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That’s right, and here is an opportunity to turn things around on D: deepest/more talented group under Gottfried + fresh blood set of assistant coaches, hoping that at least of them can bring some defensive prowess to the culture. Even if this doesn’t make a difference, Markell and other wing guys are good at creating turnovers + Kapita can be a defensive mistake “eraser” down low. Surely talent is not a substitute for scheme, but it helps. And so does glue guys, which we might have one or two of this year.
I can’t imagine that he doesn’t prioritize defense, he actually harps on it during interviews.
Its also possible that his offense draws in recruits that are primarily offensively gifted, and maybe that needs to shift, too. Dunno.“Our pick-and-roll coverages are dire.” How can he fix it? If you know, call into his show or send him an email. We’ll all be better for it : )
I can’t imagine that he doesn’t prioritize defense, he actually harps on it during interviews.
Its also possible that his offense draws in recruits that are primarily offensively gifted, and maybe that needs to shift, too. Dunno.“Our pick-and-roll coverages are dire.” How can he fix it? If you know, call into his show or send him an email. We’ll all be better for it : )
Every coach talks about defense in interviews. The evidence of how much you emphasize defense is the way that your team plays defense, and the way you reward good defenders. When players are terrible defenders and you play them a ton of minutes (I’m looking at you, Ralston Turner), they’re never driven to improve. When you set a culture that defense is important and good defenders will be rewarded, you don’t get guys who consistently come out of their stance, lose track of their man, and are three steps late on help rotations. You do not play for Tony Bennett, Bob Huggins or Tom Izzo if you don’t work your butt off on defense. That’s why their teams always play great defense. There’s a culture there. If Gottfried really, really prioritized defense, there’s no way we would be as consistently bad at it, given the caliber of players we bring in.
To be fair, our recruits are much different guys than Michigan State and Virginia are looking at. They aren’t looking for straight scorers. They play 50-60 point games. That’s not Gott. We really recruit scorers. We haven’t(until this year) been able to recruit a complete player and we don’t play in a system that is conducive to recruiting defensive minded players, so we take offensive players. Michigan State Virginia and Huggins are unique programs and their players rarely have post college success though they win in college. We
Our formula to goodness has always been, largely through TALENT, become an average defensive team and an excellent offensive team. This collection of players is the closest mix we have had to MG’s ideal, so let’s see if it can work. Few coaches do this outside of Ol’ Roy and Calipari. And of course, we are in a different boat in that we have to actually RECRUIT, not just SELECT.
KH just needs to find his fat. When he plays too thin, he’s depressed and that makes him useless on the court. When he’s too heavy, he can only play 3 minutes at a time. TO ME, he seems about 3 whole turkeys past his ideal right now, but he’s playing the minutes we need him to, and showing reasonable agility, so maybe…
Bjd – calipari’s teams play pretty good d. Roy’s teams play fast.
I agree with xphoenix’s defensive observations.
Last night we did force some to’s. Amd I agree with you bjd – Gott’s best teams have been adequate defensively and very good offensively. And yes, we habe a chance to kick it up a notch this year but we will have to play faster and better d (I think this team will struggle to grind it out.)
My only concern with this team and its only a mild concern is the lack of three point shooting. At times we are shooting to early in the clock but that’s part of running a high tempo, many possessions offense. Henderson is struggling right now. Smith is forcing too much. I think the offense runs better with Johnson running the point and Smith being the two. Smith seems to operate better in that situation. It also forces the offense to work the ball a little more in my opinion. I think we may start seeing this more. Especially on this road trip with three players not available.
To be fair, our recruits are much different guys than Michigan State and Virginia are looking at. They aren’t looking for straight scorers. They play 50-60 point games. That’s not Gott. We really recruit scorers. We haven’t(until this year) been able to recruit a complete player and we don’t play in a system that is conducive to recruiting defensive minded players, so we take offensive players. Michigan State Virginia and Huggins are unique programs and their players rarely have post college success though they win in college.
That’s an excuse, and it’s a bad one. 1) I don’t care about how many NBA players you produce (and, by the way, both MSU and UVA have produced more NBA players than us lately), I care about how much you win, and those schools win. 2) If you’re only recruiting straight scorers, that’s part of the problem. It’s not a valid excuse, it’s you not doing your job well. 3) Most high-level recruits are primarily scorers, regardless of which team is recruiting them. They’re high-level recruits because they’re exceptional athletes and talented basketball players, they’re usually the primary scorers on their high school teams. It’s the job of the coach to teach them defense and set up a culture that prioritizes it. We don’t do that. 4) We don’t just recruit scorers. Anya was primarily a defensive recruit since day one. Cody Martin was a good defender who consistently got less minutes than his brother (Cody did everything better than Caleb except shoot). Abu wasn’t anything when he got here, he was just an athlete. One of the things that made Cat Barber an elite recruit was his defensive potential. 5) Saying “we don’t play in a system that is conducive to recruiting defensive minded players” is tantamount to saying “we don’t play good defense.”
Excellent post xphoenix, and on the money. Gott is not a defensive coach. It’s not his focus. Never has been and more than likely never will.
I agree with you that Gotts focus is not defense. His recruiting reflects that. Ralston Turner, Trevor lacey, Caleb all were poor defenders. But our program was not in a position to be picky. You can coach up defense but some players are never going to be good defenders because they don’t have size/speed/talent to be great defenders. My point was not that Gott is a good defensive coach but it was that Michigan state uva and Huggins are exceptions and we can’t compare our situation to these 3 teams who play low scoring games and really recruit to play that way. Gott is starting to get better players now so defense should improve.
West Virginia’s national ranking for possessions per game the last 3 seasons: 102nd, 27th, 88th
NC State’s national ranking for possessions per game the last 3 seasons: 173rd, 183rd, 215thWe are not an up-tempo team. Our offense has been one of the slowest in the country the last 3 seasons (average possession length: 18.5s [298th], 19.5s [278th], 19.3s [301st]). Our tempo looks faster because opponents’ possessions are shorter, because we don’t force them to use clock, because we’re bad at defense.
Tempo does not dictate defense. You can be a bad defensive team that loses games in the 60s, and you can be a good defensive team that wins games in the 80s. Louisville always plays faster than we do, and they’ve been a top 5 defense nationally for 6 straight years. VCU consistently plays at a high pace, and their defense is always excellent.
Defense is about culture. It’s not hard to get guys to want to play offense. Everyone wants the ball in their hands, everyone wants to score. It’s hard to get guys to commit on defense every single time down the floor. No prospect comes out of high school thinking “man, I hope I’m the next Bruce Bowen.” It is the coach’s job to make them care as much about defense as about offense. You have to demand effort, and you have to teach awareness. There is zero reason Ralston Turner couldn’t have been less of a space cadet on defense. There is zero reason Caleb Martin couldn’t be a good defender. There is zero reason why Cat Barber shouldn’t have been an absolute menace to opposing ball-handlers. Every single one of those guys had the athleticism and talent to do it. The reason none of that happened is because nobody demanded it of them. Nobody said “if you don’t give consistent effort, you’re going to ride the pine.”
Stat guys settle down. Just let the season play out. This team is better than we have seen in while. Don’t get into all these efficiency stats this early. Every season is different. Yeah I get Gott’s teams have defenses issues. Maybe it will be a little better this year and more than likely it will be more of the same. The difference is a lot of talent. I mean A LOT!
Even coach K has moved on from drop dead defense. Maybe we will be better or maybe we will not. I’m all about the final record.
We can,say defense is about hustle and working hard, but the truth is that defense is about talent. 75% of college basketball is talent.
I want to see more effort and hustle out of this team. It seems to me his teams exhibit that late in the season. If we can get that energy earlier this year, with our offensive talent, we should have a very good season. I’m banking on a loss tomorrow tho.
I want to see more effort and hustle out of this team.
Have you seen Ted Kapita? How about Markell Johnson? Dorn? These guys are hustling like crazy! Dennis Smith is very driven. No way you could say these guys are lacking in effort. Abu is working hard too. This is a new team, don’t judge them by the past.
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