My Kingdom for Some Interior Passing

[mildone]

This year's team doesn't seem to attempt many interior passes. I don't know what the real number is. But it feels like we get between 0 and 3 interior passes per game. And of those we do attempt, most seem to be the last-ditch desperation kind than ones that are intentionally planned and cleverly executed.

By interior pass, I mean one player in the paint passing to another player in the paint. The obvious example being a guard driving to the hoop and drawing a forward's/center's defender out of position, freeing that forward/center to receive a pass for an open layup or dunk. But there are many more interior pass combinations than just that.

For some reason, we seem allergic to interior passing this season. We didn't execute tons of them in prior years, either. But, if I recall correctly, we did do them a lot more than this year's team. And we did them more deliberately and successfully.

From a purely selfish fan standpoint, I wish we had closer to a dozen or more. When done well, they're great fun to watch. And they're pretty effective at getting a team's big men the ball for easy scoring opportunities. Doing that is something we could use given our outside shooting slump.

It also gets and keeps Cliff energized and focused. An energized and focused Cliff can be the beast that beats down on other teams mentally all game long. We haven't really seen that Cliff much this season. Mostly just in Mag's first comeback game.

I'm not sure our coaches/players have time to work on this sort of thing in practice. It's more likely something that some of our guards have to start working out for themselves in practice scrimmages, dumping ball after ball into a big man's gut in the paint until our big players learn to expect it all the time.

Anyway, this has turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry.

But yeah, my kingdom for some interior passing. I think getting this aspect of the game right can transform this season's team in a very positive way.

 

[Scangg]

This is a fairly obvious problem. It's more frustrating when everyone is so poor finishing at the rim and not driving and getting it to Cliff for a dunk

 

[Duff366]

It's a no brainer, lobbing or dishing to Cliff should be mandatory. Stephen Bardo was talking about how Lou Henson wouldn't have allowed their big man to be ignored, you'd get a seat on the bench if you weren't doing it.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

This is everything

 

[mildone]

This is everything

There was a guy who played pickup games where I played for years. He was a magician at interior passing, and at running pick and rolls. When he wound up on your team, you knew you’d be getting some easy points in the paint. You also knew you had to be ready for the ball to just sort of appear out of nowhere.

We need one, or more, of our guards to take the time to figure that out. I think this year’s team would benefit greatly.

If I were Pike, I’d find a former master of this art and have him/her conduct some sessions with the guards. Like every type of combination play in every sport, there’s a lot of technique that can be taught for this.

 

[motorb54]

There were a couple of opportunities in the Indiana game where Cliff had inside position on the block to the right of the basket yet our guard forced up a shot coming down the left side of the lane. Not even a difficult pass to make. Most frustrating especially when the guard gets stuffed by the defender big sliding over. This is where Cliff shines yet when we feed him he is often too far from the basket which is not his strength.

 

[Yeah Baby]

Agree this can improve. You watch a team like Iowa and know they spend hours on it. But Pike spends equal amounts of time devising defensive strategies. They change game to game. As much as he wants to be an 80 point team, Defense will win more games for us this year IMO.

 

[RU-ROCS]

Watch Wisconsin if you want to see great interior passing. They dismantled OSU’s defense at key point of last night’s game with exactly that.

 

[RUJMM78]

There have been concerns about the half court offense from the Princeton game to the present.Interior passing is just one aspect of many more that needs improvement.

 

[FIJI'83]

A HEALTHY Austin Williams is the only bona fide B10 guard we hav🙃.

 

[Scarlet Shack]

This isn’t just a current guard problem

You need players who don’t need to gather forst to see the court …

We have a LOT of players who need to catch and hold the ball before making a move. Lot of stick’em in the hands…that’s valuable time that allows the defense to catch up, and cliff on the block, like any bjg man not named Shaq , can only hold their postion on the block for so long ….

People say we miss Paul’s passing and there is something to that…but this feels like a broader roster issue than just paul’s transfer

.

 

[mildone]

A HEALTHY Austin Williams is the only bona fide B10 guard we hav🙃.

I can't agree to that. They're all playing in the Big Ten, so they're all bona fide Big Ten guards. 🙂

I think any of our guards could improve their ability to do more interior passing. Also, it's not just guards that can do it. I'm pretty certain it can be coached. But some players are more natural with it than others.

I don't know BB coaching at all, but I do know soccer coaching and it's conceptually the same in BB, hockey, water-polo, or soccer. Transposing how it's coached in soccer to BB, I would imagine it's something along these lines...

All the players on the court need to learn how to be aware of and recognize the cues for when an interior pass is on (i.e. when it's situationally viable). One player not paying attention can screw the whole thing up, even when they're not directly involved.

The initiating player (with the ball) needs to learn the right angles of movement and approach to best draw defenders out of position. And, perhaps the hardest part, needs to learn how to set the player marking them up to make a small window through which to pass. All that varies depending on what the defense is showing. But it can be coached.

The receiving player needs to learn the proper angles to best support the pass (i.e. move in a way that both signals availability to receive the pass and potentially seals off any nearby weak-side defender from interfering).

And the remaining players near the play need to understand how to either pull their defenders away from the lane, or otherwise occupy their attention or seal them off from interfering and helping. Which has to happen as early as possible before it becomes obvious to the players marking them what's about to happen and they drop off to help.

I don't know that I'd interrupt normal game prep. But when there are extra days between games, I would think dedicating a session here and there to coaching and improving the team's ability to do that stuff could be rewarding.

And if we can get better at interior passing, that will create situations where the defense is compelled to collapse down on an open player in the lane, which opens up more time for someone on the outside to get and make a longer range shot with less pressure than normal.

Again, a lot of the reward is that getting Cliff involved in some easy scoring will have all kinds of benefits to the entire team's play on both ends of the court. Not to mention we might get a few more points easily when we're stuck in some of our interminable dry-spells with our mid and long range shots.

 

[mildone]

There were a couple of opportunities in the Indiana game where Cliff had inside position on the block to the right of the basket yet our guard forced up a shot coming down the left side of the lane. Not even a difficult pass to make. Most frustrating especially when the guard gets stuffed by the defender big sliding over. This is where Cliff shines yet when we feed him he is often too far from the basket which is not his strength.

This is true. There have been many times this season where we have one of our bigs in great position to receive an entry pass from a guard but the guard just isn't looking, or isn't recognizing it, or is not in a good position to deliver the ball. That needs to improve along with interior passing.

In the past couple/few games, Simpson has made some really good no-look passes from up above the top of the key. Which is what we want. We just need all the guards to be seeing those more consistently, along with pick and rolls and so forth.