The Beauty of The College Basketball Defense
Elton Brand used to destroy defenses at DukeThere is absolutely no doubt that Duke is more talented than Southern Illinois. But they haven’t been effective at all in this first half because of the Salukis trapping half court defense.
SIU’s coach Chris Lowery has built a program and a reputation around this D. Though his programs hasn’t produced a bona fide NBA star - the Saluki fans in MSG tonight are wearing tee’s with “Tatum” on the back for Jamaal Tatum, their dreadlocked point guard who led them into the Dance in 2006, but then went undrafted - they’ve been able to draw some attention to the program because of this system. Anytime a Blue Devil puts the ball on the floor, they lead him into a double-team, and rotate magnificently so that Duke is forced to throw high lobs to move the ball at all.
There are some self-proclaimed experts who assert that this type of trapping defense wouldn’t work in the NBA because NBA players simply wouldn’t care enough to execute it. However, that’s not the real reason. The truth is that it wouldn’t work. For Duke to break this swarming D, all they need to do is move the ball quicker than the defense rotates.
For the first time this game - when Duke extended their lead to 23-17 - we saw a glimpse of that. Greg Paulus zipped a pass to Jon Scheyer, who gave it right back to Paulus. Instead of pulling up for a three, he recognized that the defense was too slow in its rotation to cover Lance Thomas inside. Paulus found the big man who rose for a two-handed dunk.
Do you think that these complicated defensive schemes have a place in the NBA, or just in college?
November 20th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
JCARR says:
College unfortunately thats the only place where the concept of “TEAM” is enforced. College doesnt rely on stars, it relies on great teams. Therefore as team they can play complex defensive schemes.
Yo DIME,
How will Seton Hall (my school) do this year?
I know our basketball program has rapidly began to decline. Any names worth mentioning? how many wins? expectations?
November 20th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
sans says:
The Blazers broke out a fullcourt trapping D against the Bulls, a big reason how the core was 63-37 at the half. I was wondering if the Blazers could pull that off all season–they have a lot of young talent to make time for, moving uptempo on D will necessitate more breathers, and really PDX is a very deep squad (especially when Webster gets back). Plus, Oden and Pryzbilla are legit anchors on D that could challenge in the event of a touchdown pass breaking the press.
Detroit, San Antonio, the old grind it out Knicks all relied on their help defense to succeed.
I think it could happen with the right group of young players, but not for most teams in the NBA.
November 20th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
the rocket cat says:
I think you could build an effective team around this sort of defense, but you’d need to build your team specifically for this purpose. Because you’re going to be switching so much, you need a back-court who’s bigger than average and a front-court who’s quicker than average, so that it’s not as easy to exploit mismatches. You also need quick bigs so they can put the trap on quickly and tall guards so that you can’t just throw over them out of the trap.
You’d also probably want to not spend all your money on one or two stars, but focus on having a really solid bench, because you’d want to give your players lots of rest.
There would be a lot of risk, but also a lot of opportunity. Against a team like the Raptors with dominant bigs, but small, not incredibly quick guards, if you could trap the guards and prevent them from getting the ball into the post, you would kill them. If they were able to get the ball down low, they’d kill you. You might have trouble with a very quick team, but if you could get them into a running game, your depth would hopefully allow you to outhustle them.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
stormbrew says:
Its a spectator sport, and people appreciate a brilliant aggressive defense that hustles and creates transition points as much as any other part of the game. I think the NBA’s numbers would increase if people thought they were going to see people get on the floor and go number to number on defense…I personally love to watch SIU play for that very reason…