Spaceman Spiff wrote:
Unforced turnovers have been a demon all year. Steals are not a huge pack line priority, but the to's, especially the self inflicted wounds, have been bad all year.
You are right on about pack line and steals. I remember there being some concern for how TJ overplayed passing lanes and got steals at Duquesne, and whether it would be a fit. And early on, if I remember correctly, he got admonished for getting out of position...until the steals just kept happening, and CSM backed off the rigid pack line mentality. Then Stanley did some of the same last year. So we went from a team that never got breakout steals to a team that fed off them, especially at seemingly the right moment, the last couple of years. So I think it appears stark that we aren't getting those. But in order for the pack line to be effective you have to...ummm, pack the line. Until they show an ability to consistently defend out of the set we play, I don't think there will be a lot of tolerance for jumping passing lanes.
The steal game can be fool's gold. Wojo for Duke used to do that all the time, but people who paid attention would notice how often he was out of position and Duke was left playing 4 on 5 because he went for the home run. I use him as an example because I hated him so much, and Duke hate is generally a great meeting point for disparate minds, but there are plenty of others. The key is being able to guess right, be right a large majority of the time, and to be able to recover in time to not hurt the team if you miss. Having interchangeable players 1 through 3 helps there...if you overplay, you scramble back to the furthest from the attack and either the 2 or 3 can pick you up rather than having to scramble back to your man and try to stop the drive, or having a mismatched slow 3 on a point/driving 2. A pressure D looks sexy, gets lots of steals, and also generally struggles to rebound and gets caught overplaying for back door cuts or, God forbid, a team with a midrange game makes you look silly.
We really had a luxury the last few years having the ability to rebound well, still close the 3 even when out of position due to length, and have the discipline to know when to jump passes along with the trust that the defense could handle the 5 on 4 for a couple of seconds if you missed. This year, if we were to jump lanes, I fear we would give up 60% shooting. We might get a couple of breaks, and certainly if down or needing momentum, those are a good time to guess on one. But over the long haul, we are better off playing the line and getting better there.
That accounts for some of the turnover margin. Great rebounding margins are worth turnovers...if you are consistently getting +8 to +10 on the boards for being at home, that is worth giving up a couple on the turnover margin...just sliding stats into a different place. I'll take 3 or 4 stopped 2nd chances over 1 turnover. The other part of that number is our propensity to give the ball away and that is the biggest issue and just has to stop.
. There's no reason to be doing chin-ups vs. holding on and looking beneath you.
)....that's what makes this loss extra devastating......I hope we meet them in the P12 Tourney though.
