re: The change in Will Wade is defense

we can't play man to man defense. Did you miss last season? Our guards cannot stay in front of anyone. Idk why, but Wade teams (which have decent speed) seem to struggle with man to man more than any other school in conference.

And keep in mind, up until this last game our FG% 3pt defense had improved significantly from last year. I wanna say we were top 3 in the conference before last night... I'd say at least the 1-3-1 causes more havoc and can mask how poor their on ball defense is.

I agree, people put way too much into metrics. You think the Bill Russell’s , Oscar Robertson’s , Larry bird, Magic and MJ worried about metrics? Hell no, they played with instinct, knowledge and their God given abilities and the numbers and wins piled up. Nowadays, the game is played with a way higher emphasis on offense and there is not a whole hell of a lot of pride put into trying to stop your man/opponent ( it’s a shame ). Wade’s defensive philosophy and rotations suck and it puts his players in bad positions. I totally agree with madking in his assessment of their half arse full and 3/4 press. They are a little better in the half court trap but not much. Like he said, you have to be ultra aggressive in closing/ trapping and then everyone else better know exactly who they are rotating to. WW obviously doesn’t know how to fix it but I’ll give him credit for trying different defenses to alleviate the problem. He shows a willingness to grow and get better. I actually understand him trying zone ( they are bad man to man, on ball defenders ), but the players have to be on their toes, communicate well, aggressive and use good fundamentals when rebounding and they aren’t doing those things. Players depend too much on their athletic abilities these days and not enough on fundamentals. Take Larry Bird for example, 6’9” and had a 6” vertical. He got rebounds all the time in front of the Dominique’s,James Worthy’s and others because he sealed them off far enough from the basket that the ball came off the rim in front of him not over his head. The opponent would have to go over his back/foul, to win the rebound. Hopefully he finds the right formula.

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Ever heard of running shooters off of the line?

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I don't think the one additional 3P is the real issue. Offensive rebounds allowed, on the other hand...

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You think the Bill Russell’s , Oscar Robertson’s , Larry bird, Magic and MJ worried about metrics? Hell no, they played with instinct, knowledge and their God given abilities and the numbers and wins piled up.

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Cool, so all we need to do is replicate the instincts and natural talent of the five greatest players of all-time. Easy peasy.

Never compared him to anyone. The point, that you missed, was about fundamentals and being able to be successful with less athletic abilities. The 6” vertical was in jest literal Larry, it was to show that less than exceptional leapers can be effective rebounding with good fundamentals.

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They can't play man to man.

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I agree and they did play a lot of man against Bama, they would fall into switching man after the initial traps when they did do the trapping zones.

The problem is Smart and Watford particularly and to a lesser extent Thomas and Days, just can't stay in front of people.

So take them out and put guys in who can you say? Then you have no offense. Cook and Gaines are better perimeter defenders but have yet to show they can score consistently - at least to this point. Same for LeBlanc.

The biggest issue far and away IMHO is we can't stop dribble penetration on the perimeter. That leads to everything else that's wrong with the defense. Smart is our point guard and he can't stay in front of anyone's point guard defensively.

Could they be better than they are at preventing dribble penetration with better technique and communication? I would say yes but not by as much as is needed to be a consistently good defense. Smart and Watford just don't have the lateral quickness. Teams will continue to exploit that.

We have to outscore people, which I thought and still think us capable of doing against most teams on our schedule. But there are issues there too. Gotta get this Thomas thing fixed, he's too good a talent to be struggling like he is from the field right now. His own shot selection and decision-making is key to that, but I think he must be encouraged to changes there some. That and the other offensive issues like poor spacing and too much ISO where we don't even think of passing, are easier issues to fix IMHO.

Both issues are frustrating. I hope we can improve in both areas and I hope we do. We'll see what happens this evening.

I think you missed what I said in the post which is my fault because it was long enough already and I didn’t stress the details of what I meant about Vandy 2020. I didn’t say we played zone vs Vandy I said that was the point where our defense began to change. That was the first time he started using these strange matchups with Watford guarding ball handlers 25 feet away from the basket and Days playing in way too much space for him to guard effectively. You’re right Wade didn’t commit to the zone until this season. What you’re wrong about is how much zone we do play now. It’s just an estimation but I’m certain we haven’t played man to man for more than 30-40 possesions all year long. We were playing some man when we had Leblanc, Manning, Cook and Gaines on the floor at the same time but we’ve been in the 3-2 or 1-2-2 matchup zone 90-95% of the year which is basically the NBA zone and can be mistaken for man. And yea we have had 3-4 games where we’ve played well on D but for the overwhelming majority of the time we’ve been awful at it. We’ve had games that flew under the radar like Sam Houston and Tech because we won handily but the Sam Houston game was one of the worst defensive performances I’ve ever seen. The numbers don’t lie and we’ve regressed in every way since the defense has begun to change. Since Wade arrived the cut line for ppg allowed in SEC tournament teams has been around 73ppg. In our man to man we’ve given up 71ppg under Wade, since we’ve gone zone it’s climbed to 77ppg. He’s going to have to go back to it the only question is will it be too late when he realizes it.