How Does Your Back Feel Defense?

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What if I asked you the question, “Is Jay an offensive coach or a defensive coach?”  What would you say?  How would you respond?  Frankly, I can’t say I have even thought about this before.  I think most people would say however, that Jay is an offensive coach who prefers a guard dominant offense paired with athletic (by this I really mean undersized, but athletic is a nicer way to put it) bigs who develop effective 15 foot jump shots.  Note: no one ever says, “Nova usually has a pretty damn good defense.”  In reality though, our defense has usually been equal to our offense.  Since 2003 (10 seasons) we have had exactly 5 years when our offense had a better ranking than our defense, and exactly 5 years when we have had our defense better ranked than our offense. (Per kenpom’s adjusted points per possession)

            In 2013, the answer is clear.  We have a borderline, almost there, but not quite, elite defense.  And we are getting better, which is the crazy part.  Here is a breakdown of our defensive 4 factors for the season and for the 11 Big East games so far.

	Season	BE
eFG%	46.0%	43.6%
TO%	20.5%	18.8%
OR%	28.8%	28.6%
FTA/FGA	43.3	43.3

With the exception of forcing turnovers (TO%) our numbers have either stayed exactly the same or have improved, despite the fact that it has been against a drastically superior competition.  Not included in this little breakdown is the fact that we are holding our opponents to only 40.0% shooting from 2 during BE play.  If that was our number for the entire season we would rank 5^th in the country in 2pt. FG% defense.  Awesome.  And our current national rank for OR% is 59^th.  Not too shabby and overall we have the 35^th best defense in the country.

            The reason I considered us only borderline elite, is that our TO% and our FTrate’s are pretty bad as we rank 12^th and 13^th out of 15 conference teams respectively.  While these numbers definitely have room for improvement, (and hopefully they will as we gain more experience) the core defensive basics of rebounding and contesting shots are excellent.

            While we have improved on both sides of the ball during Big East play, our offense is not nearly as consistent as our defense has been.  And in looking ahead and thinking about the likelihood that we make the tournament or not, our offense needs to pick up the slack.  Here is how both our offense and defense has fared, broken down in wins and losses during Big East play.

	OFF			DEF
	Win	Loss		Win	Loss
eFG%	54.5%	38.9%		43.5%	42.7%
TO%	21.0%	27.0%		18.1%	21.1%
OR%	33.0%	30.5%		25.2%	33.3%
FTA/FGA	53.1	46.6		38.7	51.7

3FGA%

37.0%

33.9%

32.0%

29.9%

           

As you can see, our defense is almost the same during wins as it is during losses, while our offense is simply awful in our losses.  The turnover issue has been a problem for us all season and again it stands out in this breakdown.  2 things.  First, the problem is not going to go away.  We have really only 2 point guards, and one plays rather sparingly while the other is only a Freshmen.  But more importantly, I don’t think they are the reason why our offense struggles.  I believe they are a result of guys not playing within themselves and trying to make a play when the ball is bouncing the other way.    

            We are not the strongest shooting team.  We have only 1 player who hits better than 40% from 3 (Yacoubou) and both of our 2 big men shoot less than 50% (Yarou & Ochefu).  As a result, when games start to get away from us and when our shots are not falling our guards try to force the issue.  Look at the decline in 3 point attempts between wins and losses.  I think the fact that we take less 3’s when we are losing is a result of us ‘putting our heads down’ and forcing drives into the paint.

            In fact both Hilliard and Arcidiacono are guilty of this, as they attempt 7.2% and 9.3% less 3 point attempts in losses while both players also take more % of the team’s shots during losses than they do during wins – Hilliard in particular goes from taking 22% of shots during wins to 28% of shots during losses.

            I do not believe that either of these players are the reason why we have lost the games we have.  It is absolutely a team effort, as we only have one player playing significant minutes who actually shoots better during losses than during wins, JVP.

            Looking ahead to tonight and to our remaining games, its pretty clear that our defense is going to be there.  It will keep us in games, and it may even straight up win some games for us.  With 7 games left – 4 of which are away – and needing 4 wins to be better than .500 in conference play (which I believe we need in order to make the tourney), our offense needs to be more consistent.  As a young team, and a team that has so far shown great grit and exceeded expectations, the want to is there.  Now we just have to put it all together.