82, the defense has to be redrawn against higher level teams this year. This team is really really bad at the no middle. We need to play a modified man/zone hybrid. The rotations as many of us pointed out early simply are not working and might not even be possible with this group at this point. Jon's mobility is too limited this early to make up for it right now. He has justifiably been targeted on the perimeter switches over and over. That is not a knock as its a miracle the guy is even out there. Even when our guards sag they still get blown by. So we give up easy walks to the lane And open 3s.
If we had a reliable top level ball handler and penetrator who was explosive we could experiment with trying to run teams off the court via our guard play on offense and get them out of their lineups. But we don't have that overwhelming aspect to our game that would allow us to do it. We would get sliced up on defense beyond even 1st half Marquette and 2nd half KU (both among the worst performances we have seen) if we tried it too long. I think Love could be a good defender over time but his lateral movement is not great yet. Next year should be improved.
The best chances are to limit TOs, make FTs, crash boards with 2-3 guys while at a minimum 2 guys get back automatically on every shot. Against a team like KU, Tcu, or K state we should have somebody ready to set up on defense before the ball has hit the rim. The transition is just that bad that you have to sacrifice some OR's for any semblance of sound transition D. While we also have a good offense it completely falls apart when our D collapses. We need more set runs outside of spamming PnRs and clear outs especially when things bog down.
