Defense-first is a sound strategy. Defense is largely just EFFORT and the base athleticism that schollie athletes all have.
Consider Big Cliff... amazing athlete... a shot blocker.. who got ZERO blocks this game. To me that showed a COACHING effort to get him to focus on REBOUNDS.. it worked. He had one foul and got more PT than has been usual.
There were other coaching changes to this game. Now, I am not expert on basketball but I see a lot of Rutgers basketball. The main change in this game was to return to the offense of last year and the year before. More transition, more ISO stuff.
The way I saw it, Pike had 3 options before this game seeing what had happened early season...
1) continue in the half-court offense plan with the people he had
2) go to a motion offense (think high posts and backdoor cuts)
3) return to last year's transition and ISO in half-court offense.
I think what we saw was a mix of 3 and 1. That is.. first try to go transition off turnovers.. then when stuck in half-court go ISO with some half-court sets with some screens.
And for this game.. knowing the size advantage and Clemson's poor rebounding and top 3-point shooting... Pike had the guys hit the boards on offense and really push the three point line on defense.
This was a well-coached game.. though I would have liked to see Pike get a T for some of those missed travels and other issues with the refs. Though, really, watching some of the Indiana-Syracuse game during timeouts.. man.. those refs were far worse.. some severe double dribbles in open court completely missed. Insane non-calls (Indiana had the repeat offender in this regard.. something I will keep an eye on when we play em).
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