- Did you realize we are 6th (out of 14) in the league in defensive rebounding and 3rd in the league in blocks?
The significance: Those represent opportunities for scoring in transition and have led to lots of our huge three pointers in recent play. Those are "stops", defensively. We are far better on the defensive glass statistically than we are on the offensive glass. But I am learning that is strictly due to philosophy. We value setting up our defense FAR more than going for offensive boards. And I am beginning to buy in to this philosophy, especially with our three point shooting prowess in transition. What we have done in transition off of stops has KILLED UT and Bama in the second halves of those games. Many of those threes came against defense that was in transition. Had we crashed the boards more, perhaps (likely) our defense would have failed to produce those huge opportunities, because we would not have gotten stops. Meanwhile, opponents are crashing the glass more, often to their own demise, since we are becoming deadly from three in transition. I hope other teams continue to crash the glass next year. We will demolish them if they aren't REALLY good at grabbing tons of boards against our good surprisingly defensive rebounding team. I suspect they will have to be more thoughtful though, just like they will hesitate to press us. If they aren't careful, our transition O will be off the charts.
- Guess who our best percentage three point shooters are? Can you believe it's Jeff Roberson and Wade Baldwin at .429??
While that doesn't mean they are our best three point shooters, it DOES mean we are very hard to guard from three, where we lead the SEC in 3 pt % at over 38% (and climbing.) They are (as Baldwin said yesterday) "X factors" between MFD, RL, and Luke. When any of those excellent shooters start slowly or are being game planned against, Baldwin and Roberson can each splash open threes at a high clip. Baldwin's are more impressive, of course, since he's always covered very closely and shooting off the dribble at times. Still, our elite three shooters are all right at 40%, despite heavy attention by the best defenders. And when they are hounded, they are basically opening up open threes for our other guys. What the heck will teams do next season when we add 4 more good to elite level shooters? Answer: struggle.
The significance: Those represent opportunities for scoring in transition and have led to lots of our huge three pointers in recent play. Those are "stops", defensively. We are far better on the defensive glass statistically than we are on the offensive glass. But I am learning that is strictly due to philosophy. We value setting up our defense FAR more than going for offensive boards. And I am beginning to buy in to this philosophy, especially with our three point shooting prowess in transition. What we have done in transition off of stops has KILLED UT and Bama in the second halves of those games. Many of those threes came against defense that was in transition. Had we crashed the boards more, perhaps (likely) our defense would have failed to produce those huge opportunities, because we would not have gotten stops. Meanwhile, opponents are crashing the glass more, often to their own demise, since we are becoming deadly from three in transition. I hope other teams continue to crash the glass next year. We will demolish them if they aren't REALLY good at grabbing tons of boards against our good surprisingly defensive rebounding team. I suspect they will have to be more thoughtful though, just like they will hesitate to press us. If they aren't careful, our transition O will be off the charts.
- Guess who our best percentage three point shooters are? Can you believe it's Jeff Roberson and Wade Baldwin at .429??
While that doesn't mean they are our best three point shooters, it DOES mean we are very hard to guard from three, where we lead the SEC in 3 pt % at over 38% (and climbing.) They are (as Baldwin said yesterday) "X factors" between MFD, RL, and Luke. When any of those excellent shooters start slowly or are being game planned against, Baldwin and Roberson can each splash open threes at a high clip. Baldwin's are more impressive, of course, since he's always covered very closely and shooting off the dribble at times. Still, our elite three shooters are all right at 40%, despite heavy attention by the best defenders. And when they are hounded, they are basically opening up open threes for our other guys. What the heck will teams do next season when we add 4 more good to elite level shooters? Answer: struggle.
