section221jay wrote:I'm not sure the narrative that agressive/physical defense is CU's kryptonite is necessarily accurate.
Just the Tennessee game for example (I think they were a top 5 defnece?) the jays exceeded Tennessee's average shot% allowed by more than 10%, made 47% from 3 (admittedly they didn't get as many up as maybe they would have liked) and exceeded the vols' ppg by 10 or so. That game was lost because of a 5 minute lapse. Hell, they only turned it over 9 times.
The jays lost because of the lapse and getting beat pretty well on their defensive glass. They jays were toward the botton of the country in forcing turnovers and, without looking at each game, I'm guessing defensive rebounds were an issue in most losses. I'd focus on those areas more than anything else going forward. My 2 cents anyway
We had 3 losses this year where we were really out played physically. Colorado St, UConn and Tennessee. You could make the argument that the officiating crews in 2 of those 3 (Colorado St and Tennessee) let the teams play too much. There were times in those games where our guys would just kind of stop playing and look at the refs like “is this real?” Especially during Tennessee’s 18-0 run. 15 for Tennessee played great suffocating defense for what’s allowed in college but if that’s an nba game he’s fouling out in the first half.
You’re right on the defense glass as well. Your starting 4 man can’t play 20 minutes and only get 1 rebound. With Baylor face guarding Knecht, we needed somebody else to pick up the slack on the glass. Green did that for the most part during his minutes.
We are stlll vulnerable in the dare the refs to call it games because some refs are going to just call fouls evenly instead of correctly. UConn invites that type of game because they’ll hold you to 50 or less points in it.
