I know it’s Maryland, but you have to admit after Fran lit into them after that 2nd timeout the defense played really good! Help defense from the backside was great tonight... we need more of that kind of performance
Defense
- Thread starter the24fan
- Start date
Yes we haven’t seen that on the road yet. The first 8 minutes they got every look they wanted and after that it was locked down!
BirdistheWord
HB Legend
Toussaint had.....6 Steals! In limited minutes.
I’m not sure it was Fran yelling at them that changed the D, it was putting Murray, Joe T, Patrick and Nunge in that amped up Iowa’s D.
Nothing gets a message from a coach across to players like showing them the team can succeed without them in the game. No yelling necessary. Fran did a good job of leaving the starters in for extended minutes in the second half to show them he believes in them, but he let it ride in the first half with the bench to his credit. That group was playing well and deserved to stay in the game.
It also coincided with benching Joe W and CJ F for almost all of the first half. I am a big fan of both those guys but I was also frustrated with how lost the team looked on D in the first five minutes. Not knowing where to be, getting lost, terrible in transistion, hands down on close outs (if they bothered to close out at all).
I was happy Fran sat them and found combinations that were willing to get after it. Sitting on the bench should inspire some effort on both ends of the floor for all players.
I was happy Fran sat them and found combinations that were willing to get after it. Sitting on the bench should inspire some effort on both ends of the floor for all players.
The "you can sit on the bench" strategy works a lot better when you have guys that can come in and perform!
You can’t become complacent when your replacement may outperform you. In the old days that strategy used to punish the not only the pulled player but the entire team and fan base.
And if you look at the start of the second half they came out there and played similar D to the start of the game.
Now of course there was a big enough cushion but Maryland got it down to around 10 points then Iowa started to hit some shots and play D but Joe W, CJ F& JBo need to ramp up the defensive intensity if at all possible at the start of these games because they are seemingly spotting teams 8-10 points from the jump then almost coming in with the kids that get after it on D to stop the bleeding and play catch up. Allowing a fairly good team to jump all over from the start won’t work.
Got a chance to watch the first half this morning finally, so my comments are only about that portion of the game. Starters looked horrific on D. The backups came in and looked between decent to good. What really helped us was Maryland settling for bad shots very often during our run. Plus they had a handful of open looks that they just didn't hit. Our team defense was not great but it was good enough against an average team like Maryland this year.
That said, some individual performances on defense during that run looked great. Joe T and Keegan both had several very good plays on defense. Nunge was doing a pretty good job of boxing out and cleaning up the glass too.
Running a lineup full of 3pt shooters on the floor with Garza in the middle can be awesome when the guys are hitting, even if they're playing iffy on defense. But as we saw in the Gonzaga game, if they aren't hitting then you've got not chance if those shooters aren't also good at defense. Pulling some shooters that weren't playing defense off the floor and replacing them with guys that bring defense ability and athleticism to make plays with or without the ball really helped us.
That said, some individual performances on defense during that run looked great. Joe T and Keegan both had several very good plays on defense. Nunge was doing a pretty good job of boxing out and cleaning up the glass too.
Running a lineup full of 3pt shooters on the floor with Garza in the middle can be awesome when the guys are hitting, even if they're playing iffy on defense. But as we saw in the Gonzaga game, if they aren't hitting then you've got not chance if those shooters aren't also good at defense. Pulling some shooters that weren't playing defense off the floor and replacing them with guys that bring defense ability and athleticism to make plays with or without the ball really helped us.
I think it was the latter. What we saw in the first 8-10 minutes was pretty much Iowa's normal defense with the starting 5 in place. Fran looks like he has more faith in the back ups than he had at the beginning of the season to pull the guys out that aren't getting it done defensively.
If you would have told me that we would win three straight games, including two on traditionally tough away courts, with JW and CJF both on downward scoring spirals, I would have thought you crazy. To me, this eases some of the uneasiness I was feeling about life without Luka and JBo next season. Our bench of underclassmen look like they will be able to hold their own in this league. And we haven't even really seen what Kris, Perkins and Josh can add to the mix.
I love the energy off the bench that our backups bring. But I wonder if we'd be better served sitting CJ at the start of the game and bringing him off the bench as instant offense and a shooter alongside Joe T, Keegan, and/or Pat. It'd be a nice luxury to have that talent level.
Could then run a lineup of
Joe T / JBo (one of these guys always on the floor as the PG)
Joe W
Connor
Garza
With the backups subbing is as needed
CJ
Keegan
Pat
Nunge
Joe T could bring some defensive energy to the starters and CJ brings some added shooting to the backups.
Absolutely. We've become used to seeing this from Keegan, and to some degree Pmac who plays with a lot of enthusiasim, but thought Nunge really had a nice first half as well. It seems he plays better when Luka's on the bench at the five which he looks much more comfortable. It was nice to see him look like he was having fun and smiling. He's had a rough couple of years, so I'm hoping for more of this for Jack.
So your only playing four guys at a time? Kinda makes those double teams a lot easier.........
Just skimmed through the posts so sorry if I missed it but it appears to me this team plays zone defense much better than man to man. Also thought Iowa played better zone with the bigs in.
