Points allowed

Is alarming. Not looking forward to a team who can out rebound SJU either. Need to clamp down.

What are your thoughts? More man? More zone? More press? More trap?

From what I've seen so far, they don't all play hard enough on defense.

Dave - you are right, a good rebounding team is going to kill us and even a team that has good length upfront is going to cause major problems for this group.

Lavin has to get the entire team to rebound all the time and that is really about a focus and effort on rebounding the ball and boxing out. He needs to get Christian Jones on a court a little more and get him to buy into the fact that he has one job, to rebound the ball.

Between Jones & the Delarosa brothers - it would be huge to get 10 - 15 quality minutes among them a game...   tell them to be ultra aggressive on the defensive end and just go after every rebound.

One thing stands out to me. It is one thing to play good help defense, another to cheat, leave your man on penetration & allow uncontested threes. I love Dee and know he wants to help rebound. However, several times he unnecessarily cheated when a guard penetrated, allowing his man to nail a 3. Overall our perimeter defense is sorely lacking. This will hurt us significantly playing teams with outside shooting proficiency.

 I too am alarmed by the amount of points we are allowing to date. The solution is tricky. If you play too much man, do you get into foul trouble? if you zone up all day, can you be more attentive to sharpshooters? Do we have enough quality depth to allow us to press? Imo, the current team makeup will present a lot of challenges. If we continue to allow a lot of points, second chance shots & struggle rebounding, we don't have sufficient offensive firepower to negate that too often. Small sample, three wins (against inferior competition) I know, just assessing what I see thus far.

Is the older Delearosa brother any good? When is  he eligible?

Is the older Delearosa brother any good? When is  he eligible?

No, January. Five foul contribution at best, but I guess that's a positive to give Chris a few minute break each half. Adonis is much more skilled, but sitting out in pre conference games is obviously not helpful to prepare him for BE play. Any sense when we get a NCAA ruling on him?

One thing stands out to me. It is one thing to play good help defense, another to cheat, leave your man on penetration & allow uncontested threes. I love Dee and know he wants to help rebound. However, several times he unnecessarily cheated when a guard penetrated, allowing his man to nail a 3. Overall our perimeter defense is sorely lacking. This will hurt us significantly playing teams with outside shooting proficiency.

 I too am alarmed by the amount of points we are allowing to date. The solution is tricky. If you play too much man, do you get into foul trouble? if you zone up all day, can you be more attentive to sharpshooters? Do we have enough quality depth to allow us to press? Imo, the current team makeup will present a lot of challenges. If we continue to allow a lot of points, second chance shots & struggle rebounding, we don't have sufficient offensive firepower to negate that too often. Small sample, three wins (against inferior competition) I know, just assessing what I see thus far.

Excellent post Paultz. 
I particularly agree with your comments on help-defense.   I noticed that time and again last night.   Our guys need to trust their teammates and stay disciplined.   
We're doing the basketball equivalent of over-pursuing in football.   Stay in your zone or on your man, don't over-help.

Quote from: paultzman on November 20, 2014, 07:35:43 AM

One thing stands out to me. It is one thing to play good help defense, another to cheat, leave your man on penetration & allow uncontested threes. I love Dee and know he wants to help rebound. However, several times he unnecessarily cheated when a guard penetrated, allowing his man to nail a 3. Overall our perimeter defense is sorely lacking. This will hurt us significantly playing teams with outside shooting proficiency.

 I too am alarmed by the amount of points we are allowing to date. The solution is tricky. If you play too much man, do you get into foul trouble? if you zone up all day, can you be more attentive to sharpshooters? Do we have enough quality depth to allow us to press? Imo, the current team makeup will present a lot of challenges. If we continue to allow a lot of points, second chance shots & struggle rebounding, we don't have sufficient offensive firepower to negate that too often. Small sample, three wins (against inferior competition) I know, just assessing what I see thus far.

Excellent post Paultz. 
I particularly agree with your comments on help-defense.   I noticed that time and again last night.   Our guys need to trust their teammates and stay disciplined.   
We're doing the basketball equivalent of over-pursuing in football.   Stay in your zone or on your man, don't over-help.

Thanks. Discipline & playing smart just are not the first descriptors that come to mind for my Johnnies.

Agree 100%. If their defense doesn't pick it up, they will get crushed the next 2 games.