I think the loss of Mbakwe should cuase us to...

[denverMU]

...start practicing zone defense.  There is no way we can last 40 minutes a game, man to man, in the BEAST.  We will get eaten alive by almost every team.

[tower912]

....or start practicing the press.

[Markusquette]

or give our players taller shoes

[mu03eng]

Actually playing the zone could cause us more rebounding issues as you are rebounding an area not against a body.

Secondly, Mbwake didn't play much at all last year so we can't say what we lost with him leaving in terms of rebounding.  I agree with the speculation that his leaving hurts a lot but we do have Burke and Hayward back.  I think this really hurts us more for 2010 than 2009.

[denverMU]

I know Mbakwe did not play much last year but Barro did!  Now they are both gone and teams like ND, Louisville, and UCONN are going to kill us inside.  I do like the press idea but normally it is good to have a big guy back as a stopper.

[OneMadWarrior]

There still isn't that many big men in College basketball, They weren't goign to win down there anyway. All it means is more Minutes Required of one of the two young centers which in the long run may be beneficial. Remember Villanova got a #1 seed out of the Big East with a 4 guard lineup which and Hayward being the 4th guard is pretty large in comparison.

[esotericmindguy]

I think you guys are way overreacting....you're talking about a guy who averaged 2 points and 1 rebound a game!  Sure he would have logged solid minutes, but anything over 7 and 5 is probably pushing it.  He looked completely outmatched in every game with the exception of one, and I think that was providence.  So Burke Replaces Barro, Hazel replaces Burke's old role and Otule replaces Hazel.  I really don't see the HUGE deal here, a loss definitely, but this is overhyped. 

I agree this will effect 2010 more when we will be relying even more on underclassmen.

[avid1010]

I think that Buzz will look at the opponent and how that single opponent matches up with MU and then he'll come up with a game plan to deal with any mismatches.  This is something very new to coaching.  To be sincere, I just hope we don't have to watch another MU/Stanford type game where we fail to make an effective adjustment.

[TJ]

To be sincere, I just hope we don't have to watch another MU/Stanford type game where we fail to make an effective adjustment.

The worst part was that we failed to make any adjustment in that game.

[TallTitan34]

When was the last time someone transferred and it wasn't attributed to Crean running him out of the program?

I think the loss of Mbakwe should cause us to pick up that old tradition.

[ondo10]

...start practicing zone defense.  There is no way we can last 40 minutes a game, man to man, in the BEAST.  We will get eaten alive by almost every team.

That is the last thing we want to do.  The strength of our defense is going to be our ball-hawking, in-your-face, straight-up man-to-man pressure from our talented guards.  With Dom, Jerel, Wesley, Cubby, and Acker, we will be able to control/frustrate other backcourts most of the time. 

Playing zone would undermine this advantage, not to mention make it more difficult to control the defensive glass.  For this team, zones should be limited to out-of-bounds situations and for protection if our bigs get into early foul trouble.

[Murffieus]

Forget the press-----all that does is make us more vulnerable inside. Have to contain either a pac it in man to man or zone. Key is keeping Burke out of foul trouble----he's a decent defender, but fouls too much fighting for position when he has to defend one on one----needs help to stay in the game.

[reinko]

Forget the press-----all that does is make us more vulnerable inside. Have to contain either a pac it in man to man or zone. Key is keeping Burke out of foul trouble----he's a decent defender, but fouls too much fighting for position when he has to defend one on one----needs help to stay in the game.

+1 Murf.  Keeping our starting bigs (Hayward and Burke) on the floor, and out of foul trouble will be key.

[lab_warrior]

esoteric and murff, couldn't agree more.  First, off, zone SUCKS, it's for unathletic 7th grade or intramural (believe me, I've been there) teams, and our rebounding would be worse with a zone, it's much easier to block out  a guy you're right on then find one while playing a zone.  And to second esoteric's point, seriously, the dude played in less than half the games, and didn't contribute that much, stop worrying about it.  Yeah, we lost Barro, but remember, Burke played big minutes most of the time, in most games.

[Murffieus]

I'm not a big believer in zone defense either, but defensive rebounding off a zone should be taught different than the conventional way most coaches teach rebounding off a man to man defense. e.g. off a 2-3 zone, the 3 deep guys plant a shield around the hoop in the form of a triangle (one guy in the lane and the other two taking up space on either side of him with elbows wide and feet spread) and forget about blocking out a person-----they block out an area -----very effective that way.

Rebounding off a zone by blocking out people is a disaster----but quite effective if blocking out specific areas ala above!