Is really BAD! How many open 3's did we give WV ? Answer=MANY! And we cannot get in front of anyone when they drive the paint ! Thank goodness our offense played well !
Dont know if this is a coincidence or not, but our D has been poor ever since Tang left.

Defense wasn't great when Tang was here… aside from the Covid and title years. And that was solely because Mark Vital and Davion were the two best defenders in the country.

Teague was a GREAT defender, his length created all kind of issues for who ever he was guarding against. He was also great getting into the passing lanes and a decent rebounder as well.

When I think of Teague I think of the defensive play against Gonzaga when he jumps out and tips away a pass from Timme to Kispert, jumps out of bounds and into the stands to throw it back in. But Gonzaga gets the ball, flips in the far corner to Nembhard for 3, but meanwhile Teague leaves the stands and runs all the way across the court to get in Nembhard's face, causing Nembhard to miss the shot.

That's the kind of focus the current team lacks and/or loses at times. The current bunch may make a play similar to Teague's first play, but then wouldn't be focused enough to stay with the play and run back across the court to create havoc for the corner shot.

Most of our team is serviceable 1v1. It's the little things like ball watching, sliding early or late, seemingly never having a second slide, failing to maintain intensity, not getting hands up in passing lanes, dumb fouls, etc.

boykin_spaniel said:

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Most of our team is serviceable 1v1. It's the little things like ball watching, sliding early or late, seemingly never having a second slide, failing to maintain intensity, not getting hands up in passing lanes, dumb fouls, etc.

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I agree with almost all of those criticisms, good observations. The second slide comment is really sharp.

I don't think our guys are great 1 v 1 though. I think Wright, Roach, and Celestine have all been below avg imo. I think Roach could be serviceable but he's regressed from last year. I don't think Wright or Celestine are at the moment.

I also think this boards writers wildly overrate Nunn. I think it's looking to reputation coming in rather than actual results. He has the potential to be decent but he does everything you mentioned all the time. Footwork is also just off and overreacting to every little move so gets beat constantly. He is serviceable at times though.

Omier can defend when he wants to but mostly is a turnstile half the game and has mental lapses .

To me Vj is the only guy who is a solid defender most of the time and that's a freshman, which will naturally come with mistakes.

I'd agree VJ is probably our best on ball defender but he does have freshman mistakes which are frequently off ball. Omier is solid but as our only big now he has to be cautious. I didn't say we were elite on ball just serviceable to where if we fixed/improved some issues off ball I think we'd have a have a couple more wins

Quinton said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Most of our team is serviceable 1v1. It's the little things like ball watching, sliding early or late, seemingly never having a second slide, failing to maintain intensity, not getting hands up in passing lanes, dumb fouls, etc.

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I agree with almost all of those criticisms, good observations. The second slide comment is really sharp.

I don't think our guys are great 1 v 1 though. I think Wright, Roach, and Celestine have all been below avg imo. I think Roach could be serviceable but he's regressed from last year. I don't think Wright or Celestine are at the moment.

I also think this boards writers wildly overrate Nunn. I think it's looking to reputation coming in rather than actual results. He has the potential to be decent but he does everything you mentioned all the time. Footwork is also just off and overreacting to every little move so gets beat constantly. He is serviceable at times though.

Omier can defend when he wants to but mostly is a turnstile half the game and has mental lapses .

To me Vj is the only guy who is a solid defender most of the time and that's a freshman, which will naturally come with mistakes.

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Wrightbis fast enough to be a better defender but you can't teach height

Celestine seems to get hot from 3 from time to time. That's all I got on him

Roach, maybe he's hurt, but been a huge bust

Also, it seems when we do close out on a 3point shooter we rarely come up with the rebound. I know rebounding is part of defense but this team struggles to get the initial rebound off of the initial missed shot.

This has been noted multiple times by others in other threads, but our whole man defensive scheme of switching at all 5 positions is faulty as any opponent with at least a semblance of a pulse can pass and screen themselves into multiple bad matchups for us to choose from on just about any half court possession. We constantly end up with a 6'2" or shorter guard on a 6'9" or taller forward or post player near the basket and/or one of our bigger slower players on a quicker faster guard on the perimeter. You're asking for it when you're constantly in those kinds of mismatches..

I've noticed that a lot of times we will switch when we don't need to. When a guard can get through a pick, there is no need to switch. Sometimes they even switch when there is no pick.

IowaBear said:

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Defense wasn't great when Tang was here… aside from the Covid and title years. And that was solely because Mark Vital and Davion were the two best defenders in the country.

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As great as Mitchell and Vital were I think the '21-'22 team had a chance to be at least as good if not better on the defensive end than the Natty team before all the injuries that ended up impacting that season kicked in.

Fre3dombear said:

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Quinton said:

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boykin_spaniel said:

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Most of our team is serviceable 1v1. It's the little things like ball watching, sliding early or late, seemingly never having a second slide, failing to maintain intensity, not getting hands up in passing lanes, dumb fouls, etc.

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I agree with almost all of those criticisms, good observations. The second slide comment is really sharp.

I don't think our guys are great 1 v 1 though. I think Wright, Roach, and Celestine have all been below avg imo. I think Roach could be serviceable but he's regressed from last year. I don't think Wright or Celestine are at the moment.

I also think this boards writers wildly overrate Nunn. I think it's looking to reputation coming in rather than actual results. He has the potential to be decent but he does everything you mentioned all the time. Footwork is also just off and overreacting to every little move so gets beat constantly. He is serviceable at times though.

Omier can defend when he wants to but mostly is a turnstile half the game and has mental lapses .

To me Vj is the only guy who is a solid defender most of the time and that's a freshman, which will naturally come with mistakes.

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Wrightbis fast enough to be a better defender but you can't teach height

Celestine seems to get hot from 3 from time to time. That's all I got on him

Roach, maybe he's hurt, but been a huge bust

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I agree Wright has great instincts so he has more than enough to become a solid defender at the college level, even at his height. Just needs time, I didn't expect him to be any good on D early.

Need some new coaches on staff that can really push defensive discipline, consistency, and basic fundamentals. They look exactly the same except with a slightly different scheme. Called grasping at straws which is concerning when it's been several years running.

Zakai Ziegler is one of the best defenders in the country for Tennessee and he's 5'9" on a good day. Wright just needs some more reps and coaching. Tennessee does not switch as much so Zeigler isn't frequently matched up on 6'9" forward…

Teams good at switches on defense tend to be teams with roster continuity. Teague, Mitchell and Vital were all great individual defenders, but it also helped from a team defense perspective that they essentially played with each other 3 years (the redshirt year for Teague and Mitchell were huge keys). Look at UH. Why are they good at D? Kelvin has maintained roster continuity with a core nucleus of guys who grow together and can anticipate where to be. It also helps that he and his staff emphasize and teach D.

Look at our starting 5 this past Saturday: we literally had Omier (first year), VJ (first year), Wright (first year), Celestine (1st year) and then Love (multiple years). You have 5 guys on the court who have basically all played together for less than a year, nothing like the 20-21 or even 22. As good as an individual defender as VJ may be, it's a team game when you play switching D and if you're not all on the same page then it's not gonna be highly successful. Unfortunately, unlike Kelvin's staff, we have looked undercoached on the defensive side for 3 consecutive years that covers two different sets of assistant coaches. So, that makes me wonder if it is a priority with Drew.

Height obviously doesn't help Wright from a defensive perspective, but he's just overall bad at it. His defensive efficiency rating is literally near the bottom of the entire Big 12 (including reserves). Should that be surprising? No. He's played a game through school and AAU ball that focused almost all efforts on offense and his incredible skills are evidence of that. Very few freshmen come in with extensive defensive skills, which is why many spend the first year playing sparingly so that they don't overexpose the defensive deficiencies while they learn and improve that aspect of their game. He gives great effort at playing D, he's just learning how to do it. As hard of a worker as he is, I suspect we will see a highly improved version next year.

Nunn is an average defender and always has been. His defensive efficiency ratings over 4 years at VCU and Baylor are proof of that. Drew is the consummate positive salesman (something I truly appreciate of him) and so he sold Fran on how great of a defender Nunn was gonna be. Fran, being the biggest Big 12 promoter in the world, kept repeating the greatness of Nunn's defense on broadcasts and suddenly Nunn's skills were being oversold. He's a good defender, but nowhere close to a "lockdown" defender I see people repeat on here (probably because they heard Fran say it so many times).

Celestine and Love are also near the bottom of Big 12 defensive ratings and it plays out on the court game after game. Celestine is a streaky shooting role player who under ideal circumstances would be someone you bring in for 5 minutes and if he's feeling it on the offensive end you keep him out there. If not, he's back to the bench. Except, this year Drew and staff made a colossal blunder in trying to take a 6-7 natural guard and think he would be a great stretch 4 for us. That's on the staff, not Celestine. He is what he is.

And Roach? I don't even know where to begin other than to say I must have incorrectly thought all of these years that Duke emphasized players learning how to play D before they get extensive playing time. I thought Roach would at least be serviceable at it and he appears more lost than almost all the others.

Big12Fan2024 said:

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And Roach? I don't even know where to begin other than to say I must have incorrectly thought all of these years that Duke emphasized players learning how to play D before they get extensive playing time. I thought Roach would at least be serviceable at it and he appears more lost than almost all the others.

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Roach's regression on D is a mirror image of Cryer's improvement, which is very concerning for the program. Roach was never great but was a servicable defender on a top 20 D and played heavy minutes on the perimeter. Now, he's not quite Cryer level bad but he's completely lost out there. The demenour on the court is also starting to look like LJ. Cryer was probably the worst D1 defender (for a featured player) I had ever seen. Now he's almost mediocre. Some staff's just do more with less.

The fix isn't coming either bc Wright, Love (if he returns), and Celestine are the continuity and are among the worst defenders on the team. Carr has great potential though, hopefully they are really pushing him to develop. Tounde is a good,strong defender but its the same problem of going out there with a freshman as your top guy on D. He's going to be a special defender in a few years, but we might not see it although he's the type that could be a two year guy.

Huge needs again in the portal which continues the issue you stated.

pedbear1978 said:

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Is really BAD! How many open 3's did we give WV ? Answer=MANY! And we cannot get in front of anyone when they drive the paint ! Thank goodness our offense played well !
Dont know if this is a coincidence or not, but our D has been poor ever since Tang left.

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don't confuse me with the facts. I have my mind made up.

TXBEAR_bf said:

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Teague was a GREAT defender, his length created all kind of issues for who ever he was guarding against. He was also great getting into the passing lanes and a decent rebounder as well.

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Teague was an amazing defender. I remember I video of WVU previewing the game and talking about an amazing stat for Teague's defense.

The best defense a team can play is a switching man defense. We won a title with it and might have the year before and the year after except for Covid and injuries. But players have to be able to intuitively switch and we just don't have enough to run that style defense, hence this team should play zone most of the time.

I disagree about Wright's defense. I think his defensive effort is more than acceptable. His size limits his ability to switch onto front court players but that's understandable.

IowaBear said:

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Defense wasn't great when Tang was here… aside from the Covid and title years. And that was solely because Mark Vital and Davion were the two best defenders in the country.

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Our defense was good from 2020-22. But that three-year stretch was a product of several really good individual defenders.

boykin_spaniel said:

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Zakai Ziegler is one of the best defenders in the country for Tennessee and he's 5'9" on a good day. Wright just needs some more reps and coaching. Tennessee does not switch as much so Zeigler isn't frequently matched up on 6'9" forward…

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For sure. Seem wright dunked on again a time or two guarding a 6'9

I'm not sure how we achieved it, but the defense that people in November claimed would jell by February has actually gone from bad to borderline unwatchable.

I just don't understand why people thought this team would gel defensively. Aside from VJ it's a group of bad defenders. Bad defensive players don't magically become good defenders. It's a recruiting and quite frankly developmental issue on the defensive end. I don't believe there's anyone on staff that can teach defense at a high level

The system isn't helping either. That 1-3-1 leaves both corner pockets wide open all the way from the 3-point line to a mid-range bunny, and it's bizarre we thought we could get away with that against a top 20 team with that many competent shooters. They just kept hammering it over and over.

It seems like no matter what Drew calls there's at least one guy without a defender within 3 feet of him at all times.

What D

IowaBear said:

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I just don't understand why people thought this team would gel defensively. Aside from VJ it's a group of bad defenders. Bad defensive players don't magically become good defenders. It's a recruiting and quite frankly developmental issue on the defensive end. I don't believe there's anyone on staff that can teach defense at a high level

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I agree some of it has to do with not necessarily focusing on defensive skills during the recruiting process. I also believe some of it is due to the lack of continuity. But what I can't wrap my head around is that it is counterintuitive to believe that every person we've brought through this program for the past 3 years is fundamentally bad at defense and completely unteachable. And as both you and I will agree we have been fundamentally bad at it for 3 consecutive years as a team.

The sad thing is that it hasn't mattered whether it was man or various zones. We seem to struggle in all phases and this is through 2 different sets of assistants over that time. At some point it is only fair to ask, what is going on with the coaching of the D. Is it a technique issue? Is it a culture issue where there's no emphasis? Is there a player issue where they assume it's optional and so no repercussions for not playing it effectively? All of the above? I don't know. I'm perplexed.

Quinton's war drums on LJ Cryer resonated with me so much that I looked up his defensive ratings here, and now at UH. He was in the bottom 3rd of individual defensive ratings of Big 12 players when he was here. He's now in the top 3rd. Yes, some of that obviously comes with more experience but is UH's defensive culture just that much better than our's so he felt compelled to get better at it? Were they better at teaching him? Was it just the extra two years of experience? Once again, I'm perplexed.

I saw a clip of Rick Pitino chewing his guys out at halftime. Profanity laced tirade about being unable to fight through adversity. They came out after half, played better defense, and won the game. Not saying Drew needs to start dropping F bombs. We love him for who he is, but defense requires a level of grit, determination, belief, and focus. Kelvin Sampson and Rick Barnes are noted "tough" coaches and both always have teams ranked near the top for defense. I'd hope practice has some time where guys get physical and dial in on locking down defensively. Often teams have a tone setter, Houston had Shead. Tennessee has Zeigler and Mashack. We need someone who can bark and coach on the court. "Wright your slide was late. VJ you didn't offer a second slide which left a guy wide open in the corner. Pick it up fellas!" Someone with an attitude like Mitchell. Someone who says please try to drive on me. Not that they have to be as good as Mitchell but people feed off other people's energy. We have no energy on defense. Someone just has to try providing some kind of energy.

It's been said several times, by a few, in here: 1-n-Done's will never take you deep. Just accept it.

Baylor basketball has already seen it's glory days..........

please tell me how vj edgecombe, jakobe walter, jeremy sochan, and keyonte george made us lose games. please

Bearsalwayswin said:

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please tell me how vj edgecombe, jakobe walter, jeremy sochan, and keyonte george made us lose games. please

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You left out Missi, the worst defender to ever wear a Baylor Uniform!

He couldn't block my shot and I'm 63 and around 5'8".

Danny Devito could block your shot

Big12Fan2024 said:

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IowaBear said:

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I just don't understand why people thought this team would gel defensively. Aside from VJ it's a group of bad defenders. Bad defensive players don't magically become good defenders. It's a recruiting and quite frankly developmental issue on the defensive end. I don't believe there's anyone on staff that can teach defense at a high level

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At some point it is only fair to ask, what is going on with the coaching of the D. Is it a technique issue? Is it a culture issue where there's no emphasis? Is there a player issue where they assume it's optional and so no repercussions for not playing it effectively? All of the above? I don't know. I'm perplexed.

Quinton's war drums on LJ Cryer resonated with me so much that I looked up his defensive ratings here, and now at UH. He was in the bottom 3rd of individual defensive ratings of Big 12 players when he was here. He's now in the top 3rd. Yes, some of that obviously comes with more experience but is UH's defensive culture just that much better than our's so he felt compelled to get better at it? Were they better at teaching him? Was it just the extra two years of experience? Once again, I'm perplexed.

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You have the answer. We all respect Drew and the program. It's important for those to know there is no malicious intent. Almost everyone wants this to work. It's not disrespectful to acknowledge the truth.

Unfortunately the defensive coaching is very deficient. That's in addition to the poor roster construction. But it's important not to let the poor roster planning distract from the very real and independent issue of defensive coaching.

I do know for certain based on first hand comments outside of public media, it took about a year of constant pressing and pushing him to his limits for Cryer to get to an "acceptable" defensive level according to Sampson's standard. Lj has big limitations to become a good defender.. size, lack of length, poor lateral movement, bounce/hop steps to try and make up for lack of explosion, avg at best athleticism. Yet he's now a mediocre defender. How? You have the answer.