Defense and Rebounding - Can it be improved this year?

[NavinRJohnson]

Obviously the keys to the season. When we defend well and rebound, we usually win. When we don't, we usually lose.

This from today's JSOnline...

Heading into play Monday, MU's average of 33.0 rebounds per game ranked it 13th overall in the 16-team Big East, and its average of 38.6 rebounds surrendered ranked it 15th. That minus-5.6 rebounding margin ranked the Golden Eagles last, as did their average of 20.1 defensive rebounds per game.

Only with 12.9 offensive rebounds per game did the Golden Eagles rank in the upper half in any rebounding category in league play.

Compare those numbers to last season, when MU ranked third in the Big East by pulling down 37.2 rebounds per game in league play and tied for ninth by surrendering 35.5. The difference is notable, yet Crean said his and his staff's focus was more on a player's individual effort and ability to hold his ground under the rim than it is on statistical rankings.

"Those things are important but it's more our grades, it's more the attempts," he said. "Are we getting offensive rebound attempts? Are we blocking out at a high rate? The most important thing to me inside of that is how are we challenging shots? I study the stats out there as much as anybody but I'm far more concerned about our own individual grades. That's the barometer for what you're really trying to do inside your team."

Crean said at this point, sophomore Lazar Hayward, MU's leading rebounder at 6.2 per game, and senior Ousmane Barro had graded out the highest, and the rest of the Golden Eagles are playing catch-up.

The slide of Barro, who has gone from seven double-digit rebounding games as a junior to just one so far this season, has been one factor in MU's recent struggles. Junior Dwight Burke, the starter at center for much of the early portion of the season, hasn't come close to reprising the nine-rebound outing he had in the Golden Eagles' victory at Wisconsin.

Also not helping matters has been the inconsistent rebounding of Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews. None is averaging more than 4.0 boards per game in the Big East.

"We know what our record is when they rebound at a certain level; we know what our record is when they don't," Crean said. "Really, it's all our guards; everybody on the perimeter has got to get more involved right now in a defensive rebounding mind-set. It's an old statement, but we have to have a gang-rebounding mentality. We just have to."

I agree they have to. Question is, will they? Is the raw material and ability there? If yes, we should have a good rest of the season. If not, could be rather ho hum. Its close, but I'll say I'm a believer.

[NavinRJohnson]

For the record, Wesley Matthews is my pick to click in this regard. Before the season started, I was expecting a bit of a break out year from him. Obviously that has not happened to this point. However, I have seen some things from him in the last couple games, that leads me to believe that [fingers crossed]these are the areas where he is going to make his mark, and make a big difference for the remainder of the year[/fingers crossed].

[Big Papi]

Matthews has been playing a lot better over the last few games and I expect that to continue which will help this team out a lot.

Also, I do believe we can improve our rebounding by a lot but for that to happen Burke and Barro need to play more minutes and be more productive during those minutes.  I thought Barro was very active in the Depaul game and hope to see more of that as the season winds down.  He is a senior and his MU career is coming to an end so I expect him to take it to another level the rest of the way and that would be HUGE.

[Nukem2]

At this point, yes, Barro simply has to play.  Get the most out of him.  sitting on the pine won't help MU.

[ecompt]

what we don't want is Jerel crashing the defensive boards and then leading a one-man break downcourt. If the guards are going to rebound, we may have to cut back on a transition game a bit.

[4everwarriors]

 

[MUFanInGreenBay]

At this point, yes, Barro simply has to play.  Get the most out of him.  sitting on the pine won't help MU.

It was encouraging to see Barro score a few points off of a post-up move against Depaul. Heck, maybe it was just one basket he scored. Whatever the case it still was a step in the right direction considering he scored some points one-on-one against a player like Koshwal. I just wish we had one good post-up big who you knew you could count on every game to get ya a few baskets. We would be really good then.

[CTWarrior]

We will continue to have defensive rebounding difficulties if we continue to play one sub-Big East standard interior player, 3 wings and a point guard as our primary lineup.  If you consider that our only two true interior players are Barro and Burke (you can throw Blackledge and Hazel in there for argument's sake), I doubt we even get 40 minutes/game from interior players.  I think a better number for that type of player on an NCAA level team is 60-80 minutes.  That's OK, but we will have to make up the difference elsewhere, such as creating turnovers and being careful with the ball ourselves and having the guards crash the boards, etc.

Excluding defensive rebounding, which is admittedly a rather large thing to exclude, I think our defense is very good.  We usually make our opponents work very hard to get that first good shot in the half court.

[NavinRJohnson]

Excluding defensive rebounding, which is admittedly a rather large thing to exclude, I think our defense is very good.  We usually make our opponents work very hard to get that first good shot in the half court.

I completely disagree. I think our defense can be very good, it has been terribly inconsistent. Over the course of the past couple weeks - and really the entire Big East season, its been bad more than its been good...Definitely not what MU fans have been accustomed to. We are near the bottom in both scoring and FG% defense in the Big East. Can't happen.