In what I intend to be a weekly/bi-weekly column, this piece aims to expand on trends for the basketball team relative to season expectations (in this case) or progression/regression as compared to prior weeks.

In short, you can use this analysis as sort of a stock report for the hoops squad in terms of individual + team performance, sets and lineups.

 

Blazing Hot

Tarris Reed, Destroyer of Worlds. The sophomore big was one of the few bright spots defensively last season, providing quality rim-protection and flashing the ability to switch on the perimeter in a limited role as a freshman. 

But I'm not sure anyone could anticipate the type of one-man wrecking crew we witnessed versus St. John's. Here's 18 seconds of torture chamber defense courtesy of Mr. Reed.

That is a 6'10/265 human being blitzing a ballscreen, navigating around an additional ballscreen before a full-on switch against a guard, beating said guard to the spot + forcing the errant pass, closing out under control before beating said guard to the spot yet again and finally flipping the hips and perfectly contesting a stepback to force a near airball. 

And the impact wasn't limited to switchability. The off-ball awareness + rim protection was also at a high level. 

First, Reed effectively "checks two" by showing at screen level + recovering to the roll-man in a nano-second. SJU then goes to their second read - which is a post-entry to Soriano. Tarris denies that option with 3/4 defense and uses his length to preclude the pass. Sim Wilcher then drives baseline (this is intentional by Burnett, you want to shade to help), and look at Reed completely discard Soriano and block Wilcher's shot. Multiple efforts, disruption and a turnover. Doesn't get much better than that. 

 

Dug McDaniel, Pressure Breaker. St. John's attempted to apply various iterations of a full-court press against the Wolverine floor general to no avail. 

Duggie McBuckets defeated it with ease repeatedly. Flying down the court leaving SJU defenders in the dust on the way to the rim. SJU may not be a world-beater, but I'm inclined to think Dug's straight-line speed in the open court is independent of competition level. Curious to see if conference foes attempt to pick him up full court. 

Dug's ability to defeat aggressive POA defense also extended to half-court scenarios. Here, SJU blows up the possession by icing Michigan's ballscreen action, but McDaniel's ability to make something happen off-script made that moot. He snakes through Wilcher/Soriano and finds Tray Jackson for an easy dunk after a timely cut. You can't teach speed.

[AFTER THE JUMP, we have movement shooters?]

Warm

Movement shooting. This has been a sticking point for a few years since I did a deep-dive on Caleb Houstan essentially being limited to a "go stand in the corner" role. Having guys that can bury triples off screens is a luxury at any level of basketball, but that skillset is at a particular premium for the college game with limited spacing and the lack of athletic shot-creators to collapse the opposing defense. It's early and the sample is extremely small, but early returns are promising. 

The Wolverines started the game with a brilliant Ram Exit set that saw Nimari Burnett knock down a movement triple. First, Nimari sets a Ram screen (an off-ball screen that frees up a big to then set a ballscreen for the ballhandler) for Tarris. Reed sets a ballscreen for Dug as Nkamhoua simultaneously sets an exit screen for Burnett that absolutely erased two SJU defenders. Dug makes the right read and delivers a precision pass. This is where scheme/processing/execution all meet.

Terrance Williams then joins the party on this BLOB Floppy-like action. We have the inbound pass to Olivier as Tschetter ducks-in as window dressing. Nkamhoua then dishes it to McDaniel up top with Burnett, Tschetter and Olivier all setting screens to free up TWill for the corner triple. Swish. 

We file this under the Warm designation for now, as the sample size is too small, but I'm hopeful this continues. In addition to the obvious shotmaking benefits, having a movement shooter(s) at your disposal functionally occupies help defenders and clears the paint for a two-man game. 

 

Dug McDaniel, floater game. He's been superb converting non-rim, close twos, such as the floater in the clip below. Synergy has Dug at 1.4ppp on runners (7/10) for the season. 

Its obviously huge if McDaniel can consistently add that to his repertoire as a smaller guard that isn't likely to be a great finisher at the rim. On the other hand, I don't necessarily know if that is the type of shot diet you want as a coach. We'll keep it under Warm for now and continue to monitor the effectiveness. 

 

Cold

Lack of counter-use against icing coverage. To ice a ballscreen means the defender checking the ballhandler positions himself in such a way as to preclude the ballhandler from using said ballscreen. This occured a bit too much for your author's liking. SJU completely blows up Michigan's Double Drag action here and the Wolverines were lucky to score on a Tschetter bucket were he likely gets away with a travel.

The easiest counter against an icing defense is to simply flip the screen as we see below. Tarris comes from the right side of the court, but flips the screen as he notices the SJU defender gets in icing position. That counter completely compromised the defense as Soriano is now forced to switch to Dug and TWill's defender provides nail help to deter a blow-by. Bad read by McDaniel here, as he should've kicked out to Williams (only 1 pass away) once his defender helps. Instead, Dug takes an ill-advised floater (hence my slight concern noted above) that is easily blocked. Good scheme, poor processing + execution. 

Michigan did utilize that strategy a few times, but not with enough volume. In addition to flipping screens, having your big simply slip screens (particularly when the opposing big is showing at screen level and/or blitzing) is another effective counter. It's something I'm going to monitor moving forward.