The Aztec Empire Strikes Back (Hoop Vision Weekly: 12/11/20)
San Diego State is still letting opponents shoot threes... And it's still working.
Welcome back to the Hoop Vision Weekly!
Last week we were eagerly looking forward to a #1 vs. #2 matchup which, obviously, didn’t actually happen.
This week, we have no such risk as we’ll be taking a look back at the week that was, with San Diego State as the headliner of this week’s edition.
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In today’s edition of the Weekly:
San Diego State just keeps rolling. A breakdown of their statement win over Arizona State on Thursday night and how the Aztecs have changed since last year’s run.
Iowa continued their torrid offensive start in a win over North Carolina on Tuesday, but also showed us something new on the defensive end.
Kansas beat Creighton, and you better believe there are some Bill Self adjustments that we noticed; we feature the breakdown of one KU beat writer and add more context.
Let’s go!
San Diego State beats Arizona State
Just like last season, San Diego State is off to an undefeated start. The Aztecs blew out Arizona State in the second half last night, adding another double-digit win over a Pac-12 opponent to their resume.
Head coach Brian Dutcher lost three starters from last year’s squad, but stylistically the team is still very similar — especially on the defensive side of the ball.
One of my favorite traditions when watching San Diego State’s pack line defense is to hunt for the perfect screenshot of all five players crowding the ball handler.
Here are two of the best examples from last night of that pack line philosophy:
And now, a live-motion example of San Diego State’s gap positioning and stunts. There’s nowhere for #11 Alonzo Verge to drive.
As a result of all of that gap help, Arizona State made just seven two-pointers in the entire game. Of the seven, just four were in the paint:
2 rolls to the basket off ball screens
1 post-up
1 drive
That’s it…
On the other hand, Arizona State was 13-for-34 (38%) from three. So to put this into perspective:
Arizona State is currently the 14th ranked offense in country
59% of Arizona State shots were from three against SDSU — the highest three-point attempt rate for ASU since 2018
Arizona State actually shot above their season average (36%) from behind the arc against SDSU
Arizona State still scored just 0.94 points per possession and lost the game by 12
With the pack line principles, San Diego State has built a defense that is indifferent to guarding the three. But even in today’s three-point centric game, opposing offenses haven’t been able to make the Aztecs pay when it comes to the final result.
On top of that, San Diego State’s defense has continued to hold up against even the best three-point shooting teams. BYU led the country in three-point percentage last season, but scored just 1.04 points per possession against SDSU. Creighton was sixth in the country in three-point percentage, but scored just 0.75 points per possession.
And now we can add Arizona State — an offense that theoretically has the scheme and personnel to stretch out a defense — to the list.
Differences from last season
San Diego State lost two extremely good perimeter defenders from last year’s team: Malachi Flynn and KJ Feagin. However, they added center Nathan Mensah back into the rotation, after he missed the last 19 games of last season due to a blood clot in his lung.
With Mensah on the floor, the Aztecs have a level of rim protection that they didn’t get from previous big man Yanni Wetzell.
Take, for instance, this freakish block from behind last night:
San Diego State also switched all ball screens against Arizona State — another difference from last season when the Aztecs did a lot of hedging.
In choosing to switch, Dutcher allowed Mensah to guard Remy Martin out on the perimeter. Mensah’s length (and all of the SDSU gap help) held Martin in check. Arizona State’s senior guard finished with just nine points on 2-for-8 shooting.
If the SDSU staff was comfortable in letting Mensah guard a big-time scorer like Martin, it seems likely that we will continue to see plenty of ball screen switches from the Aztecs this season. Making it even harder to get into the paint against the pack line.
Link: Full HV+ newsletter on last season’s San Diego State pack line
Iowa comes out on fire against UNC
Earlier in the week, Luka Garza and Iowa won their first big test of the season in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
The Hawkeyes seemingly could not miss to start the game. Even though Garza shot just 6-for-20, Iowa’s offense rolled to 1.18 points per possession. As the voiceover video below shows, that was a combination of good Iowa offense and bad Carolina defense.
On the other side of the ball, the defensive issues still remain for Iowa. When guarding the dribble drive, the Hawkeyes have major trouble keeping players in front. Defensive rebounding has also been a problem.
But when guarding away from the ball, Iowa took away the famous Carolina Break by “fly-switching” — where a third defender aggressively switches out on the back screen.
Kansas drop coverage against Creighton
Kansas snuck out another win in Allen Fieldhouse, beating Creighton by a point.
Friend-of-the-newsletter Jesse Newell covered the Jayhawks’ tactical adjustment in the win: Drop coverage.
(Click on the tweet above for full thread of videos)
Because of the concern for Creighton’s three-point shooting, Bill Self chose to keep David McCormack closer to the basket in ball screen coverage — allowing the other off-ball defenders to stay closer to their direct assignments.
Self explained the decision in detail to Jesse after the game.
"I didn't like it at all, but our deal was that Bishop was so good at getting out of dribble handoffs, ball screens, and pinch post handoffs that we felt like if we ever helped up, they could throw over, because we couldn't tag him, because Ballock was the roll-up guy 90% of the time, so we decided to take something away, so we tried to take the lob away, which we did except for a bad first possession, and we tried to take the shake action away, which we did.
What hurt us was [Zegarowski] being able to snake us a few times, and they still scored points off their ball screen offense, but it wasn't close to what I was concerned about. So that's why we did it in that particular game. I can't see that being anything that we try to continue to do a lot moving forward."
— Bill Self on drop coverage against Creighton
That logic is exactly why so many NBA teams choose to defend ball screens with drop coverage. So it makes sense that Self made the move against one of the college programs that plays a very NBA-influenced style.
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