Northwestern (6-4, 0-2 Big Ten) host Valparaiso (6-4) tonight at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The game is set for a 7 pm CT tip off and will air on Peacock.
Game Thread: Northwestern vs. Valparaiso
- Thread starter mshelton33
- Start date
We are just not able to stop good players / shooters. No lock down defenders; as much as some think Mullins is one, he’s not. Clayton is really our best defender and that’s not saying much. Reid is horrible. It’s Nick’s weak spot. Page is below average for his athleticism. Luckily, we can score most of the time.
It's easy to get excited about having some guys with scoring skills, but this team/program will live and die with defense
What’s happened to you? You gone from full sunshine pumper to Debbie Downer.
This isn’t a tournament team, enjoy it for the improvements the players make throughout the season.
Ha. Just thought we had enough to make a good run. Didn’t think our guys would suck at defense either.
Defense is probably the hardest part of the game for people without a deep basketball background to accurately evaluate. Mullins does have the tools to be a lockdown defender, but in a heavy switch system you are not just asked to erase one guy for 40 minutes. Within that framework, he is a very good defender. He is quick on switches, has the burst and vertical pop to guard multiple positions, and is an active, athletic help defender.
The reality is it is extremely hard for a perimeter defender to have an outsized defensive impact compared to a true post defender. That is where the biggest drop-off is. The difference defensively from Big Matt to Page is significant. It impacts NU’s ability to double the post, their base post defense, help on drives, and even how aggressively you can guard on the perimeter. When you know you have a strong backline post defender, you can press up, shade harder, and take more risks on the ball.
On top of that, NU lost two very good defenders in Barnhizer and Berry. Gelo has taken a real step forward defensively this year, but Brooks was just on another level. That dude was a beast. Reid is actually a solid perimeter defender, but his height makes him vulnerable to being posted, which becomes a bigger issue when the help defense behind him isn’t elite. Singelton is a good defender for a freshman, but he is still a freshman. Martinelli never was, and still isn’t, a plus defender. He has improved a lot, but he is “fine” defensively.
So when you lose a strong post defensive anchor and replace it with Page, and your best tall wing defenders are now Singelton and Martinelli instead of Brooks and Martinelli, it paints a pretty clear picture of why the defense hasn’t reached a high level yet. Most defenses start and end with how you defend down low.
The team defense style that NU plays means our overall D suffers if there is a weak link. It really suffers if there are two weak links and so forth. As others have pointed out, Reid is not a good on-ball defender and Page doesn't protect the paint all that well. But the elephant in the room is just how much a liability Nick is on defense. I'm not sure if it was always there and I didn't notice it as much or his time in the weight room last summer has slowed him down, but his foot speed is glacially slow this season and he gets beat off the dribble by just about anybody he's guarding. It puts our defense into recover mode constantly, which leaves guys out of position and opposing shooters wide open. I now cringe every time his guy gets the ball because I know what's coming. I know he was never an elite defender, but I really don't remember him being that slow last year.
I am not about to believe that you are primarily placing our defensive problems at the feet of the low post defenders (despite my lack of a “deep basketball background”). It’s everyone in it together, as you have said and know. I agree it’s certainly not just about locking one man down, but when our guards (including Mullins) consistently get beat at the top, it makes everything a lot harder.
Great post. I’ve thought about Berry a lot and how his overall presence is missed, he was a rounded contributor
I align with this. For me, it's less about how individuals are "bad defenders" - there are very few squads that can boast excellent on-ball defenders from 1-5 (FWIW, I'd rate Brooks as excellent, and upperclassman Ty as scheme-excellent). However, teams can figure out how they can be the greater than the sum of their parts - and given the roster transition, this is suboptimal. I have complete confidence that Collins and Lowery can envision the optimal scheme, but then you have to figure in the collective reps and trust. (Throw into the mix that there are 11 guys who could contribute, only increases complexity!). Finally - you've got the individual players performance which results from a combination of their physical ability, knowledge, desire and energy levels. And again, with 6 new players (I'm taking out Gill and Bennerman here), they're still trying to really assess them.
In the past five years, the Cats were most successful when they were defense first. I intuit that's Collins "comfort zone" as well - he wants to see more "toughness" in terms of providing stiffer resistance in the paint and protecting their defensive glass. I'm confident that playing a zone defense might improve against dribble penetration, but B1G teams will shoot you out of it or punish you with more OReb. With the toolset of this current roster, I'd rather the team focus on sharpening their man defense with effective hedging/stunting and timely trapping (i.e. zone principles). I'm unsure what the combination of scheming and player cohesion it'll take to get there. It seemed like the "re-set" helped boost that, but Butler will be a great non-con "Final Exam" to gauge their readiness for the B1G.
Nick has always had clown feet on defense, but seemed to be getting better. Doesn't help that Big Matty et al are not behind him
Is it the only problem? No. But it’s the biggest one, in my opinion. The other major issue, as MacArthur pointed out, is how many new pieces are trying to play at this level for the first time, and do it in a system that demands constant communication, chemistry, and feel. That stuff doesn’t show up overnight.
Add in the reality that good offense often beats good defense, plus the lack of a true, established back-line presence, and you’re going to see more perimeter breakdowns. A lot of those aren’t individual failures so much as chain reactions. It’s usually pretty clear when a switch gets miscommunicated or a post touch is given up, which forces the opposite-side wing to tag down and then recover. Now you’ve got a guard or wing matched up against a bigger, stronger player, and it looks like a blown coverage.
That’s where the bigs matter. The back-line guy has to be loud and early, and that’s a massive ask for someone in their first year in the system, especially when they’ve never played this many minutes before. On top of that, you’re playing a bunch of guards and wings who either haven’t spent much time in the system yet or were never projected to be plus defenders to begin with (Clayton, Martinelli, Green). Reid is a solid perimeter defender, but his lack of size makes him a real problem when he gets pulled into the post, and that shows up defensively. Gelo has been the only other true plus perimeter defender so far this season.
Mullins isn’t the problem defensively. Offensively, that’s a different conversation.
One thing I need to start watching more closely this year is not so much the on-ball defense, but the off-ball defense. One thing I remember being so impressed with by our defense during the Boo/Brooks/Berry/BigMatt years was how well our defenders flowed. If a ball handler started driving, everyone would react, but not overreact. For example, if a ball handler started to drive, the next closest off-ball defender would start to hedge to help without completely leaving their man. Everyone else would begin to adjust as well, without completely losing their men. Then, when the original on-ball defender recovered (often because the ball handler had to hesitate in response to the hedging off-ball defender), everyone would slide back to their responsibility and no advantage was gained for the offense. I used to be so impressed with how quick, yet fluid this transition would occur. It was beautiful team defense.
I suspect that is not happening the same way this year. I think its a combination of lacking the individual defenders who have those skills and also new guys who haven't honed those instincts yet. Thus, some of this can be improved, but it may not all be fixed as not everyone can develop those instincts.
I suspect that is not happening the same way this year. I think its a combination of lacking the individual defenders who have those skills and also new guys who haven't honed those instincts yet. Thus, some of this can be improved, but it may not all be fixed as not everyone can develop those instincts.
I miss PWB and his +/- analysis. Even though I frequently disagreed with his conclusions, it was a good conversation starter.
If you want to see really good off ball defensive positioning within NU’s system throw on old tape from Audige or Matt.
Audige absolutely comes to mind when I think of this. He was fantastic at cutting off a drive from the weakside without totally abandoning his primary assignment. Ty Berry got pretty good at it too by the end.