Top 10 Tests (HV Weekly: 2/5/21)
Another defense experimented with how to guard Baylor. It kind of worked... but they still lost by double digits.
Welcome back to the Hoop Vision Weekly!
This week, we had two top 10 showdowns between Baylor-Texas and Iowa-Ohio State. In today’s newsletter, we focus in on the results of Texas’s defensive gameplan from that Baylor game.
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In today’s edition:
A graph on Baylor’s three-point shooting
The results of Texas’s decision to switch all ball screens during their top 10 matchup against Baylor
Michigan State’s baseline out of bounds defense
Links from around the internet
Baylor is still hot
In this week’s top 10 matchup in Austin, the Baylor offense kept on rolling. The Bears shot 62% from two, 52% from three, and scored 1.24 points per possession — Texas’s worst defensive performance of the season.
Now 17 games in, Baylor still leads the country in three-point percentage. They are hitting 42% of shots from behind the arc since we published this newsletter about their three-point shooting on January 1st.
The hot shooting is even more impressive when accounting for degree of difficulty. Baylor shoots the second most three-pointers off the dribble per game (7.6) of any team in the country.
Davion Mitchell has led the way for Baylor in off the bounce three-point shooting. The junior guard is 45% on those shots, 11th in the country (min 20 attempts).
Despite that shooting success, Texas elected to force Mitchell — and the other Baylor guards — to beat them off the bounce in Tuesday’s game.
More on that Texas gameplan below
The gameplan worked… it just didn’t work
Shaka Smart’s gameplan against Baylor was relatively simple: Switch all ball screens.
For nearly the entire game, Texas chose to switch and let Jericho Sims and the rest of their bigs defend the Baylor guards out on the perimeter.
The gameplan “worked” — at least in theory.
Davion Mitchell tied his season high for field goal attempts. Instead of helping on ball screens and turning guards into passers, Texas succeeded in turning Mitchell and Butler into scorers.
The gameplan had the opposite effect on the Baylor bigs. Because of the switching, Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua was just 1-for-2 in 26 minutes of playing time. His one made basket came on a poorly executed switch by #2 Matt Coleman.
Instead of switching under Tchamwa Tchatchoua, Coleman got caught going over the initial screen — allowing the roll to the hoop.
Besides that play, however, Texas almost entirely took away Tchamwa Tchatchoua’s rolls to the baskets by switching.
When attacking switches, Baylor didn’t look to throw the ball into the post and attack smaller defenders. Instead, Scott Drew relied on his guards attacking in isolation…
Efficient iso ball
With Jericho Sims switched out onto the perimeter, Baylor kept it very simple offensively. They spread the floor and attacked with Mitchell and Butler.
Baylor’s game against Texas Tech — another defense, by no coincidence, that switches ball screens — was the only other time this season Baylor used more isolation possessions than on Tuesday.
Baylor’s success against Texas was largely just due to great individual play from Mitchell and Butler. There were some good ball movement possessions, but also a lot of tough shot making.
The switches also brought the Texas rim protectors out of the paint. In the clip below, Sims is switched out on Butler. When Mitchell attacks the close-out, the paint opens up for an easy layup.
Switching a big like Sims away from the basket can also potentially lead to defensive rebounding problems, but that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. Baylor actually posted their lowest offensive rebounding percentage (21%) of the season.
Baylor’s versatility
Big 12 opponents are trying to stop the Baylor guards from attacking directly off of ball screens.
Texas chose to switch. Kansas, on the other hand, chose a very different approach — aggressively forcing the handler to give the ball up early.
In both cases, the strategies absolutely had a direct impact on Baylor’s style of play. But Baylor has shown they have enough versatility to remain efficient regardless.
Michigan State BLOB defense
As a sucker for unique baseline out of bounds defense, Michigan State caught my eye this week against Iowa.
The Spartans used their inbounder defender (#3 Foster Loyer) to switch out on any movement towards the ball side corner.
This wasn’t just an Iowa-specific gameplan. Here’s the same coverage earlier in the season against Minnesota.
I tweeted a video of Mississippi State using the same coverage last May.
Additionally, we have a video for purchase at the Hoop Vision Store on all different types of baseline out of bounds strategy.
Links from around the internet
Illinois overload set against the Iowa zone. And here’s VCU running a counter version
I went on current Winthrop walk-on Nate Buss’s podcast
Mikan drill coaches have this play from Luka Garza on repeat
There has been a lot of interesting discussion on Twitter this week about NBA three-point defense
A cool Twitter thread of D2 X’s and O’s
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