Watching the game a second time, it is really hard to figure out how they play the zone. Guys match-up and switch like crazy. One play in the first half Vic Law switched from a guy in the corner all the way across the court to defend a missed 3 on the other wing. Pardon rotates out to guard wings, BMac guards the post at times, just crazy. And because they have energy and are attacking on defense, it seems to generate energy on offense. Kudos to whoever coaches defense for the Cats.
Zone
- Thread starter NJCat
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Kudos to him indeed, whoever has been doing it the last month. Whoever did it the first 2 months of the year, F him, let's fire that guy.
There's no way it's possibly the same guy, right??
My take is that they are bad at zone and their confusion serves to confuse the other team.
I saw wide open Michigan players all over the floor but Michigan just played really bad. No one was praising the zone after Indiana ripped the Cats.
What game were you watching? Wide open shots were a rarity for Mich in the second half and they got shut off numerous times when they tried to drive the ball.
Beilein said as much in his post-game presser. When asked about their 3 point shooting, he said they couldn't get open looks.
I'm guessing Billy Donlon is the architect of the defense, as he was credited with improving Michigan's defense last year. I posted this early in the season, but last year's Michigan team was marginal on defense until, well, about halfway through the conference season. By the end of the year Michigan's defense was consistently excellent.
From my perspective in the stands I thought the Cats looked as confused on d as Michigan on offense. I think the fact they were running all over the floor created confusion.
As Collins said after the game they are playing the zone bc the players believe it. I think it helps the guards who are not strong defenders. But I don’t think it’s a great scheme right now but if it wins them their next 6 games - It will be the greatest d ever!
Bellein said in the post-game. that NU adapted to what UM was doing on offense and that UM was not able to adapt to that. He also said that UM had developed some bad offensive habits that contributed to their poor offensive performance. The match-up zone is a fluid character and may have elements of man-to-man as the offense , cuts and screens to create overloads.. And usually the open man is farthest from the ball....allowing the defense to recover on a cross court skip pass.....It is a chess match. UM got some nice baskets when they were able to get NU to react to ball fakes and then slip someone under as the ball came back inside in the middle.
This is kind of fun look at attacking the Syracuse matchup . are a ton of these on youtube.....Made me think that NU did a really good job...as it seems having a solid center is the key to beating the match up zone,,,which UM has..
This is kind of fun look at attacking the Syracuse matchup . are a ton of these on youtube.....Made me think that NU did a really good job...as it seems having a solid center is the key to beating the match up zone,,,which UM has..
Watching on tv, it just seemed that something finally clicked in the middle of the first half, and we finally figured out how to play against their offense and the overloads that they were running to get our guys out of position and confused. Our communication was significantly better the rest of the game, you could see guys yelling and pointing to get people to rotate, and Michigan couldn't do anything against it.
When was it we started the zone? It seemed we switched to the zone because MTM was not working this year and we were getting a lot of early fouls on key guys and switching to it has helped in both of those areas. Were we playing it against IND? Even if we were it would have been new to us and starting something new would likely lead to missed assignments while playing with it for a while would cut down on that
Did CC get exposed to the Amoeba ? Thought I hear he had worked with Boheim (sp) for one of the Olympic teams
We did leave some Michigan players open from NBA 3-pointer range, so we let them take some wide-open NBA-range threes. Given that some of the Michigan players can hit those shots on a given night, it's a gamble, but especially at home, you let them take those shots until they prove they can hit them. I think those players were left open by design, daring them to shoot them, and it worked.
Started with the first Minny game. Yes, the IU game was the second game they played it so still working the bugs out.
I would guess that the difference for an NCAA player between the NCAA three and NBA three is about 10%. So if a team hits an average of say 35% from NCAA three, they likely average closer to 25% if forced to shoot from NBA range. Funny, that is just about what MICH shot
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Yep. And we are 5-3 since then, with wins over Mich, Minny (2x), @Wisc, and PSU; losses to OSU, @Ind, @Mich.
It would be really great if NU plays the way Michigan did last year in the Big Ten Tournament.
Collins mentioned in his post-game presser that Michigan were also 5-6 after 11 B1G games last season.....and they went on a nice little run. We can dream!!
Simpson is a bad 3-point shooter, so yes, we did leave him open from NBA 3 point range on occasion. He kept shooting and missing those in the overtime game vs. Minnesota on Saturday.
I'll stand by my prior posts about how this zone is not good. Maryland was 7 for 10 to start from 3. What did I say about Michigan having players wide open all over the floor. Collins wants to play man to man but he can't hide Macintosh. He could last year bc Sanjay and Law are elite so one could cheat. Skelly and Falzon are not elite defenders. Lindsey's defense has regressed. Bottomline is the new kids better be quick enough to play man.
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Cats went something like 10-33 from 2 point land. Horrible. They actually shot better from 3 (37.5%) than 2 (30%). Hope Kopp and Turner can bring some mid-range shooting next year, because the 5 Collins teams have been lousy shooters. The best 2 point % was last season at 217th in the country. The other 4 were high 200's. Gotta Make Shots. It would also help to get to the rim occasionally.
