Monty made a slight strategy change during the Colorado game - for the better. He finally started calling timeouts whenever Colorado looked like they were ready to go on a run - before it was too late. This had been a pet peeve of mine ever since Monty came to town.

I'd like to see another change--go to the 122 zone that worked so well for us last year.

The problem, as Monty explained it, is that the freshmen (Matthews and Bird) haven't caught on to running that defensively. When neither is in, it's a possibility--with Ty at the top--but not if the frosh are playing.

They seem to be lost on D most of the time. Some improvement last week.

They also consciously tried to go inside-out more often. It wasn't always successful, but like a run up the middle in football, you have to do it to keep defenses honest. Also, Solo started going toward the basket more on his moves, which he was going away from for a while. No more fadeaways, Solo!

UrsaMajor;842291161 said:

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The problem, as Monty explained it, is that the freshmen (Matthews and Bird) haven't caught on to running that defensively. When neither is in, it's a possibility--with Ty at the top--but not if the frosh are playing.

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Good observation. Yeah, come to think of it we did do some 122 with Powers at one of the slots. We could do Kreklow Wallace Cobbs as the top 3.

Looperbear;842291484 said:

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Good observation. Yeah, come to think of it we did do some 122 with Powers at one of the slots. We could do Kreklow Wallace Cobbs as the top 3.

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Take advantage of Ty's crazy wingspan.

KoreAmBear;842291479 said:

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They also consciously tried to go inside-out more often. It wasn't always successful, but like a run up the middle in football, you have to do it to keep defenses honest. Also, Solo started going toward the basket more on his moves, which he was going away from for a while. No more fadeaways, Solo!

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Amen

UrsaMajor;842291161 said:

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The problem, as Monty explained it, is that the freshmen (Matthews and Bird) haven't caught on to running that defensively. When neither is in, it's a possibility--with Ty at the top--but not if the frosh are playing.

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Sad that after an entire year in the system, the frosh are having such trouble.

Good observation Civil. I generally prefer the Phil Jackson approach of letting a team work its way through an opponents run but this Cal team loses its confidence so utterly that you have to give them a pep talk before it gets out of hand. In the long run, I don't believe this is a great approach because real resilience comes from weathering storms and overcoming them. Strangely, we did this effectively earlier in the season.

Did Monty really say that we would be playing more zone save for the frosh not being well schooled in it? I find that surprising. Our starting five play the majority of the minutes on the court together and they could effectively play a zone, no?

Looperbear;842291484 said:

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Good observation. Yeah, come to think of it we did do some 122 with Powers at one of the slots. We could do Kreklow Wallace Cobbs as the top 3.

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Another thing that we did very effectively toward the end of last year that I haven't seen much of at all this year is the offensive scheme where the ball handler dribbles directly at the defender of the off-ball player and then passes the ball to that player, in the process screening that player's defender. This was done repeatedly and usually ended up with mismatches, driving lanes, and layups. Someone on this board who knows about basketball fundamentals knew the name for that scheme, which I believe was pretty basic-level stuff. Not sure if it stopped working, or we just don't have the right personnel for it this year.

Weave

RussBear;842291657 said:

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Another thing that we did very effectively toward the end of last year that I haven't seen much of at all this year is the offensive scheme where the ball handler dribbles directly at the defender of the off-ball player and then passes the ball to that player, in the process screening that player's defender. This was done repeatedly and usually ended up with mismatches, driving lanes, and layups. Someone on this board who knows about basketball fundamentals knew the name for that scheme, which I believe was pretty basic-level stuff. Not sure if it stopped working, or we just don't have the right personnel for it this year.

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HoopDreams;842291677 said:

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Weave

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Thanks. Any idea why Monty abandoned it? Did it stop working as effectively?

...evidently not.