The Rodcast: Cal vs Louisville Video Preview

Good preview, thanks Rod.

Interesting breakdown

Agree our players have bought into sharing the ball more than last year and have a higher hoops IQ to do it (you can't just tell all players they need to pass more… some don't have the innate ability to be good at it)

Two notable players are Carr and Dort who are much better passers than the players they replaced

I'm a Dort fan, but I also thought Sissoko was not effectively used for the first half of last season. As Rod pointed out, last year's players were frequently out of position to receive a pass, and therefore Sissoko may have been a better passer than those games showed.

Just as important is the step up on the defensive side of the ball. So much better. I'm surprised that Rod didn't mention how this year we are using a new strategy on the ball screens. More often than not, when those high screens are set we are double teaming the ball handler. In the majority of those occasions it is disrupting our opponents, while we are getting beat a minimum amount of times. It will be interesting to see how often we will do that tonight against Louisville.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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Just as important is the step up on the defensive side of the ball. So much better. I'm surprised that Rod didn't mention how this year we are using a new strategy on the ball screens. More often than not, when those high screens are set we are double teaming the ball handler. In the majority of those occasions it is disrupting our opponents, while we are getting beat a minimum amount of times. It will be interesting to see how often we will do that tonight against Louisville.

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Rod talked about the hedges of the high ball screens in prior episodes

I've been one of the biggest advocates of this defensive strategy, and was surprised we didn't use it last season

However we have to be careful of using this too much against this hot shooting Louisville team. I think we need to keep their offense off balance and mix it in with a more conservative defense, and not allow their weak side shooter too many open 3s

^
Agree. It needs to be mixed. Try it to many times and they will exploit it.

Just put the ball in the basket, and stop it on the other end.

Simple.