DEFENSE DEFENSE DEFENSE….

[Basscat1987]

This should be the only focus in practice from here on out. The offense is good enough. You can’t tell me that a team full of seniors can’t manufacture a defensive scheme that works for them to make it respectable. Work on it 2 hours a day. Talk to anyone and everyone u can to bounce ideas off of. Work on help defense and rotations. Start making it a priority every day in practice for the next 4 weeks. Don’t even work on the offense other than game planning and telling the players how to act a certain team. Please Pope I’m begging u to make this defense better. I’m desperate for a march run for once again. It’s been too long

 

[HYTCHYE ISLAND]

THIS ⬆️!!!!!!

 

[yabbadabbadoo]

Put taller guys like Robinson and Brea on their shooters. I think it worked in the Tennessee game. Play Perry and Noah in stints and utilize some zoning to help them a bit.

 

[Tampa_cat54]

We haven't had a Top-10 defense since 2019...think about that.

Imagine if Alabama football went 7 straight years without a competent defense.

Unimaginable.

 

[jwphelps]

This should be the only focus in practice from here on out. The offense is good enough. You can’t tell me that a team full of seniors can’t manufacture a defensive scheme that works for them to make it respectable. Work on it 2 hours a day. Talk to anyone and everyone u can to bounce ideas off of. Work on help defense and rotations. Start making it a priority every day in practice for the next 4 weeks. Don’t even work on the offense other than game planning and telling the players how to act a certain team. Please Pope I’m begging u to make this defense better. I’m desperate for a march run for once again. It’s been too long

I would like to see the Cats switch defenses a bit more, try to keep them confused a bit.

 

[king of cali]

I don’t even think you need to be top 10 with this offense. Just don’t be a complete turnstile.

 

[chasingwildcat]

We haven't had a Top-10 defense since 2019...think about that.

Imagine if Alabama football went 7 straight years without a competent defense.

Unimaginable.

We have not had athleticism any more since 2019

Defensw is hugely related with athleticism

 

[Tampa_cat54]

We have not had athleticism any more since 2019

Defensw is hugely related with athleticism

Not sure I totally agree with that.

Wagner, Thiero, Jacob Toppin, Collins, Keion Brooks, Isaiah Jackson, Wallace, Edwards, Dillingham, Bradshaw, Amari, Butler, Oweh, etc., etc., I could keep going- we've actually had some fantastic athletes.

The problem is that a lot of our best athletes weren't exactly amazing basketball players, especially defensively.

 

[mcwildcats04]

We have not had athleticism any more since 2019

Defensw is hugely related with athleticism

If you don't have the athletes, then play more zone. We need to play more zone. It worked earlier. Why aren't we trying more of this?

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

Guys I think we just need to accept the defense is what it is, and hope they make a couple hustle plays/rebounds that can knock 10-15 points off what their allowing right now

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

If you don't have the athletes, then play more zone. We need to play more zone. It worked earlier. Why aren't we trying more of this?

Pope addressed this one the other day. It basically came down to Arkansas being extremely inefficient all year against man to man. They were scoring 0.5 ppp less against M2M than zone. The point of zone would be to restrict driving lanes and force outside shots, but with Z and crew hitting all their outside shots, the zone wouldn’t have been effective. A zone is hard to run when the opposing team is hitting 52% of their threes. Also, rebounding was a focus for this game. A zone would have hampered that.

 

[mcwildcats04]

Pope addressed this one the other day. It basically came down to Arkansas being extremely inefficient all year against man to man. They were scoring 0.5 ppp less against M2M than zone. The point of zone would be to restrict driving lanes and force outside shots, but with Z and crew hitting all their outside shots, the zone wouldn’t have been effective. A zone is hard to run when the opposing team is hitting 52% of their threes. Also, rebounding was a focus for this game. A zone would have hampered that.

This is what frustrated me about that game though. Sounds all great going into the game but when it's absolutely clear relatively early on that M2M isn't working, you have to make adjustments in game. Can't just rely on what happened before, have to focus on what is happening right in front of you. We should have tried zone against Arkansas, at least in spurts.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

This is what frustrated me about that game though. Sounds all great going into the game but when it's absolutely clear relatively early on that M2M isn't working, you have to make adjustments in game. Can't just rely on what happened before, have to focus on what is happening right in front of you. We should have tried zone against Arkansas, at least in spurts.

I was begging for a zone too man, but that doesn’t fix the issue we experienced in that game

 

[BigBlueManSouthCentralKY]

Why does Ole Miss have a high rated defense? Because there players are demanded to play that hard on defense. We have experienced and good enough players to play in your face defense, switch like they do and crash the boards that hard. Pope should focus on his players playing 100% intensity rate on defense 100% of the time or sit. I can name three guys that go half speed and half aggression on defense off the top of my head right now. Comes down to the heart and who wants it more. No reason for our old guys not having the heart of some of these teams we play.

 

[Tprinceuk]

I understood trying to make Arkansas beat you from three, but you can't give Ivisic open shots and when they start off hitting them you have to make some sort of change.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

I understood trying to make Arkansas beat you from three, but you can't give Ivisic open shots and when they start off hitting them you have to make some sort of change.

That was specifically an issue with Williams isn’t good at defending the perimeter. He was slow to get out on Z. Almonor is kind of similar but was better. The gameplan was not to let Z shoot. This is why in another post, I pointed out that teams with a stretch 5 have given us trouble all year. We don’t have the athletes to guard the perimeter, which means we rely on our bigs to help. If you have bigs with big help responsibility, it becomes harder to ask them to guard perimeter unless they are skilled for it.


I.e. I don’t think a fix for the defense is coming. It can get slightly better but not very

 

[Tampa_cat54]

Guys I think we just need to accept the defense is what it is, and hope they make a couple hustle plays/rebounds that can knock 10-15 points off what their allowing right now

That's it right there.

Give us 5 more stops per game- is that too much to ask? That would save us 10-12 PPG, and we win 4 out of our 5 losses we currently have.

Can we get just 10% better defensively and eek out 5 more stops.

 

[JPFisher]

I was begging for a zone too man, but that doesn’t fix the issue we experienced in that game

Zone would've away the drive portion of the dribble drive. That's what killed us all night was them driving and kicking to open guys.

 

[mcwildcats04]

Zone would've away the drive portion of the dribble drive. That's what killed us all night was them driving and kicking to open guys.

I was thinking this as well. If nothing else, at least have to TRY something different rather than continuing to do the same thing over and over in a game that is clearly not working. We did it against Gonzaga and it worked perfectly.

 

[BlueWorldOrder74]

I don’t even think you need to be top 10 with this offense. Just don’t be a complete turnstile.

If we could manage to play top 50 defense remaining 10 games, we could win all 10. Keep doing that in the tourneys and we could win in Nashville and make an elite 8 or better.

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

That's it right there.

Give us 5 more stops per game- is that too much to ask? That would save us 10-12 PPG, and we win 4 out of our 5 losses we currently have.

Can we get just 10% better defensively and eke out 5 more stops.

It’s the rebounding and 50/50 plays. If they can get 4-5 of those and not give up second chances that helps.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

Zone would've away the drive portion of the dribble drive. That's what killed us all night was them driving and kicking to open guys.

With a zone, they don’t have to do as much drive and kick. It’s hard to zone when the opposing team has shooters at every position. First thing happened when we zone was a DJ Wagner layup. This is why you don’t see much zone in the NBA, they can all shoot. We got Arkansas on a 52% 3pt shooting day. They made 13 threes and we got people angry we didn’t zone. I also begged for zone until I thought about it.

 

[BlueSince92]

Yeah get healthy and get a top 30 defense and this team would be deadly, especially in the NCAAT where they'll make everyone play a lot cleaner. As my dude @BlueWorldOrder74 said we don't strictly need it that strong, but it's hard to see us being much of a serious threat postseason if we can't break into the top 50.

 

[Cats192]

This is what frustrated me about that game though. Sounds all great going into the game but when it's absolutely clear relatively early on that M2M isn't working, you have to make adjustments in game. Can't just rely on what happened before, have to focus on what is happening right in front of you. We should have tried zone against Arkansas, at least in spurts.

We didn't rely on what happened before.

They were raining 3's at a 52% clip. When they're lighting you up from 3, zone aint the answer.

 

[Cats192]

I was thinking this as well. If nothing else, at least have to TRY something different rather than continuing to do the same thing over and over in a game that is clearly not working. We did it against Gonzaga and it worked perfectly.

This is like saying:

Driving slow on the ice is going poorly. So, I should at least try to switch it up and drive fast.

People love the zone talking point when we lose. A lot of times in the Calipari era, it was valid. Against Arkansas, I don't think it was.

If we put them in a zone and dare them to make 3's--well, they've been making 3's all game.

They are far more athletic than we were. We needed to put them in a spot to shoot a lot of 3's and miss. They did take a lot of 3's. They hit them. Going zone wasn't going to fix that.

 

[WeWant9]

Guys I think we just need to accept the defense is what it is, and hope they make a couple hustle plays/rebounds that can knock 10-15 points off what their allowing right now

Yeah, I’ve seen enough to know this team isn’t going to all the sudden “get it” on the defensive side. How many times have we’ve seen a loose ball go between two UK guys and neither comes up with it?

We probably don’t have the horses for it, but I’d rather just unleash a frenzy on defense. Press, go for steals, deflect passes, etc. I’d rather see us gambling and making mistakes versus standing around ball watching.

 

[Catman100]

I am pretty sure we are what we are.
Can practice defense until the cows come home, but we are what we are.
21 games in, not sure much can be changed.

 

[ukwazoo]

This is what frustrated me about that game though. Sounds all great going into the game but when it's absolutely clear relatively early on that M2M isn't working, you have to make adjustments in game. Can't just rely on what happened before, have to focus on what is happening right in front of you. We should have tried zone against Arkansas, at least in spurts.

Yes, how Arkansas fares against man to man has nothing to do with reality, because our man to man defense sucks

 

[ukwazoo]

We didn't rely on what happened before.

They were raining 3's at a 52% clip. When they're lighting you up from 3, zone aint the answer.

Well, man isn't the answer, either. Zone will at least change things up. Worked in the 2014 title game for a bit. UConn was turning it over left and right. I'll never understand just throwing your arms up and giving up. Try something else.

 

[Cats192]

Well, man isn't the answer, either. Zone will at least change things up. Worked in the 2014 title game for a bit. UConn was turning it over left and right. I'll never understand just throwing your arms up and giving up. Try something else.

Cool man.

We can agree to disagree.

 

[Soupbean]

I would like to see the Cats switch defenses a bit more, try to keep them confused a bit.

This is a given, coach has to make this part of the plan no matter what schemes he uses. Think we will see more zone and more trapping out of the man defense to try an create some kind of disruption.

I've said it thousand and 42 times but I've never understood why coaches all across the country dont use more MATCHUP zone defenses today. Especially those who dont have the rosters built to guard the ball or play shut down man defense.

A MATCHUP 3-2 zone gives you the best of both worlds.
1. It allows you to still extend the defense and put some pressure on the perimeter and on the ball just like you would in Man defense, but without the chasing.
2. You can switch out of it better when they try to screen out high
3. You can trap out of it if you want to create more pressure and try to create turnovers.
4. Because you arent chasing you foul less
5. Because you're not chasing you fatigue your guys less
6. Because you're not chasing its harder for their penetration to break down and rotate defense for open threes
7. The 3-2 or 1-2-2 alignment makes it easier to matchup on the shooting areas.

IMO its the perfect concept for our team to work in the mix. Can vary it into more of a

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

This is a given, coach has to make this part of the plan no matter what schemes he uses. Think we will see more zone and more trapping out of the man defense to try an create some kind of disruption.

I've said it thousand and 42 times but I've never understood why coaches all across the country dont use more MATCHUP zone defenses today. Especially those who dont have the rosters built to guard the ball or play shut down man defense.

A MATCHUP 3-2 zone gives you the best of both worlds.
1. It allows you to still extend the defense and put some pressure on the perimeter and on the ball just like you would in Man defense, but without the chasing.
2. You can switch out of it better when they try to screen out high
3. You can trap out of it if you want to create more pressure and try to create turnovers.
4. Because you arent chasing you foul less
5. Because you're not chasing you fatigue your guys less
6. Because you're not chasing its harder for their penetration to break down and rotate defense for open threes
7. The 3-2 or 1-2-2 alignment makes it easier to matchup on the shooting areas.

IMO its the perfect concept for our team to work in the mix. Can vary it into more of a

Matchup 3-2 weakest area is high post, exactly where Adou Thiero was having us for lunch. Might would agree with you against some teams, but not Arkansas on that night

 

[The_Answer1313]

I am pretty sure we are what we are.
Can practice defense until the cows come home, but we are what we are.
21 games in, not sure much can be changed.

I feel like this is a repeat of last year where people noticed we had an elite offense but bad defense and we were sitting around all season long waiting on that defense that never came.

Yeah I agree. It also doesn't help when you have guys like Butler and Kerr out who would no doubt improve the defense.

I just find it crazy that some would think that 1) Pope doesn't realize this is an issue and 2) it's not being heavily practiced on.