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Last night was our worst defensive night since November 16, 2019.....but

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Looking at the numbers from last night the game actually ended up with only 64 possessions which is a slow tempo game.

We gave a whopping 82 points in 64 games which will almost NEVER win a game. Often times you see numbers like this and think maybe there was a foulfest at the end of the game that led to bloating scoring numbers. Didn't happen.

So we gave up 82 points in 64 points to an offense that is now rated only 70th overall. Our adjusted defensive efficiency was 1.214 points per possession. The last time we were worse than that was November 16, 2019 when we let St. Bonnies score 80 points in 64 possessions against us.


We had our most efficient offensive night by far EVER in Pike regime when we scored a whopping 85 points in 64 possessions against a top 20 defense.
 
There were a couple times when guys messed up a switch or got lost helping off of their man but I feel like these guys were playing good defense last night. And tightened up when they had to in crucial moments. Need ogbole to keep improving so a team with a good center can't wreck the game but besides post defense I like the effort. Just some talented offensive players and idk I guess they know scouts are watching because there's always a guy making some crazy shots against RU.
 
There were a couple times when guys messed up a switch or got lost helping off of their man but I feel like these guys were playing good defense last night. And tightened up when they had to in crucial moments. Need ogbole to keep improving so a team with a good center can't wreck the game but besides post defense I like the effort. Just some talented offensive players and idk I guess they know scouts are watching because there's always a guy making some crazy shots against RU.
the numbers other than the last 5 minutes tell a complete opposite picture.

Funny how our view of things change when the outcome goes a certain way.

I include myself....i didn't get the sense we were bad defensively, but when you go back and look at the data (and film) we were bad.

There were 64 possessions and we gave up 82 points...this is fact and not opinion. Nebraska was not red hot shooting both from 3 and the FT line.
 
the numbers other than the last 5 minutes tell a complete opposite picture.

Funny how our view of things change when the outcome goes a certain way.

I include myself....i didn't get the sense we were bad defensively, but when you go back and look at the data (and film) we were bad.

There were 64 possessions and we gave up 82 points...this is fact and not opinion. Nebraska was not red hot shooting both from 3 and the FT line.
Remember, grant and Summerville are freshman that haven't played as much as ace and Dylan. They had some lapses down low..but they will get better down there. Hopefully team can continue to score more than the other guys until that tightens up..
 
I think *how* you play bad defense factors into how it feels.

They only shot 45% against us so we did see them missing a fair bit and their EFG% of 52.4 is a bit high but not egregious. However,

we forced very few turnovers (7)
we gave up a huge number of ORebs (19 on 34 missed shots)

To the extend that DREB is a separate thing from defense really it was the DREB that was so atrocious
 
To me defensive rebounding is a part of defense. Although there probably is negative correlation to shot blocking and defensive rebounding. How many of those OREB were a result of shot blocking or shot blocking attenpts

1. A shot that is blocked is now in play to be rebounded
2. Shot blocking almost always puts you out of position for a DREB
 
Would love to see rebounding stats for all of baskeyball…
OREB percentage
1. Off of blocked shots
2. Off of missed 3s

How much, if any, are they different from overall OREB %
 
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A lot had to do with so many trips to the line, 15 RU PFs out of 20 led to 27 FTa and 17 FTm. Also, Rutgers had 17 offensive rebounds and Nebraska had 19 offensive rebounds kept the possession lower multiple chances to score in 1 possession, both teams cashed in on second chance pts, Neb 25 and RU 19.
 
the numbers other than the last 5 minutes tell a complete opposite picture.

Funny how our view of things change when the outcome goes a certain way.

I include myself....i didn't get the sense we were bad defensively, but when you go back and look at the data (and film) we were bad.

There were 64 possessions and we gave up 82 points...this is fact and not opinion. Nebraska was not red hot shooting both from 3 and the FT line.

i think Grant has a lot of potential defensively, but he was making a lot of mental mistakes. Lathan was just straight up bad. We were giving up baseline way too easily
 
i think Grant has a lot of potential defensively, but he was making a lot of mental mistakes. Lathan was just straight up bad. We were giving up baseline way too easily
Grant got lost on close outs and didn't recognize the speed of the forwards he was playing against in Gary and Williams at times went right past him.

I also think part of my concerns about rebounding and on the ball defense was a concern with Hayes and Martini playing were also valid. The plus side of playing Grant is he may give up some of those same drives that Martini or Hayes would but he is able to offset that on offense, by climbing the glass for a put back or layup. Add in the teams are not closing out on Grant and he's knocking down 3s. So while the defense and Nebraska offense is excellent, I don't think it was all bad defense.

Nebraska and Hoiberg are not at the level of Iowa/ Fran McCaffery level of detail on offense but it's now Year 5 and Hoiberg has figured out what types of players can fit this program in recruiting and score on offense AND play a competitive level of defense.....

The days of Nebraska recruiting a CJ Wilcher type and throwing him passes for corner 3s is fine, but if Wilcher isn't a rebounding guard or wing up front or solid defensive player, it's going to cost you. It is why I don't see Gavin Griffiths ever putting it together, until he dedicates himself to playing like he's really 6'8" and adding 20 lbs of strength and muscle, so Hoiberg can use that type of wingspan.

This loss is a RU 10 out of 10 times if not for RU coaching on offense AND winning games in regards to recruiting playmakers like Ace, Dylan Harper and Dylan Grant, along with a JWill......it is very difficult to win ANY B1G road game, but getting 60+ PTS from 3-4 FROSH, solves a lot of problems. If Martini and JWill were Akwasi Yeboah and Geo Baker level shot makers, RU rings up 100 to 105 last night.
 
I think *how* you play bad defense factors into how it feels.

They only shot 45% against us so we did see them missing a fair bit and their EFG% of 52.4 is a bit high but not egregious. However,

we forced very few turnovers (7)
we gave up a huge number of ORebs (19 on 34 missed shots)

To the extend that DREB is a separate thing from defense really it was the DREB that was so atrocious
The box score linked to this board is showing 17 OReb for RU and only 14 OReb for Nebraska.
 
the numbers other than the last 5 minutes tell a complete opposite picture.

Funny how our view of things change when the outcome goes a certain way.

I include myself....i didn't get the sense we were bad defensively, but when you go back and look at the data (and film) we were bad.

There were 64 possessions and we gave up 82 points...this is fact and not opinion. Nebraska was not red hot shooting both from 3 and the FT line.
There was a stretch in the second half where it seemed like Nebraska scored points on every possession. That changed though down the stretch, but the damage was already done to the defensive metrics as it seemed like Nebraska was getting some sort of points every time they had the ball for about the first 12 minutes of the second half.

I think we also have such a low bar with this group and grade them on a curve when it comes to defense that when we don’t see the opponent flying in for wide open dunks and layups, as we saw earlier in the season, we say “the defense looks better”. That early season defense was atrocious and created the grading curve. In all reality the defense is better, but it’s not like this group is ever going to be a lockdown group holding teams to 55 points for wins. A great defensive effort from them is more like giving up 65 points. They just have to be “good enough” on defense, last night they were not great on defense but did enough to win.
 
Also to be fair at least a few of these were shots we blocked out of bounds which technically count as ORebs but are kind of unfair to pin on “bad rebounding” but I don’t think anyone would argue we rebounded well on the defensive end regardless
never thought about that
 
It is the nature of basketball over the course of a season, but... some of the 3s Nebraska hit were far behind the arc.

Watching the extended highlights for the game here:

First possession - Williams is several feet outside it and knocks down the 3. He got space because Lathan got in Dylan's way after hedging on a Meah screen. So... bad team D, but also not an easy shot.

Juwan Gary, 30% from deep on the year. So Grant naturally is sagging off of him, can't get out past a Worster screen, and *boom* Gary hits a three.

Gary's 2nd three - he is at least 5' behind the arc and drains it. I think we want Grant sagging off a 30% shooter there and preparing for a drive. Gary did miss his final four 3 pt attempts on the evening.

Gary gets a put-back at the 13:44 mark. Watch the replay - Ace is in position, does not box out HARD and lets Gary push him in the back to get the ball and easy layup. If Ace boxes out harder, or we get the whistle for the offensive foul on the push, that's not a bucket.

Terrible D by Ogbole/Grant combined around the 4 minute mark leads to an uncontested layup off the give and go.

Second half - alley oop to Meah - total confusion on the zone by Ace and Lathan left him wide open. Looks like Ace thought it was man as he chased someone into the paint, then stopped when he got to Lathan, and both ignored Meah. Whoops.

Williams' last three was a few feet behind the arc, too - and we should not contest that too hard with a four point lead.
 
Keep in mind on a "points per possession" basis, we sent Nebraska to the line for 27 attempts and they got 17 of their 82 points there (21%). They got a lot of points that don't really show up in their FG%.

Also, our offensive points per possession were very good last night.... but we blew half of our FTs, especially late in the game when we came away with 0 points on 3 consecutive trips to the line (0-2 from Harper, then missed the front end of 1-1s by Ogbole and Bailey).
 
Also to be fair at least a few of these were shots we blocked out of bounds which technically count as ORebs but are kind of unfair to pin on “bad rebounding” but I don’t think anyone would argue we rebounded well on the defensive end regardless
I think Ace and DG can do a little bit better of a job trying to keep blocks in bounds, they often go for these emphatic swats on smaller guards. feels like something Cliff got better at
 
To me defensive rebounding is a part of defense. Although there probably is negative correlation to shot blocking and defensive rebounding. How many of those OREB were a result of shot blocking or shot blocking attenpts

1. A shot that is blocked is now in play to be rebounded
2. Shot blocking almost always puts you out of position for a DREB
A lot of long rebounds off missed 3's
 
Defense wasn’t the best last night, specifically the start of the game and the 2nd half.

But no stat or analytics can make me believe that was actually our worst defensive effort since 2019.

We’ve had worse efforts this year.
Agreed. Wasn't even our worst defensive game this season. Not even close

We played pretty good D early at times rotating and it was noticeable

If someone makes a deep semi contested 3 that isn't terrible defense

They also took and made a bunch of mid to long range twos it felt like which are shots you can live with

The defense down the stretch was good when it needed to be and stretched the lead enough where the missed FTs didn't kill us

A couple lucky-ish late 3s by them too
 
The saying is you are what your record is......

Nebraska had the ball on 64 possessions. They scored 83 points.

Rutgers will not win a game the rest of the season when it allows 83-64 or 19 over par....
 
Agreed. Wasn't even our worst defensive game this season. Not even close

We played pretty good D early at times rotating and it was noticeable

If someone makes a deep semi contested 3 that isn't terrible defense

They also took and made a bunch of mid to long range twos it felt like which are shots you can live with

The defense down the stretch was good when it needed to be and stretched the lead enough where the missed FTs didn't kill us

A couple lucky-ish late 3s by them too
Nebraska definitely shot the cover off the ball (so did we) but I think we more got lucky than tightened up defensively during that stretch where we pulled away. They got a wide open Brice Williams 3 and Connor essegian fairly open curling off a screen
 
Looking at the numbers from last night the game actually ended up with only 64 possessions which is a slow tempo game.

We gave a whopping 82 points in 64 games which will almost NEVER win a game. Often times you see numbers like this and think maybe there was a foulfest at the end of the game that led to bloating scoring numbers. Didn't happen.

So we gave up 82 points in 64 points to an offense that is now rated only 70th overall. Our adjusted defensive efficiency was 1.214 points per possession. The last time we were worse than that was November 16, 2019 when we let St. Bonnies score 80 points in 64 possessions against us.


We had our most efficient offensive night by far EVER in Pike regime when we scored a whopping 85 points in 64 possessions against a top 20 defense.
Our defense last night was just fine in the context of the game. It's why these efficiency statistics are so problematic even though they have high face validity.

L
 
Sometimes good offense can overcome good defense, and it did on several occasions last night. Nebraska made some very deep threes with a hand in their face... Which were shots a good defense forces teams into. The fact that they got three points on a shot from 28 ft does not mean that possession had bad defense .

There were also some long caroms that ended up as offensive rebounds, which were just bad luck.

At least we didn't have anyone accidentally score in our own basket this game.
 
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There was a stretch in the second half where it seemed like Nebraska scored points on every possession. That changed though down the stretch, but the damage was already done to the defensive metrics as it seemed like Nebraska was getting some sort of points every time they had the ball for about the first 12 minutes of the second half.

I think we also have such a low bar with this group and grade them on a curve when it comes to defense that when we don’t see the opponent flying in for wide open dunks and layups, as we saw earlier in the season, we say “the defense looks better”. That early season defense was atrocious and created the grading curve. In all reality the defense is better, but it’s not like this group is ever going to be a lockdown group holding teams to 55 points for wins. A great defensive effort from them is more like giving up 65 points. They just have to be “good enough” on defense, last night they were not great on defense but did enough to win.
I think there is something to that and I am definitely guilty of grading improvement on the bad curve.
 
If we didn't make our shots...trust me everyone would be saying our defense was awful.

Obviously there are times where the result doesn't match the play. If I were to go and watch on tape I am sure last night was an example.

We still gave up a lot of points on very little possessions playing a team who hasn't been very good on offense.
 
If we didn't make our shots...trust me everyone would be saying our defense was awful.

Obviously there are times where the result doesn't match the play. If I were to go and watch on tape I am sure last night was an example.

We still gave up a lot of points on very little possessions playing a team who hasn't been very good on offense.
I think the point people are making is that it wasn't our worst defense since 2009, doesn't mean we played good D
 
I think the point people are making is that it wasn't our worst defense since 2009, doesn't mean we played good D
The correct thing to say this was our worst defensive efficiency score since St. Bonnies in 1999.

Also correct, best offensive efficiency score under Pike (probably under Wenzel, Waters, Hill, Bannon and Jordan too)
 
efficiency stats are not problematic at all.
Yes, yes they are. Because the defensive efficiency just night was perfectly fine within the game but looks terrible. Context defines what is and is not efficient. Assuming the goal still is to win the game and not the statistics.

It reminds me of Simpson's paradox...
L
 
Yes, yes they are. Because the defensive efficiency just night was perfectly fine within the game but looks terrible. Context defines what is and is not efficient. Assuming the goal still is to win the game and not the statistics.

It reminds me of Simpson's paradox...
L
That is exactly why the stats are important. We play the rest of the way with that defensive efficiency we will lose every game and get blown out of most.

Just like if you are a FB team and your defense gives up 5 TD and 2 FGs on 9 possessions you probably aren't going to win. No different.

It is a big ask to have your offense score on almost every possession (FB talk).

You want to tell me our D wasn't bad because a DB slipped on one. Ref called a pass interference on another that was questionable. That is fine.

Still they scored 83 point on 64 possessions. Our offense has to score 84 points on 64 possessions to win. End of story. How often against a Top 20 defense is our offense going to score 1.3 points per possession?
 
Rewatching the second half right now, and through seven minutes there have been two defensive possessions that didn’t end in a layup, open 3 or free throws (Juwan Gary push shot and a Morgan post fade, both misses). I think we had fewer glaring breakdowns, but we didn’t really produce good defensive outcomes imo
 
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