Long time lurker who briefly joined the forum and started posting in maybe 1999 or 2000 when Clubjockey was writing his fictional account about a student at Purdue trying to get Bob Knight fired. I was living overseas at the time and the fictional student CJ wrote about was from the country I was living in then. Once Coach Knight was fired, I lost a lot of interest and stopped posting, then I lost my login and never tried signing up again, though I still lurk regularly.
I have some thoughts about the Ft. Wayne game that I would be interested in hearing input on from those of you who enjoy analyzing the tactics of the game:
Our pick and roll defense was problematic, to put it mildly. There have been some games this year when the other team would have a big set a screen then roll to the basket. We would double the guard and when the other team’s big rolled to the basket, IU’s weakside forward would come into the lane to guard the rolling big until IU’s big could recover. Usually the skip pass to the weakside forward was not available because the guard could not see over our big. However, Ft. Wayne had bigs who could shoot, so they were setting screens on the wing and instead of rolling to the rim, they were flaring to the ballside corner (or slipping the screen to the corner) where there was no help. Then it was an easy pass to a wide open big on the same side of the court, with no help within 30 feet. I thought it was a great plan of attack by Ft. Wayne.
The only adjustment Coach Miller made was to go small, but he kept the exact same approach to doubling the ball. The defensive advantage of going small is that you can switch on every screen (like Golden State does), but we never made that adjustment - we just kept doubling the ball and leaving the big wide open in the corner, even though we could have switched on the screens.
On offense, we do not have anyone who can consistently create his own shot, so our best half-court offense all year has been to get the ball into Davis or Morgan in the post. If a double team comes, it creates a wide open opportunity for someone. If there is no double team, Davis and Morgan can both score one-on-one in the post or draw fouls. But we cannot create offense off the dribble. By not playing Davis and with Morgan being in foul trouble in the first half, our offense was stagnant.
I think a possible adjustment would have been to stay big and go to a zone defensively. Then on offense slow the game down, pound the ball inside to Davis and Morgan and get Ft. Wayne's team in foul trouble. Instead, it seemed like we wanted to play fast and just kept committing turnovers that led to a ton of points for Ft. Wayne. Going small and switching on screens might have helped defensively, but we do not have any consistent outside shooting threat at this time, so when we go small we really struggle on offense unless Morgan is in the lineup and we run the offense through him in the post.
It appeared to me that the players were executing what the coaching staff wanted and we just got outcoached in this game. Hopefully the coaching staff will learn from this game and make adjustments, especially on how we defend the pick and roll.
Those are my thoughts for what they are worth. I would enjoy hearing any other analysis of what we could have done differently to win.
I have some thoughts about the Ft. Wayne game that I would be interested in hearing input on from those of you who enjoy analyzing the tactics of the game:
Our pick and roll defense was problematic, to put it mildly. There have been some games this year when the other team would have a big set a screen then roll to the basket. We would double the guard and when the other team’s big rolled to the basket, IU’s weakside forward would come into the lane to guard the rolling big until IU’s big could recover. Usually the skip pass to the weakside forward was not available because the guard could not see over our big. However, Ft. Wayne had bigs who could shoot, so they were setting screens on the wing and instead of rolling to the rim, they were flaring to the ballside corner (or slipping the screen to the corner) where there was no help. Then it was an easy pass to a wide open big on the same side of the court, with no help within 30 feet. I thought it was a great plan of attack by Ft. Wayne.
The only adjustment Coach Miller made was to go small, but he kept the exact same approach to doubling the ball. The defensive advantage of going small is that you can switch on every screen (like Golden State does), but we never made that adjustment - we just kept doubling the ball and leaving the big wide open in the corner, even though we could have switched on the screens.
On offense, we do not have anyone who can consistently create his own shot, so our best half-court offense all year has been to get the ball into Davis or Morgan in the post. If a double team comes, it creates a wide open opportunity for someone. If there is no double team, Davis and Morgan can both score one-on-one in the post or draw fouls. But we cannot create offense off the dribble. By not playing Davis and with Morgan being in foul trouble in the first half, our offense was stagnant.
I think a possible adjustment would have been to stay big and go to a zone defensively. Then on offense slow the game down, pound the ball inside to Davis and Morgan and get Ft. Wayne's team in foul trouble. Instead, it seemed like we wanted to play fast and just kept committing turnovers that led to a ton of points for Ft. Wayne. Going small and switching on screens might have helped defensively, but we do not have any consistent outside shooting threat at this time, so when we go small we really struggle on offense unless Morgan is in the lineup and we run the offense through him in the post.
It appeared to me that the players were executing what the coaching staff wanted and we just got outcoached in this game. Hopefully the coaching staff will learn from this game and make adjustments, especially on how we defend the pick and roll.
Those are my thoughts for what they are worth. I would enjoy hearing any other analysis of what we could have done differently to win.