Iowa game / general thoughts

[ricko6543211]

1. It seems like some combination of (i) B1G teams have recognized our lack of quality depth and are intentionally attacking certain players to draw fouls, (ii) key players (Pardon, Vic, sometimes others) are doing a poor job of getting their feet in proper position and thus are resorting to using hands and getting into trouble, (iii) the refs are just generally making a point to call games tighter and it's hurting us. Because this is 3 games in a row (MSU, Illinois, Iowa) where it's been a serious issue.

2. The lack of a point guard continues to be an issue, nothing new there. But I also think that a related point is due to that and the lack of depth, opponents are happy to pressure more and push the pace wherever possible, with the anticipation of wearing us down as the game goes along. Unfortunately, it's been working.

3. The zone was a decent idea, it seemed to work in spurts and then not in spurts. We need to tighten up our execution of it, and also get back better in transition (or come up with an alternate plan for transition D when playing the zone). If we get more consistent with it, maybe it's a modest improvement over the man D we've been playing.

4. That said, with really only one recent exception (MSU), our defense hasn't been our problem. It's that our halfcourt offense stinks. We need to find a way to get the ball into Pardon even when teams apply ball pressure. Off ball screens for him, find a different entry angle, etc. And when he gets it, if a double team comes, that guy needs to do a dive cut or flare to the corner so that Dererk has someone to pass to. It's not surprising this has been a problem because we sort of knew we didn't have many players who can create their own shot coming into the season, but in halfcourt offense we just look slow, sluggish, and not confident. I hope Collins and co have some better solutions than me, because the season is rapidly getting away from us.

5. Btw if we end up in a Vic iso, he seems to do a better job attacking from the point than on the wing I think.

I'd been saying 8-12 in conference... starting to look like that might have been too optimistic. The one good thing is that last 10 of the conference schedule is much easier than the first 10, but there are just a lot of tough teams in the conference, not many easy wins.

Go Cats..

 

[CappyNU]

The lack of depth is becoming extremely apparent in Big Ten play. In the 5 games we've played so far, the lineup of Turner, Taylor, Gaines, Law, Pardon/Benson is +25 with 1.24 PPP/1.01 oPPP in 32% of minutes (~13mpg). All other lineups are -63 with 0.81 PPP/1.07 oPPP. For reference, the worst offense in the country is 0.85 PPP.

Another problem we have is a lack of offensive rebounding. Against the top-100 teams we've faced, we're only rebounding 21.1% of our misses, which would be bottom-15 in the country. Especially last night, it just seems like we consistently get outworked and outhustled by our opponents for large stretches of the game.

Last bit - I think Benson needs to see more playing time. Maybe it's just because of a small sample size, but in the lineup breakdowns I mentioned above, Benson is +16/+3, while Pardon is +9/-66. I'm not sure why the team is struggling so much more when Pardon is playing with the depth vs. Benson, and given that we're talking about a matter of 4-5mpg at a time for Benson, it's hard to say that the trend would continue with more PT, but something is not going well.

 

[freewillie07]

The lack of depth is becoming extremely apparent in Big Ten play. In the 5 games we've played so far, the lineup of Turner, Taylor, Gaines, Law, Pardon/Benson is +25 with 1.24 PPP/1.01 oPPP in 32% of minutes (~13mpg). All other lineups are -63 with 0.81 PPP/1.07 oPPP. For reference, the worst offense in the country is 0.85 PPP.

Another problem we have is a lack of offensive rebounding. Against the top-100 teams we've faced, we're only rebounding 21.1% of our misses, which would be bottom-15 in the country. Especially last night, it just seems like we consistently get outworked and outhustled by our opponents for large stretches of the game.

Last bit - I think Benson needs to see more playing time. Maybe it's just because of a small sample size, but in the lineup breakdowns I mentioned above, Benson is +16/+3, while Pardon is +9/-66. I'm not sure why the team is struggling so much more when Pardon is playing with the depth vs. Benson, and given that we're talking about a matter of 4-5mpg at a time for Benson, it's hard to say that the trend would continue with more PT, but something is not going well.

Benson is completely foul prone and doesn’t seem to care enough to do anything about it. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s only going to play a short time anyway? Regardless, it’s frustrating.

 

[ricko6543211]

Benson is completely foul prone and doesn’t seem to care enough to do anything about it. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s only going to play a short time anyway? Regardless, it’s frustrating.

I think it's more just because he doesn't move his feet very quickly. He knows he needs to play physical in the post, but without quicker movement he gets out of position and fouls.

Playing Benson a few extra minutes seems like a fine idea to me though... I think he's a decent presence inside. Ironically, despite his size I think the biggest thing we lose with him is rebounding... he doesn't have the vertical or long arms of Pardon so just can't get to balls. He does foul a lot, but recently Dererk has had that problem with that too (though not as badly on a per minute basis, he plays far more minutes).

 

[Mr Wickerpark]

stick a fork in it.

 

[Sec_112]

... our defense hasn't been our problem.

If you have to choose one problem, I would choose offense also. But the interior defense has been horrendous. Like last night, big men have owned NU.

Hell, the kid from Columbia, Tape (#3), torched NU for 18 pts. He's averaging 9.8 ppg.

I'll argue the Michigan game turned in NU's favor when Teske got in foul trouble.

I don't blame Pardon. He does a nice job, but he has absolutely no help.

 

[PurpleFaze]

The lack of depth is becoming extremely apparent in Big Ten play. In the 5 games we've played so far, the lineup of Turner, Taylor, Gaines, Law, Pardon/Benson is +25 with 1.24 PPP/1.01 oPPP in 32% of minutes (~13mpg). All other lineups are -63 with 0.81 PPP/1.07 oPPP. For reference, the worst offense in the country is 0.85 PPP.

Another problem we have is a lack of offensive rebounding. Against the top-100 teams we've faced, we're only rebounding 21.1% of our misses, which would be bottom-15 in the country. Especially last night, it just seems like we consistently get outworked and outhustled by our opponents for large stretches of the game.

Last bit - I think Benson needs to see more playing time. Maybe it's just because of a small sample size, but in the lineup breakdowns I mentioned above, Benson is +16/+3, while Pardon is +9/-66. I'm not sure why the team is struggling so much more when Pardon is playing with the depth vs. Benson, and given that we're talking about a matter of 4-5mpg at a time for Benson, it's hard to say that the trend would continue with more PT, but something is not going well.

Offensive rebounds are tough to get when we don't drive to the basket enough. A lot of perimeter play and 3's equals way too often just DP being under the rim for rebounding.

Benson (like his attitude) doesn't seem like much more than a few min role player. He isn't much for low post scoring. Seems like we have some size with nance and kopp, but we don't exploit it. I get they are young and make mistakes, but the upside is there. From the start I believed this team's record would end up being based on how much they could develop and add. Nance is freakishly athletic- CC tends to pull him too quickly in my opinion.

The good news is we are seeing turner and gaines be more assertive and gaines with his strength could be a tough option for other teams to guard

Too often instead of running offense we just give Vic the keys and say do whatever...

 

[Username Not Available]

Benson's problematic fouls, imho, are due in part to him almost constantly reach over and around the guy he's guarding. Setting aside whether or not he gets called for that, it also puts him somewhat off balance and leaning so that a sudden move against him draws an easy foul.

 

[ricko6543211]

Offensive rebounds are tough to get when we don't drive to the basket enough. A lot of perimeter play and 3's equals way too often just DP being under the rim for rebounding.

Benson (like his attitude) doesn't seem like much more than a few min role player. He isn't much for low post scoring. Seems like we have some size with nance and kopp, but we don't exploit it. I get they are young and make mistakes, but the upside is there. From the start I believed this team's record would end up being based on how much they could develop and add. Nance is freakishly athletic- CC tends to pull him too quickly in my opinion.

The good news is we are seeing turner and gaines be more assertive and gaines with his strength could be a tough option for other teams to guard

Too often instead of running offense we just give Vic the keys and say do whatever...

Gaines has improved the last few games. Unfortunately it’s come during a period when Law and Pardon, who had been carrying us for most of the year, have regressed. I think in large part due to B1G teams focusing their defensive efforts on those two. Taylor has been good at hitting spot up 3’s recently but hasn’t been able to create his own shot. And Turner has been decent on defense, but not consistent on O.

 

[Username Not Available]

It's weird to me because it seems like when Turner decides to go for it, he's pretty effective at getting into the lane for either a layup or a short hopper/finger roll - and he's been making more of those in the last month.

 

[rwhitney014]

If you have to choose one problem, I would choose offense also. But the interior defense has been horrendous. Like last night, big men have owned NU.

Hell, the kid from Columbia, Tape (#3), torched NU for 18 pts. He's averaging 9.8 ppg.

I'll argue the Michigan game turned in NU's favor when Teske got in foul trouble.

I don't blame Pardon. He does a nice job, but he has absolutely no help.

There was a play last night where Pardon was alone to defend a guy driving to the rim, and upon the miss had to try to box out two Hawkeyes crashing the glass by himself. Suffice it to say, they got a putback for 2.

 

[TheC]

If you have to choose one problem, I would choose offense also. But the interior defense has been horrendous. Like last night, big men have owned NU.

Hell, the kid from Columbia, Tape (#3), torched NU for 18 pts. He's averaging 9.8 ppg.

I'll argue the Michigan game turned in NU's favor when Teske got in foul trouble.

I don't blame Pardon. He does a nice job, but he has absolutely no help.

I love Pardon and he is freakishly athletic, but he is undersized for the 5. Teams that have such a small 5 often go zone to try to hide that. We go pretty much straight man-to-man and we don't double down, so Pardon is often left to guard bigger centers one-on-one. That leads to fouls and occasional easy buckets in the paint. I wish we had a little more depth because our D needs to be more swarming to make up for our lack of offensive talent. We have size on the wings, but not in the middle. If those wing guys could swarm the paint and pester the big man to help Dererk, that would make a difference.

Quickly to follow up on my own post... one reason I think we haven't done this is because we are really emphasizing shutting down other team's three-point shooting. And, to our credit, we have done well at that. But the price you pay is that you leave the middle open. That affects defense and rebounding. Teams like MSU and Iowa figured that out and just pounded it inside. We may have to pick our poison. I think I'd rather give up the open 22 foot shot than the 2 footer.