Style of Play

ghostzapper

ghostzapper

Well-known member
2023 $upporter
Despite the recent results I still believe that we have plenty of talented players on our roster. I also believe that like many players our players have some flaws in their games. I think that we would be much better served to play more of a full court game that would accentuate the strengths of our roster and disguise some of our flaws.

I have never been sure why we don't press and run more frequently than we do. We are simply not a very good half court basketball team. If you look at the second half of the Georgia Tech game we used that press and run style to turn that game around.

We have a full roster of players, many who would be better served to play in the open court. We have tremendous depth and a high level of athleticism. Using our depth and athletes might wear opponents down and also turn the game from a half court affair into a 94 feet track meet. We clearly need to find easier ways to score and in transition we can be a load for our opposition. I believe that at least nine of our twelve scholarship players would be better served by pressing and playing in the open court than in half court sets. In no particular order those players would be:

Sampson
Pointer
Branch
Jordan
Sanchez
Achiuwa
Balamou
Obekpa
Greene

Additionally Harrison could thrive in games like this and used properly there could be roles for Hooper and Bourgault too. In this style of game kick out threes can be made off the break. Other teams do it all the time.

At this point it makes more sense to play this style with this group than any other strategy I can think of.
 
Tom Bradley Wrote: gg is not a horse, he is a truck

Gift may be a truck but he is certainly not a plodder. He can run the court well and has beaten opponents down the floor for dunks or easy layups on a number of occasions. I think he would be effective in a run and press game and like many of our players in this style of play would get more minutes and more of a sense of purpose.
 
Good post, and I respect the opinion Ghost Zapper.
But I think people conflate running in transition with full court defense, and one doesn't necessarily require the other.
IMO we are not built to press or trap for long periods of the game. We have trouble staying in front off ball handlers, and we foul too often. These are weakness which will be exposed 10 fold if we play full court D for most of the game. Also fwiw, we are not particularly adept at grabbing steals. Jordan is, and maybe Dom, but that's it.

What I think you are right about though is that we're built to get easy buckets in transition. But I think the best way to get out and run is by grabbing long rebounds.
When you allow penetration; foul; or give up made baskets ..it's going to be hard to run.
Which is why I would pack things in. You can play man or a 2-3, but the premise would be the same: force people to shoot over you by giving some space, staying between your man and the basket, forcing teams to pass a lot, and always bringing help early when someone tries to drive. Shut off the penetration.
That will cause teams to shoot jump shots - lowest % shot in bball, and give you lots of long rebounds, errant passes etc, and you won't put the other team at the foul line so often.
 
Desco 80 Wrote:Good post, and I respect the opinion Ghost Zapper.
But I think people conflate running in transition with full court defense, and one doesn't necessarily require the other.
IMO we are not built to press or trap for long periods of the game. We have trouble staying in front off ball handlers, and we foul too often. These are weakness which will be exposed 10 fold if we play full court D for most of the game. Also fwiw, we are not particularly adept at grabbing steals. Jordan is, and maybe Dom, but that's it.

What I think you are right about though is that we're built to get easy buckets in transition. But I think the best way to get out and run is by grabbing long rebounds.
When you allow penetration; foul; or give up made baskets ..it's going to be hard to run.
Which is why I would pack things in. You can play man or a 2-3, but the premise would be the same: force people to shoot over you by giving some space, staying between your man and the basket, forcing teams to pass a lot, and always bringing help early when someone tries to drive. Shut off the penetration.
That will cause teams to shoot jump shots - lowest % shot in bball, and give you lots of long rebounds, errant passes etc, and you won't put the other team at the foul line so often.


Excellent points Desco. You might be right by saying that, "we are not built to press or trap for long periods of the game". That being said something different has to happen here. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

FYI I wasn't suggesting that running in transition is the same as playing full court defense. I think however we need to both take advantage of our depth and stay out of the half court game as much as possible.

Why do we have such a full roster of athletic D1 players if not to turn that into an advantage for us. At the end of the Depaul, Providence, Villanova and Syracuse games we could not score in the half court. In all of those games we were even or slightly ahead late in the second half, but did not have a cushion to work with and lost because we could not score in the half court end game.

Turning the game into 94 feet should wear down teams with shorter benches. We need to increase the speed of the game to create easier opportunities on offense and to use our depth and athleticism to its full effectiveness. With this in place we might wind up being up nine with four minutes left instead of even or down two and trying to win the game with a style we already know we don't do well with.

Perhaps we would not be the next coming of Nolan Richardson's forty minutes of hell or Paul Westhead's fast break transition offense but it would change the nature of how we are playing, use more of our roster effectively, hide some basic flaws, accentuate some of our player's strengths and produce a cohesive philosophy that could produce different results.
 
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