don't count Pitt) and that allowed them to double Jeff. I don't recall seeing anyone consistently double Jeff this year and I don't think that he was used to it.

While that is a nice theoretical argument, it didn't happen on Saturday. Green spent plenty of time on the court without Hibbert or Oden.

Right and even more glaring was that this was the first game all season in which Jeff did not take a three (and he had them available). A 38% shooter from out there and one of the most versatile inside-outside guys showed half his game for half the time. It was just one of those nights for Jeff for whatever reason, most likely that even mature, talented 20-year olds are prone to the occasional bout of timidity.

[SaxaCD]

It was a gamble and it worked -- that's why Jeff was passing it a lot -- they were both doubling to deny him the ball and also to pressure him once he got it. He found Roy and others for some shots, but as noted earlier, some of the other guys did not have their best games, so the gamble worked. I have harped on this but I'll do it one more time. No matter the game plan by Matta and the excellent work by Conley, if we make a few of our missed "bunnies" and box out better to keep OSU from scoring (after we had played fine defense on initial possessions), we win the game. That's why execution matters. A coach can look like a genius afterwards for some nice defensive calls, but if they don't put back their own bricks, they would have gone for naught.

[Madgesdiq]

I wasn't trying to say that they didn't double Jeff, just that it had little to do with Oden taking Roy 1 on 1. Jeff was doubled whether or not Oden or Roy were in the game.

[Filo]

saxacd85 said:

No matter the game plan by Matta and the excellent work by Conley, if we make a few of our missed "bunnies" and box out better to keep OSU from scoring (after we had played fine defense on initial possessions), we win the game. That's why execution matters. A coach can look like a genius afterwards for some nice defensive calls, but if they don't put back their own bricks, they would have gone for naught.

I agree. Other than the occassional bouts of turnovers, I felt that our potential achilles heel all year was poor boxing out. I really hope the big men work on getting better position / boxing out better. Given the coaching staff's strong approach to fundamentals, it's surprising that the players were weak in that area. Don't know if it is a function of all the switching we do on D, that just leaves the players out of position?

[nodak89]

gigafan99 said:

madgesdiq said:

While that is a nice theoretical argument, it didn't happen on Saturday. Green spent plenty of time on the court without Hibbert or Oden.

Right and even more glaring was that this was the first game all season in which Jeff did not take a three (and he had them available). A 38% shooter from out there and one of the most versatile inside-outside guys showed half his game for half the time. It was just one of those nights for Jeff for whatever reason, most likely that even mature, talented 20-year olds are prone to the occasional bout of timidity.

I remember one possesion in particular when Jeff passed an open top of the key trey, passed the ball to Jessie who ended up taking and missing a contested three.

I would rather have Jeff take that shot.

[SaxaCD]

I remember that one, and I thought that was the only poor decision he made. The others didn't work out, but that deferred shot was the only one I didn't like.

[KHoyaNYC]

I was actually as impressed with OSU's fast break skills - they did a great job converting those turnovers into easy buckets in transition, better than any team we have played this year. Their defense wouldn't have made as much of an impact if they didn''t convert the turnovers into easy points. Unfortunately, they did.

[miracles87]

Matta coached a great game. The soft zone, not really troubling themselves with our penetration, more focusing on the inside, passing lanes and open threes. That said, had our boys hit some shots, we coulda broken them.

[lichoya68]

i love dajuan but he played his freshman game one for ten and six turnovers he was only one for ten vs. the cuse i love him but if he hits two of the threes and two less turnovers ouch coulda been the game and he got the ball cause jeff was covered alot but hey i love dajuann he played great in the post season so wait till next year woowwo dajuan will not be a frosh and will dominate go hoyas 2008 will be great ;D

[DuddingtonHoya]

gigafan99 said:

Alright, here's something I could have sworn I saw last night from Matta that was really smart and I'm not sure how much we've seen it this year.

OSU would start off in zone and pretty much like clockwork around 17 seconds switch to man. So while we'd be reversing the ball in the zone we'd suddenly have to change to our man offense which takes a lot of time to get a look. It worked in the first half and bought him a lot of minutes, some shot clock panic, and even a few turnovers.

Notre Dame did this in the BET, too. In the post game, JTIII said that they expected this kind of defense in the final play, so they drew up Jeff's play based on it. That game might be where Matta got this defense from, since JTIII specifically mentioned it in the press afterwards.

[canissaxa]

While that is a nice theoretical argument, it didn't happen on Saturday. Green spent plenty of time on the court without Hibbert or Oden.

I've read this response and I'm still not sure on what grounds my post is being attacked.

My main point is that Jeff hasn't been doubled regularly in any game I saw this year (Yes, I did see the Vandy game--I said "regularly") and I don't think he was used to it. I was out of the country until January, so maybe this happened in some early games.

If you ask yourself why the best player on our team--who is a 6-9 forward--didn't get doubled at least occasionally this year, it has to be at least partly because of Roy. (The other possible reason is because Jeff is far from a pure post player).

In the OSU game, Jeff was doubled consistently. OSU had the luxury of doing that even when Roy was in the game because Oden could play somewhat effective 1-on-1 defense on Roy. I didn't mean to imply that OSU only doubled Jeff when Oden and Roy were in the game (which was a very small portion of the game). But having a partial answer to Roy allowed OSU to design and practice a double team defense for Jeff that they used fairly effectively on Saturday.

Pittsburgh is the only other team we played this year that could have taken this approach, but they didn't because Gray isn't nearly as capable as Oden in handling Roy 1-on-1 and they have the height in the forward position to at least body up on Jeff 1-on-1.