Mailbag: Are changes in order for how Tony Bennett, Virginia play defense?

While everybody raves about our Pack Line defense, smart teams, with good coaches – the ones you play in the NCAA tourney – way too often have carved us up. And do we adjust? No. We just keep getting carved up. We almost never switch up our defenses, whether zone defense or pressure defense.

And let’s stop making such a big about shot-clock violations by the other team. Big deal. We get maybe one of those a game, and the other team gets to set up their defense. A live turnover leading to a fast break uncontested dunk, layup, or in-rhythm three-pointer is much more valuable. Get a few more of those this year than usual because Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn were such good defenders. But nothing systemic. And way too often, we double-team some opposition player and leave somebody free next to the basket for an easy dunk or layin, or pass to an open three-point shooter.

We did thankfully, improve on our high hedging as this season wore on, with Jordan Minor playing it much better than our other defenders by hedging softly, not hard. But before that, way too many hard hedges, leading to hip fouls by our bigs or easy baskets for the opponents, where the opposing big setting the pick gets free to roll to the basket for an easy two, pass to another for an easy two, or an open three-point shooter. And the same things used to happen with Jack Salt, Jay Huff and Kadin Shedrick. Again, thank God for Minor this year. Of course, after being wasted in the first half of the year, he still disappeared too much down the stretch, rendering us increasingly soft inside and one -dimensional on offense.

David

Lots of good stuff here from David, who, it would appear, needs to get a byline here at AFP sometime soon.

First, on good coaches carving Virginia up on D this year: UVA played 10 games against teams in the 2024 NCAA Tournament field this season. In those 10 games, the D gave up 1.057 points per possession.

The full-season number – 0.934 points per possession – ranks eighth nationally, per KenPom.

Impressive.

That 1.057 PPP in the games against NCAA Tournament teams would rank 165th.

Not impressive.

Second, on the excessive attention that we’re asked to pay to shot-clock violations: yeah, I’m there with you, David.

I ran the numbers on that, poring through data from Synergy Sports.

Virginia led the nation in the percentage of possessions that came down to the final four seconds of the shot clock, at 11.2 percent.

Opponents shot 30.3 percent on those possessions, and had an effective field-goal percentage, accounting for threes, at 36.8 percent.

The field-goal percentage ranks 139th nationally; the effective field-goal percentage ranks 179th.

Translation: Virginia forces more late-shot-clock shots, but doesn’t defend those any better than the average D1 team.

We all instinctively pat our heads when the D forces a violation; the whole exercise isn’t what it’s made out to be.

The one area where I’m not on point with David is on the criticism on the hard hedges on screen-and-rolls.

Basically, you’ve got two ways to defend the screen-and-roll: hard hedge, which has the big doubling the ball-handler as the screen-setter rolls, and a help defender from the back line jumps over to take away the pass to the rim; or use drop coverage, in which the big basically zones the area as the defender guarding the ball-handler fights to catch up after being set behind the play by the screen.

The Synergy Sports data suggests that Virginia’s approach works.

UVA ranks 27th nationally in points per possession on pick-and-rolls in which the ball-handler shoots (0.668 PPP), and is 31st in field-goal percentage (33.9%) and 35th in effective field-goal percentage (37.9%).

In pick-and-rolls with the screener shooting, the ranks aren’t quite as good – 0.969 PPP (113th), 49.5 percent field-goal percentage (150th), 53.2 percent effective field-goal percentage (163rd).

It’s worth noting that these numbers can’t, by definition, include the number of possessions in which opponents don’t get shots off screen-and-rolls.

Synergy Sports data tells us that Virginia ranked 329th in pick-and-roll ball-handler possessions, and 117th in pick-and-roll screener possessions.

Doubling the screen-and-roll this way takes away a staple of the basketball offense.

The problem in one-off situations isn’t so much the approach, but rather how it’s executed. The reason Bennett uses the term hard hedge is to signify that the big needs to commit to it 100 percent, to prevent the ball-handler from getting around the corner for daylight that can lead to a dribble-drive, a clear line for a pass to the screener cutting to the rim, or a pass to the wing.

The same issue reared its head too often with the post doubles that are a staple of Bennett’s defensive philosophy. NC State coach Kevin Keatts expertly took advantage of the inexperience of Virginia’s bigs here, getting the ball to his 6’9”, 300-something-pound DJ Burns 15-18 feet out from the basket, on his side of the floor basically by himself, daring the other big to run across the lane for the double-team.

If the double came, Virginia was put into scramble mode defensively to protect the rim and also keep in contact with shooters on the perimeter; if Bennett played it straight up, it was one-on-one with Burns, a big with an elite soft touch around the rim, and a willingness to use his heft to create easy shot attempts.

Colorado State coach Niko Medved took a similar approach with his 6’7”, 225-pound center Joel Scott, getting him the ball on the side and at the elbows with good floor spacing making it hard for Virginia to bring a post double.

Scott ate Virginia up for 23 points, 9-of-13 shooting, 5-of-7 at the line.

To David’s point, having something else in the defensive arsenal to counter the Keatts and Medveds who have the perfect counter to what the Pack Line is designed to take away would benefit Bennett down the line.

Being able to mix in a 2-3 zone, matchup zone, box-and-one, different press defenses, with the base Pack Line would make it that much harder for opposing coaches to game-plan.