Texas 68 Stetson 38: Coaching Until the Final Whistle

Thanks for the summary. I needed it, considering I couldn’t watch the game and Austin’s KXAN, after 15 minutes of high school football highlights and a two-minute interview with Mack Brown, closed its telecast with a five second recap of the basketball game.

Thanks for the recap, srr50. The news on Pittman and Chapman is encouraging. These two can be serious difference making game changers.

How did Damion handle the rock? I’m intrigued with his ability to run the show from the 3 position against weaker on ball defenders in case our lead guards are shown to be lacking.

Any high post work out of GJ?

Did our full court pressure have a trapping element or was it just tempo pressure designed to speed up the game?

Good stuff srr50.

I like the sounds of full court man pressure, even if it’s a tease.

Clint has been playing lights out offensively in practice. He just doesn’t miss much from mid-range and loves that shot near the elbow.

I missed the game, but from the stat line Mason didn’t look too involved.

For the amount of time this team spends on FT shooting, the paltry numbers are astounding. Varez has a decent release but needs to bend his knees.

Pittman is going to fight foul trouble all year … it’s hard to hide from the refs when you’re 6’10, 300 but he’ll learn to be smarter with his body as he gets more PT.

No surprise on AJ or Damion. I’m curious to see how Dogus slides into the rotation.

Trips:
Chapman played 13 minutes and had 0 points (0 for 3 FGA) and 2 rebounds. Why he started is a mystery (presumably Barnes is sending a message).

Dex’s drop step moves were super rapid and he seemed to have decent stamina but was not very explosive at jumping or running. He missed one point blank dunk but got the rebound and flushed the next dunk.

Dex and Gary were the best rebounders in terms of rebounds/minute. Gary did not seem real slick on his moves but seemed pretty comfortable shooting the 15 footer.

Team D was awesome.

The team O flow was pretty bad in the first half. I didn’t actually feel real good about the PG situation but it is just the first game.

Our full court pressure was man on man (i.e. no trapping).

I’m guessing that Damion is not going to be a point forward. I didn’t get the impression that he has the kind of ball skills to put it in his hands most of the time.

Ward was 0 for 6 on his free throws.

How did Damion handle the rock? I’m intrigued with his ability to run the show from the 3 position against weaker on ball defenders in case our lead guards are shown to be lacking.

He fumbled a couple of rebound/fast break attempts by trying to get into gear without completely having control of the ball. A couple of time he did grab and go, but gave it up to A.J. or Justin just past mid-court.

Any high post work out of GJ?

No real high post work out of anyone, just Connor setting high screens and then rolling out to the 3-point line. When Stetson was in man, we seemed set on working on getting the bigs down on the low blocks and asking for the ball.

Did our full court pressure have a trapping element or was it just tempo pressure designed to speed up the game?

We showed trap just a couple of time, I got the impression that the pressure was strictly a tempo manuever.

I will say that our time out and out of bounds defense was almost at mid-season form. We were really quick to deny the lanes and got a couple of picks and a wasted time out of it.

All in all our D was better than could be expected right out of the box.

Thanks Kafka and srr50. It looks like Dogus is our guy or atleast better be. We really need Mason off the ball if we want to be successful. Otherwise, we’ll suck the life out of the rest of his game.

What’s all this talk about Balbay and Mason?

According to the Statesman and the Abrams family, AJ Abrams is the best PG on the team and a future long-time NBAer.

Usually, this time of year I am comparing the UT football coaching with the basketball coaching and wishing that Mack could take a lesson or two from Barnes. Refreshingly, this year I must admit that there has been a big improvement in the football coaching. Absent this season (for the most part) have been the backsliding and sloppy play that usually leads to the end of a regular season with guys looking less trained than during the pre-season scrimmage. It is great to see the guys playing most every game as if it were the Holiday Bowl.

That said, Barnes is still the MAN!

Trips, we did run a little high bit of high post with GJ. The first time we fed him into the high post, he didn’t even look to feed low and rushed a jumper, which missed. Barnes immediately ripped into him and the next time we fed him in the high post he looked inside, the defense dropped down and he knocked down the open 15 footer. That was good to see.

One thing that won’t show up in the box score. The first half AJ ran the point. We were stagnant and just standing around waiting for him to shoot it, I guess. No penetration and no feeding the post. The 2nd half Mason ran the point and we were much better offensively. Only 2 turnovers compared to 13. Post men got the ball. There was penetration and drawing fouls, 13 FT compared to 2.

The reason is twofold, I think. Mainly, AJ is just so much better as a 2. The defense has to focus on him and he moves so well off the ball and coming off screens. This opens things for everyone. Mason is just not a threat at all from the 2. Mason is also just a better penetrator and much better passer than AJ. It is really a no-brainer as to who plays the point between these two. Balbay is the x-factor in this equation. I still see him backing up Mason at the point, but we will find out in time.

The news about Mason is great to hear. We’ll find out an awful lot about our backcourt when we play UCLA. Shipp and Collison have the ability to guard and really cause problems when they want to.

BartonCreek:

Great point about the O looking better with Mason at the point guard.

“It looks like Dogus is our guy or atleast better be.”

I was at the game, and this was my thought as well. Neither Abrams nor Mason have any business being our primary ball handlers.

I thought the difference in the first half/second offensive performances was that we went small with alot of three guard offense with GJ or chapman as the lone post. This opened up the interior for what little penetration we could get.

When Damian is at the three with two true posts, we can’t get penetration against a 2-3 because the middle is too clogged. Our offense against the 2-3 was a high low post that we run as if nobody taught the kids the offense. Though, when we actually entered it into the high post we were pretty effective. Barnes needs an offensive coordinator.

I think the Mason/AJ are not the guy posts are a little too early. 1) Barnes doesn’t help because we don’t run an offense. 2) It takes a lottery level point guard to really make us click because of #1 3) Both AJ and Mason looked comfortable (which was more than I expected)

Thoughts:

1) Varez Ward – I am very excited about the Varez Ward era. He looks like he could be playing corner for the horns. He is one of those guys that takes nothing off the table, but brings tons to the table. He was the only player to get consistent penetration. I am assuming that he can shoot foul shots better than he did.

2) Gary Johnson – He needs to be on the floor more. He also needs to get more offensive rebounds.

3) Damion James – The jury is still out on whether he can stay in front of two’s and three’s defensively, but I don’t think it matters because our team defense is going to be incredible this year.

4) Connor Atchley – Can dominate 6’ 5" power forwards all day

5) D Pitt – Looked like a basketball player for the first time. He needs to be put on dribbling probation. He killed a guy with a quick drop step.

6) Matt Hill looked good in limited action.

Also,

I thought our defensive rotation was phenomenal, and if we keep it up and eschew our awful zone, then the offense will take car of itself.

General:

Why does Damion have to stay in front of a 2 (shooting guard)?

Given that Damion shoots the ball well outside, why should there be a problem with spacing with him at 3?

The problem with spacing against the zone when you have two true post guys playing is if neither of those guys can shoot the 3. Connor shoots the 3 well and I’ve read that Chapman shoots the 3 well also.

It is going to be difficult (in general) to penetrate against a zone, right?

“Barnes needs an offensive coordinator.”
I could not agree more.

“Barnes doesn’t help because we don’t run an offense.”
Seems mostly true to me.

“Gary Johnson – He needs to be on the floor more. He also needs to get more offensive rebounds.”
Totally agree about playing Gary more. Gary got 7 rebounds in 17 minutes, so he was the best horn rebounders in rebounds per minute. He is also a good defender and his speed (relative to Chapman, Dexter, and Hill) enables him to be much more useful in help defense, pressing, trapping, and fast breaking.

“D Pitt – Looked like a basketball player for the first time. He needs to be put on dribbling probation. He killed a guy with a quick drop step.”

For me, it is a lot easier to execute a drop step off the dribble. You would like to pivot off the dropped foot (the right foot for Dex, typically) and to do that you need to change the pivot foot, right?

If you are not dribbling when you drop your right foot to the outside of the defender’s right foot, your left foot becomes your pivot foot. This means you can’t pivot on the right foot. This is really a problem for a right handed player because he would like to go up for the shot off two feet after he spins to the right (after the drop step).

If you are dribbling when you drop your right foot behind the defender, then either foot can be the pivot after you pick up the dribble(obviously in this case you choose to pivot on the right foot).

If the above is wrong, please correct me. I learned how to do the drop step move without benefit of a coach.

I actually think Dex should be fine with dribbling as long as he is just bouncing the ball once or twice to get to the middle for a jump hook (or faking this before he drop steps to the right). He has huge hands so he can control the ball well.

When big men just bounce the ball hard once before picking it up with two hands, it is just a pass to themselves as they get into better position.

A lot of big men tend to get in trouble when they bounce the ball more than once or twice.

The video below shows how to do a drop step move. Typically they drop the step and then take one dribble to get in position to complete the play. That dribble permits the post man to pivot on his drop step foot. After that dribble, the post man may select either foot as his pivot foot.

How to Do a Post Move Drop Step in Basketball — powered by eHow.com

Kafka,

I agree that that is how 5’10" white high school players drop step from outside the low block, but 6’10" behemoth’s with athletic ability don’t need the dribble to get closer to the basket, and Dexter often (and should always) have excellent position inside the paint.

The simple dropstep (without a dribble) is simply a pivot that gives you an angle to the goal and body position on the defender. It is all that is necessary in this case.

When you get excellent position and a proper post entry pass, other smaller defenders will collapse on your position. A drop step to an immediate shot gives them absoltely no chance to defend you if you keep the ball high. A dribble (while conducive to helping you gather yourself for a dunk and getting closer to the goal) completely negates your size advantage and allows a guard that is covering down to get at the ball.

Big men should almost never bounce the ball if they get the ball in decent position in the low block and the post entry pass is decent. If they bouce the ball twice, they have failed.

“Why does Damion have to stay in front of a 2 (shooting guard)?”

Because in college basketball, the 3 is often a shooting guard playing the three spot because of the many three guard offenses and 6’5" small forwards (that are really shooting guards). If the opposing 3 is a physical player like Damian (or a PJ Tucker type) then there is no problem, but I think Damian will have problems with the shooting guard type college 3.

Again, if our defensive rotation is as superb as it was Friday, then it may not matter much.

“Given that Damion shoots the ball well outside, why should there be a problem with spacing with him at 3?

The problem with spacing against the zone when you have two true post guys playing is if neither of those guys can shoot the 3. Connor shoots the 3 well and I’ve read that Chapman shoots the 3 well also.

It is going to be difficult (in general) to penetrate against a zone, right?"

There are a few tried and true methods to beat a zone and we have a few areas in which we are most defficient.

The easiest way to beat a zone is to make the defenders move through ball reversal. This opens up lanes for penetration and passing to the interior.

In our conventional two post line up we have a point guard at the top, two wings, and two posts. We do reverse the ball, but only between the three outside players which are easily guarded by the two defending guards (unless you have a DJ at the top who can split them with the dribble or shoot over them). So our three perimeter players are guarded by two defenders and our two posts are guarded by three backcourt players. This is bad for us.

Out of this traditional lineup, a high low post offense can defeat a two-three, but it requires sharp and precise passing by our outside players, and excellent cuts by our posts. In short, it requires teaching and repetition in practice, but I would be flabbergasted if Barnes promotes much time to offense at all, and certainly not the time it would require.

If you use reversals to beat a 2-3, then you almost have to include a pass to the baseline because you need the defense to rotate fully to get out of position. For instance, Atchley popping out to shoot a three, make a skip pass, enter the ball to the low post, or immediately reverse the ball back the other way serves this purpose (and we do this when he is in the game, against Stetson he was gone and we did not have anyone in this roll, therefore we bogged down).

When we are in three guard with Damian and any other low post, then we have a player running the baseline (often AJ or Damian) and this allows us to make the 2-3 move to open passing lanes and penetration.

I wish I had ChrisApplewhite style moving X’s and O’s because this would make alot more sense.