UNC came out and had MSU out of sort with the pace. Roy clearly told them to come out and ram it down their throats and we did over and over and over. The pace was exactly where we wanted it and MSU was thrown out of sorts by the pace.
Normally, this pace being so blistering and having the other team out of sort leads us to a quick early lead which we use to lean on. This did not happen due to boneheaded mistake after mistake. Thus, it backfired as we shot our own confidence in the opening minutes by struggling when things should have been easy.
While we were feasting on the weaker competition, we failed to use our eyes to remember our issues. However, some of our strengths were reaffirmed. Some thoughts.
1. Our perimeter defense is very, very good. Williams, Seventh, Pinson, and Berry are very strong defenders on the perimeter in pretty much that order. We force a lot of teams out of sorts with 1 on 1 man defense on the perimeter. A lot of ball denials, on ball pressure, and just in general making things hard on people.
2. Joel Berry is a bit slow defensively in that he cannot stay in front of the quicker more explosive point guards. Michigan State collapsed our defense repeatedly over and over by their PG blowing past Berry, driving below the basket to collapse help defense on him, and leaving the easy kick out to a wide open 3 pointer.
3. The bigs showing on screens seem a bit confused, including Luke Maye. Most the freshman bigs seem confused as to when to go back. We got lucky quite a few times Michigan State could not capitalize on wide open inside guys due to a poor show and return to the man. Quite a few were out of position and were poor to recover. Luke Maye is showing but seems to be slightly out of position when doing so which is not really providing anything of note. He is almost just providing a screen at times.
4. Luke Maye cannot defend the post and cannot protect the rim versus slashers. Like Maye's defense is much better away from the basket. True bigs just go right over top of him. Quicker defenders just blow right past him to the basket which happened a few times last night. He, however, is a smart defender, and sometimes he analyzes the play and hedges to the spot beforehand to get in front of the offensive player and make them shoot with a body in front of them. The best offensive players will just finish over top of him, however it causes a lot of misses when he can do that. He, however, has to see the play and make that analysis in order to get there.
5. Joel Berry has zero idea how to use his body to finish. Joel Berry will not be drafted next year, and it has to do with his speed and inability to smartly use his body to compensate for his lack of height and speed. If you cannot dunk and are not fast enough to break away from people, then you have to learn to use your body and the finger roll to finish. Joel Berry has to of been blocked 10+ times on layups this year already. Some are just driving in against a big, but there is a surprising amount of where he is past the defender and the defender just recovers and blocks the shot. Usually Joel has been compensating by taking a lower percentage layup by going high up off the glass. However, Joel is taking high percentage shots and making them look like they are difficult. Yesterday's example of when he got run down for a block was the same issue. Joel cannot explode to the basket. Instead of using his body, he tries a weak layup (sometimes he tries to reverse his layup or so). All Joel Berry has to do in these situations is go directly at the hoop. Extend his arm out towards the basket while keeping his body directly behind himself to shield the defender off from his hand and complete the finger roll into the basket. Joel seems so insistent on using the backboard instead of the finger roll when the finger roll is what a guy his size needs to use when ahead of the defense. It creates less steps to get to the basket. It shields the defender off. It lowers the time a shot can be blocked due to the nature of the shot. These are easy points we are throwing away.
6. Lots of missed layups and free throws and open 3 points. If we make half of those layups and free throws and shot just 25% from 3 we win the game. Our defense was very strong. Our offense lost this game. Nothing else. And a lot of it was open shots missed.
7. The inside guys have no inside presence allowing the defense to extend out. Like Maye does not have a inside hook. Manley does not have a inside hook. Neither does Huffman. And Brooks has zero idea how to use his. Luke Maye was trying to slowly turn and shoot a jumper. He found out harshly that does not work against defenders not smaller than him. Brooks didn't use his body at all to cause separation and basically handed the ball over due to a block repeatedly. Huffman looked confused as to what to do when he couldn't dunk the ball. Manley continually turns the wrong way. He kept turning away from the basket to take a shot when he had position and simply turning to the basket puts the rim in a position he cannot be blocked while he can put in an easy lay up. Lost opportunities.
8. Inside guys defense is bad. Too slow. Wrong positioning. Combined with the bad hedging it created quite a few plays where we were chasing defenders or leaving them wide open. Luke Maye gets shot right over.
9. Luke Maye continues to make half assed passes in the worst spots causing turnovers. This game he had the ball on the right side of the arc and tried to throw across the defense to the left upper part of the arc. He threw a slow pass right through the key which the defender easily just jumped up and caught. Just a poor decision of a pass. He is overthinking his passes hard.
10. Rohlman weirdly outperformed our bigs in the post in his couple of minutes of pissed Roy time. He had a defensive rebound and he tipped out a missed FT on the offensive glass. This is a guy like a foot smaller than the Michigan State players.
The inside presence is likely never to get fixed this year with our personnel. But other things are fixable, such as Joel Berry's usage of Body. The hedging properly. Etc. In fact, Cam Johnson coming back and us going smaller may remove a lot of deficiencies we are seeing.
We will have to see though.
As it stands now, we are reliant on the jumper. If it is not falling, we are going to struggle.
Normally, this pace being so blistering and having the other team out of sort leads us to a quick early lead which we use to lean on. This did not happen due to boneheaded mistake after mistake. Thus, it backfired as we shot our own confidence in the opening minutes by struggling when things should have been easy.
While we were feasting on the weaker competition, we failed to use our eyes to remember our issues. However, some of our strengths were reaffirmed. Some thoughts.
1. Our perimeter defense is very, very good. Williams, Seventh, Pinson, and Berry are very strong defenders on the perimeter in pretty much that order. We force a lot of teams out of sorts with 1 on 1 man defense on the perimeter. A lot of ball denials, on ball pressure, and just in general making things hard on people.
2. Joel Berry is a bit slow defensively in that he cannot stay in front of the quicker more explosive point guards. Michigan State collapsed our defense repeatedly over and over by their PG blowing past Berry, driving below the basket to collapse help defense on him, and leaving the easy kick out to a wide open 3 pointer.
3. The bigs showing on screens seem a bit confused, including Luke Maye. Most the freshman bigs seem confused as to when to go back. We got lucky quite a few times Michigan State could not capitalize on wide open inside guys due to a poor show and return to the man. Quite a few were out of position and were poor to recover. Luke Maye is showing but seems to be slightly out of position when doing so which is not really providing anything of note. He is almost just providing a screen at times.
4. Luke Maye cannot defend the post and cannot protect the rim versus slashers. Like Maye's defense is much better away from the basket. True bigs just go right over top of him. Quicker defenders just blow right past him to the basket which happened a few times last night. He, however, is a smart defender, and sometimes he analyzes the play and hedges to the spot beforehand to get in front of the offensive player and make them shoot with a body in front of them. The best offensive players will just finish over top of him, however it causes a lot of misses when he can do that. He, however, has to see the play and make that analysis in order to get there.
5. Joel Berry has zero idea how to use his body to finish. Joel Berry will not be drafted next year, and it has to do with his speed and inability to smartly use his body to compensate for his lack of height and speed. If you cannot dunk and are not fast enough to break away from people, then you have to learn to use your body and the finger roll to finish. Joel Berry has to of been blocked 10+ times on layups this year already. Some are just driving in against a big, but there is a surprising amount of where he is past the defender and the defender just recovers and blocks the shot. Usually Joel has been compensating by taking a lower percentage layup by going high up off the glass. However, Joel is taking high percentage shots and making them look like they are difficult. Yesterday's example of when he got run down for a block was the same issue. Joel cannot explode to the basket. Instead of using his body, he tries a weak layup (sometimes he tries to reverse his layup or so). All Joel Berry has to do in these situations is go directly at the hoop. Extend his arm out towards the basket while keeping his body directly behind himself to shield the defender off from his hand and complete the finger roll into the basket. Joel seems so insistent on using the backboard instead of the finger roll when the finger roll is what a guy his size needs to use when ahead of the defense. It creates less steps to get to the basket. It shields the defender off. It lowers the time a shot can be blocked due to the nature of the shot. These are easy points we are throwing away.
6. Lots of missed layups and free throws and open 3 points. If we make half of those layups and free throws and shot just 25% from 3 we win the game. Our defense was very strong. Our offense lost this game. Nothing else. And a lot of it was open shots missed.
7. The inside guys have no inside presence allowing the defense to extend out. Like Maye does not have a inside hook. Manley does not have a inside hook. Neither does Huffman. And Brooks has zero idea how to use his. Luke Maye was trying to slowly turn and shoot a jumper. He found out harshly that does not work against defenders not smaller than him. Brooks didn't use his body at all to cause separation and basically handed the ball over due to a block repeatedly. Huffman looked confused as to what to do when he couldn't dunk the ball. Manley continually turns the wrong way. He kept turning away from the basket to take a shot when he had position and simply turning to the basket puts the rim in a position he cannot be blocked while he can put in an easy lay up. Lost opportunities.
8. Inside guys defense is bad. Too slow. Wrong positioning. Combined with the bad hedging it created quite a few plays where we were chasing defenders or leaving them wide open. Luke Maye gets shot right over.
9. Luke Maye continues to make half assed passes in the worst spots causing turnovers. This game he had the ball on the right side of the arc and tried to throw across the defense to the left upper part of the arc. He threw a slow pass right through the key which the defender easily just jumped up and caught. Just a poor decision of a pass. He is overthinking his passes hard.
10. Rohlman weirdly outperformed our bigs in the post in his couple of minutes of pissed Roy time. He had a defensive rebound and he tipped out a missed FT on the offensive glass. This is a guy like a foot smaller than the Michigan State players.
The inside presence is likely never to get fixed this year with our personnel. But other things are fixable, such as Joel Berry's usage of Body. The hedging properly. Etc. In fact, Cam Johnson coming back and us going smaller may remove a lot of deficiencies we are seeing.
We will have to see though.
As it stands now, we are reliant on the jumper. If it is not falling, we are going to struggle.
