The Problem is not Defense per se

[BigOHawk]

As noted especially this time of year, March Madness is all about guard play and the vast majority of teams who go deep in the tourney have excellent guard play. Teams with a few successful "bigs" with average guard play don't advance beyond the first weekend typically.

Re: defense, yes...effort, concentration and technique can be taught to improve defense however speed and athleticism is part of that equation too. It's like yelling at my 5th grade team I coach to box out better, however we play a lot of zone and it's simply more difficult to box out in a zone (defending space vs. a player) vs. man. However when we play man we get beat off the dribble. Pick your poison although I'd argue I'd rather see 2's go in vs. 3 after 3 after 3 when Fran won't get out of zone.

 

[Raptorpeeps]

Illinois barely beat Iowa at home and had some favorable calls go their way. It happens.

Kind of a non-sequitur post. The post you quoted does not suggest that teams should never lose away games. (?)

Not sure what your point is. Are you saying that the op has no/less merit because “Illinois barely beat Iowa at home?” The score shows that our team speed is just fine?

Not sure I agree with your (lack of) analysis.

 

[silasstarr]

Kind of a non-sequitur post. The post you quoted does not suggest that teams should never lose away games. (?)

Not sure what your point is. Are you saying that the op has no/less merit because “Illinois barely beat Iowa at home?” The score shows that our team speed is just fine?

Not sure I agree with your (lack of) analysis.

I'm saying/suggesting that people on this board are overreacting to a loss. This thread doesn't exist if Iowa wins at Illinois. The whole idea that Iowa has a 'problem' while ranked in the top 10, is ridiculous. Are they perfect? No, they have their deficiencies like most teams, but they are still better than 95% of the teams out there. I'll take that instead of bitching and moaning that they aren't perfect.

 

[HawkRugged17]

I'm saying/suggesting that people on this board are overreacting to a loss. This thread doesn't exist if Iowa wins at Illinois. The whole idea that Iowa has a 'problem' while ranked in the top 10, is ridiculous. Are they perfect? No, they have their deficiencies like most teams, but they are still better than 95% of the teams out there. I'll take that instead of bitching and moaning that they aren't perfect.

No they aren't ... there was only one.

 

[RocknRollface]

A few people here understand it. Iowa’s problem really has nothing to do with scheme and very little to do with execution. The problem is more fundamental than that and it was glaring last night— athleticism/speed.

We made Illinois look like an NBA team in transition last night. It was brutal. Why? Because they are significantly faster at every single position on the floor when Toussaint is sitting.

Iowa is the worst team in the league in 3 pt D because they are slow on rotations. It would be even worse if we played more man.

This isn’t a “teaching” problem; it’s not a executing fundamentals problem; it’s not an effort problem or a scheme problem; it’s a speed problem and that is something that can’t be fixed between now and tourney time.

It has to be fixed on the recruiting trail.

Theres more than just one problem with Iowas defense and Illinois does have a couple guards who will be in the nba.

They might be better than Gonzaga in transition.

Lack of quickness is one problem, especially in transition, but to say there's not a lack of effort on defense allot of the time is clearly false.

Its not even a question that allot of Iowas players are half assing it on defense both physically but more important mentally. The positioning, awareness and communication are all terrible.

Bohannon doesn't even pay attention to where his man is half the time, he just wanders twoards the ball and leaves his guy open.

Iowa is only focused on offense and thats always been a theme with Fran. He doesn't demand effort on defense, he never has.

 

[RocknRollface]

How many wide open corner 3 point attempts did Illinois get from just standing in place and passing the ball around the perimeter?

A dozen?

Illinois was overloading one side of the zone and Iowa players were not even aware there was a guy in the corner half the time.

Its not hard to see the problems extend beyond just physical.

 

[Hawksfinal4]

Y

How many wide open corner 3 point attempts did Illinois get from just standing in place and passing the ball around the perimeter?

A dozen?

Illinois was overloading one side of the zone and Iowa players were not even aware there was a guy in the corner half the time.

Its not hard to see the problems extend beyond just physical.
[/QUOTE
It’s true Illinois was overloading the one side but Illinois created problems for the Hawks by 1) having their guards able to take us off the dribble, so when the help came it left open shots from the corner or dump offs to the man slipping behind him for a layup, or the help didn’t come and their guards took it right to the hole. Other times we’d double team Kofi or hedge to help on Kofi and he’d prefer ass out and then dribble drive from guard who again would find the open man in the corner..
When JoeT and Perkins were in they didn’t always stop the drive but they could force the player(Ayo) to go left. Defense was better with those 2 and Jack as rim protector but , lots less 3 point shooting, so there’s that. I was expecting a bit better 3 point shooting from Keegan than he’s shown , , maybe my expectations were too high. I’m still enjoying this team and think the best is yet to come . Minutes distribution is not worked out yet, almost too many options with players of differing skill levels so far. Everybody needs to step up in the moment, not there yet!!!

 

[RocknRollface]

Y

Yeah, they scored allot of different ways to get to 80 points but there were 5 or 6 times (dozen was an exaggeration) where they just passed the ball around the perimeter with litteraly no drive or post feed and got wide open shots in the corner.

The point is, that should never happen if a team is paying attention.

But half the time Iowa is not even paying attention on defense, let alone communicating.

 

[HawkRugged17]