Adriacus Peratuun said:
TWD 1974 said:
Big12Fan2024 said:
You dudes are just showing your age. Isaiah Austin hasn't been part of the program in a decade. He's entirely irrelevant to what is happening now and what has happened the past couple of years. Besides we sucked at defense when he was here too. Coach Drew has even laughed about softening in interviews he's done over the past two years. Why are so many people on this site stuck in a decade+ timewarp?
1. The Austin interview was recent and was mentioned on this site. I responded to the reference to that.
2. The advantage to being older (aside from the necessary shedding of some amount of arrogance) is you can see in the past what it takes to achieve success--which is not simply an automatic that comes when you reach an elite level. The problem with defense is not about finding a coach who will talk tough, but in making the high level decisions on what your team is to be; do you build your team to fit your defense, or adjust your defense to the talent you have? Three years ago, we hit the lottery on the perfect combination. It took almost a decade to get to that. Those players are gone, and now we struggle a bit to find the right balance. Can we get back to it? I think we can, but once again, history tells us how hard it is, and understanding the current moment with the portal, and NIL should give us further evidence of the difficulty.
Baylor's D issues haven't been caused by schematic deficiency.
Lackluster effort? Yes
Players not working over Summer on technique? Yes
Limited lateral quickness on the perimeter? Yes
Scheme? Not so much
a. effort, you might have made that argument last year. This year, I saw for the most part guys working hard on D, though not always working smart.
b. Summer work on technique? Not sure, with the portal and the Freshman, it is undoubtedly a lot harder to build the time needed to develop a good team defense. Missi I am sure could have benefited from any number of defensive tips if there had been time to teach him. The problem for the younger players was more in the team defense. Also, I noticed some of our most notable bad defensive play came at the substitution points. It may be not enough time playing with different sets of players rather than the same five. In short, it seemed to me at least the problems were more in the area of communication than technique or conditioning.
c. Limited lateral quickness: Agree, though Langston gets the pass with the knee. Not everyone --in fact most--do not get the lateral movement 100% from lateral tears. As a whole, this guard unit could be surprisingly slow footed at times. I am not sure the cause, though I suggest sometimes confusion will do that.
d. As to scheme: I think great defenders can play any defense. Would you put Davion Mitchell at 6-0 guarding the perimeter in a zone? You bet I would, for every time some 6-6 guard is trying to shoot over him, there is another where he makes a steal or disrupts the shot. What failed this year was the attempt to change to zone during conference play. Probably not the best timing to do that, and frankly, my suspicion is that there were some on the staff not fully bought in on the change. Whatever you do, zone, no middle or triangle and 2, you need everyone bought in to it.
