I had noticed it occasionally before, but I explicitly looked for it last night, particularly cause he was playing more minutes with Falzon out. I did see more of it (ie lazy possessions on D from him) last night, but it's far from the case every possession. I did notice at least 3 times where he allowed the offensive guy to get by him easily, at least part bc he wasn't in proper D position or didn't look like he was 100% ready. Also some of his fouls were due to lazy plays. But he also had a number of possessions where he played strong D and held up the other team's play.
In my opinion, the issues with Skelly come back to inconsistency and lack of discipline, as I've always said. He's just too sporadic, like his mind is all over the place. He'll make an athletic play on D or shot on O, then get pumped up and do something stupid on the other end. Or he'll make a nice pass or deflection to create points for a teammate, then just do something boneheaded to give away points. He's useful for small stretches to bring energy when we are lacking it, but we run into problems when we are trying to run him out there for the majority of the game. Would be nice if we had Falzon healthy, but alas.
Other assorted observations on individual / team defense last night-
- Gaines- created a few turnovers and was very active, but his overplaying got the zone out of position a fair few times too and led to easy baskets. that said, it sort of seemed like that was his mandate from CC tonight, and maybe why he was given more minutes relative vs e.g. Ash
- Pardon- probably our most consistent positional defender, but seemed at times like he was trying to cover too much to make up for bad rotations from the G's and F's... we clearly aren't fully comfortable with the zone yet
- The zone press was impressive (both used on one-off posessions in the half-court early, then full court later), it helped that OSU lacks ball handlers but that could be something to come back to. I was disappointed though that we weren't as diligent in setting up the press immediately after made baskets during the comeback, they were really struggling with it and we let them get the ball up the court too easily a few times vs. when we were able to fully set it up after TOs or whistles. Another example of the frustrating lack of cohesiveness of our team this year.
- Lindsey I actually thought had a pretty decent game on D. He was active with feet movement yday and didn't have many of his typical lazy possessions, despite not a great game on O. That last foul on him was a touch call for that point in the game.
- BMac we know is not a plus defender, it sort of is what it is at this point. I liked the move Collins did though of hiding him over on the wing in the zone while letting Gaines and Scottie take the guards up top.
- I think even Vic is getting tired of this season... he is usually our most consistent defender but I saw multiple occasions where he got out of position or looked slow / lazy in moving his feet.
No unifying theme here or way to fix our problems beyond that there is too much laziness / too little discipline / too little team cohesiveness, just reporting what I saw on the defensive side of the ball.
In my opinion, the issues with Skelly come back to inconsistency and lack of discipline, as I've always said. He's just too sporadic, like his mind is all over the place. He'll make an athletic play on D or shot on O, then get pumped up and do something stupid on the other end. Or he'll make a nice pass or deflection to create points for a teammate, then just do something boneheaded to give away points. He's useful for small stretches to bring energy when we are lacking it, but we run into problems when we are trying to run him out there for the majority of the game. Would be nice if we had Falzon healthy, but alas.
Other assorted observations on individual / team defense last night-
- Gaines- created a few turnovers and was very active, but his overplaying got the zone out of position a fair few times too and led to easy baskets. that said, it sort of seemed like that was his mandate from CC tonight, and maybe why he was given more minutes relative vs e.g. Ash
- Pardon- probably our most consistent positional defender, but seemed at times like he was trying to cover too much to make up for bad rotations from the G's and F's... we clearly aren't fully comfortable with the zone yet
- The zone press was impressive (both used on one-off posessions in the half-court early, then full court later), it helped that OSU lacks ball handlers but that could be something to come back to. I was disappointed though that we weren't as diligent in setting up the press immediately after made baskets during the comeback, they were really struggling with it and we let them get the ball up the court too easily a few times vs. when we were able to fully set it up after TOs or whistles. Another example of the frustrating lack of cohesiveness of our team this year.
- Lindsey I actually thought had a pretty decent game on D. He was active with feet movement yday and didn't have many of his typical lazy possessions, despite not a great game on O. That last foul on him was a touch call for that point in the game.
- BMac we know is not a plus defender, it sort of is what it is at this point. I liked the move Collins did though of hiding him over on the wing in the zone while letting Gaines and Scottie take the guards up top.
- I think even Vic is getting tired of this season... he is usually our most consistent defender but I saw multiple occasions where he got out of position or looked slow / lazy in moving his feet.
No unifying theme here or way to fix our problems beyond that there is too much laziness / too little discipline / too little team cohesiveness, just reporting what I saw on the defensive side of the ball.
