I had this admittedly speculative thought about our poor rebounding last year...it startled me about 2/3s of the way through that season. I started to wonder if our terrible offensive rebounding was an area where the staff concluded not to fight the "tape", i.e. given our small size and bulk, we effectively conceded on the offensive boards.
My speculation is they trained the team to fight the instinct to attack the offensive boards when a teammate shot. Instead, the coaches urged them to head back on defense with the shot. That is, don't worry about offensive rebounds unless you are already in a decent position to get a rebound....for example: on the far side of the rim when a shot came from the opposite corner, or unless you already had inside position,.
I appreciate teams need at least one guard dropping back quickly to avoid the long pass, fast break layups. But this was far more dominant a pattern. Did the staff conclude chances are you aren't getting the rebound anyway against bigger, taller teams, so let's avoid fouls and get back on defense? Rather than risk that our few bigs, "frequent foulers" already, would pick up more "over the back" fouls. it seemed to me, on a high percentage of plays, all the non-shooters just turned and headed back on defense as the shot went up. It seemed we hardly ever crashed the boards; we simply conceded offense rebounds.
The passivity in attacking seemed too obvious and repetitive not to be planned...or it would have been reprimanded. Once I had the thought about avoiding fouling, it seemed to explain a lot. (We did provide a lot of group rebounding on defense).
I could be way off base, but this was a team with little depth especially underneath. It may explain a modest portion of the low offensive rebounding numbers. I lot of the offensive boards we did get came from the shooter getting their own rebound. No-one seemed the least bit concerned they would get reprimanded for not attacking the offensive boards and
not fighting for position.
Anyway, the implication is that with more depth this year, and IF the above was deliberate, we may see a lot more aggressiveness on the offensive boards next season because we have more depth and can afford the risk of increased fouls from fighting on the boards.
Am I trying to hard to find an excuse for our pathetic stats or is this plausible?
My speculation is they trained the team to fight the instinct to attack the offensive boards when a teammate shot. Instead, the coaches urged them to head back on defense with the shot. That is, don't worry about offensive rebounds unless you are already in a decent position to get a rebound....for example: on the far side of the rim when a shot came from the opposite corner, or unless you already had inside position,.
I appreciate teams need at least one guard dropping back quickly to avoid the long pass, fast break layups. But this was far more dominant a pattern. Did the staff conclude chances are you aren't getting the rebound anyway against bigger, taller teams, so let's avoid fouls and get back on defense? Rather than risk that our few bigs, "frequent foulers" already, would pick up more "over the back" fouls. it seemed to me, on a high percentage of plays, all the non-shooters just turned and headed back on defense as the shot went up. It seemed we hardly ever crashed the boards; we simply conceded offense rebounds.
The passivity in attacking seemed too obvious and repetitive not to be planned...or it would have been reprimanded. Once I had the thought about avoiding fouling, it seemed to explain a lot. (We did provide a lot of group rebounding on defense).
I could be way off base, but this was a team with little depth especially underneath. It may explain a modest portion of the low offensive rebounding numbers. I lot of the offensive boards we did get came from the shooter getting their own rebound. No-one seemed the least bit concerned they would get reprimanded for not attacking the offensive boards and
not fighting for position.
Anyway, the implication is that with more depth this year, and IF the above was deliberate, we may see a lot more aggressiveness on the offensive boards next season because we have more depth and can afford the risk of increased fouls from fighting on the boards.
Am I trying to hard to find an excuse for our pathetic stats or is this plausible?
