Autopsy - Possession By Possession - Defense

[I’m The Village Idiot]

28 - Abderdeen jogging back defensively creates assignment confusion. Louisville’s guards have numbers, leaving Williams to guard both Conwell on right elbow and Hadley in right corner. Literal wide open three by Hadley and Aberdeen is completely out of the play guarding no one. Oweh had rotated to Conwell and Williams should have rotated to Hadley in the corner. Awful communication and effort. Luckily the shot missed (5:03).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

29 - Hadley tries to back door cut versus Williams. He does have a step on Williams but the pass isn’t perfect and Hadley gets stuck at the baseline with nowhere to go. Williams building a defensive reputation in this game, as he chests up to Hadley, which results in a turnover. Hadley throws interception to Lowe (4:30).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

30 - Oweh tries to help trap Wooley from behind. Undisciplined foul, reaches across Woolley’s face. Going for the ball but reaching over the body and though the torso isn’t getting you a tie up. It’s getting you a foul and puts Wooley at the line (4:18).

 

[OldfanofUK]

29 - Hadley tries to back door cut versus Williams. He does have a step on Williams but the pass isn’t perfect and Hadley gets stuck at the baseline with nowhere to go. Williams building a defensive reputation in this game, as he chests up to Hadley, which results in a turnover. Hadley throws interception to Lowe (4:30).

Really liked what I saw from Kam in this game, needs more playing time. I don't think he saw the court in the first half ?

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

31 - Outstanding defense by Aberdeen and Chandler eventually results in a reversal out to Conwell on right elbow for three. Aberdeen, despite rotating back out from a help position near the free throw line, gets out for a good contest on the shot, which misses (3:39). However, Lowe did not put a body on Wooley (ball watching), so an offensive rebound ensued. Great adjustment though as Lowe gets his nose into the ball and forces the tie up. Possession arrow Kentucky. (3:35).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Final TV timeout: Louisville 88, Kentucky 84

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

32 - 1-5 PnR results in a switch between Moreno and Chandler. Brown zips by Moreno and the help by Chandler is too late, as Brown finishes the layup with a crucial and-one (2:52).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

33 - Brown straight line drive, bursts by Lowe. Only thing left to do was foul and prevent easy finish (2:17).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

34 - Conwell takes Lowe in iso, backs him down into low post and scores easily. Probably should have been and-one (1:33).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

35 - Full court pressure easily overcome by Louisville guards, which results in weird defensive assignments (a theme that has been consistent throughout the game for each trap or junk defense). Garrison now assigned with McKneeley, he helps too far into the paint and a reversal makes it out to left elbow for a three that McNeeley misses, with late BG contest (1:01). Mismatches have Williams trying to block out Fru, no contest. Fru gets the offensive rebound. Less than a minute left in the game so Chandler had to foul (00:51.2).

Louisville misses free throws. Kam gets rebounding position versus Hadley but can’t corral the board, ends up out of bounds. Possession continues for the Cards. Lowe left with no choice but foul again (00:44.2).

 

[BlueSince92]

9 - Wooley tries to force layup in transition off missed Kentucky shot, but Lowe keeps body parallel and blocks the shot and attempts to throw the ball off Wooley. Out of bounds, UL retains possession (16:02).

Conwell immediately blows by Jelavic on the perimeter but Moreno’s help contest results in a missed layup (15:51).

I was frustrated that we contested that particular call but I think Pope’s instincts will usually be right.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

36 - Forced to foul again (00:30.7).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

37 - Foul again, but this time seems pointless (00:17.9).

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

38 - Louisville dribbles out the clock, game over.

Louisville 96, Kentucky 88

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

I’ll revisit this thread tomorrow. I have some surprising thoughts after rewatching the game that I’ll share.

 

[BlueSince92]

I’ll revisit this thread tomorrow. I have some surprising thoughts after rewatching the game that I’ll share.

Thank you so much for all this hard work. Great breakdowns!

 

[BlueSince92]

Also, we need to clone Lamont Butler STAT.

 

[OldfanofUK]

Its a shame in those last couple of minutes we could not capitalize on all those missed free throws by Loserville.

 

[cornbreadnmilk]

Also, we need to clone Lamont Butler STAT.

Butler had more balls than anyone on this current team.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- After reviewing the film, we are awful with junk defenses. Halfcourt traps, 2-2-1, 2-1-2 full court press, blitzing pick and rolls, etc. Not only did we fail to create turnovers, we had serious difficulty mapping assignments to get back to man-to-man afterward. This was not something I want to see more of, unless we improve in our communication on them.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- Why is the specific combo of Brandon Garrison/Collin Chandler so terrible when involved in any kind of advanced action. More than five times in the game, those two guys had possessions end up in confusion where neither of them seemed certain who their matchup was. The crazy part is it didn’t happen when they were involved in actions with other players, with the exception of one play where it was Chandler/Moreno. There seems to be a serious lack of chemistry between these two players and I have no idea why, but it needs to be fixed.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Kam Williams was a defensive game changer. In previous games, he looked lost and he looked slow on defense. Well, he was neither of those versus the Cards. I think they expected him to be an easy target. However, they stopped running anything at him, because whoever they sent at Williams got nothing and walked away sad. Very impressed by the effort, length and defensive IQ that he played with. Only had one bad defensive play, which was offball assignment issue (ball watching).

 

[cornbreadnmilk]

- After reviewing the film, we are awful with junk defenses. Halfcourt traps, 2-2-1, 2-1-2 full court press, blitzing pick and rolls, etc. Not only did we fail to create turnovers, we had serious difficulty mapping assignments to get back to man-to-man afterward. This was not something I want to see more of, unless we improve in our communication on them.

I thought Pope's comments were strange when he said the D they play isn't designed to be a high octane type turnover D.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

I thought Pope's comments were strange when he said the D they play isn't designed to be a high octane type turnover D.

I found it odd too, but I wonder if he has gotten frustrated at the lack of discipline on defense by many of the players. Some guys got picked on frequently due to assignment, ball watching, gambling on defense, etc. Pope should just flat out say that, rather than saying our defense isn’t designed to create turnovers. The intent is to force teams into tough twos or very contested 3s. You can’t do that if you aren’t disciplined as a team.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

I’m going to get crucified for this one, but the film doesn’t lie…Brandon Garrison was much better defensively than Moreno.

- During my first watch, I couldn’t understand why BG was getting so many minutes. During my second watch, and I know this will shock many, it is clear BG deserved them. I was unbelievably frustrated with his offense and I thought his defense was bad…until I reviewed every possession. He got switched onto guards throughout the game and was equally capable of guarding perimeter players or post players. Other than action with BG/CC, he was assignment sound and they were able to successfully switch on picks or play a hedge/over traditional screen coverage and the defense had nowhere to go. Garrison got out on a whole lot of shots and forced a lot of misses. Garrison played with a lot of effort and energy, and it jumps if you go watch closely.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- I’m very, very concerned about Jaland Lowe defensively. He had a couple of effort plays there, but he will absolutely have to be better. His defensive IQ was borderline unplayable. While there were plays that he got outmatched at the rim due to his frame —- he can’t control that. What he can control is whether he’s in the right places on the floor —- and more often than not, he wasn’t. Plays where he basically gave up on finding an assignment after confusion, plays where he isn’t within ten feet of his man while ball watching, he has his body positioned away from the defender, isn’t getting into a defensive stance etc —- beyond frustrating. Any coach who watches the film of our game should be licking their lips thinking of going at JLe on every single offensive possession. Let’s hope a lot of it was just this one game.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- Oweh’s defense stunk. I’ve always felt he is overrated defensively and yesterday was a prime example. His on-ball defense is good and he seems to really enjoy being challenged in this way. Not many guys can score going directly at Oweh…but boy oh boy, his off ball defense is atrocious. Almost always out of position or jogging rather than sprinting off ball. He tries to jump almost every pass, which makes no sense when you consider who good he is on-ball. Anyone worth their salt should want MORE possessions of Oweh guarding on-ball and a great way for that to happen is NOT gambling off ball so that he can be in position to do that. He should be reprimanded by Pope for that performance. It was that bad.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

- Collin Chandler and Denzel Aberdeen brought it early and often on the defensive end. Both guys played their tail off. Both of them had lapses off ball, but sprinted immediately to cover up for their errors. I appreciated that, because there were a lot of other players who gave up on plays if they made mistakes. Both of these guys ended up getting switched onto bigs and neither really got burnt by it. Sure, they fouled and sure it wasn’t pretty….but these two guys went to war while others went to vacation and I appreciated how hard they worked.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

So that closes my general takeaways from the film on defense. I’ll do an offensive autopsy as well later today. I think I will start doing this for every major game going forward.

 

[KyLegacyBBN]

Great analysis. Disheartening to read about Lowe’s D as there are some skilled PGs in the SEC and I think we are going to miss Butler more than we realize.

 

[UKortho]

This is good info.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Great analysis. Disheartening to read about Lowe’s D as there are some skilled PGs in the SEC and I think we are going to miss Butler more than we realize.

Yep, that was the most upsetting thing for me. He was awful.

 

[jayroon41]

23 - Live ball turnover leads to wide open corner three by Rodgers (7:56). Oweh mismatched, Fru offensive rebound, foul on Oweh (7:53).

TV timeout, Louisville leads 30-22. Possession still retained by Louisville due to offensive rebound and foul.

Dioubate gives up paint position to Khalifa on out of bounds play. Moreno (who was guarding Rodgers the inbounder) switched over to contest as MD falls to the court. Late recovery leads to bite on pumpfake. Easy layup for Khalifa (7:52).

They should change up how they handle underneath out of bounds plays. They always put the 5 on the inbounder regardless of who is inbounding and it leads to bad matchups.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

They should change up how they handle underneath out of bounds plays. They always put the 5 on the inbounder regardless of who is inbounding and it leads to bad matchups.

I thought that too. We tried to offball switch immediately after the inbound and Louisville immediately passed in for an easy score. I think Kelsey had that scouted pretty well.

 

[K_TIME]

Wow great breakdown...I felt from just watchign game live and no replay....Defense was why we lost (heck 96 pts will tell you that. A slight bit due to TOs that led to open court UL opportunities was a small percentage of reason we lost.

So can you summarize by player the amount of defense miscues for each play they were on floor. Just felt from watching Oweh was usually two feet under 3pt line and tried to jump out too late to recover....way too often.

I'd folllow by our bigs to start the game were way too slow to get out on ball screen action as well.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Wow great breakdown...I felt from just watchign game live and no replay....Defense was why we lost (heck 96 pts will tell you that. A slight bit due to TOs that led to open court UL opportunities was a small percentage of reason we lost.

So can you summarize by player the amount of defense miscues for each play they were on floor. Just felt from watching Oweh was usually two feet under 3pt line and tried to jump out too late to recover....way too often.

I'd folllow by our bigs to start the game were way too slow to get out on ball screen action as well.

The issue with starting the game is Pope had us in drop coverage on ball screens. The bigs weren’t slow, it just looks slow on film. If you go look closer you can see it was a tactical decision, as it was designed that way. Did you have a specific player you wanted to ask about defensively?

 

[TeamAmerica]

- I’m very, very concerned about Jaland Lowe defensively. He had a couple of effort plays there, but he will absolutely have to be better. His defensive IQ was borderline unplayable. While there were plays that he got outmatched at the rim due to his frame —- he can’t control that. What he can control is whether he’s in the right places on the floor —- and more often than not, he wasn’t. Plays where he basically gave up on finding an assignment after confusion, plays where he isn’t within ten feet of his man while ball watching, he has his body positioned away from the defender, isn’t getting into a defensive stance etc —- beyond frustrating. Any coach who watches the film of our game should be licking their lips thinking of going at JLe on every single offensive possession. Let’s hope a lot of it was just this one game.

I watched a lot of Pitt basketball last year and that's the way he played there too.

 

[K_TIME]

The issue with starting the game is Pope had us in drop coverage on ball screens. The bigs weren’t slow, it just looks slow on film. If you go look closer you can see it was a tactical decision, as it was designed that way. Did you have a specific player you wanted to ask about defensively?

Garrison particularly was 2 feet under the 3pt line to start the game...which ticked me off....but maybe it was the gameplan....and a terrible one at that

Oweh would be the other.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Garrison particularly was 2 feet under the 3pt line to start the game...which ticked me off....but maybe it was the gameplan....and a terrible one at that

Oweh would be the other.

It was drop coverage — coaching decision. That’s why bigs were several feet off the screen playing back. It was bad.

 

[TeamAmerica]

It was drop coverage — coaching decision. That’s why bigs were several feet off the screen playing back. It was bad.

Would that mean Pope was more worried about the drive than the 3?