Loved Auburn's Defensive Strategy

[cowboysooner]

Rewatched the Auburn game and their defensive strategy is really effective. Most coaches follow the strategy that you want to avoid fouling shooters. Auburn does the exact opposite. Watch the game again if you need to, they made some kind of contact with our shooters on virtually every shot taken. If not during the shot, immediately after the shot left their hands. They even did this on 3 point shot attempts. They got called a bunch of times for doing this, but got away with it most of the time.

Got to know your league and how it is officiated. As we are undertalented, particularly in the frontcourt, I think this might work for us. Moser plays enough guys, I think we need to become substantially more physical with dribblers and shooters, and even with the wrong officials, we can absorb a lot of fouls. I think this approach may help keeping good shooters from getting streaky/hot.

It is sort of like in football, you can just grab and hold receivers and they hardly ever call pass interference. It seemed to me everyone in the league but us did it. We need to do it, as it might violate the rules, but it is effective.

Just a thought.

 

[steverocks35]

So you think “foul a lot and hope it doesn’t get called” is a good strategy? Maybe for a deep team like Auburn. We are paper thin though and don’t have that luxury.

 

[WichitaSooner]

I may have posted about this in the game thread, but I completely agree with the people who feel like we needed to shoot more threes than we did. Tyler Neal posted that on twitter during the game, and he is right. Auburn has a huge interior advantage, yet we kept driving and getting our shots thrown back at us. We had no chance at winning, but our best bet to keep it close and put any game pressure on them was to fire threes and hope we were hitting.

 

[Boom Soon]

I like the extra physicality if OU has JJ and JN. But, I just think OU is too thin at guard to feel good about fouling a lot.

 

[sooner333]

I know KenPom has a correlation between a high foul rate and good defense. So I think there's something to it. Lon's teams avoided fouls as a rule and weren't known as particularly strong defensive teams.

 

[SoonerBounce13]

Rewatched the Auburn game

 

[cmdsooner]

I may have posted about this in the game thread, but I completely agree with the people who feel like we needed to shoot more threes than we did. Tyler Neal posted that on twitter during the game, and he is right. Auburn has a huge interior advantage, yet we kept driving and getting our shots thrown back at us. We had no chance at winning, but our best bet to keep it close and put any game pressure on them was to fire threes and hope we were hitting.

We always want to shoot a good number of 3s but you have to create them. Just launching guarded 3s isn’t going to help anything unless you’re elite on the glass. You’re trying to get 3 looks off the drive or movement. Auburn does a great job of not overhelping so you don’t end up with those looks a lot. And if the officials are going to allow them to play physical on every shot it’s just not an easy task. To me it had to be a game where we had to force turnovers and get transition points, and then have Fears & Moore make great plays off the bounce and play through contact because they weren’t calling close ones and also aren’t leaving shooters often. You cannot play this game and be afraid of having your shot blocked nonstop. And then you just have to hit the open looks from the outside that you do get. We had some that just didn’t go. I know it’s not analytically pleasing but I’d like to see Fears get back to the midrange some (elite defensive teams are usually elite at guarding the 3 point line and elite at guarding the rim; most guys just don’t have the midrange game to combat that anymore) he had success in the early part of the season there and overdriving when it’s not there has been an issue in conference play.

 

[WichitaSooner]

We always want to shoot a good number of 3s but you have to create them. Just launching guarded 3s isn’t going to help anything unless you’re elite on the glass. You’re trying to get 3 looks off the drive or movement. Auburn does a great job of not overhelping so you don’t end up with those looks a lot. And if the officials are going to allow them to play physical on every shot it’s just not an easy task. To me it had to be a game where we had to force turnovers and get transition points, and then have Fears & Moore make great plays off the bounce and play through contact because they weren’t calling close ones and also aren’t leaving shooters often. You cannot play this game and be afraid of having your shot blocked nonstop. And then you just have to hit the open looks from the outside that you do get. We had some that just didn’t go. I know it’s not analytically pleasing but I’d like to see Fears get back to the midrange some (elite defensive teams are usually elite at guarding the 3 point line and elite at guarding the rim; most guys just don’t have the midrange game to combat that anymore) he had success in the early part of the season there and overdriving when it’s not there has been an issue in conference play.

Moser could help things by getting his guys more looks. Our starters only attempted 7 threes (and hit 4). That's criminal. I recognize Goodine's limitations (trust me, I do!), but he leads the league in three-point percentage in conference games and only attempted one. Part of that is that Moser continues to be one of the most conservative coaches in the country playing guys with two fouls in the first half. To me, that is just a perfect example of his overall approach to coaching. Conservative, overly rigid, unwilling to adjust and/or unable to feel the flow of a game.

I get your points, but as a counter: when there are big upsets in the first round of March Madness, the formula usually is that a team that is completely outclassed athletically catches fire and drains a bunch of threes against a far more athletic team. If low and mid major teams can make that happen, I would hope we could figure out a better approach against Auburn. I agree that you can't live in fear of getting shots blocked, but you can't be reckless. Moore doesn't do a good job at getting his shot off over guys with size who can match him athletically. We need to either get better using our bodies to prevent some of the blocks, or, like you say, don't over penetrate.

 

[opsooner]

Auburn was simply athletically superior. They fouled us some because they locked us down almost every possession, especially in the second half.

As far as our offense it is much better In transition than in half court against good defenses. That is not necessarily a good thing but it is the case. Almost every offensive run we’ve made in conference has been primarily through transition offense and that includes getting good looks from 3. We have run a few good plays to get Goodine, for example, open in the half court. But we always seem to go back to the dribble and shoot/kick offense and we don’t have the consistent interior play for it nor does it give us enough open 2s or 3s.

I’d like to see us consistently go more like we did against Vandy in the second half where we took chances on D and ran a lot of transition offense even after made baskets and whistles. It is going to kill us when we go cold but when you have no inside post-up presence on either end you have to try to find a way to get an advantage. If we are going to run half court offense I’d like to see an initial play on every possession to try to get a good 3 look like we have done for Goodine at times. We probably do that more than I realize but not always and when it fails we seem lost.

 

[cowboysooner]

I agree with Wichita that we should have shot more 3s. While I agree with the idea that you have to have open 3s to shoot more, I believe we passed up good looks from the 3, time and again, in order to drive to the basketball. My pet peeve with Porter, and it was also my beef with Lon, was both coaches were from an era where you wanted to push the ball to the rim off the dribble and tried to draw fouls. In the modern era of mma basketball, they allow all sorts of contact on the dribbler and don't call the contact at the rim most of the time. All you are doing is getting your kids to pass up an open 3 so they can shoot a guarded, off balance 2. In my view, that is stupid.

Love Jalen Moore as a player, but he, fears and miles are by far the worst offenders of this. I say quit passing up 3s to have guys hack you on the arm and lose the ball on the dribble drive and/or then get hammered at the rim. Similarly, defensively, quit coming and helping double someone in the paint that is, at best, going to be shooting a 2 point shot with a hand in their fact, and a guy between them and the goal. By doing so, you invariably leave someone open from the 3 point line on the kickout.

During the Auburn game, we were doing something similar but a little different. Our guys guarding players on the opposite side of the court where the ball was, were sagging to help inside and Auburn got some open 3s with simple skip passes. I just don't understand worrying about 2 point shots, much less assisting the defense of players inside the 3 point line. If I guy wants to dribble drive, good. Just grab, arm bar, hand check and body dribblers and then get physical with them on their shots. So what if you foul them, so be it. I say stay out and "under" shooters behind the line and hope a team spends the entire game with all of their shots from inside the arc or free throw line.

Hey, I'm no coach and to each his own, but that is how I see it. I would love to see the stat on fouls vs. defense mentioned above. Perfectly willing to learn that my obsession with defending behind the 3 point line and being physical inside the arc, albeit committing more fouls in some games, is not statistically consistent with good defense.

 

[steverocks35]

I agree with Wichita that we should have shot more 3s. While I agree with the idea that you have to have open 3s to shoot more, I believe we passed up good looks from the 3, time and again, in order to drive to the basketball. My pet peeve with Porter, and it was also my beef with Lon, was both coaches were from an era where you wanted to push the ball to the rim off the dribble and tried to draw fouls. In the modern era of mma basketball, they allow all sorts of contact on the dribbler and don't call the contact at the rim most of the time. All you are doing is getting your kids to pass up an open 3 so they can shoot a guarded, off balance 2. In my view, that is stupid.

Love Jalen Moore as a player, but he, fears and miles are by far the worst offenders of this. I say quit passing up 3s to have guys hack you on the arm and lose the ball on the dribble drive and/or then get hammered at the rim. Similarly, defensively, quit coming and helping double someone in the paint that is, at best, going to be shooting a 2 point shot with a hand in their fact, and a guy between them and the goal. By doing so, you invariably leave someone open from the 3 point line on the kickout.

During the Auburn game, we were doing something similar but a little different. Our guys guarding players on the opposite side of the court where the ball was, were sagging to help inside and Auburn got some open 3s with simple skip passes. I just don't understand worrying about 2 point shots, much less assisting the defense of players inside the 3 point line. If I guy wants to dribble drive, good. Just grab, arm bar, hand check and body dribblers and then get physical with them on their shots. So what if you foul them, so be it. I say stay out and "under" shooters behind the line and hope a team spends the entire game with all of their shots from inside the arc or free throw line.

Hey, I'm no coach and to each his own, but that is how I see it. I would love to see the stat on fouls vs. defense mentioned above. Perfectly willing to learn that my obsession with defending behind the 3 point line and being physical inside the arc, albeit committing more fouls in some games, is not statistically consistent with good defense.

We have to worry about fouling them because we’re not a deep team, at all. We barely have one adequate post player. Our best guard/forward subs probably wouldn’t see the court for most SEC teams.

Also, you don’t want the other team to get in the bonus early and start a revolving door at the foul line.

 

[cowboysooner]

Fair points Steve. I would love to see the stat mentioned above relating fouls committed versus defensive efficiency. I guess I can see both sides of it though, and like you say, it might work for a deeper team than ours but not for us.

Frustrating for me to see that Auburn has a bunch of monsters in the paint and were killed mostly from the perimeter. That, and our offense sucked. I took another look at the game mostly to see how we played so poorly on offense. That is what got me started on this thread. Man, they were crazy physical on our shooters. Peck, the announcer, said a couple times Auburn was doing something that no coach wants, i.e. foul shooters. After a while, it became easily apparent that they were doing it as a planned deal. That is obviously how Pearl wants them to play. I think it is smart.

 

[Boom Soon]

Fair points Steve. I would love to see the stat mentioned above relating fouls committed versus defensive efficiency. I guess I can see both sides of it though, and like you say, it might work for a deeper team than ours but not for us.

Frustrating for me to see that Auburn has a bunch of monsters in the paint and were killed mostly from the perimeter. That, and our offense sucked. I took another look at the game mostly to see how we played so poorly on offense. That is what got me started on this thread. Man, they were crazy physical on our shooters. Peck, the announcer, said a couple times Auburn was doing something that no coach wants, i.e. foul shooters. After a while, it became easily apparent that they were doing it as a planned deal. That is obviously how Pearl wants them to play. I think it is smart.

If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying. If you can get away with fouling and making it incredibly tough on shooters, do it.

 

[steverocks35]

Fair points Steve. I would love to see the stat mentioned above relating fouls committed versus defensive efficiency. I guess I can see both sides of it though, and like you say, it might work for a deeper team than ours but not for us.

Frustrating for me to see that Auburn has a bunch of monsters in the paint and were killed mostly from the perimeter. That, and our offense sucked. I took another look at the game mostly to see how we played so poorly on offense. That is what got me started on this thread. Man, they were crazy physical on our shooters. Peck, the announcer, said a couple times Auburn was doing something that no coach wants, i.e. foul shooters. After a while, it became easily apparent that they were doing it as a planned deal. That is obviously how Pearl wants them to play. I think it is smart.

There’s zero chance they were coached to intentionally foul jump shooters