Does anyone understand what Pitino was doing tonight?

[Marquette84]

No Lenny, it wasn't my first thought, though during the game I turned to my son and told him I couldn't believe he was zoning us.

Mike Kelly made a statement when both Lazar and Butler were on the bench late in the first half that every single possession for Louisville should be nothing but throwing it down low.  I don't think they threw it down once in that time period.

It was strange and thought it was a worthy question to ask.  Only you went where you went in this thread which speaks volumes.

The only teams that seems to have taken advantage of that weakness are Syracuse and Pittsburgh.


The Louisville fans, whom I assume know their team fairly well, asked the same question in several threads.  Looks like Slick Rick outsmarted himself.  Fine by me.  Our guys were ready....well done by Buzz, the staff and the players.

ESPN magazine has an article by Jay Bilas on Zone defense which I think explains what Pitino was thinking.  the key quote:

"In all my years, I haven't seen one zone offense that's as good as a man offense."

[muwarrior69]

No Lenny, it wasn't my first thought, though during the game I turned to my son and told him I couldn't believe he was zoning us.

Mike Kelly made a statement when both Lazar and Butler were on the bench late in the first half that every single possession for Louisville should be nothing but throwing it down low.  I don't think they threw it down once in that time period.

It was strange and thought it was a worthy question to ask.  Only you went where you went in this thread which speaks volumes.

The only teams that seems to have taken advantage of that weakness are Syracuse and Pittsburgh.


The Louisville fans, whom I assume know their team fairly well, asked the same question in several threads.  Looks like Slick Rick outsmarted himself.  Fine by me.  Our guys were ready....well done by Buzz, the staff and the players.

... and don't leave out Seton Hall, they killed us down low.

[4everwarriors]

I was under the impression that Pitino was a legendary head coach. .

[M@RQUETTEW@RRIORS]

Actually if you re-watch the game.  Louisville repeatedly attemped to or went inside.  Either MU was fronting them with help behind or immediately double teamed.  In other words.  Buzz's strategy was pretty much "you arent beating us down low, if you beat us from the outside so be it"  Luckily for us, Louisville didnt know what to do with the double team and didnt exactly light it up from the outside.

[dsfire]

The only teams that seems to have taken advantage of that weakness are Syracuse and Pittsburgh.

The following is points in the paint broken down by game since the start of conference play:

Game	Marquette	Opponent
MU @ WVU	20	40
MU vs. Nova	18	44
MU vs. GT	6	32
MU @ Nova	12	32
MU vs. Prov	36	22
MU @ DPU	18	26
MU @ Cuse	22	56
MU vs. Rutgers	42	28
MU @ UConn	20	30
MU vs. DPU	24	34
MU @ Prov	32	48
MU vs. USF	22	32
MU vs. Pitt	26	34
MU @ Cincy	28	40
MU @ SJU	22	30
MU @ SHU	34	46
MU vs. UL	22	20

Dixon and Boheim definitely aren't the only coaches to notice we're lacking on size inside.

[ChicosBailBonds]

ESPN magazine has an article by Jay Bilas on Zone defense which I think explains what Pitino was thinking.  the key quote:

"In all my years, I haven't seen one zone offense that's as good as a man offense."

Boeheim said the same thing over the weekend, which is why they run zone almost all the time.

[ChicosBailBonds]

I was under the impression that Pitino was a legendary head coach. .

In certain Italian restaurants only

[Lennys Tap]

No Lenny, it wasn't my first thought, though during the game I turned to my son and told him I couldn't believe he was zoning us.

Mike Kelly made a statement when both Lazar and Butler were on the bench late in the first half that every single possession for Louisville should be nothing but throwing it down low.  I don't think they threw it down once in that time period.

It was strange and thought it was a worthy question to ask.  Only you went where you went in this thread which speaks volumes.

The only teams that seems to have taken advantage of that weakness are Syracuse and Pittsburgh.


The Louisville fans, whom I assume know their team fairly well, asked the same question in several threads.  Looks like Slick Rick outsmarted himself.  Fine by me.  Our guys were ready....well done by Buzz, the staff and the players.

Louisville was equally ineffective with zone and man to man last night. As far as getting it down low, they tried. Samuels himself had 5 turnovers and his guards had several trying to feed the post. Our defense was suffocating.

[The Pickle]

Weird, Syracuse runs a zone and it worked for them. 

Yeah, but their zones are completely different.  Syracuse uses constant pressure and trapping whereas Louisville was content to sit back in their zone.  In the 2nd half, when they knew they had to make a run, they extended their zone and caused some trouble for us in the half court but by that time the game was already decided...

[Big Papi]

Come on...why can't it be both?  Pitino IMO should have pressed, or at least played aggressive man=to=man, but instead played the slow down halfcourt game.  He made no adjustments when it became clear that Samuels was a disaster inside.

Hard to press when you can't score. 

Our defense was the key to this game and it had very little to do with what Louisville was doing on the defensive end.  We turned them over and converted more times than not.  Louisville wasn't make their shots so they couldn't turn up the pressure on us like they wanted too.  It was the perfect storm for us.  My guess is if Louisville would have made just a few more shots, this game would have been tight at the end as they would have been able to apply that full court pressure a lot more.