Does our defense depend on WHO we've played?

[Marquette84]

I think you missed the point - I'm simply stating that our defensive ratings thus far in the Big East have a lot to do with WHO we've played thus far in Big East play.  Playing Top 15 teams, mostly on the road, tends to be more challenging for a team and its defense, than does it playing the bottome tier teams of a conference.  Things should even out, and MU probably finishes around 8th overall in Big East defense - as it starts to play more teams in the lower tier.  Sometimes very good offense beats good defense.  Having said that, yes, this team has had some bad defensive lapses, stretches...but that is part of the game..

I pulled this topic into its own thread because it doesn't seem to be related to the rest of that thread.

Our last two games demonstrate that the assumption in the above post is flawed.  One only look at our three most recent games:   South Florida--2nd to worst team in the league, shot 51.1% against us.  Meanwhile, #11 Georgetown, shot 42.6% against us and #9 Villanova shot 43.8%.

In a comparison of our non-conference road games, UWM shot 50.8% against us and Vanderbilt shot 47.6%.

Does this data really support your belief that the only reason our defense stinks is because we've played tough opponents on the road?   Our defense actually improved based on the @VU and @GU games.

At home, we see the same pattern of no discernible pattern.  DePaul--worst in conference--shot 44.8% against us. Compared to 43.7 by UConn and Notre Dame's 39.6%.

Yes, there are some good teams that shot well--Pitt shot 60% against us, Syracuse 57%.  And some bad teams in nonconference shot very poorly.  But there is no evidence to suggest that our defense will improve simply because the opponents get easier.  Our defense can be equally bad against weak opponents and vice versa.

[tower912]

I think that Henry Sugar has pretty clearly shown that our defensive efficiency is related to pace of play. 

[GGGG]

I don't think so tower.  Pace and defensive efficiency I don't believe are generally related to one another.  For instance, Duke plays at a high pace, but they are very efficient defensively.

[tower912]

As it relates to THIS team, pace of play and defensive efficiency have been shown to be linked.  

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