Enough of the "havoc" crap

[88RAM]

They should shut up about their defense until they actually start playing it passionately, competently, and in all aspects: press, half court, zone, man, etc....

 

[ndnballer09]

wow.

 

[Pavarotti]

While this can probably be merged with RRR's "Havoc 2.0" thread, I can't say I disagree.

Let's start with solid, then work our way up to creating havoc.

 

[VCU4LIFE]

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but a main component of the havoc concept is to get our opponent out of their comfort zone and playing at a pace at which they are not comfortable and do not have control of the game. I'd say that pretty much sums up the UNCG game. Shaka has already said before this game was in the books that halfcourt defense needed work and would be a focus for practices as we move through the season.

 

[Mercury]

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but a main component of the havoc concept is to get our opponent out of their comfort zone and playing at a pace at which they are not comfortable and do not have control of the game. I'd say that pretty much sums up the UNCG game. Shaka has already said before this game was in the books that halfcourt defense needed work and would be a focus for practices as we move through the season.

Well if they werent comfortable and dropped 86 points I would hate to see what they do when they are comfortable

 

[ramathon74]

Havoc -2.0 may be more appropriate, as in Havoc negative 2.0.

Otherwise VCU is branding to a product that does not exist. Still enjoyed the game but we might as well play like VMI of a couple of years ago.

 

[BradRamFan]

I disagree. If you watched the first 5-10 minutes of the game last night, you saw the havoc we put on our opponents.

One of the reasons it did not continue was because we were unable to play our brand of basketball....our havoc ball. We are an up tempo brand of ball...that is where our havoc reigns. With all the fouls and stoppages we were unable to really put it into place for a lot of the game. We were forced to play more half court where we are still weak and learning.

Then we need to remember that with Veal on the bench for most of the first half, we were basically down to a single front court guy from last year...no wonder we had gaps in the lane. While all of you were gushing all over the rams during the summer and fall, I said we would be really weak in the middle with the loss of Sanders, Kiril, and TJ. Veal has shown up (which I am very happy about) but if he is on the bench I think we will remain weak in the middle. DJ is a freshman, Hinton hasn't had a lot of in game time, Reddick is a freshman, Brad isn't really an in the paint banger...............so that leaves Skeen (and Veal if he decreases fouls). You all act surprised.....kinda funny if you ask me!

 

[Pavarotti]

Growing up in the shadow of Mason during the 90's, I remember how excited everyone was when "Paul Ball" aka Paul Westhead's fun-and-gun arrived. They marketed "Paul Ball" well, and promised an exciting brand of basketball for the crowd.

George Mason's record for those four years- 38-70

I don't think we're as bad as those Mason teams are, I'm just pointing out the danger of hyping a buzzword as a system. What if conservative is the best way for us to win a game this year? Do we go out and play "havoc" just because it's in the commercials?

 

[RamboRowdy]

Here's the issue I saw with the Havoc defense the other night. Its suppose to speed up the tempo of the game which is to favor to the Rams running style. However, I saw points in the game where UNCG sped up the game and did well while doing so. Basically they were playing better than VCU at VCU's own game.

 

[VCU4LIFE]

Well, correct me if I am wrong, but a main component of the havoc concept is to get our opponent out of their comfort zone and playing at a pace at which they are not comfortable and do not have control of the game. I'd say that pretty much sums up the UNCG game. Shaka has already said before this game was in the books that halfcourt defense needed work and would be a focus for practices as we move through the season.

Well if they werent comfortable and dropped 86 points I would hate to see what they do when they are comfortable

I am going to guess that they would probably have been more in their comfort zone with a half-court game and the final score in the low 70s....

 

[getSmart]

Ok here's my 2 cents. When you press and get steals and transition into a fast break about 50% of the time, maybe even higher, the oponent will foul for various reasons. That's a good thing if you shoot 70%+ from the FT line. Based on the Union scrimmage and now the UNCG game we really need to work on FT's. Ithink our press looks fine. It's our 1/2 court defense that looks bad and without making baskets including FT's we cannot press as effectively.

 

[VCU4LIFE]

Ok here's my 2 cents. When you press and get steals and transition into a fast break about 50% of the time, maybe even higher, the oponent will foul for various reasons. That's a good thing if you shoot 70%+ from the FT line. Based on the Union scrimmage and now the UNCG game we really need to work on FT's. Ithink our press looks fine. It's our 1/2 court defense that looks bad and without making baskets including FT's we cannot press as effectively.

Add to that also that due to the simple fact that we play at such a frenetic pace, that speeds up the game and adds to the total number of possessions on both ends of the court. I certainly am no Toni/Reaper/Jainez when it comes to the statistical breakdown of things, but I am willing to guess that ever since we started the whole modified Fun 'N Gun mentality with AG and now with Shaka, we have seen many of our opponents score more points than they have averaged during the course of the year due to the fact that when they play us the number of offensive possessions is all but guaranteed to be higher than their average game!

 

[ShoeSh1ne]

They made about 10 shots that nobody should make.

 

[Rambunctious]

The problem is it's not physically possible for most guys to run all out on offense and defense the entire game. There will be lapses. Instead of pressing every single time down the floor I think we'd be more effective if we mixed it up more. Drop back in a zone 1/4 of the time. Press full court 1/2 the time. Play half court man to man 1/4 of the time. Right now it's full court press all the time and it looks like the exact same press the whole game. At some point the other team gets into a rhythm and breaks it more often than not. I am not sure we need to speed the game up and score 100 every night. We could easily speed it up in spots, build leads in spurts, score 75 and win.

The other thing I am concerned with after 1 game (I know, I know) is that our best interior defender was in foul trouble early, we built a lead and let the other team whittle it down, we gave up 80+ points, and we jacked up a lot of 3s. Sounds just like last year's CBI "run".

 

[rammed]

The more I think about it, we win by 20+ easy if Toby hadn't sat as much as he did due to foul trouble. He is as active a big guy as we have had in a long time.

Also, Toby and Skeen are going to go to the line a lot this year. We need to correct the FT shooting deficiencies. We are going to lose some close ones this year if we don't.