Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
Last year’s team was better defensively than this one statistically. Defense was bad by Self’s standards this year.
Right. On the aggregate but they kicked up the defense starting in the conference tournament. Compare the D in the TCU games to the conference tournament.
I don’t know where it sits historically but they’re playing way better than most of the year. [Reply]
One factor I haven't seen talked about much is how aggressive they are in the paint. Once they drew a few key fouls Miami basically had no answer after that. If they can keep up that aggressiveness and get teams in foul trouble KU is going to be very tough to stop. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
Right. On the aggregate but they kicked up the defense starting in the conference tournament. Compare the D in the TCU games to the conference tournament.
I don’t know where it sits historically but they’re playing way better than most of the year.
Yeah, regular season defense doesn't really matter given how they've turned it on the past few weeks. And not to say this team shuts down last year's USC team if they had played last weekend, but I serious doubt it would have been any worse. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ReynardMuldrake:
One factor I haven't seen talked about much is how aggressive they are in the paint. Once they drew a few key fouls Miami basically had no answer after that. If they can keep up that aggressiveness and get teams in foul trouble KU is going to be very tough to stop.
Especially in a game where Villanova is going to have give guys who typically get scrub minutes, sub minutes. If we can get at least one guy with 2 fouls early in the first half we're cooking. [Reply]
On paper, your defense should get worse when you trade Marcus Garrett for Remy Martin. No real surprise there.
That said, this team appears to have locked in on defense which is helping to create a lot of easy baskets. Playing with 3 fairly athletic (very athletic in Ochai’s case) long wings, should at least allow us to make other teams a bit uncomfortable. Harris is absolutely a pesky defender, like a poor man’s Russell Robinson. Even Remy seems to be somewhat opportunistic on defense lately.
Very curious how well we’ll defend Nova.
I assume it will be:
Harris on Gillespie
Agbaji on Daniels
Braun on Slater
Wilson on Samuels
McCormack on Dixon
Dixon shoots 50% from 3, but only has 33 attempts on the year. I assume he only shoots if he’s wide open. With Dave guarding him, he’ll have opportunities. Curious how many he’ll take. [Reply]
Originally Posted by smithandrew051:
On paper, your defense should get worse when you trade Marcus Garrett for Remy Martin. No real surprise there.
That said, this team appears to have locked in on defense which is helping to create a lot of easy baskets. Playing with 3 fairly athletic (very athletic in Ochai’s case) long wings, should at least allow us to make other teams a bit uncomfortable. Harris is absolutely a pesky defender, like a poor man’s Russell Robinson. Even Remy seems to be somewhat opportunistic on defense lately.
Very curious how well we’ll defend Nova.
I assume it will be:
Harris on Gillespie
Agbaji on Daniels
Braun on Slater
Wilson on Samuels
McCormack on Dixon
Dixon shoots 50% from 3, but only has 33 attempts on the year. I assume he only shoots if he’s wide open. With Dave guarding him, he’ll have opportunities. Curious how many he’ll take.
I don't think their defense is worse overall. Torvik has it rated top 5 over the last several weeks. They don't have an individual defender like Garrett but the team defense has been solid. Their effort in the first half vs Providence and 2nd half vs Miami was a beautiful thing to behold. [Reply]