Interesting
Cal is 7th in steals, improving to 1st in steals during conference only play

usually we would be worse in conference compared to the season (playing mid-majors, etc)

this suggests that we've improved in our pressure defense in terms of getting steals. that shows progress.

of course there is the flip side of this stat... we may be getting more steals (good), but it leaves us more vulnerable to when we don't ... leading to more open shots for the other team

one of the things I have been noticing is that Cal collapses too much to the ball, and not recovering to shooters fast enough (or other problems that closing out on shooters when you're too far away causes).

it's the double edge sword of aggressive defenses

I compare Cal's extended zone, trapping, aggressive defense to past Washington teams. Seemly talented teams that would under perform. Their gambling defense would win them games, but also lose them games. Thing is, UW built their team around the type of players that made that defensive approach successful, and they played in year after year, so players grew up in the system and got better at it

Trying to implement it will all new players (many of which are freshmen who typically are defensive challenged anyway due to body, attitude, etc) in a single season is the primary reason I think this team loses games.

I think the aggressiveness is part of it but we don't foul much at all so we're not THAT aggressive. A lot of it is just the nature of the zone we play. If Rule #1 of zone offense is constant ball movement, it makes sense that we'd get our hands on some of those passes since there are just more of them versus a man offense. That ball movement is also why we tend to give up a lot of assisted baskets. We're last in conference play and, for the entire season, we're 335th out of 347 teams in assists allowed. So I think the steals stat is nice but comes with a caveat or an explanation.

Edit: UW has the same kind of thing going on. 16th nationally for the season on steals, but 309th in assists allowed.

Interesting stats about assists. Thx

What I was referring to as 'aggressive' is about the type of zones we play, not necessarily how aggressive we defend within our scheme.

For example, some 2-3 or 3-2 zones are rather passive. Teams fall back and defend straight up

While others use aggressive tactics within their zone such as extending it out, trapping out of it, strongly collapse on the ball, or spots on the court (e.g post) or on players (e.g. Lee)

It's ironic that i've Always advocated more zone (although I prefer mostly man) and a more aggressive flavor. My thing is you need to make the offense uncomfortable... speed them up ... disrupt their offense ... make them make mistakes.... make them uncomfortable shooters.

But it takes practice, experience and the right type of players... by the way, I thing the right type of players are Lee, Juhwan, Justice, Coleman, and potentially McNeil and Davis. Basically we have potentially 6 players who are well suited to this type of defense, but 4 of the 6 have very little experience and the two who do might not have a lot of zone defense experience

JHD seems to finally has his legs back or is just seeing the light coming on but he seems to be one of the guys well suited to play this defense because of his athleticism and even length for a 6-4 guy. HoopDreams got me curious about steals so I checked out the difference between some of the numbers in conference play versus the season. The thing that stood out most is JHD has 2x the steals than anyone else in conference play (on a per 40 mom basis). That wasn't at all the case in the non-conf schedule. He seems to emerging into a guy that can be a standout defender. We don't get much from him offensively now but hopefully that light comes on to. But he's earning his PT on the defensive side.

Kingsley is the same way. Not much happening offensively but definitely disruptive defensively. It's tough when your top 2 defenders don't give much offensively but need to be on the court for their defense. I suspect that won't be the case next year.

Really interesting statistics. Reminds me of Sonny's teams. Great hurry up offense which resulted in more time on the field for the worst part of his team: the defense. Maybe Wyking is building a program in the Paul Westhead LMC mold. On defense press the entire court and go for steals all the time knowing that all you really want to do is get the ball back and keep the tempo super high. Of course you need to be able to shoot and you need to be about 10 deep because it is an exhausting way to play.

82gradDLSdad said:

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Really interesting statistics. Reminds me of Sonny's teams. Great hurry up offense which resulted in more time on the field for the worst part of his team: the defense. Maybe Wyking is building a program in the Paul Westhead LMC mold. On defense press the entire court and go for steals all the time knowing that all you really want to do is get the ball back and keep the tempo super high. Of course you need to be able to shoot and you need to be about 10 deep because it is an exhausting way to play.

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Then again, you have a team and a philosophy like UVA's who always plays great defense and is once again, at the top of the heap this year. The pack-line defense of Bennett defense is a man D that compresses the key but always has an on-ball defender. That D is potentially vulnerable from the perimeter like our zone. But that defense is not built to get many steals (109th nationally) but is very effective at preventing ball movement (lowest assists allowed nationally). It's a tough defense to teach though since it's a very team-oriented version of man which incorporates some of the zone spacing principles. It's a thing of beauty though when it's executed well which UVA is doing masterfully this year.

TheSouseFamily said:

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82gradDLSdad said:

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Really interesting statistics. Reminds me of Sonny's teams. Great hurry up offense which resulted in more time on the field for the worst part of his team: the defense. Maybe Wyking is building a program in the Paul Westhead LMC mold. On defense press the entire court and go for steals all the time knowing that all you really want to do is get the ball back and keep the tempo super high. Of course you need to be able to shoot and you need to be about 10 deep because it is an exhausting way to play.

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Then again, you have a team and a philosophy like UVA's who always plays great defense and is once again, at the top of the heap this year. The pack-line defense of Bennett defense is a man D that compresses the key but always has an on-ball defender. That D is potentially vulnerable from the perimeter like our zone. But that defense is built to get many steals (109th nationally) but is very effective at preventing ball movement (lowest assists allowed nationally). It's a tough defense to teach though since it's a very team-oriented version of man which incorporates some of the zone spacing principles. It's a thing of beauty though when it's executed well which UVA is doing masterfully this year.

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The Bennetts are great basketball coaches. First dad and now the son.