This.
They were pretty good with Cook wanted to play defense because he could get off the floor quick and rebound/protect the rim. Problem was he didn't want to play defense very often. They need another rebounder down low.
Analysis: Is Iowa good enough Defensively to win a National Championship? On March14, Per KenPom: Offensive efficiency: #2; Defensive efficiency: #50
- Thread starter Franisdaman
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This.
They were pretty good with Cook wanted to play defense because he could get off the floor quick and rebound/protect the rim. Problem was he didn't want to play defense very often. They need another rebounder down low.
Let's see what happens with Nungee on the floor. I'd like to think improvement but I have very little film to judge by.
I'm not sure how one guy coming off a ACL injury will improve Iowa's defense. I don't think he'll hurt it any, team can use another player with size to spell Garza when the need arises. I've kind of resigned myself that Iowa's defense is what it is -- not all that good. The offense is among the best in the country. Defense needs to be good enough to give that offense a chance to win games. We will find out if that happens.
Yeah, the defense doesn't need to be top 10, but pushing it into the top 50 would go a long ways towards allowing a deep run in March.
Right now they're #75 in Kenpom (note, that will likely change as more data from this season is included). However, if memory serves, they were in the 70s at one point last season and ended up at #97. Injuries played a part in that, but #97 was their best defensive finish since Woody/Gesell graduated (they were in the top 40 three of Woody's four seasons). It needs to improve from where it currently is.
If they could get into the 40s for D efficiency, and not fall off on the offensive end, I'd be very bullish on their chances of getting into the final four(fingers crossed that it will be played).
I haven't seen anything yet that makes me think they can get to that level, but they could get into the 60s. If they can somehow manage that after they play a few teams with a pulse I will be very encouraged.
Agreed. If their defense stays in the 70s, I like them getting to the second weekend. If they can get into the top 50 or so, past that is a lot more likely
It just seemed like, on eye test alone, against these 2 very bad opponents, Iowa had the same casual attitude on the defensive end
I hope to see improvement before the Gonzaga game. North Carolina should be improved. Iowa State will be very motivated. And 3 days after Gonzaga we begin conference play vs Purdue, who loves to defend (and their coach demands it).
Dec 3 Western ILL
Dec 8 North Caroline
Dec 11 Iowa State
Dec 13 Northern Illinois
Dec 19 Gonzaga
Dec 22 Purdue
Agreed. The end result is Southern got off 8 more shot attempts than Iowa (70 to 62). Shooting just 39% from the floor did them in. Against better teams? Those 8 additional shot attempts might make the difference whether we win or lose.
When you think about it, 8 more shot attempts for the opponent x 2 points (being conservative) x 50% shooting (against a better team) = 8 points for the opponent. And we know that at least 1 of those 8 shot attempts will be a 3 pointer that always goes in.
And giving up 19 offensive rebounds to Southern? That's troubling.
OREB...DREB...TOTAL
....19.........23.........42.........Southern
....10.........27.........37..........Iowa
Gotta play D to win at a high level (March). Pretty sure no team has ever won a Natty in the Kenpom era with less than a 20 KP defensive ranking. I love Iowa to win a ton of games this year ... but Fran is the D’Antoni of CBB. Fun to watch but can’t really feel confident projecting them to an E8 or better until they get serious on D.
My two cents:
Iowa's rebounding problems start with a lack of conscious effort to seal the backside and find the nearest body elsewhere. In the first few games, when players anticipate a shot they just kind of turn and fall in towards the rim, but don't do much to create or maintain space. This isn't hard to address, and based on FM's tirades about the poor rebounding during the Southern game, I would guess they have spent some practice time addressing it.
Probably the most common factor that is used to explain Iowa's poor defense is lack of athleticism. I'm not sure this is the case. First, Iowa gives too much freedom of movement without redirecting cutters. For years, MSU and Wisconsin have done this, getting called for one or two fouls a half, and literally knocking the opponent out of their rhythm. The fouls are an investment; you will usually pick up fewer fouls overall because your opponent isn't getting the ball in good scoring position. Plus the officials become acclimated to this physical style of play and tend to swallow their whistle, as anyone who has watched Izzo's teams for the past 20+ years knows. Iowa is deep enough to play this way and risking a few extra fouls without seeing a major drop off in offensive production. Bench/role players ESPECIALLY need to understand this and play their role effectively.
The other thing that Iowa does is give the ball too much space. The most obvious result is less closely contested perimeter shots. But it also allows clearer passing lanes to cutters and skip passes and cleaner ball reversal. And, counterintuitively, it does little to nothing in preventing dribble penetration. When the defender is up tight on the ball, the player with the ball doesn't have a downhill angle to the basket; his first dribble and step will be lateral because the defender is occupying the downhill space. When the defender is off, then one downhill dribble in one direction forces the defender to slide and create downhill space for a crossover dribble attacking the rim. Now the ball is in the middle of the defense forcing Iowa into help, rotate, and scramble mode. You're risking less than you think by tightening up and getting into the offensive player's space.
I do think that switching up the defense frequently is very effective at keeping an offense out of rhythm, and it vastly reduces the ability of the opposing team to make in-game offensive adjustments. The one thing that I would like to see Iowa do here is when they're playing zone, jump to man when the shot clock gets to 6-8 seconds. You risk giving up a mismatch, but again, it disrupts the rhythm of the possession. You're less likely to see a good screen-and-roll play, less likely to allow a backdoor cut, and more likely to get a body on each man when the low percentage shot goes up so that you don't allow a new possession.
Iowa's rebounding problems start with a lack of conscious effort to seal the backside and find the nearest body elsewhere. In the first few games, when players anticipate a shot they just kind of turn and fall in towards the rim, but don't do much to create or maintain space. This isn't hard to address, and based on FM's tirades about the poor rebounding during the Southern game, I would guess they have spent some practice time addressing it.
Probably the most common factor that is used to explain Iowa's poor defense is lack of athleticism. I'm not sure this is the case. First, Iowa gives too much freedom of movement without redirecting cutters. For years, MSU and Wisconsin have done this, getting called for one or two fouls a half, and literally knocking the opponent out of their rhythm. The fouls are an investment; you will usually pick up fewer fouls overall because your opponent isn't getting the ball in good scoring position. Plus the officials become acclimated to this physical style of play and tend to swallow their whistle, as anyone who has watched Izzo's teams for the past 20+ years knows. Iowa is deep enough to play this way and risking a few extra fouls without seeing a major drop off in offensive production. Bench/role players ESPECIALLY need to understand this and play their role effectively.
The other thing that Iowa does is give the ball too much space. The most obvious result is less closely contested perimeter shots. But it also allows clearer passing lanes to cutters and skip passes and cleaner ball reversal. And, counterintuitively, it does little to nothing in preventing dribble penetration. When the defender is up tight on the ball, the player with the ball doesn't have a downhill angle to the basket; his first dribble and step will be lateral because the defender is occupying the downhill space. When the defender is off, then one downhill dribble in one direction forces the defender to slide and create downhill space for a crossover dribble attacking the rim. Now the ball is in the middle of the defense forcing Iowa into help, rotate, and scramble mode. You're risking less than you think by tightening up and getting into the offensive player's space.
I do think that switching up the defense frequently is very effective at keeping an offense out of rhythm, and it vastly reduces the ability of the opposing team to make in-game offensive adjustments. The one thing that I would like to see Iowa do here is when they're playing zone, jump to man when the shot clock gets to 6-8 seconds. You risk giving up a mismatch, but again, it disrupts the rhythm of the possession. You're less likely to see a good screen-and-roll play, less likely to allow a backdoor cut, and more likely to get a body on each man when the low percentage shot goes up so that you don't allow a new possession.
Good points.
Iowa has some athletic deficiencies, but that's not a sufficient explanation for their overall poor team D.
While it's obvious that Bohannon and Garza struggle with that on the defensive end, I think most of the others are at least OK/approaching average or better.
They do a very poor job as a team communicating and recovering defensively. Recognizing which shooters to cover, who should be rotated to, when help is needed, when to hedge, when to switch are all things that they do not do well.
It's unlikely that they would ever be a great defensively, but they can absolutely be a much better defensive TEAM than they are now. As others have mentioned, if they could just get into the 50-60 range for defensive efficiency(against more than just stiffs) then we'd see a world of difference.
This last paragraph is interesting (whole post is excellent).
Do some teams do this though? Switch to man/man late in a shot clock?
From the original post:
* On average, teams that win the national title rank in the top ten of adjusted offensive efficiency and the top 15 of adjusted defensive efficiency entering the tournament.
* Last year was the first time since the 2016 fade that the Hawkeyes had finished in the top 100 of adjusted defensive efficiency.
I've only seen it rarely. A few years ago when I was still coaching HS hoops in Washington (state), there were a couple of boys teams that did so. (Washington has a shot clock in HS.) It's not really that hard to do, and it really doesn't take much practice if you're used to switching up defenses possession-by-possession. Coaching girls, I always had my team play man in the half court with a handful of help, rotation, double, and denial rules that we would to adjust to specific opponents' players. We did play a 1-2-2 zone vs. baseline OB with it flattened out to look like a 2-3 before the ball was inbounded. If they pulled the ball back out up top, my big defender would check us back into man IF she was in good position to match up with their post. Otherwise we would ride out the possession in the 1-2-2. We mixed in full court 1-2-2 pressure (between 1/4 and 1/2 of the game) with the point defender changing up denial (or lack thereof), the traps, and rotation so that the opponents had more difficulty getting into a press breaking rhythm. Then we would match up back in the half court. We would usually just bury a weak opponent early with pressure, but against good teams we would usually press for a 2-3 minute stretch each quarter.
As a high school team, we were able to have everything installed by Christmas, so I don't know why more college teams don't mix up defenses more with all of the practice time that they have.
Interesting your comment about Garza - someone above posted that Garza's interior D is championship level. I'm closer to agreeing with you.
Iowa simply gives up to many easy shots - open 3's, layups, put backs. If the opponent is hitting 3's, the Hawks are in for a dogfight.
To the OP, I don't think this is a Natty contender. They are dam good, of course. I think Garza will end up being the best player in Iowa history. I think they will make a run at a B1G championship. But when the other team knows they can pretty much get an open 3 with regularity it puts stress on the entire defense. And, I worry about ball handling against elite defenses.
The next couple of weeks will tell us a lot.
I agree on pretty much everything you said and I would like to add on to this with a few items.
In man we need to be more talkative and more physical, like you pointed out we give way too much space and allow them to run to their spots without as much as a bump, we have the depth and I think with Toussaint and Fredrick we should be able to play the dribbler more aggressively with our depth.
Now on to what I think is the biggest problem with our defense. Our zone principals are terrible. The zone purpose is to make teams shoot over you and cut down on dribble penetration. They do a pretty good on limiting the dribble penetration but we give up way too many open 3's out of it, and that's mostly because the rotation is off. The backside guard or wing as I call them is way too high and he is past the halfway point more often then not . He needs to sink farther down and stay outside the lane cutting off the skip pass and or making it easier to recover on a ball reversal. Then our big are not understanding they need to be the lane cloggers, they are playing off their responsibility too much and allowing picks and post ups to easily. These are all easy things to fix but they will take time to get used to and so far in Frans tenure they haven't made an adjustment. The zone is the #1 reason some of these teams have career shooting nights against us.
I like how we do change up defenses and apply some pressure but I would like to maybe see some more full man full court on occasion with Toussaint just to add another wrinkle that might throw teams off. I would say overall for Frans years our defense has been below average at best most nights, if they can just play average defense and hold opponents to 65 a game we could very easily be a final four team. I would think with our offense we should be ok most nights but they will need to buckle down on those nights when the shots just aren't falling.
Agree. That backside wing needs to rotate up on ball reversal, but then Iowa needs the top man to rotate over and bump him back down.
i honestly don't understand why Fran won't go w/ a pack line type defense, where you keep everyone in front of you & force jumpers; but then, again, Iowa has to rebound the misses!
It's no secret that Iowa recruiting favors O over D. That doesn't mean they are individually poor at D, it just means they aren't necessarily great at it.
Then you put 5 of those guys on the floor and D is not going to be a team strength.
There are teams that are generally good at everything - Duke, MSU - everyone else has to catch a little lighting in a bottle to have a championship season.
how can you expect championship caliber defense if a team like Southern out rebounds your team?
The answer is no.
No, the Iowa defense is not nearly good enough to win a Nat'l title.
How fun would an elite 8 or final 4 appearance be though??
No, the Iowa defense is not nearly good enough to win a Nat'l title.
How fun would an elite 8 or final 4 appearance be though??
This does ignore that Fran has had some really good defensive teams in his time here, and they have improved each year with Garza.
Personally, I think last year was an underrated defensive team considering the extremely limited roster Iowa worked with all last year. God bless the kid, but when Riley Till sees significant minutes in some games, that's going to hurt the overall metrics.
Only caveat I'll add is that I'd like to see a breakdown by half. Iowa was totally locked in during the 1st half and just dominated. 2nd half they coasted for large stretches and you heard Fran and some of the players talk about how they weren't happy about their focus at times. In theory, that's something that should be correctable and is something I'll watch tonight for.
Idk about UNC, but I expect defensive stats to look ugly on both sides vs Gonzaga - two elite offenses going at it.
Lastly, it's a small sample side, but does it seem like we're better at forcing turnovers this year.
No, I don't think so, because we are discussing championship caliber defense. With all the depth they have this year, I think the Hawks can play well on the defensive end.
Maybe. I sure hope so. When looking at the history of Fran's teams at Iowa, he has had good defenses (in relative terms) when certain players have been on the roster.
2013 - 24 (Pomeroy adjusted defense ranking)
2014 - 77
2015 - 30
2016 - 30
2017 - 123
2018 - 242
2019 - 111
2020 - 97
Guys like Clemmons, Gesell, Woodbury, Olaseni, Uthoff on the roster. Better defense. When they aren't, not good defense. 2018 was just comically bad for a power conference team.
If I were to guess, the ceiling for this team is somewhere in the 60-70 range for defense. That probably will not be enough for either a conference title or Final 4. But it might be enough for a Top 15-20 ranking all year and a Sweet 16.
I do think IOWA could be a defensively plus team with a combination of Garza, P Mac, Keegan, Wiescamp, C Mac or Joe T on the floor.
Teams like a Wisconsin are considered good defensive teams because they limit the number of touches that their opponents gets during their games and they also play a type of defense that doesn't allow their opponents to score quickly like Iowa does. It's pretty simple, slow down the game and use as much of the time allotted during each offensive position and keep the other team from scoring quickly.
Sure teams like Baylor or Gonzaga that are super athletic and also have highly recruited players can play fast and also guard on defense but that is not the norm for every D1 college basketball team.
Iowa on the other hand, has a coach that likes to play fast, but this philosophy also allows Iowa's opponents to have many more offensive touches and at a higher rate then most college coaches teach.
In Fran's case he's done OK at Iowa with this philosophy, but he has also taken a hit for not creating a culture of playing a lock down defense and if Iowa's offensive bogs down the games slip away, usually late in games. We've seen this numerous times in the last 10 years.
The question that has to be asked, is this team good enough to keep from having long periods of ineptness on offensive like so many of Fran's teams have fallen into in the past? Only time will tell....
agree That physical teams play good defense, but given the option, I’d also say long athletic teams teams can also be strong defensive teams by individually (and collectively) defending shots, pressuring passing lanes to create TOs, collectively attacking the glass while rebounding above the rim....these are all components of a great defensive team
Was looking at this from BTN and saw that Michigan and us were at the bottom in points allowed. Our allowance didn't surprise me, but seeing Michigan there did, @Franisdaman
bigten.org
Big Ten Conference
The official 2020-2021 Men's Basketball cumulative statistics for Big Ten Conference
bigten.org
Was looking at this from BTN and saw that Michigan and us were at the bottom in points allowed. Our allowance didn't surprise me, but seeing Michigan there did, @Franisdaman
Big Ten Conference
The official 2020-2021 Men's Basketball cumulative statistics for Big Ten Conference
raw point totals don't really allow for pace of play or opposition. Michigan's first 3 games have averaged around 76-77 possessions per game (partly because 1 game went to OT) which is a ton. Michigan is also going to be a lot better offensively than defensively this season with the loss of Simpson and Teske. I think Michigan finishes the year somewhere in the 25-50 range on D in KenPom if I had to guess compared to say 5-15 on offense.
So Michigan does have some issues defensively this season, although definitely won't be near the bottom of the conference. Their worst defensive showing against BGSU this year featured an opposing player doing his best Steph Curry impression in the 2nd half to keep an otherwise boring game sort of close for a while.
IOWA 10th in BIG in Rebounding margin and 12th of 14 in defensive FG%, against poor teams.
that is not going to win the BIG, let alone the NCAA
Have to really lock down on the key players on opposing teams hot shooters (duh) play some Tom Davis style defense and you have yourself a team to really be reckoned with
Rebounding was an issue, again, but this time vs a much better team, #16 UNC.
We have so many shooters; the 3 point shot was the difference in the game (we made 17; they made 6).
But Iowa, defensively?
* North Carolina shot pretty well (48%) from the floor; see the breakdown at the end of this post.
* Giving up 80 points is troubling.
* What's also troubling is we got outrebounded by 9, 47-38. But this was offset, fortunately, by the +7 turnover margin....18 for UNC, 11 for Iowa.
* UNC must be thinking that 80 points & shooting 48% from the field should win them the game.
Compare the 2 teams' offensive stats:
IOWA
17-36 (47%) from 2 point land
17-40 (43%) from 3 point land
34-76 (45%) Overall
08-14 (57%) FTs
93 Points Scored
NORTH CAROLINA
25-50 (50%) from 2 point land
06-15 (40%) from 3 point land
31-65 (48%) Overall
12-20 (60%) FTs
80 Points Scored
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