The High Post Ball Screen Action died this weekend. The memorial service hasn't taken place yet but you can go ahead and order the baked ham. I write this as the obituary. Saturday's innovative game plan was so smoothly implemented that all of us missed noting the expiration of the wayward ball screen scheme.
CMW cleverly transitioned to new actions that resembled the old scheme but varied at the last second when other players approached the ballhandling guard as if to set a screen. The screener veered off at the last second to receive a short pass or the PG turned the action into a hand-off toss as the fake-screener continued aggressively into the lane after the hand-off. I had to rub my eyes in surprise at how many off-ball pin downs and flex type screens we ran.
It's hard to see the patterns when you attend the game. A fan has to have the benefit of a TV tape to slow down and replay in order to note accurately the significant differences in what we ran. I've held off posting until I had the benefit of a replay and I invite 504noladawg and the many other knowledgeable posters to review the game and confirm or contradict what I observed.
The few high post ball screens we did run were not called as set plays but resulted from post players getting nervous near the end of the shot clock and reflexively defaulting to the old tried and true ball screens. I didn't see but maybe once in each half when the old action was called as a set play. And that's okay because it is an effective tactic to show the high post ball screen once or twice to keep an opponent who has set the D for it - to keep them worrying about it so that they fail to adjust to the new hand-off actions and wing off-ball screen action that we were actually running.
Another reason the newly revealed O schemes were hard to recognize is that our players were making so many unforced errors and missing so many open shots that it did not appear that we were doing anything much different than our past inefficient ball screen actions. But the new sets actually was effective in keeping our big men lower and creating more solid opportunities for wings and posts. 13 turnovers may seem like a lot, but most were unforced errors rather than a result of what we were running. I shudder to think how many turnovers we would have totalled against the ferocious D of Auburn had we been running our old sets.
So mourn the final score and lost opportunity. We shoulda coulda won that game thanks to the adustments CMW made. How else do you account for us remaining close when we did such a poor job of finishing plays and getting the ball in the basket? We should however also celebrate what we saw. It was a dribble hand-off oriented game plan that provided off-ball screens designed to get players into space and moving towards the rim when they received the ball.
The new sets will likely remain in the Arkansas game plan because they worked. It was the failure of players to finish and convert that was the problem. They will be more comfortable in the new actions now that we had our dress rehearsal against the Tigers.
The Auburn O game plan was the best, most innovative preparation I've seen in Athens in 20 years. Kudos to CMW. It was an exciting step forward that should make us optimistic about what will happen in this brutal gauntlet that is the SEC.
CMW cleverly transitioned to new actions that resembled the old scheme but varied at the last second when other players approached the ballhandling guard as if to set a screen. The screener veered off at the last second to receive a short pass or the PG turned the action into a hand-off toss as the fake-screener continued aggressively into the lane after the hand-off. I had to rub my eyes in surprise at how many off-ball pin downs and flex type screens we ran.
It's hard to see the patterns when you attend the game. A fan has to have the benefit of a TV tape to slow down and replay in order to note accurately the significant differences in what we ran. I've held off posting until I had the benefit of a replay and I invite 504noladawg and the many other knowledgeable posters to review the game and confirm or contradict what I observed.
The few high post ball screens we did run were not called as set plays but resulted from post players getting nervous near the end of the shot clock and reflexively defaulting to the old tried and true ball screens. I didn't see but maybe once in each half when the old action was called as a set play. And that's okay because it is an effective tactic to show the high post ball screen once or twice to keep an opponent who has set the D for it - to keep them worrying about it so that they fail to adjust to the new hand-off actions and wing off-ball screen action that we were actually running.
Another reason the newly revealed O schemes were hard to recognize is that our players were making so many unforced errors and missing so many open shots that it did not appear that we were doing anything much different than our past inefficient ball screen actions. But the new sets actually was effective in keeping our big men lower and creating more solid opportunities for wings and posts. 13 turnovers may seem like a lot, but most were unforced errors rather than a result of what we were running. I shudder to think how many turnovers we would have totalled against the ferocious D of Auburn had we been running our old sets.
So mourn the final score and lost opportunity. We shoulda coulda won that game thanks to the adustments CMW made. How else do you account for us remaining close when we did such a poor job of finishing plays and getting the ball in the basket? We should however also celebrate what we saw. It was a dribble hand-off oriented game plan that provided off-ball screens designed to get players into space and moving towards the rim when they received the ball.
The new sets will likely remain in the Arkansas game plan because they worked. It was the failure of players to finish and convert that was the problem. They will be more comfortable in the new actions now that we had our dress rehearsal against the Tigers.
The Auburn O game plan was the best, most innovative preparation I've seen in Athens in 20 years. Kudos to CMW. It was an exciting step forward that should make us optimistic about what will happen in this brutal gauntlet that is the SEC.
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