Is it Realistic Our Defense Can Improve?
- Thread starter isucy86
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all great teams have role players- defensive stoppers, rebound/garbage guys- but this team doesn't have either. i don't know if it has been an unwillingness of a player or two to accept the role or not. i think of shawn bankhead as defense, jared homan rebounder/tough sob, kelvin cato defense/rebounding/garbage, and chris babb as a stopper more recently.
It's really skewed right now...I consider Baylor and WVU the teams that we match up with the poorest in the league from our defensive standpoint and those are our last two losses.
It seems as though Matt Thomas is the only one that really cares about playing defense for 40 minutes.
Exactly a question quote from a coach that stuck with me for the last 18 years (Yikes!) is "Are you coachable and will you listen?"
Bingo. We've made plenty of "stops", but we're giving up way too many second chances. Just hope that we run into teams without a heavy inside presence in the tournament.
I know the team keeps thinking they can make a run in March, and that's the hope we all have. But with just a few weeks left, you do wonder how our defense can get better when it hasn't for a month. Our depth isn't going to change, and our defensive mismatches aren't either. If McKay becomes a rebounding maniac, maybe, but we know he can often get pushed around. If Niang is in the game, he gets driven by easily, or picks up fouls quickly. Then you have Burton trying to guard 6'9" guys. I guess I don't buy its just an effort thing like some on here, but everyone's entitled to their opinion. I do believe, tho, that over the long haul, defense and rebounding will win out over offensive teams like us. Excited and proud to be in the NCAA for the 5th straight year! Realistic and cautious on whether we can advance.
Amen Bro Amen & I want to thank Freddie Hoiberg for leaving us DepthLess.........................
ISU usually only goes into a zone when they have guys that are in foul trouble that they want to try to prevent from getting more fouls. Sticking with man to man regardless of the foul situation is definitely not the best way to have a shot to win when guys are in foul trouble.
I am all in favor of putting Stu Nezlek on a blocking out/rebounding crash course. He already has the size that cannot be taught so if D Robinson is the big man coach - lets see what he can do in the next couple of weeks.
Seems to me that we played better defense early in the season and now as the season has wore on we have lost our edge. Maybe fatigue has something to do with it but I notice a difference. There were times ini the beginning of the season that I really thought we had something going on that we hadn't seen for a while, then it disappeared.
I think you're seeing Prohm back off the gas a little bit, and just try to calm the storm right now. Maybe he can get a collective psyche going and bring about some positive momentum. At this point, we aren't going to win the conference and we're pretty well locked in to the tourney, only makes sense to play the numbers and play conservative. Especially when we don't have the horses in the stable to pull this wagon at 100% for the entire season.
You are a super-optimistic human being.
But more than once this year I have said what this team needs is a 6'10" 270 lb bruiser - a Jared Homan type.
So I'm with ya in that respect.
This is exactly the wrong way to look at it. We were counting on that last year also when we put out such a great tournament defensive effort that we fell to mighty UAB. If you don't play defense every day there is absolutely no way you can just turn it on one day because the tournament starts. That is not how basketball works. To play great defense, and just as importantly rebound strongly, you just have to have more heart and toughness than the other guy. We don't have that on the defensive end.
If you watch us rebound you will see that our bigs almost always look up at the rim when the shot goes up. FIRST, you have to find someone to block out, (make sure there is at least one guy on the other team who WON'T get the ball, THEN look for the ball, explode to it, and get the rebound. We are constantly rim watching while opponent defenders slip through completely unblocked and grab the ball. Just watch for it - you will see it almost every time. And you can't change that bad habit just because you might one day decide to. It has to be a learned habit, and it just isn't happening for most of our guys. Matt Thomas is an exception. He usually blocks someone out first, then goes to the ball. The most important part of getting a rebound is making sure the other guy DOES NOT get it. You can't get it yourself until you have done that. Rebounding isn't about size as much as it is proper technique and effort, and we have neither of those two items far too much of the time.
This is what makes our defense look soooo much worse. To me, our defense would be average or better than average if our rebounding was better. I also think we need to sub more in second half. Fresh legs are important
