Zone or Man vs Kentucky?

[Sam]

Maybe even a little match up zone, seen in a few cameo appearances these past two games?

Do we have the depth to stay with Kentucky's atheltes on the perimeter?
Force them into threes and try to negate the "dreaded dribble drive of Coach Cal's"?

Thoughts, questions, comments?

 

[Seymore Cox]

Zone. The main thing they need to do is take care of the ball and get back on defense.

 

[psk2080]

Definitely zone...man to man their guards would probably eat us alive...make them take as many from the perimeter as possible and hope they aren't hot...

 

[sooner333]

I think if we can do the match-up zone with discipline, it will confuse a young team like UK.

 

[Seymore Cox]

I think if we can do the match-up zone with discipline, it will confuse a young team like UK.

they have to protect the lane. That falls on Fitz, and Thompson. Also, If you're a guard, you're going to have to come off of your man on th wing and rotate over to fill the lane if the lane is unprotected.

 

[psk2080]

I don't know if we are experienced and disciplined enough to do a match up zone properly...maybe we could...right now, our team still struggles with help defense...

Although it probably wouldn't work, it might be interesting at some point to play Thompson up top both on offense and defense...with Pledger, Clark, Davis, Washington and Neal on the perimeter, we would have some nice length...with Honore and Fitzgerald in the middle...it might help overcome our lack of size in the middle by having alot of length on the perimeter playing zone and Thompson denying at the point...but Thompson would have to be able to keep up with a quick point guard...maybe Clark or Davis would be better on the defensive end at the top of the zone...

 

[colston15]

I'd play every defense we know how to play. 2-3 zone, 1-3-1 zone, man, etc. Anything that might confuse or slow down a young Kentucky squad. We need the score in the 60's if we want to be competitive.

 

[Seymore Cox]

I don't know if we are experienced and disciplined enough to do a match up zone properly...maybe we could...right now, our team still struggles with help defense...

Although it probably wouldn't work, it might be interesting at some point to play Thompson up top both on offense and defense...with Pledger, Clark, Davis, Washington and Neal on the perimeter, we would have some nice length...with Honore and Fitzgerald in the middle...it might help overcome our lack of size in the middle by having alot of length on the perimeter playing zone and Thompson denying at the point...but Thompson would have to be able to keep up with a quick point guard...maybe Clark or Davis would be better on the defensive end at the top of the zone...

Thompson, would be very good at the top of a 2-3 or 3-2 zone, but he doesn't handle the basketball good enough on the perimeter to play a wing. Not a bad idea in my opinion, just depends on the team. Probably something they should have experimented with in the games leading up to UK. San Antonio use to do the same thing with Duncan when he was younger and it gave people like Steve Nash, Stockton, and J Kidd fits.

The other problem is once you have Thompson on the point, who's going to play the post with Fitz? Neal is not a good enough post defender right now, so that leaves you with Honore and Washington. I don't know if they're ready to defend the post at a high level. Wasington struggle miserably against Fitz in practice at the post, so now when you put him up against Jones, Morris's, Thompson, Singletary, Hamilton, etc, all guys who have quickness or size advantages over Fitz, how's he going to do? Capel has experimented with this in the past with T Griffin and Patillo though? Griffin didn't do so well. Patillo did OK.

 

[psk2080]

Since we lack size and depth at the post, we may be in trouble even with Thompson inside...my thought was in order to prevent from getting pounded inside, we should deny the interior passes and I thought having someone with some length up top, whether it's Thompson or someone else, might be a good option...but it would need to be someone quick enough to handle a point guard...maybe Cam Clark would be a good option here...quick enough to possibly handle a pg, but long enough to deny the entry pass from up top...once the ball goes to the wing maybe trap with Clark...we may just not have the horses for this, but we have to cover for our lack of interior size and depth, and we have a bunch of guys 6-6 to 6-8...I can think of Temple and Syracuse with teams like that who had success, but those guys were very athletic...

 

[OUsky]

Man up!

 

[BigTime]

I hope we pack it in and play zone. Stop the dribble drive part of the offense and make them beat us from deep (and hope they are cold).