Path to the Hall of Fame

[randy]

as i've said elsewhere, excelling at pressure defense is something you achieve over time (years not months), but if it's part of your philosophy, stick with it! just be sure to recruit players into your system with the skills for it.

As far as that 2 guard burning you, sometimes the best thing you can do on defense is dare that prime time player to beat you by himself while keeping everyone else in check. A lot of times I won't even double that guy.. i'll double team the guy that seems to be getting all his leavings.

I appreciate the tips Coach.

As for pressure defense, I initially wanted to apply a variety of defenses during the first month, even though we are spending time on practice only on the HC trap. I was thinking it would keep the opposition "guessing" on what we are going to do next, as far as pressure defense.

For the upcoming month, I will use our HC trap more often (2/3 of the time), and employ a a variety of full court presses on the remainder. With a thin, inexperienced bench, I figure the HC trap poses the least amount of risk in terms of the opposition breaking them and getting easy baskets.

Re: double team

Your idea makes a lot of sense. As long as the other opposing players are not scoring, then I would most likely get the win even if their star player scores 30+.

[CoachC]

That's exactly why Creighton has floundered the last couple of months, in real life. In conference, everyone gave up on stopping Doug McDermitt, who continued to put up his numbers and still looks like the odds on candidate for NCAA player of the year. Instead they looked to stop everyone else, and his vaunted supporting cast subsequently turned into a bunch of pumpkins.

It would be nice to be able to enact the alternative though, but it's just not possible in cb2. I remember Dick Versace's first season at Bradley where he inherited a team low in talent and only a limited time to recruit. Playing against Larry Bird and Indiana State for the second time, he decided that Bird (who was averaging close to 30 ppg at the time) was not going to beat him. He installed what even still today is famously remembered as the "bird cage" defense. He doubled Larry when he didn't have the ball, and every time he managed to touch it 4 players collapsed on him. Bradley still lost of course, but they kept it close for a while and held Larry to a career low 9 points.

The HC trap is nice. You don't need as much athleticism as with the 1-2-2 full court zone press but it still can pay dividends in extra possessions. It's a good alternative.

[Wayne23]

Yeah, I've stuck with the 1-2-2, but I don;t use it much. I should rethink it.How have you done with full court man, CoachC- if you've used it at all?

[CoachC]

absolutely wonderful, wayne, but not until i was able to regularly recruit talented freshmen I could train for the long run. This season, even without the ideal skill sets, I'm averaging a +7 TO differential and about 8 steals a game using 1-2-2 about half the game (the rest of the time I use full court man to man just to wear em down, having a deep bench helps). Less than once a game the press gets beaten for a fast break. I'm usually about +20 on fast break points. If the game kept track of points off of turnovers, I'm sure my advantage would be amazing. The full court man to man is the key though. I try to recruit athletic guys all else being equal. Full court man to man is awesome if you have an extremely athletic team, an extremely deep bench, or both. The full court man to man doesn't get that many turnovers..an occasional 10 second count, but it does take time off of the shot clock. If you've worn their players down, and they only have about 24 seconds to get a shot off once they are in the front court, they start making mistakes, especially if they are a deliberate team in the first place.

[Wayne23]

Now you've really got me thinking.

[randy]

12/2/93

Sam Houston St (5-0) @ Milwaukee (2-2)

Matchups
1: Equal
2: Equal
3: Sam Houston
4: Sam Houston
5: Sam Houston
Bench: Equal

Opp Off: Fast-paced, some freedom, Flex
Opp Def: Man to man, presses throughout the game

If the above scouting report is true, we expect a track-fest on this game

4 players average double figures for them, so we have no idea who to double team. We'll play straight up man to man, and adjust later in the game if needed.


Tip off

14:02
Up 9-8. Surprising because we are shooting poorly 3-12 FG. Off Reb (6) keeping us afloat
MIL is 2-2 from 3-PT. Still keeping at man to man, but I have to keep at eye on this

8:35
Everything is going wrong for us. 8 TOs, 31% FG, Carr has 2 PF. Cook is scoreless. We're in the penalty. And yet, we're only down 16-18.

We're somehow lucky at this point, but we cant rely on pure luck if we want to win this game.

6:51
Still down 17-20. My 3 Cs are all on the bench. Carr and Coulibaly has 2 fouls. I pulled out Cook earlier. If there is a right time for the bench to step up, this is it!

5:53
Down 17-24. Momentum is clearly on MIL's side. What the bench has produced in the past minute: 2 more TOs. I screamed at the team. Forget about our 5-0 record. Treat each game as a must-win game!

3:58
Deficit down to 3, 23-26. A mini-run courtesy of the bench. MIL has turned it over both on their last 2 possessions. I reinserted the 3 Cs

2:12
Tied at 28, after Cook scores his 1st field goal plus a foul

Halftime
Up 38-36, on Coulibaly's last second 3-PT shot.
Coulibaly has 12, Carr 8, and Cook somehow scraped in 7 towards the latter part of the half
Need to reverse the TOs and FG% situation. We're +16 though on rebs

Adjustments
- Lax a bit on defense: -1 (a couple of key players are in foul trouble)
- Crash the boards less: -1
- We'll go exclusive using HC trap

17:50
Up 44-43. Their 2 has torched us with 17 pts (6-7 FG) thus far. I've tried both guards in containing him. Will now switch our SF Carr on him; single coverage

15:56
Up 49-43. Cook scored our last 5 pts. Playing better, but game definitely far from over

13:06
Up 52-47. Coulibaly on the bench with 3 fouls. Carr just committed his 3rd. I'll roll the dice and keep him on the floor

8:09
Up 64-53. Carr and Cook combined to build this lead. Carr called for foul #4. Will take him out for a while

2:48
Up 77-58. No, we did not have a big 12-0 run or anything like that. Increased the lead little by little, because of 2 simple things that we did effectively: get to the FT line, and grab those rebounds.

Clear the bench. Slow down the game

Final score: Sam Houston St - 82, Milwaukee - 63

Box Score
Cook: 19, 12, 6, 4 stls, 9/11 FT (*)
Coulibaly: 18, 6, 0
Carr: 15, 3, 0
Granville: 12, 4, 7
Majerus: 6, 5, 1
Griffin: 5, 12, 2
Thomas: 3, 0, 0
Johnson: 2, 0, 1
Smith: 2, 0, 0

This is not the highest winning margin we had, but I somehow feel this was our most satisfying win thus far, because of the following:
- effort shown by all, including the 3Cs (Cook fishing for fouls, defense by Carr)
- the supporting cast of Granville, Griffin, and Majerus contributed across all aspects of the game (pts, reb, ast, defense)


Team Stats Comparisons
FG: 43% - 48%
REB: +28 (24-5 off reb)
TO: -3 (we took care of the ball extremely well in the 2nd half)
Paint: +10
2nd Chance : +11
Fast Break: +8

Other Notes
- Despite the final score, my players had to grind hard for this game. Total of 42 fouls were called (21 each team)
- Their 2 guard finished with 19 pts; during the last 18 mins however, he was only 1/4 FG for 2 pts, after I switched Carr to guard him

[CoachC]

Full court man is nothing by itself, just an in real life. In real life, full court man is mainly used to take time off the shot clock and wear down the offense. In that sense, CB2 does a great job of simming it. Nothing wears down the stamina of BOTH teams faster than full court man-to-man. To make it work in your favor you need a plan. My plan mainly is to soften them up for the 1-2-2.

[randy]

I have to admit prior to this association, I usually just "sim" my way thru the season without playing the actual games.

Now, I realized that there are many things that you can do that could turn things around if you pay the actual games. In my last game, I did:

1. Scream at my players when we were down, and momentum is on the side of the opponent. It worked as we claw our way back into the game

2. Switched my SF to guard their SG

3. I even relegated to the bench all my top 3 players at the same time, just to give them time to regroup

[CoachC]

Keep on rolling, Randy! Even with a weak schedule your RPI should be looking good by the time conference schedule starts.

[CoachC]

[quote="randy"]I have to admit prior to this association, I usually just "sim" my way thru the season without playing the actual games.

Now, I realized that there are many things that you can do that could turn things around if you pay the actual games.


NEVER understimate the value of an appropriately timed Technical either!