Very odd lack of urgency on both ends in the last minute. Probably didn’t matter, but still frustrating.
We run good offense. A key point early in the game was when we were up 19-13 and missed 2 or 3 shots at the rim that could’ve extended the lead further. Wright St. cut into the lead and got going offensively from that point on.
Defensively, we’re bad for a number of reasons I think.
- We don’t put enough pressure on the other team’s primary ballhandler. If you watch Virginia and Kihei Clark in their pack line, he’s not the quickest, but he stays in front of his man and is a nuisance. We let our opponent start their offense rather easily.
- Communication needs to improve, as evidenced by the backcuts we still get beat on.
- Another team put Mirambeaux in a ball screen and hit shot after shot. Either the on ball defender needs to fight through or we have to hedge and take our chances on the ball reversal.
- Defensive transition. I don’t understand how we can’t run back and find the guy we’re guarding. There are a lot of drills in which you can work on this.
- Identification. Trey Calvin shouldn’t get 3s in transition that he can easily step into.
- Lateral quickness. We don’t have a lot of it. We have length, but we can’t slide quickly enough to stay in front of people.
A lot to work on. Patience.
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I like the specificity of your post. It shows true knowledge.
88 to 80 final. The good thing Is we fought back. The bad is that they dominated us most of the second half in our own gym. We will enter MAC play with only one win over top 300 team. Maybe this packline defense should be ditched ?
The pack line defense is fine as a system. It’s all in the execution (like everything in basketball).
We have a program with new coaches, lots of freshman playing heavy minutes, transfers in, and a couple holdovers from a previous regime that didn’t stress accountability on defense. Sprinkle in injuries to key players and it’s simply not a formula for a strong, cohesive pack line defense. Yet.
But the only thing to do is keep working it. Keep preaching it. Keep coaching it. Keep practicing it. It’s Christmas—we don’t want, nor should we expect, Miami to be playing their best basketball of the year. The goal is always to peak in mid February and ride that through March as long as possible.
I was at the game last night. I see Coach Steele coaching hard. I see the bench fully engaged and enthusiastic. I see guys giving consistently good effort. There are hustle plays being made and attempted. There are mistakes, yes. Too many to beat good teams right now. I wish there weren’t, but I’m not discouraged in the least. The pack line, like any good defense, is a chain with 5 links. To expect this unit, with our injuries, and our personnel, to have it sorted out and working seamlessly in unison is silly. Add in we have no rim protectors to cover mistakes and the margin for error is next to nil.
I’ve been yearning for Miami basketball to play defensively again like they did under Coles. This staff EASILY gives me the most confidence we’ll get there since Charlie retired. But it’ll be a process. Give it time, give it more personnel, and then we can judge and critique. But 11 games in playing with a short deck is foolish imo.
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Miami went to a 2-3 zone for a few minutes in the second half that I thought was relatively successful. First time I’ve seen them do that this year.
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Several questions. I coached basketball for 20 years in the 70’s and 80’s. First I ever heard of the pack line defense was Dick Bennett at Green Bay and then Wisconsin. Then his son at Virginia. It is still not widely used. Did Steele use this system at X? Have any of his assistants taught this system before? Have any of the players played this system previously?
The defense we are playing now is giving us the worst results of any Miami defense that I have watched since I was a freshman in 1967 (Season tickets since I graduated). Point totals and opponent field goal percentages are at a record bad level. I was really excited when Coach Steele talked about the defensive emphasis. I expected us taking charges and diving on the floor for loose balls. Heck, I think Precious took more charges and got more loose balls last year than the whole team has this year.
Offensively we are pretty good, especially when they concentrate on moving the ball from side to side and making safe passes. That is an improvement from the last two staffs. I wonder about the emphasis Coach Steele has made on year three. He has said every decision is based on competing at the top of the MAC by year 3. I question some of our lineup choices. Playing two freshman 3 point specialist at the same time may be hurting our defensive efforts now. I think we get better defensively when Morris comes in, probably when Tatum and Williams come in. I am getting the same feeling watching us play as watching the Reds play last summer. At some future point we will be good again, just not now.
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Kent State won the Sun Bowl Tournament with wins over New Mexico State and UTEP. Senderoff has the Flashes rolling.
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On a different topic, I tried listening to Coach on his postgame interview both last night and today. They have the wrong interview posted, one from a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping they would have fixed it by this morning, lol.
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Point totals are pretty heavily impacted because this is the fastest pace Miami has played at in some time. It’s a bad defense, but it’s not record bad for Miami.
Most have coached it and multiple have played it. It’s a pretty common defense in college basketball. We’ve played it multiple times already this year.
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In the 20+ years of Kenpom, this is our least efficient defense and our worst effective field goal percentage, by ranking and numbers. At this point we are the worst 3 point field goal shooting percentage defensive team in the country, 42%!
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The good news is that’ll normalize a bit off luck alone.
Without breaking tape me thinks we’re in a common early issue of pack line defense which is over-helping that leads to easy kick and shoots on the perimeter. Now, some of it is not being good on-ball defenders (guard a yard!), and some is having no rim protection to cover up poor on-ball defense (which necessitates help). But I’ve seen a lot of teams over help on drivers where it may not actually be needed. With time, trust and coaching this will get better. Personnel is vitally important too, of course.
One of the main tenets of a pack line defense is help early. In other words, build a wall against drives defensively, show the ball handler no seams, and discourage penetration from the onset. It’s not an easy defense, and requires absolute attention to detail across all 5 guys. It will actually be enjoyable to watch our guys progress. I’m hopeful we’re going to see an entire transformation from ugly duckling to swan in these first 2 years…
Thanks for looking. I thought the Cooper defense with Kalif Wright ended up worse. Good looks
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Chris Mack ran it at X, so I assume Steele did as well.
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We’re literally 4th worst in the country right now, so it’s not like there’s much worse it could be. We’re 359th and this is the first season where there’s even 359 teams.
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Sorry, 4th worse at what? I can’t follow.
Defensive points per possession adjusted for strength of schedule. It’s a more accepted way of looking at good or bad your offense and defense is because it takes into account tempo and who you play. Points per game can be skewed if you play especially fast or slow, in basketball or football.
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We were 333rd last year, our worst in Kenpom history. Cooper’s worst defense was his 1st year, 241st, though by actual points per possession it was his 3rd year, but that ranked modestly better. The offense regressed badly in his tenure.
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If you look at the game stats from last night, they show that Tatum and Morris really gave great minutes last night. They were doing the things this team needs more of. They were the only guys on the team with a positive assist to TO ratio, between them they were 5 to 1. Our team only had 7 steals last night, in 11 minutes Tatum had 3. Between them in 24 minutes they had 6 rebounds, which would have been second on the team. Of interest, neither took a shot. Since everybody else is a shooter or a scorer, having one of these complementary player on the court all the time might be just what we need.
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Video interview is still not fixed.