Pokes Success based on Ford's Scouting and Kruger's rigidness

[Seymore Cox]

A lot of post and talk about the game last night. I don't know if this was already covered, but OSU and specifically Evans' success was based on OU's defensive philosophy of switching 4 positions on screens and cuts, except for center.

OU pride's there self on this philosophy as it is successful in keeping players from slashing to the basket and getting easy shots. It also helps contest the 3ball. However, the one chink in the armor is the position that doesn't switch, the center.

Evans continually used OSU's post player to set the screen. Since Lattin, Buford, and AK don't switch when playing center, a guy like Evans has a multitude of options to score. If the defender goes under the screen he can shoot the jumper. The screen was being set yesterday to where he would get about an 18ft look. If the defender would go over the screen, he got the lane. This happened a lot Yesterday! If the Big got caught on Evans, he would just attack him off the dribble. that put our bigs in a position to get beat off the dribble or foul while contesting the shot.

I feel Kruger dropped the ball in a few adjustments that he could have made.
First think I would have did was a hard hedge with Lattin or our five smothering Evans on the hedge. If Evans beats Lattin, Defender should come off of the worst shooter, which in my estimations would be Newberry. Everyone rotates over to contest Newberry and open man until we match back up.

the other senario is just a flat out trap of Evans. This is risky because if the center and pg trap Evans, then OSU's big has a free patch until someone rotates. I will take my chances with Olivier and Soloman 15 feet from the basket as opposed to Evans with a path.

Last Senario is a straight up Zone. OSU took a handful of jumpshots in the second half. Maybe 5 at best. If OU would have Zoned, I think They extend the lead and put OSU into a scramble position a lot earlier. My beef with Kruger is he didn't make any adjustments except one. Kruger picked up Evans full court and denied him the entry. This didn't matter much because once OSU got into the half court, they just gave the ball the Evans.

 

[SoonerTraveler]

Thanks for the analysis. It will be interesting to see what adjustments Coach Kruger makes to defend Evans on Feb 24 when the Pokes come to Norman.

 

[usedtobe1]

Interesting observation. Thanks for posting it Seymore. I appreciate your in-depth observations.

 

[Zimwillett]

Good post. Lon very clearly doesn't believe in zone defense (and I don't blame him), but I definitely agree that it could have been an effective wrinkle to throw at a young team that doesn't shoot it all that well. But I'm not sure even that would have been enough against Evans last night. He was just on fire.

 

[OUHoops]

Definitely some interesting analysis. Thanks for sharing.

 

[DenverSooner]

I like the zone idea but I think the problem is you have to practice it a lot and OU probably doesn't spend much time on it.

 

[Larry72]

The other option play a box and one and deny evans the ball.
We were not successful in denying him the ball.

Another option would be to fight over any screen on Evans or give him the outside shot.

WVU will be screening and penetrating on Sat.

 

[sdcloud9]

Agree totally.

I thought LK might go zone one or two possessions just to provide a different look or else trap Evans and see if Solomon could do anything with the ball. He did neither and Evans took full advantage.

The other thing is to provide better help from the other three defenders but that opens up the open 3-pointer in the corner.

Also, Lattin was totally playing behind Olivier even when he was scoring easily. They needed to adjust sooner and try to deny him the ball, imo.

Great analysis, and good strategy by Ford.