2020-21 College Basketball thread

I feel old:
I saw a crawl on ESPN the other night that Gonzaga beat Pepperdine for the 40th time a row. Back when I covered that league, Pepperdine won 37 conference games in a row, ending in 1992-93. Gonzaga lost in the first round of the conference tournament the first eight years they had it. The next year, Gonzaga won its first tournament game. Spokane columnist John Blanchette was sitting in the first row of the media room, waiting for the coaches. He turned around and asked in general, "What do you guys do the second day of this tournament?"

 

I know there are sound reasons to press. The tradeoff is obviously between the extra layups that will be allowed when the team breaks the press and the positive factors you mention.

But I am reacting to the specific statement that coaches make that we will rely on pressure to set up our offense. I don't think a pressure defense can create a good offense. There are not enough opportunities.

I am also inclined to think that the three point play has made teams that recruit for pressure defense defunct. In the 80's Georgetown and Louisville were two of the best programs in the country. They recruited tall, athletic players that might be suspect shooters. But their defense was good enough they could survive shaky outside shooting.

But now I think you have to recruit wings and guards that can shoot the three.

 

Which is why UVA won. They don’t block shots or press, but they trick you into taking low percentage shots while they take high percentage shots. And Bennett recruits guys, pun intended, to fit that style.

 

The Steelers were godawful from the 1940s to the 1970s and it took the Immaculate Reception to spark a dynasty. Funny how things can change in an instant.

 

Conference tournaments are going to be a wretched idea. CBS podcast with Gary Parrish and the rambling but well informed Matt Norlander did a nice job of spelling this out.
Where's Gonzaga's incentive to play in the WCC tournament? Nil. Nothing to be gained. Potentially everything to be lost. If they recuse themselves, the conference becomes certain of a second NCAA entrant. Right now, that second spot is uncertain. BYU is 47th in KenPom.
I'm tracking the ACC and the Trumpandemic. By my count, there have been only two days in the past 55 in which all 15 teams were available. In other words, they're going to have to get very lucky (or conveniently ignoring reality) to get all 15 to Greensboro and keep all NCAA qualifiers healthy thereafter.

 

At least in the pro game, more possessions = less chance for randomness = advantage for the more talented team. There are exceptions to this - like LeBron's teams generally have played at slower paces, and some teams with weaker backcourts are at an obvious disadvantage if you press. But there was a reason Larry Brown, Mike Fratello and other coaches of the 90s with talent-poor rosters wanted to slow things down as much as possible.

By the way, I follow URI, which is recent years has ate up teams that attempt to press it. Between Hurley and now David Cox, there has been an emphasis on recruiting athletic players who (usually) play better defense and that can handle the ball and pass regardless of position. URI is 9-1 vs. VCU since the 2016-17 season. However, URI often struggles against zone because they don't have enough 3-point shooting, and as a result they're roughly .500 against lowly Fordham the past decade, which usually just plays as boring as possible.

 

I think the value in being able to press effectively is clear. I watched a HS team do it the other night. BUT. Not all the time. The best use of press is a 3/5 minute blitz out of nowhere which, done well, produces instant offense. That can turn a game. Quickly.

 

I think there is also diminishing returns the higher up in organized basketball you go, which has a winnowing effect on player skills. IIRC, the Sacramento Kings owner was a big believer in the press because he managed to turn the success of his daughter's AAU team around year-to-year by switching to an aggressive fullcourt press. I believe it was a chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book about how "Davids" can win against "Goliaths."

The press works incredibly well in middle and high school basketball. It works well in college, but unless you're Rick Pitino and has the reputation and scouting ability to get the best athletes for it, it's probably not a championship tactic. And in the pros, teams just shred through it, because even a 15th man type PG on a pro roster has to have been able to break a press repeatedly by that point.

 

I watched a lot of Mike Anderson's Fastest Forty Minutes at UAB. Intense pressure defense intended to force turnovers and steals. It gives up runouts when the press gets broken, but when it's working and you have the right PG (lots of steals and assists, low turnovers) it works. It was vulnerable to a team that runs a very deliberate half court game and does not get flustered, particularly if they have a couple of good three point shooters. .That was then. Now, with the increased emphasis on the three ball, it's more risky. It also works better on teams who don't see it much, because teams that do are more likely to stay calm and play deliberately. If you try to speed up your game to break it, you play right into it.

A lot of Anderson's offense was based off of turnovers and steals turned into runouts for the pressing team. One of his teams here set the NCAA record for steals. He really didn't have much in the way of a half court offense - if the opposing team stayed within themselves and played solid half court ball, the odds were they would win, because that took the defensive trigger for offense away and the halfcourt game was weak..

The other thing is that teams that see you often are likely to fare better. Teams in the conference had to find effective strategies to deal with it.

It can be an effective way for a team with less athletic talent overall to win, as long as they recruited guys with the right mindset and willingness play intense defense and to run. It wasn't unusual for Anderson to sub four guys in at once, with the PG playing all but a couple of minutes. I've seen that used to break opposing teams - he'd sub in four guys and sit the starters eight or ten minutes into the second half, the other team couldn't capitalize and regain the lead or run one up, and then with six minutes left they'd see the starters, rested, all come back into the game.

 

The analytics people determined that the two most efficient defensive teams of the last 25 years were the Kentucky squads of Pitino and Calipari's team that went undefeated until they lost in the Final Four. Calipari was at times rotating two squads of five. The teams worked really hard on defense and were great but never played at a particularly fast pace.

But the team I would like to see someone like Kentucky, that can recruit good athletes all the way down the roster, try the rotation system but use Pitino's defenses to wear the other team down. I realize one of the arguments against the press in today's game is that you can defend for 94 feet and then some guy will beat you with a three ball. But that is true of any defense a modern college team runs.

 

I really like Norlander and enjoy the podcast. I think he can ramble but Parrish is the Manute Bol of rambling. Nobody can top him.

 

Anderson's UAB team played Cal's Memphis teams in conference. Didn't win that often, there was a big difference in talent level. Upset Kentucky a couple of times, though that was after Pitino was gone. Anderson referred to the team as his "Burger King All-Americans" playing against legit McDonald's All Americans. The system helped level the playing field a bit.

I agree, with Kentucky's talent level they could rotate four or five guys and keep the pressure on successfully.

Crappy video quality, but you might remember this play. Taylor twin telepathy.