Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2015 16:10:23 GMT -5
Hi guys!!
I think it is fair to say that we are having a problem with a zone defense. I am not an expert, but it appears to me that we have a dearth of good passers on this team. I can name only two really good passers (DSR and Paul White) and one decent passer in Josh Smith. Jabril and Hop both have a lot of positives, but neither one is a particularly good passer. LJ is a terrific player, but hasn't shown the ability to pass. This inability to pass explains some of the turnovers (not all as some are just careless ones) when trying to attack a zone. I think Tre is going to be an excellent passer with time.
It appears to me that the only forward that we can put in the middle in order to attack the zone is Paul White. Incidentally, it appears to me that Paul White's freshman year has been as good as Otto's was.
What do you guys think??
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jan 11, 2015 16:30:49 GMT -5
Hi guys!! I think it is fair to say that we are having a problem with a zone defense. I am not an expert, but it appears to me that we have a dearth of good passers on this team. I can name only two really good passers (DSR and Paul White) and one decent passer in Josh Smith. Jabril and Hop both have a lot of positives, but neither one is a particularly good passer. LJ is a terrific player, but hasn't shown the ability to pass. This inability to pass explains some of the turnovers (not all as some are just careless ones) when trying to attack a zone. I think Tre is going to be an excellent passer with time. It appears to me that the only forward that we can put in the middle in order to attack the zone is Paul White. Incidentally, it appears to me that Paul White's freshman year has been as good as Otto's was. What do you guys think?? Paul White is one of our best bets in the middle of the zone. I wouldn't say his freshman year has been as good as Otto's. Otto was a better defender and rebounder. Paul has the three point shot Otto didn't have yet, but Otto was better with his two point shot. I think Otto did most things better except maybe the handle and the three. There is no shame to this.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Jan 11, 2015 18:08:52 GMT -5
Post of the season imho. Inability to find open men with a clean pass in the right position seems to be a consistent problem. I am a little more critical DSR is a decent passer, Whites developing but looks good inside to an open man. Hopkin use to be a decent passer but not much oppurtunities when you can't catch. White not a great passer out of a double but has shown the ability to move the ball. The rest are an adventure with almost any kind of pass. Jabril best pass of season off of penetration may have been to glide Hoya. on a positive note we did execute the first skip pass in a couple of weeks against the friar zone.
Many here complain about how poorly we attack a simple 2-3 zone. sorry you don't stretch and move a zone with people cutting. Zones move with the ball. By the pass or penetration. If you have a hard time doing both well you have seen the results. Especially when we are limited in consistent outside shooting vs previous years.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Jan 11, 2015 19:23:06 GMT -5
I agree completely. The inability to throw an entry pass into Smith has been a huge problem. Virtually nobody on this team can consistently feed it to Smith. He often needs to leap for the ball or get off balance, which often causes him to struggle to go up with the ball or turn it over.
Under-utilizing Smith is one of the biggest weaknesses this team has, in my opinion. And I think a main factor in that is the poor passing that our team has this year.
By no means was Lubick a great offensive player, but his passing was very good and I think the lack of that element on this team has been a huge problem.
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Post by hoyacane11 on Jan 11, 2015 19:36:21 GMT -5
I agree, White is our best bet in the middle, but we haven't even tried Copeland there. I would even put Jabril there because you don't have to make that pass via the lob, it's better and safer to make a bounce entry pass to the ft line vs a zone. He can dump it down, out, or better yet attack the rim, and draw fouls,a basket, or both. All we're doing is playing keep away, instead of attacking the zone strategically. We're going to be zoned to death until we DO something to break teams out of it. What we're doing isn't working, so we need to make changes, and the sooner the better.
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mfk24
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Post by mfk24 on Jan 11, 2015 19:51:36 GMT -5
I agree, White is our best bet in the middle, but we haven't even tried Copeland there. I would even put Jabril there because you don't have to make that pass via the lob, it's better and safer to make a bounce entry pass to the ft line vs a zone. He can dump it down, out, or better yet attack the rim, and draw fouls,a basket, or both. All we're doing is playing keep away, instead of attacking the zone strategically. We're going to be zoned to death until we DO something to break teams out of it. What we're doing isn't working, so we need to make changes, and the sooner the better. I've seen Jabril at the free throw line, especially when White isn't in the game and I saw Copeland there in the Providence game so I don't think it's a matter of people not being in the right position. The problem with Jabril is that he isn't gonna shoot the foul line jumper, ever, and is only looking to drive. I'd rather have him there than Hopkins though because he's less likely to turn the ball over driving to the basket. I think the bigger issue is the entry pass that gets the ball to whichever player is in that position. White was camped out there for 10 seconds a couple of times waiting for the pass and the perimeter players continued to swing the ball back and forth. I get that the premise is to swing the ball, make the zone and then get the ball into the middle to collapse the zone, but the passes aren't moving nearly fast enough or with any sort of energy to force the defense to move. Part of it is we don't really have any credible threat from 3 and don't take very many of them so they aren't going to close out on the wing, and part of it is the ball is just moving so slowly that the defense has plenty of time to rotate before we can make the entry pass.
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Post by hoyacane11 on Jan 11, 2015 20:00:42 GMT -5
That's why putting Jabril there makes sense to me. I don't care if he doesn't take the shot, I love his aggressiveness, sometimes recklessness, taking the ball to the basket drawing the foul or dumping it off for a layup. Something just has to change. What we're doing game after game, is the definition of insanity.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 11, 2015 20:02:13 GMT -5
White and Copeland flashed to the line against the zone several times but PC did a great job of hedging the middle man of the back line of the 2-3 (usually Desrosiers) up to confront them and the PC guards dropped back to contest as well. The kickout never produced shots to make PC pay.
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rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Jan 11, 2015 20:02:32 GMT -5
I agree, White is our best bet in the middle, but we haven't even tried Copeland there. I would even put Jabril there because you don't have to make that pass via the lob, it's better and safer to make a bounce entry pass to the ft line vs a zone. He can dump it down, out, or better yet attack the rim, and draw fouls,a basket, or both. All we're doing is playing keep away, instead of attacking the zone strategically. We're going to be zoned to death until we DO something to break teams out of it. What we're doing isn't working, so we need to make changes, and the sooner the better. I've seen Jabril at the free throw line, especially when White isn't in the game and I saw Copeland there in the Providence game so I don't think it's a matter of people not being in the right position. The problem with Jabril is that he isn't gonna shoot the foul line jumper, ever, and is only looking to drive. I'd rather have him there than Hopkins though because he's less likely to turn the ball over driving to the basket. I think the bigger issue is the entry pass that gets the ball to whichever player is in that position. White was camped out there for 10 seconds a couple of times waiting for the pass and the perimeter players continued to swing the ball back and forth. I get that the premise is to swing the ball, make the zone and then get the ball into the middle to collapse the zone, but the passes aren't moving nearly fast enough or with any sort of energy to force the defense to move. Part of it is we don't really have any credible threat from 3 and don't take very many of them so they aren't going to close out on the wing, and part of it is the ball is just moving so slowly that the defense has plenty of time to rotate before we can make the entry pass. I agree, and the slow passing has me thinking that maybe our IQ is a bit lacking overall. The only way to beat that zone is to make quick, decisive passes and it seems as though we are content with simpler passing around the perimeter and watching the same defensive rotations over and over. Also, I agree about Jabril. It's really baffling that a former PG lacks any semblance of touch. His reluctance to take any shot from the ft line in that isn't a layup hurts this team at times. You would think that with a 40+ inch very he would simply try to elevate and shoot over the defense when he is 10 feet and in, but it seems as though he really struggles if he can't use the backboard.
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 11, 2015 22:07:19 GMT -5
You can do all the passing or non passing you want but at the end of the day you need outside/3pt shooters to beat the zone.
Isn't that what the Princeton offense was designed to do. Force the team to go to zone to avoid the Princeton offense. Then in the zone the Princeton type offense could excel because everyone on the non athletic Princeton team include the bigs could shoot wide open 3s if given the space that a zone provides.
The problem right now is DSR and maybe Tre Campbell are the only ones who can consistently hit wide open 3s. Paul White seems like he should be good at it to but he's not consistently hitting it against the zone and he is also needed at the free throw line and baseline against the zone. LJ Peak is gun shy right now and I'm not even sure how good his outside shot is anyway. Trawick and Bowen it really makes no difference if they are wide open in terms of their 3pt prowess.
The other place you can attack the zone is 1) the guy at the free throw line in the middle of the zone. This Paul White seems okay here and Copeland has potential. 2) guy running along the baseline. Again Paul White did a pretty good job of scoring as the baseline guy. I think Trawick would actually do very well at this position cause he could just attack the basket.
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beenaround
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Post by beenaround on Jan 11, 2015 22:16:23 GMT -5
Just checked the stats...surprised to find that Paul White is actually shooting 40% on threes. DSR is 33% and only 41% on FG's. So, yes...the team is not a good outside shooting team, period. But I also agree with the earlier posts that we're not exactly loaded with good passers, either. DSR is not a great playmaker...but is a good passer, for sure. White has the handle and the cool to be a very good passer. I've also noticed at least a few times, where Isaac was able to throw the ball in to Smith from out top, due to his length. Never hurts having a big up high throw to a big down low.
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rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Jan 11, 2015 23:26:49 GMT -5
Just checked the stats...surprised to find that Paul White is actually shooting 40% on threes. DSR is 33% and only 41% on FG's. So, yes...the team is not a good outside shooting team, period. But I also agree with the earlier posts that we're not exactly loaded with good passers, either. DSR is not a great playmaker...but is a good passer, for sure. White has the handle and the cool to be a very good passer. I've also noticed at least a few times, where Isaac was able to throw the ball in to Smith from out top, due to his length. Never hurts having a big up high throw to a big down low. Other sign of the coin is we're not loaded with bad shooters either. Albeit on lesser attempts, yet still significant enough iirc Jabril and Aaron also shoot 40%+, so yeah if we can pass the ball around quickly enough to free up open shots we will be fine. Tre can his when open, Paul, DSR, Jabril, and to a lesser extent Aaron and Cope. They won't make every open three but they're more than good enough to make a difference if the shots are there. The reluctance of our guards to pull the trigger is a whole other question...
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 12, 2015 0:37:26 GMT -5
Just checked the stats...surprised to find that Paul White is actually shooting 40% on threes. DSR is 33% and only 41% on FG's. So, yes...the team is not a good outside shooting team, period. But I also agree with the earlier posts that we're not exactly loaded with good passers, either. DSR is not a great playmaker...but is a good passer, for sure. White has the handle and the cool to be a very good passer. I've also noticed at least a few times, where Isaac was able to throw the ball in to Smith from out top, due to his length. Never hurts having a big up high throw to a big down low. Other sign of the coin is we're not loaded with bad shooters either. Albeit on lesser attempts, yet still significant enough iirc Jabril and Aaron also shoot 40%+, so yeah if we can pass the ball around quickly enough to free up open shots we will be fine. Tre can his when open, Paul, DSR, Jabril, and to a lesser extent Aaron and Cope. They won't make every open three but they're more than good enough to make a difference if the shots are there. The reluctance of our guards to pull the trigger is a whole other question... Bowen and Jabril don't pull the trigger because they aren't good shooters. Bowen is a career 26% 3pt shooter so the 40% under a small sample size is deceptive. Trawick is career 32% 3pt shooter. He's actually not bad but he prefers driving to shooting outside. However when Bowen misses he misses badly so it's equivalent to a turnover. And you can leave them open for 5 seconds and it still wouldn't improve their 3pt shooting because they have to think about it. Some players are automatic if they are left wide open in essence shooting a much higher percentage when nobody is in their face compared to when they are guarded. Those are the players who benefit from passing and zones.
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HoyaFanNY
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Post by HoyaFanNY on Jan 12, 2015 5:12:46 GMT -5
we have had a problem with zone defenses for years. this issue is nothing new. a great player, like say otto, can mask those issues at times but this has been an issue for III coached teams for a long time. this team has one relaible shooter (DSR) and he has struggled mostly all season. this offense is a stagnant mess and that falls at the feet of the coaching staff.
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rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Jan 12, 2015 8:34:56 GMT -5
Other sign of the coin is we're not loaded with bad shooters either. Albeit on lesser attempts, yet still significant enough iirc Jabril and Aaron also shoot 40%+, so yeah if we can pass the ball around quickly enough to free up open shots we will be fine. Tre can his when open, Paul, DSR, Jabril, and to a lesser extent Aaron and Cope. They won't make every open three but they're more than good enough to make a difference if the shots are there. The reluctance of our guards to pull the trigger is a whole other question... Bowen and Jabril don't pull the trigger because they aren't good shooters. Bowen is a career 26% 3pt shooter so the 40% under a small sample size is deceptive. Trawick is career 32% 3pt shooter. He's actually not bad but he prefers driving to shooting outside. However when Bowen misses he misses badly so it's equivalent to a turnover. And you can leave them open for 5 seconds and it still wouldn't improve their 3pt shooting because they have to think about it. Some players are automatic if they are left wide open in essence shooting a much higher percentage when nobody is in their face compared to when they are guarded. Those are the players who benefit from passing and zones. Have you ever heard of the term improvement? Aaron's shot has improved in practice apparently, you can tell in warmups it's gotten significantly better, and his on court stats start to back it up. Jabril's jumper is no longer broke like it used to be (it actually was never that bad outside of game settings), he showed improvement over the spring, carried that into Kenner, and has been shooting well in practice and in games since. His shot is obviously better when open too so I don't know where you got this notion that players can't perform differently from one day to the next, or in this case one year to the next. Jabril and Aaron have admittedly shown a reluctance to shoot, but until they start shooting worse from three than any of our other players save Paul I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because they HAVE TO start hitting for this team to reach its potential and the excuse that they are simply not good shooters isn't really all that valid at this point in their careers, nor should it be acceptable.
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dense
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Post by dense on Jan 12, 2015 9:11:54 GMT -5
The thing is that with the aggressive 2-3 that teams are playing the 2 guys down low have to constantly present themselves and if they do not get the ball go away and come back or do the work early on the weak side so when the ball is swung they have the man sealed. Also the guy who flashes foul line and doesn't receive the ball just can't sit there until the ball cones. The zone the teams are playing is sagging into that spot and giving up the wing 3 which no one is taking or catching and looking to drive.
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lichoya68
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Post by lichoya68 on Jan 12, 2015 9:40:07 GMT -5
Regardless of any of those problems we HAD this game IF we hit foul shots nuf said those are UNGUARDED shots thats why they are FREE THROWS> cant have a senior center go none for six at crunch time GET THEE TO THE GYM AT SIX AM nuf said .
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calhoya
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Post by calhoya on Jan 12, 2015 9:58:34 GMT -5
The thing is that with the aggressive 2-3 that teams are playing the 2 guys down low have to constantly present themselves and if they do not get the ball go away and come back or do the work early on the weak side so when the ball is swung they have the man sealed. Also the guy who flashes foul line and doesn't receive the ball just can't sit there until the ball cones. The zone the teams are playing is sagging into that spot and giving up the wing 3 which no one is taking or catching and looking to drive. Absolutely agree with this. To beat a zone ball movement is only one third of the equation. You need "player movement" and decent shooting. The shots do not have to be 3s, but open looks come with the movement. Obviously, most teams will shoot better with open looks. Also would like to see the team cut back the DSR, Peak, and Trawich lineup a little to get another potential shooter in the game. Peak is slumping offensively, but improving defensively. Still his improvement is not to the point tht he is a better defender than Bowen, Trawick, DSR or possibly Tre. Yet he currently is averaging the second most minutes on the team with DSR at 32 mpg, Peak at 29 mpg and Trawick at 26 mpg. Peak's offensive shortcomings are reflected in his percentages--26% from 3 and 42% overall. In contrast Bowen is at 41%/61%, Tre at 35%/35% and Trawick at 44%/53%. Of those players Peak may be the most capable of an explosive performance but those have tended to come in more wide open games or portions of games and not out of the half court sets that opposing zones are forcing the Hoyas to use. Also his overall shooting percentage is more concerning when considering the number of shots he takes from layup range. Not suggesting the Peak should sit, just that some of his minutes might be better allocated to Bowen/Tre just to get a little more offense on the floor, without reducing the defense at all.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Jan 12, 2015 10:01:38 GMT -5
The thing is that with the aggressive 2-3 that teams are playing the 2 guys down low have to constantly present themselves and if they do not get the ball go away and come back or do the work early on the weak side so when the ball is swung they have the man sealed. Also the guy who flashes foul line and doesn't receive the ball just can't sit there until the ball cones. The zone the teams are playing is sagging into that spot and giving up the wing 3 which no one is taking or catching and looking to drive. Right. That's exactly what's happening, and it's why we can't get the ball consistently to the foul line. (It's easy to say "get the ball to the foul-line," but if he's fronted there, you have to simply pass it to someone else along the perimeter. There's literally no other option.) The guys on the wing actually are looking to drive when they get that next pass from the permimeter, but it doesn't always come to them quickly enough to permit it (often because the guy passing them the ball has -- not improperly -- first tried desperately to see if he can squeeze a pass into the high post). And when the guy there does drive, it is't anyone but DSR or Paul (which usually means Jabril / LJ / Aaron), they haven't shown the ability to be good enough passers to draw the defense with the drive and then dish consistently, or to pull up and hit the fifteen footer, either of which is what has to happen there. The bottom line is that we can talk scheme all we want, but our inability to shoot is simply a killer right now. If you even make something like two three pointers in a three possession span, you change the entire complexion of what the defense is doing because it creates hesitancy in denying the high post, thus opening everything up. You can cut, drive, overload, whatever, but if they don't have to respect the 20 footer, there simply is so little space for the five guys to defend that things become too easy for the defense. It's not rocket science.
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vv83
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Post by vv83 on Jan 12, 2015 11:46:21 GMT -5
The thing is that with the aggressive 2-3 that teams are playing the 2 guys down low have to constantly present themselves and if they do not get the ball go away and come back or do the work early on the weak side so when the ball is swung they have the man sealed. Also the guy who flashes foul line and doesn't receive the ball just can't sit there until the ball cones. The zone the teams are playing is sagging into that spot and giving up the wing 3 which no one is taking or catching and looking to drive. Right. That's exactly what's happening, and it's why we can't get the ball consistently to the foul line. (It's easy to say "get the ball to the foul-line," but if he's fronted there, you have to simply pass it to someone else along the perimeter. There's literally no other option.) The guys on the wing actually are looking to drive when they get that next pass from the permimeter, but it doesn't always come to them quickly enough to permit it (often because the guy passing them the ball has -- not improperly -- first tried desperately to see if he can squeeze a pass into the high post). And when the guy there does drive, it is't anyone but DSR or Paul (which usually means Jabril / LJ / Aaron), they haven't shown the ability to be good enough passers to draw the defense with the drive and then dish consistently, or to pull up and hit the fifteen footer, either of which is what has to happen there. The bottom line is that we can talk scheme all we want, but our inability to shoot is simply a killer right now. If you even make something like two three pointers in a three possession span, you change the entire complexion of what the defense is doing because it creates hesitancy in denying the high post, thus opening everything up. You can cut, drive, overload, whatever, but if they don't have to respect the 20 footer, there simply is so little space for the five guys to defend that things become too easy for the defense. It's not rocket science. Agree completely on the shooting point. We simply have not shot the ball well this year. While we could definitely do a better job of attacking defenses to get better shots, the bigger problem is that we have missed far too many of the good shots we have been able to create. More than in any previous year, it feels like the simple act of putting the ball in the basket has been the determining factor in most of our conference games this year. Examples -Both teams shot poorly on saturday, so we lost a close, ugly game. We shot well, Creighton did not - pretty easy win for us. Xavier shot well, we did not - pretty easy win for Xavier. I think sometimes we overanalyze our losses. Against Xavier and Creighton - I think those were much more evenly played games than the scores indicated, but in both games one team hit a lot more of their open shots than the other team did. That is certainly an overly simplistic analysis - but I think better shooting on open shots is the single change that would make the biggest difference in our success moving forward. Not exactly a ground breaking piece of analysis there, I realize! DSR seems to be shooting a lot better in the last few weeks, we just need him to get more aggressive and take more shots. The freshmen are probably the key. White, Copeland, and Campbell all have solid shooting fundamentals. Eventually the open shots will start falling for them consistently, hopefully sooner rather than later. Peak gets no rotation on his shot. Without the fundamentals of a standard release, he'll probably always be very streaky "feel" shooter. There may be some wisdom in attacking the 2-3 by aggressively looking for the open 3's, then attacking the offensive boards hard with our front line (keeping the guards back to defend transition). Even if we are missing, we are a good offensive rebounding teams. And over time we would likely make enough 3's that it would force teams to push the defense out further to the perimeter, opening up the inside stuff. I would rather see us taking an "early in the possession" open 3 vs. the 2-3 then to watch us pass the ball around the perimeter for 25 seconds, then scramble to get up a contested shot late in the shot clock.
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