Why was the defense so bad last season?

[fatguy87]

No, they go hand in hand. Cal's philosophy has always been "funnel the guards into the shot blockers" so when we didn't have an Anthony Davis, he should've coached his guards a different way of defense. You're right but doesn't mean we aren't also.

That wasn't even necessary in the past for Cal to have effective defenses.

Jorts and Bam were the starting centers for great and even elite defensive units and neither were above the rim, dominant forces blocking shots at the rim.

We had a defensive savant in 2021 in Jackson and a darn good shot blocking big in Richards in 2020. The 2021 team finished 35th while the 2020 team finished 52nd in defensive efficiency.

The game has changed, and Cal's coaching has yet to adapt. Last year's team certainly could have had inferior defensive players, but the Cal of the 2010's would have had that group in the top 50 of defensive efficiency easily.

 

[saxonburgcat]

Payne and Robic replaced by guys like Chin and Martin.

That seems like the answer. Cal is a coach who is only as good as his assistants. At least that is my conclusion.

 

[Butters' Dad]

I will tell you why but I'm not sure anyone will take me seriously. Defense is tougher than offense and requires far more cooperation on the floor. So the better you know the guy next to you, the better you're going to be defensively as a team. So it takes years to build a consistent defense. You have to know each other intimately because you will face situations in games that you can't simulate in practice and you have to know how the guy next you is going to react to it. This is one reason experience beats out young talent pretty consistently.

 

[megablue]

90% of the people will say coaching.

Truth is, we just had poor defensive players. That's all.

It's the same exact reason we were so efficient on offense. We had a group of insanely talented players on one side of the ball that were not good on defense.

Many, many times it seems the better offensive players are weaker on defense.
Not just here at UK … it is everywhere.
It will be interesting to see how Pope blends his players to be solid on both ends. That is his biggest challenge, I think.

 

[yabbadabbadoo]

No accountability

 

[Dncmaxwell]

The NBA didn't seem to mind, drafting two of those defenders #3 and #8 in the draft.

Let's cut the BS and call it for what it was: our bad defenders never improved defensively all season. Not even a fraction.

That's ultimately coaching.

Reed and Dilly were NOT drafted for their defense man, get real…go back and watch their defense. Off balll Reed was good, but man, those guys were rough to watch, nd didn’t have a good defensive big to back them up, except occasionally Ugo.


Everything comes back to coaching, but acting like they were drafted as good defenders isn’t actually cutting the BS.

 

[Son_Of_Saul]

Reed and Dilly were NOT drafted for their defense man, get real…go back and watch their defense. Off balll Reed was good, but man, those guys were rough to watch, nd didn’t have a good defensive big to back them up, except occasionally Ugo.


Everything comes back to coaching, but acting like they were drafted as good defenders isn’t actually cutting the BS.

Nah. Your response is illogical.

Show me where I said they were drafted because of their defense. You can't, because I didn't say that. Then you doubled down and made your entire response based on your lack of reading comprehension of my post. What a miserably awful response on your part, man.

Logically, your response doesn't even make sense. Why would I argue that bad defenders were drafted because of their defense?

 

[Fox2monk]

90% of the people will say coaching.

Truth is, we just had poor defensive players. That's all.

It's the same exact reason we were so efficient on offense. We had a group of insanely talented players on one side of the ball that were not good on defense.

I agree somewhat but coaching played a large part of why it was so bad. They were good enough to be decent enough on defense to make a run. When you don’t get taught basic defensive principles it’s hard. We don’t know how to guard a screen nor pressure on the outside. Then we don’t ever go zone which is what 90% of coaches would do with a team like that.

 

[Fox2monk]

Payne and Robic replaced by guys like Chin and Martin.

Payne sucked man, I think he was good at his role here and he obviously knew how to teach big men how to play ok but his performance as a head coach really makes me think about what all he was good at.

 

[Cleatortoises]

But this highlights the problem right here.

If you want to blame Cal for the poor defense, then you have to credit him for what the offense was able to accomplish.

You either take the stance that A) the coaching plays a huge part in this.........or B) it doesn't and it's mainly based on players.

What you can't do is say Cal is to blame for the defense but then not give credit to him for the offense. That's not logical.

You're correct. It's been awhile since we had a good defensive team under Cal. The main reason we have sucked on defense for so long is the lack of interior presence.

Easy to have a great defense when you had Anthony Davis swatting back every shot.

I'm of the mindset that had a whole hell of a lot more to do with things than Cal's coaching approach.

We had good defense when we had good defensive players. It's funny how that works.

People give way too much credit and way too much blame to coaches.

Coaching.
I don't give him credit for offense. We saw him take over the offense near the end of the year, and it went into the tank.
That is why Welsch was leaving even when 🐄 was thought to be retuning.
We had reverted to his style.
He loves the rock fight.

 

[chroix]

Payne sucked man, I think he was good at his role here and he obviously knew how to teach big men how to play ok but his performance as a head coach really makes me think about what all he was good at.

Yeah I liked KP too but you do have to wonder how much of his reputation wasn’t because he had kids like AD, KAT and Cousins to point to as layers he’d “developed” like those dudes weren’t going to be top three picks anywhere they went. Jorts improved a ton but feels like that was work ethic more than the program investing heavily in him.

 

[megablue]

It seems many only care about defense when we lose. You have to focus and care about defense because you want to prevent losing. Defense can always be more consistent than offense … and it has to be. I think Pope and staff know this.

 

[crestcat]

Good defensive players are going to get burned in a bad defensive scheme