Team question for RR

[JonathanW]

Would you be willing to "sacrifice" some of our offensive ability/efficiency, to improve our defensive ability (and rebounding) other than Steals?

Like everyone else, I loved offensively what I was seeing from UK the first 7 games of the season.
BUT... the defense had lapses (late KU game, and then UNCW) and our rebounding has been bad (which give the opponent more possessions). Those 2 are WHY we lost to KU! And the defense was the main reason we lost to UNCW.

Adding in Bradshaw, and Onyenso, hopefully even Ivisic will undoubtedly change how we play, on both ends of the court. So, I'm not ready to go off the deep end (yet) like many on this board have already done because our offense doesn't look as entertaining and fluid as it did the first 7 games. Not if the improvement in defense and rebounding more than makes up for it. And it's way too early to judge that. For example, if adding in "the bigs" takes our offense from a 9 (out of 10) down to a 7.5, but it raises our defense from a 5 to a 7.5, I consider that overall improvement.
Now would I prefer the offense to not change while the defense improves? Of course. But maybe that's not possible. IDK, and neither do you.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

Purdue has a 8 foot dude in the middle but have exited the tournament by not guarding the perimeter. Our perimeter defense is weaker than anything.

 

[JonathanW]

Purdue has a 8 foot dude in the middle but have exited the tournament by not guarding the perimeter. Our perimeter defense is weaker than anything.

Perimeter players can play tighter D knowing they have an eraser behind them should they get beat off the dribble. All of Cal’s best teams have had that.

 

[TucsonCat]

Perimeter players can play tighter D knowing they have an eraser behind them should they get beat off the dribble. All of Cal’s best teams have had that.

That would be fine if our problem was that we weren't playing tight because player sometimes drives by. But they always get past us. Going out tighter, they will drive by every possession. Bradshaw will have 5 blocks and five fouls in the first half.

But I do think that can get better this season. Somebody like Liggins where didn't come in as a stopper, but one day clicked. Edwards and Wagner have that rangey potential. Hope Camp Cal brings that out.

 

[UKBB4Ever]

Purdue beat Alabama and their “modern offense”.

We are going to have to play defense. It doesn’t have to be at the expense of the offense.

And we will. These guys are just learning about defense. Wagner is a good defender. Edwards is a good defender. Bradshaw is a good defender. Sheppard is a good defender. Dillingham is not.

But none of them understand team defense yet. They will become a very good defensive unit. The pieces are all there.

Cal is a great defensive coach.

It’s going to come together. The offense will continue to improve too.

Happens every season. Cal teams get better and better.

 

[CatsFanIL]

Would you be willing to "sacrifice" some of our offensive ability/efficiency, to improve our defensive ability (and rebounding) other than Steals?

Like everyone else, I loved offensively what I was seeing from UK the first 7 games of the season.
BUT... the defense had lapses (late KU game, and then UNCW) and our rebounding has been bad (which give the opponent more possessions). Those 2 are WHY we lost to KU! And the defense was the main reason we lost to UNCW.

Adding in Bradshaw, and Onyenso, hopefully even Ivisic will undoubtedly change how we play, on both ends of the court. So, I'm not ready to go off the deep end (yet) like many on this board have already done because our offense doesn't look as entertaining and fluid as it did the first 7 games. Not if the improvement in defense and rebounding more than makes up for it. And it's way too early to judge that. For example, if adding in "the bigs" takes our offense from a 9 (out of 10) down to a 7.5, but it raises our defense from a 5 to a 7.5, I consider that overall improvement.
Now would I prefer the offense to not change while the defense improves? Of course. But maybe that's not possible. IDK, and neither do you.

Something to keep in mind: the faster you play offensively, the more possessions you then have to guard defensively. So while fans love for the Cats to get out and run, if UK doesn't score in those possessions, they just have to turn around quickly and defend again, something this group isn't currently that good at.

So right now, when Cal slows the game down, he's also helping the Cats defensively by limiting the amount of possessions we'll mess up on defense.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

Something to keep in mind: the faster you play offensively, the more possessions you then have to guard defensively. So while fans love for the Cats to get out and run, if UK doesn't score in those possessions, they just have to turn around quickly and defend again, something this group isn't currently that good at.

So right now, when Cal slows the game down, he's also helping the Cats defensively by limiting the amount of possessions we'll mess up on defense.

You can look at it the other way. In games like UNCW, by slowing the game down, and getting less possessions overall, it tightens the butt pucker by putting more and more pressure on needing key defensive stops. Better to utilize your athletic advantage with high speed play and take your chances on defense.

But plow-Cow rides again, so here we are!

 

[Wonky]

All I want from Cal teams is 4 things:

1. If you’re gonna give up baskets, give up 2’s instead of 3’s. Guard the damn 3-point line at all costs.

2. Keep making the extra pass. Pass up a good shot for an even better shot.

3. NO MORE LONG 2’s.

4. Quit trying to throw the ball LOW or in traffic to a big man. Throw lobs.

They do these 4 things every game, and I’ll live with the results.

 

[NorfolkNWaypal]

Something to keep in mind: the faster you play offensively, the more possessions you then have to guard defensively. So while fans love for the Cats to get out and run, if UK doesn't score in those possessions, they just have to turn around quickly and defend again, something this group isn't currently that good at.

So right now, when Cal slows the game down, he's also helping the Cats defensively by limiting the amount of possessions we'll mess up on defense.

Isn't that kind of like playing scared? I don't like a coach who worries about what might go wrong. Running and gunning takes advantage of our players' strengths. High risk, high reward. Slowing things down also does so, but less. When you play grind it out, you HAVE to have a go-to scorer who isn't in foul trouble. How many teams can truly run with us when we're healthy? I have a feeling this will be an ongoing debate throughout the season, and of course we all will second guess Cal, but frankly he's played grind it out for the last several years and it hasn't worked out. What have we got to lose by giving it a shot?

 

[crestcat]

Something to keep in mind: the faster you play offensively, the more possessions you then have to guard defensively. So while fans love for the Cats to get out and run, if UK doesn't score in those possessions, they just have to turn around quickly and defend again, something this group isn't currently that good at.

So right now, when Cal slows the game down, he's also helping the Cats defensively by limiting the amount of possessions we'll mess up on defense.

Too often when we take the air out we end up with a bad shot so what we are doing is giving the opponent more possessions.

 

[CatsFanIL]

You can look at it the other way. In games like UNCW, by slowing the game down, and getting less possessions overall, it tightens the butt pucker by putting more and more pressure on needing key defensive stops. Better to utilize your athletic advantage with high speed play and take your chances on defense.

But plow-Cow rides again, so here we are!

Just curious, do you know the game vs game comparison in terms of tempo for the Miami game vs the UNCW game? I thought I saw someone post on here that it was only like 5 less possessions than the Miami game, so really we didn't play much slower at all. Again, I can't remember the exact stat comparison, so someone please feel free to double-check that.

I don't want to be that guy that just throws out garbage and try to play it off as fact...

 

[KYFOSSIL]

Purdue has a 8 foot dude in the middle but have exited the tournament by not guarding the perimeter. Our perimeter defense is weaker than anything.

A big reason Wilmington beat us was also due to the straight line drives with no rim protector

 

[CatsFanIL]

Too often when we take the air out we end up with a bad shot so what we are doing is giving the opponent more possessions.

Except for the Penn game, where it led to us ending the game on a 20-7 run, right? And several other games where it led to wins as well. Of course, yes it has backfired at times too. But we don't give it credit when it works, just when it doesn't work, right?

 

[TTTblue24]

The game is about guard play especially the ncaa tournament, must fix perimeter defense and keep people out of the lane for any type of success this season.

 

[BlueSince92]

I don’t call him Cow or have an agenda against him. I still want to see him succeed here if he can do it in a way that honors our traditions (as much as can be reasonably expected in today’s CBB scene, which isn’t even all that much and I don’t put those circumstances on Cal).

BUT Calipari’s most common approach when he has a big man or two with rim-guarding potential is to play gimmick defense. Funnel driving opponents into the lane purposefully, where in theory a big man is waiting there to swat them and intimidate them. While in practice the big man may swat them, but he’s just as likely to foul them or to not even be there because he blew a help assignment. And savvy opposing coaches often even take advantage of that to put our big man in foul trouble, leading directly to Cal playing stall ball and losing, or to send our bigs to the foul line where they miss and basically convert that foul on the opposing team into a turnover. It’s a gimmick defense that often looks great in systems like Kenpom that crunch raw numbers in huge cohorts without accounting for the inordinate way a defense like that will abuse the bunny teams we play before solid teams come in and pick apart our pipe dream of actually air-tight defense. But it doesn’t do the trick against serious competition and it often largely explains our season results.

I will never in a million years want to give up the actual free-flowing, player-enabling John Welch offense I saw early in the season for something like that, regardless of how many lucky bounces we may collect that may make us think it’s really going to work this year. We don’t have the 2015 roster and honestly it was Frank Kaminsky, and not the ref, who ultimately taught us that against effective bigs used well it couldn’t even work with the 2015 roster.

Now, if we’re really talking carte blanc and you’re really saying the results are already guaranteed as part of your hypothetical question, then yes, I would really be willing to sacrifice some, not so much of that beautiful offense for some, not so much more real, solid, consistent, and effective defense because not very much would be needed.

But real-world experience suggests to me that that particular trade-off is not really needed and will only play to Cal’s darker side. For my money I’d much rather see Cal find a way to work Bradshaw and Onyenso into both that high-powered, fluid offense AND that same defense that already lost to Kansas, which I really don’t think needed much of anything else besides two mobile seven-footers in it (*not at the same time) and some time for everybody to get it down.

 

[cathouse]

Slowing the game down on the offensive end to keep the score in the 60's (rock fight, grind.....) like Cal wants to play, does nothing to improve your defense.

It just lowers the score of the game and gets you beat 60-58 by teams like Big Peter by playing down to their talent level and allowing them to control tempo....which is BS when you have more offensive fire power and are more athletic than the other team.

Cal needs to let this team play to their strengths, dammit.

 

[YardCat]

A big reason Wilmington beat us was also due to the straight line drives with no rim protector

Given up by Everyone

 

[fatguy87]

Our defensive issues are deeper than who is in the lineup. We've been mediocre defensively since 2019 even with teams on paper who should have been adept. Cal's approach to that side of the ball hasn't been effective.

 

[JonathanW]

You can look at it the other way. In games like UNCW, by slowing the game down, and getting less possessions overall, it tightens the butt pucker by putting more and more pressure on needing key defensive stops. Better to utilize your athletic advantage with high speed play and take your chances on defense.

But plow-Cow rides again, so here we are!

Agree, in a game like basketball or football with alternating possessions, it's a moot point to "limit a good team's possessions" because that means you are also limiting your own. All it does is place a higher value on each individual possession (i.e. now it's 2% of your chances to score instead of 1.5%). Now if you argue you spend more energy playing defense than offense, ok that could be a legitimate reason to slow down (if have a short bench). Fouls is maybe another.

 

[JonathanW]

Our defensive issues are deeper than who is in the lineup. We've been mediocre defensively since 2019 even with teams on paper who should have been adept. Cal's approach to that side of the ball hasn't been effective.

Except for I.Jackson (and that team was just F'ed up in every other way) we haven't had a shot blocker since Richards. And all of Cal's best teams, his best defensive teams have had that.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

Except for I.Jackson (and that team was just F'ed up in every other way) we haven't had a shot blocker since Richards. And all of Cal's best teams, his best defensive teams have had that.

True. However, relying on a rim protector only gets them in foul trouble early if the guards are essentially playing ole' defense.

 

[UKortho]

Just curious, do you know the game vs game comparison in terms of tempo for the Miami game vs the UNCW game? I thought I saw someone post on here that it was only like 5 less possessions than the Miami game, so really we didn't play much slower at all. Again, I can't remember the exact stat comparison, so someone please feel free to double-check that.

I don't want to be that guy that just throws out garbage and try to play it off as fact...

Adjusted tempo for Miami was 69.9. Penn was 66.3. Approx 4 less possessions .

D1 average is 69

 

[CatsFanIL]

Adjusted tempo for Miami was 69.9. Penn was 66.3. Approx 4 less possessions .

Thank you - and what about the UNCW game, if you would please?

 

[UKortho]

Thank you - and what about the UNCW game, if you would please?

69.1

 

[UKortho]

Heck, Stonehill was 69.8. It’s been fairly consistent honestly.

 

[crestcat]

Except for the Penn game, where it led to us ending the game on a 20-7 run, right? And several other games where it led to wins as well. Of course, yes it has backfired at times too. But we don't give it credit when it works, just when it doesn't work, right?

I guess I remember when it has bit us in the ass because it has happened in important games, say like final four games.

 

[JonathanW]

True. However, relying on a rim protector only gets them in foul trouble early if the guards are essentially playing ole' defense.

I disagree. Good shot blockers don’t foul.

 

[zwynn10]

Our defensive issues are deeper than who is in the lineup. We've been mediocre defensively since 2019 even with teams on paper who should have been adept. Cal's approach to that side of the ball hasn't been effective.

Agree but would pinpoint it further to perimeter defense. I am not giving up on this year’s squad yet in this regard as Wagner, Dilly and Shep are certainly athletic enough to be excellent defenders. If Reeves would become an average defender, that would be an improvement.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

I disagree. Good shot blockers don’t foul.

I don’t think Bradshaw is a great shot blocker. Ugo is, but he still gets in foul trouble.

 

[JonathanW]

I don’t think Bradshaw is a great shot blocker. Ugo is, but he still gets in foul trouble.

I’ve seen people say that on here before, but it’s not true. Last year in 110 minutes, Onyenso committed only 8 fouls. That is 1 every 13:45. A very low foul rate, especially for a 4/5.

 

[fatguy87]

Except for I.Jackson (and that team was just F'ed up in every other way) we haven't had a shot blocker since Richards. And all of Cal's best teams, his best defensive teams have had that.

Playing as if you have a shot blocker for multiple seasons without one seems sub optimal.

A shot blocking fiend wasn't even necessary for Cal's past teams. The 2010, 2011, 2017, and 2019 all played pretty good defense without a shot blocking ace for 30+ minutes a game. For whatever reason now, it's the refuge for excusing poor defensive play. Heck, the team with Nick Richards ranked in the 50's in adjusted defensive efficiency. That team was poor on defense despite having a shot blocker.

 

[CatsFanIL]

I guess I remember when it has bit us in the ass because it has happened in important games, say like final four games.

So the Miami game was a tempo of 69.9 (which everyone loved) and UNCW was 69.1 (which somehow everyone hated), but lots of posters are blaming the loss on tempo/pace of play?

The obvious: Cal haters. Simple as that.

The relevance: DJ didn't play against UNCW

 

[fatguy87]

So the Miami game was a tempo of 69.9 (which everyone loved) and UNCW was 69.1 (which somehow everyone hated), but lots of posters are blaming the loss on tempo/pace of play?

The obvious: Cal haters. Simple as that.

The relevance: DJ didn't play against UNCW

The game looks faster when you make shots lol

 

[DDMatUK=NBA]

Might be my first post after several years of following along on here.

Jmho but we'll get there defensively. We have the right pieces but very young, inexperienced and just learning to play together. I think we can be great on D by late season. But yeah...we're not there right now, by a long shot. Cal historically has used the early season to get players to come together and figure out what he has early on and picks up on D after Christmas break. We'll have to wait and see with this team but I still think this team might make its trademark on d in March. We have the pieces to gurad anyone if fully healthy and eligible.

 

[docholiday51]

I don’t think Bradshaw is a great shot blocker. Ugo is, but he still gets in foul trouble.

It remains to be seen if Bradshaw is a good shot blocker, Ugo showed potential pre injury so we will see. Bradshaw adds to our offensive potential because other teams have to account for him at 3 levels.

With the addition of 1 or 2 bigs this becomes a different team than we have seen thus far. Considering the really good play and the really bad play we have seen thus far it isn't clear who or what the team was, it was a work in progress. Introducing 2 new players to the mix will delay seeing who and what this team really is for another 3 weeks. I think the chances that it becomes a better team are much greater than going in the other direction.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

It remains to be seen if Bradshaw is a good shot blocker, Ugo showed potential pre injury so we will see. Bradshaw adds to our offensive potential because other teams have to account for him at 3 levels.

With the addition of 1 or 2 bigs this becomes a different team than we have seen thus far. Considering the really good play and the really bad play we have seen thus far it isn't clear who or what the team was, it was a work in progress. Introducing 2 new players to the mix will delay seeing who and what this team really is for another 3 weeks. I think the chances that it becomes a better team are much greater than going in the other direction.

Generally I'd agree with you, but since Cal likes to mix and match combos all season long, it will delay the continuity that is so necessary to weather difficult games come March.

 

[docholiday51]

Generally I'd agree with you, but since Cal likes to mix and match combos all season long, it will delay the continuity that is so necessary to weather difficult games come March.

As always Cal is the wild card in all this. There is no way to tell what he will or won't do. I just watch the play on the floor and try to ignore Cal as much as possible

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

As always Cal is the wild card in all this. There is no way to tell what he will or won't do. I just watch the play on the floor and try to ignore Cal as much as possible

Great freaking advice. Top Notch.

I really wish it was easier to ignore him.

 

[docholiday51]

Great freaking advice. Top Notch.

I really wish it was easier to ignore him.

I haven't listened to any of his pre or post game comments in several years. I dvr the games so I can watch without commercials or half time commentary.