Press on Defense to speed up game.
- Thread starter MrHotDice
- Start date
It's not as easy to press teams as some fans think. You have to have the right personnel for it to begin with and we did not. The twins, Johnson, and even Towns were not very fast. Also, Cal seldom presses with his teams so he is not the best at coaching it. And going for steals opens you up for getting beat by your man, so unless you are very, very good at it, the risk outweighs the reward. Cal has his faults, but he has his way of doing things, and he isn't about to change certain things at this point in his career. He's not going to start zoning, pressing, or overplaying passing lanes. Get used to it.
Auburn , Ark, WV all tried to play us fast, and we ran all 3 out of the gym. Cal all year let the other team set the pace pf play. So, yes, we had the talent to play that way every game
I wouldn't doubt if cal mentions pressing and playing alittle zone in a future press conference this season. lol yeah he'll mention it it and rarely use it.
You are right though, cal aint changing his colors at this point, even if it means putting a square peg in a round hole
Problem is the other team would almost always use 30+ seconds off the shot clock. UK could have pressed, but it would not have been that effective at changing the pace of play as teams would have adjusted to it and abused it when our slower players like the Harrisons at guard and DJ/Towns at C were in the game.
Fans like you also would have been bashing our guys for jacking up quick shots if they were not going in with this helter skelter play you are saying we should have ran every game, all game.
When you struggle to score, and the Cats did at times, TOs give you the opportunity to get some easy buckets. The Cats had the personnel to press but chose not to. They would also have had a great zone team with their length and Cal chose not to. I have a theory as to why he chose to disregard both...in the NBA, pressing/trapping and zones aren't use much, and I have a feeling he plays straight man to prepare kids for the league. Just my opinion.
I disagree. It's not a gimmick when you exploit another team's lack of athleticism while taking advantage of your own athleticism. It disrupts the other team's flow and many times makes them play at a pace they're not comfortable with. Add in the fact that last year Cal played 10 guys and then your depth becomes a factor. Ulis, Booker, Lee, WCS, and Poythress (before he got hurt, obviously) would have been a great pressing team. I think Aaron would have been ok in the press.
I agree that games in the 50's and 60's are just God awful, and painful to watch. Trouble is, pressing does nothing to keep the other team from packing it in on D and hacking the crap out of you for 35 seconds. Pressing speeds things up for a few seconds, while the other team tries to cross midcourt (unless they beat you back and get easy transition baskets), but they can slow things back down, once they cross.
The ONLY thing that will pull college basketball out of the horrible product we see on the floor these days, is for the rules to be enforced and called as they SHOULD be.
The ONLY thing that will pull college basketball out of the horrible product we see on the floor these days, is for the rules to be enforced and called as they SHOULD be.
I agree. We should have tried more to create tempo. I also do not understand why we would not play zone against teams like Texas A&M and Louisville. I know we won both games but we struggled a bit. A&M was a school know for its lack of outside shooting and its strengths in driving to the basket. A zone would have devastated them and it would have been a blow out. In addition I wish he would trash the switching on ball screens. I believe that was one of the reasons we struggles with Notre Dame and lost to Wisc. It was great that Stein could cover a guard but against quality teams he left the guards in a back situation when he switched. Of course when Dakari switched it was a disaster. I watched the championship game for one reason. I wanted to see how Duke played the ball screens. They had Okafor hedge and the guard fought throught the screen. That is exactly what we should have done. Oh well.
A press would be great if we did it all the time and did it well. However, you can't run every kind of offense and defense all of the time and do them all well. A coach has to pick and choose what he is going to run and then practice it everyday. This is even more true when you have nearly a new team coming in every year like Cal does. It is easy to pick out one or two games and say this or that would have worked better. But we all know such a small sampling does not paint an accurate picture. You have to look at the entire season. When you look at all the seasons since Cal has been here you have to say that he is picking and choosing the right combinations because we have been the dominant program just about every year since his arrival in Lexington.
If a coach doesn't have SOME kind of press...(zone press or run and jump with trapping)... then it makes it very hard to come back in games where you get down late. I firmly believe you have to have the ability to change tempo in games against good teams.
Man, some of you guys will never get over your love of pressing and shooting threes. First, the current coach doesn't like that style, so the argument is moot. Second, I think he's right - the game has evolved, most teams now can deal with a press, it no longer presents an advantage like it might have 25 or 30 years ago. I know this won't be popular, because it's conventional to think players have gotten worse over time. That is partially true - I think basic skill level has deceased a bit, but athleticism is better now generally. And you don't need 5 Bob Cousy's to render a press ineffective. The reason Cal can't be pressed usually is because he has multiple athletic guys who -- although not great ball handlers necessarily - are comfortable with the ball. And even though most teams don't have the athletes Cal does, you don't find teams now contructed like they used to be "back in the day" with a primary ball handler, one other guy who could dribble without pressure, and then 3 guys who ran away from the ball. There was a reason Pitino and Richardson had such success, and there's also a reason they went away from it as the game evolved....
its not the 90s. good teams break a press easy and get wide open looks. but some people just like living in the past I suppose
I don't think we had the overall team speed to do so. We don't usually have issues with it because we normally have several people who are good ball handlers and passers. I think Wisconsin would have just picked us apart, especially since it wasn't something we had a lot of experience with. They had the size and skill to not be bothered by it. The only potential benefit would be making them tired, but with all the stoppages in play I don't know if that would work.
You can play fast and not press. Many times Andrrew or Ulis got the ball in half court before the defense set up, but pulled back and slow it down instead of attacking, that is not totally on the players.
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