Rematch SZN (HV Weekly: 2/11/22)
With teams seeing each other for the second time, scouting reports are getting more specific.
Welcome back to the Hoop Vision Weekly!
For this week’s Starting Five newsletter, we wrote about Chet Holmgren’s recent increased offensive role in Gonzaga’s offense — and whether or not it’s sustainable when Gonzaga faces elite defenses in March.
We also covered Arizona’s transition offense and a Saint Mary’s baseline out of bounds series. The five topics from the newsletter are listed below.
Chet Holmgren’s increased offensive role
Arizona transition offense
Saint Mary’s circle BLOB series
TMAPP continues to spread
The 2-for-1 killer
In today’s Weekly, we focus in on yesterday’s rematch between Michigan and Purdue. Michigan coach Juwan Howard made a crucial defensive adjustment against Jaden Ivey and the Boilermakers.
Rematch SZN (ft. Purdue-Michigan)
February and March are the months of rematches in college basketball.
With teams playing each other for a second time, there’s an extra familiarity when it comes to the scouting report. As a result, coaches and players can get even more specific on opponent level adjustments.
The players aren’t learning about the opponent’s scheme and personnel for the first time — so they can take that previously acquired knowledge and build off of it strategically.
That idea was on full display yesterday in the Purdue-Michigan game.
The two teams first played each other on February 5th — just five days before the rematch. Purdue won the first game by six, and sophomore guard Jaden Ivey led the Boilermakers in scoring with 23 points and seven assists.
More specifically, Ivey took advantage of Michigan’s ball screen defense in game number one. Juwan Howard went to a 2-3 zone for the majority of the second half of the game, but the Wolverines were unable to keep Ivey out of the paint when Purdue screened the zone.
The two-minute voiceover video starts out showing the main ball screen set Purdue used in the second half against the zone.
The second half of the video focuses on Juwan Howard’s adjustment in yesterday’s rematch.
After the game, Hunter Dickinson alluded to that:
“We made some adjustments from the first game. The first game they were really beating us on ball screens. We came together, we watched film, we made the adjustments, and they worked out there today.”
As demonstrated in the second half of the video above, Michigan stayed in zone but adjusted their ball screen coverage. Instead of providing no help at the level of the screen, they had the weak side forward in the zone sprint out and challenge Ivey — getting the ball out of the future lottery pick’s hands.
That wasn’t the only Purdue-specific adjustment made by Juwan Howard.
Here’s an example below where Michigan was playing man. Purdue went to their weave series, setting a cross screen for Trevion Williams.
With Ivey setting the screen for Williams, Eli Brooks stayed in the lane and gave help on the cross screen.
That allowed Diabate to not have to cheat the screen. When opponent’s cheat that screen, Purdue will then run a lob play where Williams/Edey rejects the screen for a lob at the rim.
So Brooks’ help prevented the lob. Then, the Wolverines switched Devante’ Jones out onto Ivey. Brooks closed out the switching sequence by moving out to the corner.
This is the type of coverage that you see when two opponents are very familiar with each other. The coverage is specifically designed to shut down Purdue’s action. But the more specific a coverage, the more vulnerable it can be to an easy basket if all five defenders are not on the same page.
In yesterday’s win, all five Michigan defenders were on the same page more often than not.
Links from around the internet
Ken Pomeroy was a guest on Sean and Archie Miller’s podcast
Ken also wrote about Gonzaga’s dominance for KSL.com
Arizona UCLA to flex set
If Larry Bird walked into a gym, how many free throws would he make out of 100?