I think part of what we have been seeing lately with our offensive woes is that teams are figuring out how to play us on defense and we are really struggling to adjust.
At any given time, we have four guys on the court that have a really hard time putting the ball on the floor and driving around their man to get to the basket. Linsdey, for as great as he has been this year, is not a very solid ball handler. He tends to dribble way too high and either fumbles it or gets it stolen when he tries to make too complicated a move. Law is a little better, but he lacks the change of direction while dribbling. Lumpkin, Taphorn, Skelley and the two bigs are obviously lacking here. That leaves us Mac and Brown, the two shortest guys on the team.
What we have done well until recently is move the ball by passing and shooting the open jump shots (including three pointers). However, all of that relied on having space. Other teams have now figured out that NU won't beat you with the dribble, so what do you do? You get up in their grill, both when they have the ball and when they don't. You give our guys no room to shoot... no room to cut and no room to receive a pass. They have nothing to lose by going all out to overplay passing lanes and ball handlers. To deal with Mac, you pressure the heck out of him to make his job harder and leave your center around the free throw line waiting for him on the drive. The fact that Pardon can't hit a shot outside of 5 feet makes this work beautifully. It also helps the defense that we send Pardon out on so many high picks. If I'm the other team and Dererk Pardon wants to go out beyond 15 feet for any reason, I let him.
Now, not every team can do this as well, but Illinois is one example where they have four really long, athletic players and then one decent big. That is a horrible matchup for us. I don't know what the adjustment is exactly, but I think the Pardon high screen should go away. Instead, run that with Taphorn or even Law as they can bounce off of it and hit the open three pointer. Keep Pardon (and his defender) down on the block. Having Lindsey out made this so much worse, but with him back, I would run some of the backdoors or double screens to make the defense have to switch and communicate. That is much harder. I'm sure the coaches see what is happening, but just thought I'd offer my thoughts.
At any given time, we have four guys on the court that have a really hard time putting the ball on the floor and driving around their man to get to the basket. Linsdey, for as great as he has been this year, is not a very solid ball handler. He tends to dribble way too high and either fumbles it or gets it stolen when he tries to make too complicated a move. Law is a little better, but he lacks the change of direction while dribbling. Lumpkin, Taphorn, Skelley and the two bigs are obviously lacking here. That leaves us Mac and Brown, the two shortest guys on the team.
What we have done well until recently is move the ball by passing and shooting the open jump shots (including three pointers). However, all of that relied on having space. Other teams have now figured out that NU won't beat you with the dribble, so what do you do? You get up in their grill, both when they have the ball and when they don't. You give our guys no room to shoot... no room to cut and no room to receive a pass. They have nothing to lose by going all out to overplay passing lanes and ball handlers. To deal with Mac, you pressure the heck out of him to make his job harder and leave your center around the free throw line waiting for him on the drive. The fact that Pardon can't hit a shot outside of 5 feet makes this work beautifully. It also helps the defense that we send Pardon out on so many high picks. If I'm the other team and Dererk Pardon wants to go out beyond 15 feet for any reason, I let him.
Now, not every team can do this as well, but Illinois is one example where they have four really long, athletic players and then one decent big. That is a horrible matchup for us. I don't know what the adjustment is exactly, but I think the Pardon high screen should go away. Instead, run that with Taphorn or even Law as they can bounce off of it and hit the open three pointer. Keep Pardon (and his defender) down on the block. Having Lindsey out made this so much worse, but with him back, I would run some of the backdoors or double screens to make the defense have to switch and communicate. That is much harder. I'm sure the coaches see what is happening, but just thought I'd offer my thoughts.
