After one of the most eventful sports weekends in a long time, Hoop Vision is back on a Monday as the college basketball season quickly approaches.
In today’s edition:
We uncovered the lost film from one of the more memorable games in recent college hoops history (spoiler alert: Steph Curry is involved)
The latest episode of Solving Basketball features a head coach you may not have heard of before, but has deep ties to Hoop Vision
Our favorite articles and videos from around the college hoops Internet this week (and some college football mixed in!)
As we finalize our plans for season preview content and in-season features, consider subscribing to Hoop Vision PLUS — our premium subscription product — to gain access to exclusive preseason analysis, plus subscriber-only content throughout the season.
The Lost Tape
It’s hard to hide from the internet.
In today’s day and age, virtually every college basketball game — no matter how important — gets uploaded to the web.
But back in 2008, that wasn’t yet the case.
For a long time now, I have been trying to create a video breaking down the infamous Loyola (Maryland) defensive gameplan against Steph Curry.
(If you don’t remember that game, Loyola double-teamed Curry the entire game, and became a talking point on Pardon the Interruption and in the The New York Times, most notably.)
Despite the attention that game received in the moment, the game film was seemingly missing from the Internet. After striking out on finding the video, I reached out to the Davidson coaching staff and finally uncovered the lost footage.
(Huge shout-out to Davidson’s Joshua Heyliger for the help!)
The new 10-minute voiceover video below walks through what really happened on that day in November of 2008.
The video includes:
Loyola’s defensive gameplan (and how it compares to how NBA teams guard Curry)
Curry’s in-game adjustment to (literally) stand in the corner
Quotes from the two head coaches
The Steph Effect
My favorite examples of just how extreme Loyola’s defense was can be seen when watching BLOB (baseline out of bounds) plays.
First, let’s look at how Loyola defends when Curry is the inbounder.
Notice how two Loyola players are dedicated to guarding the inbounder. That’s something you would almost never see in any other circumstance.
A few minutes later, Davidson had another BLOB play. This time, instead of using Curry as the inbounder, he’s positioned on the ball side block.
Because Curry isn’t inbounding the ball, Loyola’s defense completely changes. Before they had two players guarding the ball, now they have none.
The decision to put no one on the inbounder is generally more common, but the point here is the contrast from the first clip to the second. Curry was the complete, no-questions-asked priority of the Loyola defense.
Solving Basketball, Ep. 40
Featuring Casey McGraw
Another episode of Solving Basketball was released on Wednesday, featuring Elmira College head coach Casey McGraw.
McGraw — who is entering his first season as a head coach after serving as an assistant coach at Nebraska Wesleyan — was actually my high school and AAU teammate. There’s even a random clip still up on my YouTube channel of Casey knocking down a three-pointer (assisted by yours truly).
The 37-minute conversation includes…
Playing in “The System”… McGraw played his college ball at Castleton University, where his team employed a Grinnell-like style. During McGraw’s sophomore season, Castleton finished second in all of D-III in points per game, only trailing Grinnell.
Playing AAU together… In high school, McGraw and I played AAU together for Packy McGraw — Casey’s dad. Packy had previously coached at the college level. We discuss how Packy’s style of coaching and terminology was influential for both of us as we learned — and eventually coached — the game.
Early coaching stories… The two exchanged stories from their early days of coaching. For example, I shared a story about finding and implementing this Utah State zone overload play to solve an opposing team’s matchup zone during our senior year of high school.
Winning the national championship… Most recently, McGraw was an assistant coach under Dale Wellman at Nebraska Wesleyan University. In 2018, the Prairie Wolves won the D-III national championship. McGraw discussed the team’s Princeton offense and 3-2 zone defense.
The Solving Basketball podcast is presented by Hudl. Learn more about how teams and coaches around the world use Hudl’s technology to customize their video and data workflows by clicking here.
Links from around the internet
Jarred Vanderbilt with a thorough explanation of the Timberwolves’ desired ball screen defense
A really interesting Sloan presentation from Texas A&M football director of sports science and analytics Kratik Malhotra
Kyle Whelliston Mid-Majority article from 2010 with more context on Jimmy Patsos and the Steph Curry decision
The Fab Five’s foreign tour experience
CBS released this year’s “Candid Coaches” series — surveying anonymous coaches about: the best hire of 2021, NIL rules, the best player in the country, and more
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