do you zone arkansas?

[hotelblue]

we’re short handed, and they shoot 32% from three as a team. with fland (36%) out it’s probably closer to 30%.

it’d surely cut down the offensive rebounds we give up. given ark isn’t a great scoring team, keeping them to one and done is probably 3/4 of the battle.

or…. do you just trade 2’s for 3’s and completely negate their perimeter and the possibility of ivisic doing some crazy crap. what say you?

 

[mcwildcats04]

we’re short handed, and they shoot 32% from three as a team. with fland (36%) out it’s probably closer to 30%.

it’d surely cut down the offensive rebounds we give up. given ark isn’t a great scoring team, keeping them to one and done is probably 3/4 of the battle.

or…. do you just trade 2’s for 3’s and completely negate their perimeter and the possibility of ivisic doing some crazy crap. what say you?

I was thinking before that it would make sense to play more zone in this one. They are very athletic and love to attack the rim (especially Thiero). Probably going to rack up a lot of fouls if we stick mostly to man to man.

 

[AJG-15]

You throw at them various zones, men, matchup zones, presses, extend defense to compact inside to take away the the drive.

The question is how we will be able to score. I am assuming they will try to take away the tree and forces inside,, Calipari team don’t defend well the pick and roll, stwches, and corners and inbo7nds play or back door cuts. So there is plenty of opportunity it depends how we execute.

 

[bbnkat02]

Yes. You zone the snot out of them.

We all know how much we struggled against the zone. Do it.

 

[Ukbrassowtipin]

I would. Also help with rebounding

 

[hotelblue]

You throw at them various zones, men, matchup zones, presses, extend defense to compact inside to take away the the drive.

The question is how we will be able to score. I am assuming they will try to take away the tree and forces inside,, Calipari team don’t defend well the pick and roll, stwches, and corners and inbo7nds play or back door cuts. So there is plenty of opportunity it depends how we execute.

maybe so.

i’m figuring we just need 3-4 guys to hit one three, and 2-3 guys hit at least 2. we’ve been reversing the ball very well. that’s usually enough to beat a cal team.

robinson, almanor, and brea are currently all on target. get a three from a noah, garrison or perry and it’d go a long way.

i’m still mostly concerned with how we play them. teams have been getting so many more shots than us recently.

 

[Wunky]

Cal never plays zone, never practices zone, and his teams don’t know what to do against zone. So yes, of course you zone the **** out of them.

But also throw some man looks in here and there just to mess with them.

 

[fredmanthecatfan]

Everyone wears “Benny” on the back of their jersey. Do the robot dance in warm ups. Someone should ask Pope about Kerr, Carr, and Butler pregame, and he should reply, “Well, I have seen them”.

 

[TucsonCat]

Some yes. But zone doesn't necessarily help rebounding. Makes boxing out hard (not that we do that) A guy like thiero can find gaps and get boards. Switch it up to take advantage of the iq gap we'll have.

 

[4Frusciante#]

Cal never plays zone, never practices zone, and his teams don’t know what to do against zone. So yes, of course you zone the **** out of them.

But also throw some man looks in here and there just to mess with them.

Cal's offense always start with a pick and roll or a feed into the post. Starting out in a zone messes that up and they'll pass around a few times looking for a shot. So I'd give them token pressure to just slow them down getting ready to run the offense, set up in zone and with about 9 seconds left on the clock switch to man to man. That doesn't give them time to set up a pick and roll without being shot clock pressured.

Also on offense I'd drive on Wagner every time and use a few pump fakes and try to draw charges against him on defense; he isn't much of a point guard but he'd the only thing they have close to one now and if we can get him in foul trouble Arky loses badly.

 

[ScottGreene22]

1-3-1 the entire game CAL’s never heard of it and doesn’t watch film on his opponents.

 

[rick64]

As we all know CCC is an expert playing against zone defense.

 

[DaDirtyLeb69]

You mix defenses, and don’t let adou get going. Adou is the only player that Kentucky can’t matchup with

 

[StubbornPenny]

Yeah, you zone unless they start hitting long shots.

I’ll even give cal a pass on only playing man - he’s not the only coach that does that - but not teaching his teams how to attack a zone? That’s utterly indefensible.

 

[Wunky]

Everyone wears “Benny” on the back of their jersey. Do the robot dance in warm ups. Someone should ask Pope about Kerr, Carr, and Butler pregame, and he should reply, “Well, I have seen them”.

Too bad Bilas isn’t doing the game, we could have one of the players poop his ice cream.

 

[JonathanW_rivals]

We are a mostly M2M team. Regardless, whether we play zone or man vs Ark, Unless someone there makes a couple 3’s in a row we should not step 1” outside the 3pt line, I would even say not within 3’ of it.
And go under every screen, no switching.

 

[nssdigitalchumps]

You mix defenses, and don’t let adou get going. Adou is the only player that Kentucky can’t matchup with

He can dunk. Stop that and Adou is all but useless.

 

[Ryan Lemonds Hair]

He can dunk. Stop that and Adou is all but useless.

He has improved and I have to give him credit he has done a good job of getting to the rim this year. One game of theirs I watched he shot over 20 free throws by himself. He still could poster dunk on the center one play only to get blocked by a 6'0" PG on the next though.

 

[DaDirtyLeb69]

He can dunk. Stop that and Adou is all but useless.

It’s more him being a athletic type we have nobody like him, but if we can keep them from rebounding Kentucky wins going away

 

[katwest]

I think Pope will mix it up, also we should be able to draw some charges this game because Thiero will flat out run over you going to the basket. Another thing we all know, they will shoot better than their average against us.

 

[theRealCeaser11]

It would be poetic

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Well we know that Cal really gets flustered with any sort of defensive changes thrown at them.. they don't have their PG, we know Wagner is pretty meh.. Maybe this is the game to just confuse the hell out of them. Because they do have the athleticism on us, especially with 3 key injuries making our rotations even tighter.

 

[FirewithFire]

The 1-3-1 is Calipari kryptonite. I would run it all game and dare them to shoot threes.

 

[anon1751545683]

I would start in a zone and finish in a zone.

Make them go to plan B on the fly.

I believe they will overplay us on defense like Vandy did so back door them to death.

Cal loves the blocked shot. So drive and pump fake then shovel pass to a guy under the rim.

Just not Williams. He will get the ball wide open under the rim then wait for a defender and shoot a 2 ft fade away from 3 ft.

So let him be the passer.

 

[chroix]

Run it back like they did last night. Force them to shoot a ton of threes and blow the doors off Rupp.

 

[CatPatrick13]

Everyone wears “Benny” on the back of their jersey. Do the robot dance in warm ups. Someone should ask Pope about Kerr, Carr, and Butler pregame, and he should reply, “Well, I have seen them”.

Good one..... There is always a post or 2 that give me a chuckle every morning!.... Thanks bud..

 

[NoahColeLiam2024!]

I think there are a couple of near guarantees Saturday. Adou is going to have a career game. Points, rebounds, the works. Wagner will hit 3's at a higher clip than he has all season. Big Z will play better than he has this season as well. I do think it would be in our best interest swapping up the defenses from time to time. M2M, 3/4 court pressure, 1/3/1 zone. One thing we all know is Cal teams always did terrible with teams changing up defenses.

 

[Eagles_Ball_69]

I would. Also help with rebounding

Zone doesn't help with rebounding. The opposite actually.

 

[Eagles_Ball_69]

we’re short handed, and they shoot 32% from three as a team. with fland (36%) out it’s probably closer to 30%.

it’d surely cut down the offensive rebounds we give up. given ark isn’t a great scoring team, keeping them to one and done is probably 3/4 of the battle.

or…. do you just trade 2’s for 3’s and completely negate their perimeter and the possibility of ivisic doing some crazy crap. what say you?

I'm not sure I'd play zone as much as I'd just do what he did against UT. Go under all perimeter screens. The second someone puts the ball on the floor and drives vertically it's all hands on deck to the lane. I mean, it was basically packline w/o the heavy ball pressure and it certainly proved to be beneficial against the Vols. I'd at least give it a shot vs Arky.

 

[ala_kat2]

I would. Also help with rebounding

A lot of basketball Bennie’s say a zone hurts your defensive rebounding, but I don’t know how this team gets any worse at that. I’m surprised that we didn’t play any zone at UT. Like someone mentioned, I’d mix it up against Ark and keep them off-balance. I guess it depends how they react to our opening man-to- man.

 

[JonathanW_rivals]

Well we know that Cal really gets flustered with any sort of defensive changes thrown at them.. they don't have their PG, we know Wagner is pretty meh.. Maybe this is the game to just confuse the hell out of them. Because they do have the athleticism on us, especially with 3 key injuries making our rotations even tighter.

They have a PG, we don't. But hopefully like last night the height advantage Robinson will have (but less of it) will help there.

The key is to not get beat (too much) by them getting offensive rebounds. Because I think it unlikely that they shoot a higher % than us. And I don't think they create a lot of TOs.

 

[MethodUK]

The plan for Cal (always has been when he doesn't have elite shooters) is to get to the rim and get fouled. That's how they beat Georgia. Not a single field goal for almost 6 min.. All points from the line..

 

[LineSkiCat14]

They have a PG, we don't. But hopefully like last night the height advantage Robinson will have (but less of it) will help there.

The key is to not get beat (too much) by them getting offensive rebounds. Because I think it unlikely that they shoot a higher % than us. And I don't think they create a lot of TOs.

That is true, we don't have ours. But, I more mean from the aspect of guarding them. We for sure will have our own problems until Butler gets back.

 

[littlecreek]

We all know Cal is not good at making in-game adjustments so I think Kentucky should change up defenses throughout the game. I loved the 1-3-1 and then switching to m2m after a couple of passes. That threw Gonzaga off and I know Cal will be confused.

 

[Stenchymouse]

You throw at them various zones, men, matchup zones, presses, extend defense to compact inside to take away the the drive.

The question is how we will be able to score. I am assuming they will try to take away the tree and forces inside,, Calipari team don’t defend well the pick and roll, stwches, and corners and inbo7nds play or back door cuts. So there is plenty of opportunity it depends how we execute.

I agree!

Switch up defenses! Cal coached teams are historically easy to confuse, and Cal is terrible at making in game adjustments.

 

[PoBilly]

Match up zone, 1-3-1, 1-2-2, 3-2,2-3 and make Cal just sit and stew. You gotta worry about big Z, Adou or Wagner getting hot.

 

[bluedog79]

Yes if you want to completely destroy Arkansas in that game and giving them no chance in hell winning then you would play zone from the very beginning.
They can't shoot all that great and their best option is to try to drive the ball. You kill two birds with one stone playing the zone.

Just let them pass the ball around to get shots all game long

 

[bradyjames_rivals]

I would in the second ten minutes of each half. Let them get tired a bit. Thiero and DJ will come out with their hair on fire. Let’s use it against them.

 

[Kats23]

I think we see a similar attack to what we threw at Gonzaga. If it screwed up Mark Few, it will definitely screw up Cal. We need Rupp to be electric. This Cats team seems to shine when the lights are the brightest.

 

[TheDude73]

we’re short handed, and they shoot 32% from three as a team. with fland (36%) out it’s probably closer to 30%.

it’d surely cut down the offensive rebounds we give up. given ark isn’t a great scoring team, keeping them to one and done is probably 3/4 of the battle.

or…. do you just trade 2’s for 3’s and completely negate their perimeter and the possibility of ivisic doing some crazy crap. what say you?

The only reason I even thought about this was because we all know very well that a John Calipari coached team SUCKS at zone defense.

He also sucks when you throw different defenses at him.

If we try M2M they may hang in there because that's what JVC prefers defenses to throw at him. Mix it up and they'll be a confused mess and get blown out by 20.