NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

Feinstein is the first person to bring up the change in the domes. For decades, most basketball games in domes were set in one corner, or side. There was some semblance of a smaller feel, with fixed seats on one or two near sides.

Since 2009, they've set these out in the middle, like on an aircraft carrier. So its not just the dome effect, its the placement inside the dome.

 

Yeah, with the exception of his comment on no defense after a game in which the two teams played very good -- heck, outstanding -- defense, he nailed it. Teams have become easier to defend because everything seems to be on-ball action. Either one-on-one or ball screens. What the three or four other players are doing is irrelevant so that usually means something close to nothing.

That is a bit of a concession to AAU culture because it's all about somebody showing what he can do with the ball in his hands.

We knew that about Kentucky and UConn, but I was a bit surprised as the tournament wore on how much more Butler relied on dribble penetration than in previous years. Much of that had to do with not having Hayward, but I was a little surprised that they didn't have more action away from the ball Monday. Instead of using Howard to screen so much on the ball. Let him screen for shooters away from the ball, then screen, that kind of stuff. Not much of that.

I also don't necessarily agree with the location of the 3-point shot.

 

The dome is a convenient excuse for crappy shooters.

 

Playing in a dome sure didn't affect the shooting of Lee Humphrey back in 2006. The fucker.

 

Kinda wonder if this tournament will do for basketball coaching philosophy what 21-14 College World Series final between USC and Arizona State in 1998 did for composite bat standards.

Something's gotta change because the college game - at least in this tournament - was ugly to watch. Lot of bad shooting and galactically stupid late-game coaching decisions.

 

Daniel Caffee approves of the above post.

 

Butler relied on dribble penetration less this year and last year than ever before. They've never run a Bob Knight style motion offense or anything of that nature. To say they don't normally rely on a great point guard breaking down the defense is far from the truth.

In fact, that's exactly how they've won for the past decade.

They've always had really great point guards who could break down anyone off the dribble. For the better part of the past decade, their offense was having an athletic forward (Rylan Hainje, Joel Cornette, Brandon Crone) set high ball screens for really solid point guards (Thomas Jackson, Brandon Miller, AJ Graves) and then having great shooters spotted in the corner ready to catch and shoot (Darnell Archey, Pete Campbell, Bruce Horan).

They haven't had the right parts to do that as efficiently the past two years. Plus...Heyward and Mack don't really fit that scheme, so Stephens rightly adjusted. They also haven't had a great point guard in the mold of Miller or Jackson.

But Butler basketball is synonymous with dribble penetration. Come watch high school hoops in Indiana. If you hear "Butler" called from the sideline, you're damn near guaranteed to see a high ball screen being set with a shooter spread to each corner and that point guard set to dribble down the defense's throat.

 

It seems like you can be a team that uses ball-screen action while still having action away from the ball and Butler was good at that last year. When I saw them two years ago and last year, didn't they do more with Howard diving to the block and posting, taking entry passes?

He'd set the high ball screen, then roll. If the guard using his ball screen didn't find him on a pick-and-roll (or dribble penetrate himself) he'd kick it to the near-side wing (who got to the wing off a baseline screen by the point guard set as Howard was coming out to set the ball screen) and from that angle, Howard would have position on the block for an entry pass (the point guard would cut to the opposite wing after setting the screen to open up the lane).

And if Howard's defender tried to get on top of him to deny, Howard would effectively have him screened off so the wing could drive baseline.

It seemed like there was less of this this season, maybe because Howard would "pop" more instead of roll. I think part of it was that Hayward was so versatile you could have him making entry passes from the wing or shooting.

I think it may be because last year the player on the wing might be Hayward and this year, the player on the wing might not be as good as Hayward and might, in fact, be Howard with Smith being the high ball screener.

See what I mean? They'd ball screen, but get some action off the ball screen that wasn't pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop. This year, it seemed like they were more dependent on the offense coming immediately off the ball screen. It just seemed like last year they got a lot of mileage out of this dive into the block and the pass in to Howard from the wing.

They did it a couple of times Monday and he missed. But they didn't do it nearly as much as they have the last couple of years.

 

Oh christ, yeah, that's right - kentucky's offense is 100 percent one selfish AAU guy driving and one guy screening for him while three others stand and watch you are clueless.

All five guys have to move to create gaps for the dribble drive offense to work and it is as much about penetrate and dish as it is penetrate to get to the hoop.

And this year he added more off ball screens and handoffs as well to it.

And the reason there is more dribble penetration now than ever is guys - particulary wings and bigger guards - are more skilled and more athletic and thus you can penetrate from just about every spot on the floor.

I know, I know, the only offenses that are the flex, Princeton and motion offenses because nothing spells great offense like running through patterns for 33 seconds a clip

 

Dribble-drive motion requires spacing, not movement. There is minimal movement outside of the on-ball action even when the on-ball action involves a hand-off. Movement away from the ball might bring traffic to the dribbler, which you don't want.

 

Don't take this the wrong way, but you're starting to sound a lot like the fans on the boards I see. Someone explained the "Butler" terminology and base play, and yet you are still tossing out terms and what-ifs. Maybe you got it, but it doesn't sound like it.

I personally have grown to loathe any discussion that involves the phrases like "dribble penetration" or "pick-and-pop" because no one can agree on what they mean.

 

In the next 10 years, someone will come in with a Paul Westhead style and win the whole damn tournament.