Exactly what adjustments would folks suggest could have been made ?
Several things I can think of that should have been tried (sorry, my prior post could not be edited any long and I didn't mean to reply when it was submitted):
- Loyola plays an aggressive style of ball denial where they are "on the line, up the line" which makes it harder to penetrate and throw a pass from the top of the key to the wing, in essence shrinking the floor. As long as the defender at the top of the key is able to not allow a straight line drive, you can typically funnel the penetrator into the wing defender. The wing defender is also generally in a position to help out to the three point line as long as there is no straight line drive. To counter this, when the wing defender comes to help, there should be all sorts of space behind him to cut backdoor instead of the wing on offense standing at the three point line. The best play may have been Curbelo penetrating to Ayo's side of the floor and forcing Ayo's defender to help, while Ayo cuts backdoor for a layup or dunk
- Loyola was very physical with their on ball defense. Driving right right into them (think shoulder to shoulder) and forcing the ref to call a block or charge would have been a good move to try to loosen things up (assuming they called blocks which if we are smart, we should be able to draw blocks). A quick first step should be able to achieve this.
- Loyola was trapping Ayo and Curbelo after every high ball screen. We had very poor success and best case was usually just passing out of the trap. Stop screening. Ayo and Curbelo are gifted enough penetrators to beat their man off the dribble. They can then get in the lane and finish or pass to the open man/lob to Kofi. It was clear after the first 5-8 minutes of the game that the high ball screen was Loyola's top priority to stop and they were selling out on it.
- Run the offense that we ran the first two seasons with the big at the high post. Put Kofi at the high post and let players cut off of him. This is much harder to trap than the high ball screen and a much easier pass to hit Kofi on the roll when the guard is already at the elbow.
- Reverse the ball a couple times and set up a screen on the wing, instead of the top of the key. With this, Kofi needs to be quick to pop out of the post while the ball is being reversed so that Krutwig is hopefully not able to trap the ball handler. Or just have him at the elbow and quickly reverse the ball from right to left, so that Krutwig should be in the lane when the ball is on the left side of the court (help defense), and then Kofi goes to set a screen for Ayo's (ideally) man while Ayo is receiving the pass on the right wing.
- Go big with Giorgi and Kofi. We had trouble getting the ball into Kofi because of Loyola's ball pressure. Giorgi would have been able to see over the top of Kofi and deliver the passes (think high-low like in Self's offense). Krutwig had no answer for Kofi down low, we just didn't do a good job getting him the ball. It also allows us to really attack the offensive glass with Kofi and Giorgi. On defense, run zone so that Giorgi isn't having to defend the perimeter.
- Put Ayo in the pinch post or mid post on offense and let him turn and face. This puts him with a live dribble (triple threat position) and one dribble away from the basket. He can head fake and drive, shoot a jumper, dribble and jumper, etc. It's hard to double team here because he should be able to see the whole floor and not have such a long pass as when they were doubling him out on top of the floor
Set up some plays to get the hot hand (Miller) open. Pin downs, curls, anything to get him an open look and see if he can keep it going from outside.
- Defensively, if you don't want to go to a zone, then go under all of the screens or switch all screens. This is contrary to what we have done all year, where we trail the player that is receiving the screen. The reason we always trail rather than going under is because it makes it much harder for the offensive player to get off a clean shot from three, and Kofi would be standing in the paint to prevent a layup. So, the offense is left with either a contested three, a contested layup, or a somewhat less contested mid to long two point jumper. Defensively, allowing a mid range jumper is a win and if that's what you allow on defense every possession, with some level of contest, you are in good shape to win the game. This worked well for us in B1G play, however the offense ran by B1G teams generally involves the center setting these screens on the perimeter. In Loyola's case, they have the wing set a screen for the player in the corner, who curls around. Krutwig then has the ball for the handoff/pass to the guy curling, and he is receiving the ball generally around the foul line, with a head of steam and our man behind him. Kofi is in no-mans land at this point because the player has a full head of steam and Krutwig has options of handing it off, faking it and driving himself, etc. Kofi had a hard time contesting the shots at the rim because of this, and when he was able to, they would lob it to Krutwig for a very un-athletic alley oop (but it worked). This action was killing us and we should have figured out how to stop it, rather than trailing the cutter all game and thinking something was going to change. Either go zone, switch this action, or go under all screens.
