More Than One Side of the Floor

[WolfganghisKhan]

The “very good offense” in the 3 games prior to DePaul is pretty deceiving. Georgetown came in as a literal cupcake and that roster would have lost to 250+ plus teams that night. Providence and Seton hall both had us down 20+ late in the second where MU made up a lot “efficiency” on the offensive end very late in the game.

Mentally, I think it’s hard to play D when you miss open threes and turn the ball over (Providence). Seton Hall was just ridiculous that game and a number of their shots were extremely difficult. I don’t think the D will get much better. Maybe slowing the game down with some zone and the 2 bigs together could create some stress for the opponents.

This!!! Actually watch our games and tell me our offense is fine, it’s not. Our defense is trash and our offense is bad. Stats can be deceiving. Markus makes so many shots that make our offense look better on paper than it actually is.

[Dr. Blackheart]

The defense was fine on Tuesday, FTs actually mattered unfortunately. DePaul went without a FG for 9 minutes of the second half.....the offense should have buried them there but couldn't get it's $hit together to do that and DePaul got bailed out by A) a lot of cheap calls and B) shooting well over their average FT%. The offense you can do something about, the fouls are 50/50, and the FTs are just really bad luck

I disagree as the defense allowed the paint penetration that caused the free throws to occur. DePaul’s free throw rate was 62.5%, the worst of the season by MU. Hard to make a field goal when the defense fouls so much.

To put this in perspective, DePaul’s PIP+FTM were 57, which translates into 83% of the Blue Demon points in the paint. Brutal, just brutal. So, do you chose to extend on the perimeter where there is exposure to the blow by (especially with Marquette’s defenders) or do you defend the paint from the baseline out?

Perimeter-in or baseline-out are two different schemes and Wojo likes to press the perimeter as it pushes the tempo. With the Hauser boys he protected the paint more which was an improvement but now he is pressing out again. The problem is MU’s defenders are not that quick so the defense breaks down and the recovery and secondary line of defense becomes vulnerable. That’s what opposing coaches want a defense to have do to break it down: Scramble recovering all night.

I will give you two examples with Bailey and Jimmy Butler. Bailey often gets beat off the dribble and relies on his wing span to try to recover because he has a quick recovery step. Yet, the secondary defense now is penetrated and has to react and starts to breakdown.

Conversely, Jimmy doesn’t have good footspeed, but he has tremendous lateral positioning that prevented dribble penetration (see Xavier game and Holloway). This protected the interior secondary defense to just preventing paint touches as Holloway never could break by Jimmy despite Tu’s superior footspeed.

Wojo’s defense is designed to limit the 17% of the points scored and it did a very good job of that when you look at DU’s eFG% which MU won. However, in doing that, it allowed the 83% in the paint, much with the clock stopped.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

I disagree as the defense allowed the paint penetration that caused the free throws to occur. DePaul’s free throw rate was 62.5%, the worst of the season by MU. Hard to make a field goal when the defense fouls so much.

To put this in perspective, DePaul’s PIP+FTM were 57, which translates into 83% of the Blue Demon points in the paint. Brutal, just brutal. So, do you chose to extend on the perimeter where there is exposure to the blow by (especially with Marquette’s defenders) or do you defend the paint from the baseline out?

Perimeter-in or baseline-out are two different schemes and Wojo likes to press the perimeter as it pushes the tempo. With the Hauser boys he protected the paint more which was an improvement but now he is pressing out again. The problem is MU’s defenders are not that quick so the defense breaks down and the recovery and secondary line of defense becomes vulnerable. That’s what opposing coaches want a defense to have do to break it down: Scramble recovering all night.

I will give you two examples with Bailey and Jimmy Butler. Bailey often gets beat off the dribble and relies on his wing span to try to recover because he has a quick recovery step. Yet, the secondary defense now is penetrated and has to react and starts to breakdown.

Conversely, Jimmy doesn’t have good footspeed, but he has tremendous lateral positioning that prevented dribble penetration (see Xavier game and Holloway). This protected the interior secondary defense to just preventing paint touches as Holloway never could break by Jimmy despite Tu’s superior footspeed.

Wojo’s defense is designed to limit the 17% of the points scored and it did a very good job of that when you look at DU’s eFG% which MU won. However, in doing that, it allowed the 83% in the paint, much with the clock stopped.

Its alot simpler than that.  Jimmy was a fin dog, brendan is soft as cotton.  Goes back to Al’s Cracked Sidewalks mentality.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Its alot simpler than that.  Jimmy was a fin dog, brendan is soft as cotton.  Goes back to Al’s Cracked Sidewalks mentality.

Yes, not a fair comparison. But, Bailey is a sophomore and in Jimmy’s sophomore season, folks on Scoop wanted his scholarship pulled too. Jimmy worked on his lateral positioning to overcome his footspeed weakness to make it a strength by positioning.

My main point being, Wojo schemes to defend in space, Buzz is to prevent paint touches. Both players have strengths and weaknesses, but the college schemes they play(ed) in, either exposed them more or utilized them better, depending on their coach’s  scheme. I mean, UW players aren’t the most athletic but there they are near the top almost every year because of scheme.

[cheebs09]

Yes, not a fair comparison. But, Bailey is a sophomore and in Jimmy’s sophomore season, folks on Scoop wanted his scholarship pulled too. Jimmy worked on his lateral positioning to overcome his footspeed weakness to make it a strength by positioning.

My main point being, Wojo schemes to defend in space, Buzz is to prevent paint touches. Both players have strengths and weaknesses, but the college schemes they play(ed) in, either exposed them more or utilized them better, depending on their coach’s  scheme. I mean, UW players aren’t the most athletic but there they are near the top almost every year because of scheme.

I think by this time in his first year, people realized Jimmy would be a pretty good player. It was the early non-conference schedule that quote came out. Granted, I don’t think anyone guessed he be as good as he is now.

[mu03eng]

I disagree as the defense allowed the paint penetration that caused the free throws to occur. DePaul’s free throw rate was 62.5%, the worst of the season by MU. Hard to make a field goal when the defense fouls so much.

To put this in perspective, DePaul’s PIP+FTM were 57, which translates into 83% of the Blue Demon points in the paint. Brutal, just brutal. So, do you chose to extend on the perimeter where there is exposure to the blow by (especially with Marquette’s defenders) or do you defend the paint from the baseline out?

Perimeter-in or baseline-out are two different schemes and Wojo likes to press the perimeter as it pushes the tempo. With the Hauser boys he protected the paint more which was an improvement but now he is pressing out again. The problem is MU’s defenders are not that quick so the defense breaks down and the recovery and secondary line of defense becomes vulnerable. That’s what opposing coaches want a defense to have do to break it down: Scramble recovering all night.

I will give you two examples with Bailey and Jimmy Butler. Bailey often gets beat off the dribble and relies on his wing span to try to recover because he has a quick recovery step. Yet, the secondary defense now is penetrated and has to react and starts to breakdown.

Conversely, Jimmy doesn’t have good footspeed, but he has tremendous lateral positioning that prevented dribble penetration (see Xavier game and Holloway). This protected the interior secondary defense to just preventing paint touches as Holloway never could break by Jimmy despite Tu’s superior footspeed.

Wojo’s defense is designed to limit the 17% of the points scored and it did a very good job of that when you look at DU’s eFG% which MU won. However, in doing that, it allowed the 83% in the paint, much with the clock stopped.

I 100% agree with you that we have the wrong defensive stratagem. I think Wojo is most afraid defensively of the things that MU does really well offensively. He guards the 3 and the perimeter too aggressively which opens of interior drives and skip passes and the secondary defenders collapse. He absolutely needs to build the defense from the rim out, especially with Theo John involved. Why he doesn't is a little baffling to me, but maybe he just has blinders to the flaw in his approach.

[Blackhat]

Wojo hasn’t shown the capacity to grow as a defensive coach, to become an all around good coach.  I was hoping he would by now.

Over the years, Buzz’s teams would have short little runs of bad defense but he was able to show the capacity to tighten it up and improve our d midstream.

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

I 100% agree with you that we have the wrong defensive stratagem. I think Wojo is most afraid defensively of the things that MU does really well offensively. He guards the 3 and the perimeter too aggressively which opens of interior drives and skip passes and the secondary defenders collapse. He absolutely needs to build the defense from the rim out, especially with Theo John involved. Why he doesn't is a little baffling to me, but maybe he just has blinders to the flaw in his approach.

U realize this post is completely contradictory?
The kicks n skip passes are because help side is sagged in to help against drives.  Which opens up the skip passes n open 3s

[mu03eng]

U realize this post is completely contradictory?
The kicks n skip passes are because help side is sagged in to help against drives.  Which opens up the skip passes n open 3s

Its absolutely not.

The help defender (typically Jayce or Theo) is pressuring on the perimeter instead of sagging, which forces the wing defender deeper into the lane to assist on the drive leaving a bigger gap to the corner than if we left our rim protectors closer to the lane.

Go back and watch the Seton Hall game, Cain and Bailey had 20 feet to close out on corner 3s instead of 10-15 feet because we were putting so much pressure on the perimeter.

[SaveOD238]

Wojo hasn’t shown the capacity to grow as a defensive coach, to become an all around good coach.  I was hoping he would by now.

Over the years, Buzz’s teams would have short little runs of bad defense but he was able to show the capacity to tighten it up and improve our d midstream.

Here are Marquette's AdjD ranks on Kenpom in the Wojo years: 69 and 88 in the empty cupboard years, 162 and 188 in the Rowsey years, 45 and 68 the last two.

Compare that to Buzz whose teams all ended between 45 and 62 in AdjD (with the exception of climbing to 14 in 2012).

So Wojo has brought the team defense up to roughly the Buzz average.  We've had some clunkers in the last few weeks, but I think we can expect that the typical Wojo team will be top 20 offense and top 70 defense moving forward (unless he tries starting two sub-6' guards again).

That's good but not great.  It will be enough to send us to the tournament most years.  But Wojo still needs to show that he can lead a team to a top 30 defense to take us to the next level.