Pitino: We may not be as scrappy and full-court pressure as we were the first 2 years

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Rayno:

This week, coach Richard Pitino said one the areas he is pondering is the defense and what it could – and should – look like moving forward.

“We may not be as scrappy and full-court pressure as we were the first two years,” the coach said. “We may be a little different defensively. I’m trying to figure it all out right now.”

“I’m thinking about what I want to do from a defensive standpoint,” Pitino said. “This year’s team looks different. We have big guards, they’re not as laterally quick, so it may not be the smart thing to do to pressure.

“I think this is the time to work on all those things and make the decisions in October.”

http://www.startribune.com/gophers-defense-could-have-a-different-look-next-season/388543901/

Go Gophers!!
 

Yea, but what about Pitino's system?!? We all know that not every kid fits into his vaunted press and trap setup!!
 

Jeez did Amelia have a bunch of articles written but not published on her computer and is sending them all to publishing before she moves on?
 

This is yet another red flag with Pitino for me. We are entering year 4 and from the sounds of it, we still don't have the personnel for his system. I am a strong believer in programs that play to a system if they are not one of the handful of programs that bring in a top 10 recruit (or two) every year. Obviously, at this time last year, Pitino expected to have two ball pressure guards on his roster in Jarvis Johnson and Kevin Dorsey. I think there is some bad luck involved, but going 4 years without being able to put your desired system in to play speaks to problems in roster management too.

I don't want to see this program messing around with a crappy zone in conference play like we saw last season.
 

Well it's a bit understandable why he doesn't have the guards for his system. One videotaped a sex party and the other got blocked by the u med staff(rightfully so). Doesn't mean Pitino hasn't tried (successfully) to recruit to his system. He has continued to do so.

At least he's smart enough to identify that mason, mcbrayer Coffey and springs are not full court pressure guys.
 


Good coaches put together a plan on what players they have. Not a system that won't work with what they are running out there.
 

If I recall correctly, there wasn't all that much on ball pressure the first two years and Pitino kept telling us to wait until "next year" for the high pressure defense.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

I do believe at one point Greg Gard completely changed the offense back to the swing midseason last year. I would say play to your strengths. Pitino has shown to mix his defenses up over the years, I imagine that will continue. the name of the game is getting points in transition and you need to play the brand of defense that will help you do that
 

Not exactly what one wants to hear 4 years in, but it's not like what we've been doing has been working all that well.

As others have said, do whatever you need to do to give your team best chance to win, and certainly Pitino understands he needs to win now.
 



SelectionSunday said:
Not exactly what one wants to hear 4 years in, but it's not like what we've been doing has been working all that well.

As others have said, do whatever you need to do to give your team best chance to win, and certainly Pitino understands he needs to win now.
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Pitino could sign Gary Trent jr. tomorrow(not actually going to happen just an example) and people on this board would still find a way to have a problem with it.

This likely gives our team the best chance to win. Plus with the length for the defensive end I'd hope we'd look more like those OSU teams with Evan Turner. Or that Indiana Pacers set up where they were playing Paul George at the 2 and Danny Granger at the 3 and Hibert at the 5 (we don't have a 7'3" center and we are not an NBA team but the analogy holds).
 

Tim1406 said:
Pitino could sign Gary Trent jr. tomorrow(not actually going to happen just an example) and people on this board would still find a way to have a problem with it.

This likely gives our team the best chance to win. Plus with the length for the defensive end I'd hope we'd look more like those OSU teams with Evan Turner. Or that Indiana Pacers set up where they were playing Paul George at the 2 and Danny Granger at the 3 and Hibert at the 5 (we don't have a 7'3" center and we are not an NBA team but the analogy holds).
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If you want a college basketball analogy perhaps Syracuse would be a good one. Pitino, assuming he's comfortable with either Dupree or Coffey at PG, could run Dupree, Coffey, Gilbert, Murphy and Curry out there. that would go 6'4, 6'7, 6'6, 6'6, 6'9 which is very good size for a college basketball team.
 

Winona Gopher said:
If you want a college basketball analogy perhaps Syracuse would be a good one. Pitino, assuming he's comfortable with either Dupree or Coffey at PG, could run Dupree, Coffey, Gilbert, Murphy and Curry out there. that would go 6'4, 6'7, 6'6, 6'6, 6'9 which is very good size for a college basketball team.
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I immediately think of Billy D's last couple good years where he had Patrik Young, Finney-Smith and Prathor playing the bottom of an aggressive 2-3 zone. Both Finney Smith and Young are bigger than Curry and Murphy but you get the idea of having 3 very athletic, very mobile forwards on the bottom of a zone with a lot of wingspan and you can cause some issues.
 

As a general rule of thumb, if you're playing zone, I think you would prefer to have a big body in the post who can block some shots and control the rebounds. There are certain matchups where you can get away with playing small, but considering this team struggled with rebounding last year, I would be cautious about going small too often.
 



Have the gophers really run that much full court pressure under Pitino? It seems like it has always been talked about, but when it comes down to game time, they really didn't run it that much.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Have the gophers really run that much full court pressure under Pitino? It seems like it has always been talked about, but when it comes down to game time, they really didn't run it that much.
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I thought I remembered us using more pressure the first couple years. We ranked 10th nationally in steals in Pitino's first year (Austin Hollins was 18th in the nation individually), 6th in steals in his second year, and Pitino's FIU squad was 19th nationally in the year he was there. Big drop-off in year three with the Gophers, but obviously the team just kinda stunk as a whole last year. So there is somewhat of a statistical trend of placing a high priority on creating turnovers.
 

Talk about A to Z. We're not going to full court pressure, so people think that means we're going to play a zone.


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