Fixing our defense

I have had the opportunity to watch 2/3s of the first half of the Richmond game replay(thanks @Mistachill) but the Interior defense was vastly improved up to the point.

Fran Fraschilla remarked multiple times that the rams were clogging the driving lanes and keeping the UR guards from getting to the front of the rim. Ur guards were settling for alot of off balance contested 5 to 10 footers. In addition, UR had NO Backdoor cuts up the 8 minute mark in the first half.

That is all I can say. I will watch this rest of the game later.
 
duncanlamb said:
I have had the opportunity to watch 2/3s of the first half of the Richmond game replay(thanks @Mistachill) but the Interior defense was vastly improved up to the point.

Fran Fraschilla remarked multiple times that the rams were clogging the driving lanes and keeping the UR guards from getting to the front of the rim. Ur guards were settling for alot of off balance contested 5 to 10 footers. In addition, UR had NO Backdoor cuts up the 8 minute mark in the first half.

That is all I can say. I will watch this rest of the game later.
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Fran Fraschilla did not announce the game. It was Steve Lappas and Andrew Catalon.
 
duncanlamb said:
I have had the opportunity to watch 2/3s of the first half of the Richmond game replay(thanks @Mistachill) but the Interior defense was vastly improved up to the point.

Fran Fraschilla remarked multiple times that the rams were clogging the driving lanes and keeping the UR guards from getting to the front of the rim. Ur guards were settling for alot of off balance contested 5 to 10 footers. In addition, UR had NO Backdoor cuts up the 8 minute mark in the first half.

That is all I can say. I will watch this rest of the game later.
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Man, you must be really feeling bad. Hope you get better soon.
 
VCU Finance 2008 said:
People also forget that while Coach Smart did mention a full court press and used the word HAVOC in his introductory press conference we didn't really get good at it until Briante showed up 2 years later. You have to have the personnel for it and that takes time.
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Shaka said "we're going to wreak havoc on our opponents psyche and plan of attack" and both his defenses in his first two seasons as coach were worst than this years VCU defense lmao
 
theyaintwantit said:
Shaka said "we're going to wreak havoc on our opponents psyche and plan of attack" and both his defenses in his first two seasons as coach were worst than this years VCU defense lmao
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And the fact is we've gotten stone nowhere with teams tilted toward defense. Might be time for a different approach.
 
VCU Finance 2008 said:
People also forget that while Coach Smart did mention a full court press and used the word HAVOC in his introductory press conference we didn't really get good at it until Briante showed up 2 years later. You have to have the personnel for it and that takes time.
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Which is one reason I don't really want to see them take a totally different approach to defense right now. Maybe tweak it a bit, double the post off of switches when there is a mismatch, as PMJ says getting their touches better (I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about having coached at no higher level than church league) but nothing major at this point. Completely revamping 2/3 of the way through the season doesn't seem wise to me, even if the present system needs improvement.

I remember MR's first season was not a good year defensively and they got together on how to defend the high ball screen. The next year they employed the hard hedge which worked really well as long as we had a big was quick enough to scramble back and cover on a roll to the basket.
That was also one of the reasons we didn't recruit bigs that were not pretty agile and relatively quick, even if that meant getting pushed around in side a bit.
 
duncanlamb said:
I have had the opportunity to watch 2/3s of the first half of the Richmond game replay(thanks @Mistachill) but the Interior defense was vastly improved up to the point.

Fran Fraschilla remarked multiple times that the rams were clogging the driving lanes and keeping the UR guards from getting to the front of the rim. Ur guards were settling for alot of off balance contested 5 to 10 footers. In addition, UR had NO Backdoor cuts up the 8 minute mark in the first half.

That is all I can say. I will watch this rest of the game later.
Click to expand...
A lot of the baskets UR did make were pretty well contested. Walz and Lopez both hit some shots where the defense was good.
Feel better DL.
 
mrgeode said:
And the fact is we've gotten stone nowhere with teams tilted toward defense. Might be time for a different approach.
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THIS is why I'm not super concerned about Martelli. All 4 of Shaka's post F4 defenses were VERY good, but only the 2012-2013 offense was very good (KenPom #20). Shaka's teams got exposed against power conference opponents. Road UVA in 2013-2014 and neutral Oregon in 2014-2015 were the only NCAAT level P5 wins that we had in those four seasons and multiple losses to NCAAT level P5 programs. Will and Odom had more of a balanced approach (good at both offense and defense). Will got us an NCAAT win and Odom's two years were good, but not any better than what VCU has already experienced. Rhoades teams were painful to watch on offense despite quality talent and we just couldn't get over the hump vs good competition despite having an elite defense.

Now 21 games isn't a large sample size and the record vs Top 50 opponents isn't stellar so far, but let's not act like VCU has a great recent history of being top 50 competition outside of a few weeks in March 2011. I'm intrigued that a different style could improve those chances!
 
theyaintwantit said:
THIS is why I'm not super concerned about Martelli. All 4 of Shaka's post F4 defenses were VERY good, but only the 2012-2013 offense was very good (KenPom #20). Shaka's teams got exposed against power conference opponents. Road UVA in 2013-2014 and neutral Oregon in 2014-2015 were the only NCAAT level P5 wins that we had in those four seasons and multiple losses to NCAAT level P5 programs. Will and Odom had more of a balanced approach (good at both offense and defense). Will got us an NCAAT win and Odom's two years were good, but not any better than what VCU has already experienced. Rhoades teams were painful to watch on offense despite quality talent and we just couldn't get over the hump vs good competition despite having an elite defense.

Now 21 games isn't a large sample size and the record vs Top 50 opponents isn't stellar so far, but let's not act like VCU has a great recent history of being top 50 competition outside of a few weeks in March 2011. I'm intrigued that a different style could improve those chances!
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Numerous inaccuracies
 
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