Gotta believe we'll play a lot of zone Saturday night

49ers Basketball Forum 🏀
1

I think I’ll check out GWs stats sometime today, but after hearing Hobbs on P&M a little while ago, and after seeing bits and pieces of their games this season, I’m thinking that we are going to feed them a steady diet of some type of zone, whether it’s 2-3, matchup, or some other variant.

The reasons are fairly straight forward:

[list type=decimal]
[]They are more athletic than we are. Man to man would play right into their hands.
[]The 2-3 keyed our comeback versus St Joes
[]They are not known as a good shooting team. They aren’t bad either, but their shooters have underperformed a bit this season
[]I believe State played some zone against them, and if so, it definitely worked
[*]Pops, despite his struggles, could be a force against us. He’s taller than anyone we have to guard him & we’ve struggled with all tall big men this season, especially the lanky, quick, long armed ones.
[/LIST]

If we do stick to it for a while, I expect we’ll give up the typical looks from 3. Unless they are red hot, try not to get too worked up about it. It’s going to be a pick your poison decision, and Lutz will have to adjust based on how successful or unsuccessful we are. I do believe we’re going to have to execute better, because we did give up open looks to St Joe’s even after we switched to it. They just missed them. The other downside, of course, is that we’re gonna hamstring our defensive rebounding ability like we did with St Joe’s, which had a lot to do with them tying us on the boards.

This all goes out the window if we can handle them in man, but I worry. And defense is very important to me, because we play so much better when we’re getting transition baskets.

Their ability to play halfcourt defense is an X factor to me. I havent watched them enough to form an opinion. Like us, they have the athletes to excel at it, yet I can’t remember anyone calling them a team of lockdown defenders or a shutdown team. They win a lot of high scoring games.

Our approach probably won’t change much. Pops is a shot blocker though, so I’m curious how well he can defend Withers or Truck in the post. As usual, if we can and actually do work our offense from the inside out, I like our chances.

2

Hall & Elliott both have excellent 3P shooting percentages, but havent taken a ton of them. Combined, they average about 6 attempts per game, and they make about 3 of them.

Now that I’ve said this though, someone like Maureece Rice (31%) will hit 10. It’s a lock. :hammer:

3

2-3 zone and/or man with bias to the paint in how to slow our offense. The only team to beat us running in the last two seasons was Wake early last year, and even they went to a Triangle and Two at the end of the game.

4
2-3 zone and/or man with bias to the paint in how to slow our offense. The only team to beat us running in the last two seasons was Wake early last year, and even they went to a Triangle and Two at the end of the game.

Just out of curiosity, how do you expect GW to play us? Withers in particular.

5

I’d guess mostly man with Mike Hall on CW (with a lot of help from the guards if he gets the ball). We switch a lot on perimeter screens as most of our guys are interchangeable. We always throw in some 1-3-1 and 2-3 in the half court. Depending on KH’s evaluation of your ballhandlers, we could press the full court for the whole game (as we did vs Maryland).

6

thanks BM-GW

[URL=http://gwsports.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/112103aaa.html]http://gwsports.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/112103aaa.html[/URL]

Looking at the old box score, it looks like Hall grabbed quite a few rebounds against us last time - but against a very different Niner lineup.

Looking forward to Saturday :smile:

7

[QUOTE=BM-GW;149605] We always throw in some 1-3-1… [/QUOTE]

Uh-oh. Don’t want to see that. South Florida used to run this on us a lot when they had Altron, B.B., and Asbury. We didn’t take to it too well most of the time. Long, quick teams can give you lots of headaches playing this because it limits your passing options. You also have to have a great defensive person to defend the goal. USF had that with Waldon, and you guys do with Pops. With De’Angelo, Wire, and Mitch we may be able to handle it better than we did a few years ago, but it’s going to take a lot of good ball handling and extra passes to get it done.

8

I’ve never seen us play 1-3-1 more than a five minutes a game. We switch Ds frequently to throw off teams who play offense at a faster pace. One can always beat it by finding the 3 pt shooter who can nail wide open looks from the corner.

9

[QUOTE=X-49er;149610]Uh-oh. Don’t want to see that. South Florida used to run this on us a lot when they had Altron, B.B., and Asbury. We didn’t take to it too well most of the time. Long, quick teams can give you lots of headaches playing this because it limits your passing options. You also have to have a great defensive person to defend the goal. USF had that with Waldon, and you guys do with Pops. With De’Angelo, Wire, and Mitch we may be able to handle it better than we did a few years ago, but it’s going to take a lot of good ball handling and extra passes to get it done.[/QUOTE]

1-3-1 must be effective. We used it vs #1 Michigan in '77 and remember how that turned out?

10

[QUOTE=BM-GW;149613]I’ve never seen us play 1-3-1 more than a five minutes a game. We switch Ds frequently to throw off teams who play offense at a faster pace. One can always beat it by finding the 3 pt shooter who can nail wide open looks from the corner.[/QUOTE]

LMAO… pot meet kettle :lmao:

11

I hate our zone, I really, really, really hate it. We play zone and we give up a ton of open three’s. The advantage of the 2-3 is suppossed to be better inside defense, yet how many times did Thorton, Killingsworth, or Davidson’s backup centers just abuse whoever the middle defender was in our 2-3 zone? Our zone makes everybody look like superstars. Wide open 3’s all day and nothing resembling interior defense, the worst of both worlds.

We used a lot of man against La Salle(more than I’ve seen us use in any other game) and we forced the conference player of the year into a lot of really bad shots. The difference is that La Salle was a two-man team, GW has 4 guys who will kill us if we give them the chance, and we certainly don’t have 4 good man-on-man defenders.

I expect what I expect out of every Niners game, a ton of wide open 3’s for the other team and their big men(no matter who they are) will have a field day if they are patient enough to feed them the ball. Like our most recent games, if GW is hitting their 3’s, game over, if not we could sneak out a single digit win.

It is just amazing to see the difference in how we play D and how our opponents do. It seems like no matter how hard we try, we can’t get Curt (or Nance or Coleman for that matter) the ball down low, there are defenders all over him and we don’t have the chacne to make a pass. Yet on the other end it seems like we give up easy entry passes on most possessions. How many times did Thornton receive the ball in the paint with only one Niner within 8 feet of him? How many times have we gotten ANY of our post players the ball in that kind of position?

12

I hate to talk about Dook, and even NCSU, but did you watch that game last night? Once again, they both spread the floor so freaking well that entry passes are easy. We never, ever spread it and hold position, plus everyone cheats off our wings/guards because they dont drive the ball enough. Shelden Williams gets a 8’ diameter clear circle (minus the man on his hip) to catch passes from and make moves in, Curtis Withers has about 1’ and there are four sets of hands swatting at him when the pass comes in.

That’s the difference between us and the elite teams.

13

Amen!

14

[QUOTE=NinerAdvocate;149629]We never, ever spread it and hold position, plus everyone cheats off our wings/guards because they dont drive the ball enough. Shelden Williams gets a 8’ diameter clear circle (minus the man on his hip) to catch passes from and make moves in, Curtis Withers has about 1’ and there are four sets of hands swatting at him when the pass comes in.

That’s the difference between us and the elite teams.[/QUOTE]

It’s so simple it makes me :huh: and :dry: and :wacko: . Great points NA.

15

Wow. I’ve never seen a fanbase so negative. If I didn’t know anybetter I’d think that we were 6-11 and not the other way around. Don’t forget since the start of the year we’ve played 10-3 ball. Not exactly a terrible record. The defense has been spotty at times, but are guys give up so many open looks because they have to pack it in to help Nance/Coleman guard a true 5.

16

i thought our zone in the 2nd half of st joes looked nice, but they may just suck that bad, we denied the post and the shots they took were with the shot clock running down and contested.

17

[QUOTE=49er1;149618]1-3-1 must be effective. We used it vs #1 Michigan in '77 and remember how that turned out?[/QUOTE]

Didn’t we also disguise that zone on occasions in that game. I seem to remember setting up in what almost looked like a half-court 1-1-3 when Michigan was bringing the ball up the court and then forcing them into a non-pressured trap. We would pick up the ball handler and force him to one side, bring the wing up, and then shift and cut off their passing lanes.

That zone was very effective.

18

I’m worried, but hopeful.

I’d be less worried if we were playing in Washington and not Halton.

19
I'm worried, but hopeful.

I’d be less worried if we were playing in Washington and not Halton.

I can’t believe that I wish this was a road game. Can we play all of our games on the road this year?

20
i thought our zone in the 2nd half of st joes looked nice, but they may just suck that bad, we denied the post and the shots they took were with the shot clock running down and contested.

Glad I’m not the only one who say this.