Something that came up in the Duke game thread regarding JJ's use of the 2-3 zone and its effectiveness made me want to take a look back at the last five games to see how effective its been, since he started really focusing on its use against Pittsburgh.
Here are the results.
As you can see from the graphic, we held four out of five of those opponents under their season average for scoring. Three of these were double digits below their average. On average for the five games, we are holding teams 9.8 points below their season average, including Pitt, where we had an overtime.
Four out of five opponents put up their sixth or worse total points against us on the season out of about 30 games at this point, Duke being their lowest and Miami their second lowest.
I know we only went 1-4 in these games and we still made a ton of mistakes but seeing JJ at least make a course correction that has allowed his team as it is to remain quasi competitive is a positive in my book.
The biggest correction I would like to see in this zone now is the positioning of the center and the help forward (backside of the rim from shot) sliding into the sides of the lane to better prepare themselves for rebounds. If we can figure out how to limit the offensive rebounds, we have a chance of winning at least one more game in the three remaining. We have #19 North Carolina on Mar 1st, at Maryland on Mar 4th and at Georgia Tech on Mar 8th.
Of the three, I would really like to see us beat Georgia Tech, as I think its realistic. All three teams will likely come into their games with us fighting for a chance at Post Season basketball of some sort.
Comments
You're serious!?
Baby steps in the right direction are better than laying down for dead.
Just to add a little - The Pitt game was a double OT if you take their points at the end of regulation (48) there would be a 24 point difference and the average would end up being 12.6 for those 5 games.
48 would have been Pitt's third lowest output, only two lower were a 44-43 loss to Cincinnati, and a 48-45 loss to LOLUVA.
Well at least one person got the joke and thought it was funny.
I thought it was funny, didn't ding you for it either....but it was painful as the first comment...Too soon, too soon
ltrepeter2000, I have to applaud the effort it took find a positive among all the gloom and doom of the basketball season. The basketball team is bad, but there are some positives, and J.J. has certainly made the team more competitive over the course of the last 4 games. Thanks for the insight and updates on the teams (men's and women's) over the course of the season.
We haven't had much positive to look at this season, but I really appreciate this post. Baby steps might not be much, but it does look like we are (somewhat) moving in the right direction.
I ran into joey van zegren the other day and told him I thought he put in a pretty good game about uva and it really seemed to put him in good spirits. I can only imagine what kind of heckling they're getting and how stressed out they are about the results, their recent close calls have proven that they havent given up and they're playing hard its just....honestly the cubbard was left pretty bare
My point is we don't need to throw gas on the fire support the team and hang in there. I'm willing to bet joey expected me to heckle the shit out of him but I'm sure he was relieved and happy with the compliment
yeah we shouldn't be happy with not being the best but shit guys cut em a break I've seen a lot of bashing on the basketball team and I think we really need to take our foot off their throats...
Shit there was a point last year where JJ was considered one of the best basketball hires ever in our inner circle so let's hold off the doom and gloom for a little bit and let the coaches do their thing
Rant over
I think the biggest problem we had against Duke was getting the ball past half-court for the first 10 minutes. They were running that high-pressure full court man defense that VCU loves and with only one true ball handler it's tough to beat that. Having a guy like Adam Smith (even though he's undersized on defense) or Mueller would help a ton. I love Will Johnston's hustle, but when your 2-guard can't dribble it's tough to beat a press. And then once we did beat the press nobody was moving.
JJ is definitely coaching like his job is on the line, and the guys are giving a lot of effort for him. Comebacks start on defense and so do turnarounds for a program, but I just think it might be a little too late for JJ to save his job.
Well, it's something.
Good stuff Rob, keep it coming. Adjustments are necessary for any coach to succeed and it appears that JJ is slowly changing his game. I was for canning him but Im back to thinking he should get another year
Same here. A month ago I wanted him gone but I think he deserves another year after the past few weeks.
I can honestly say, I won't mind if he gets another year. I think every coach should get at least three years to prove themselves.
Let me first say that I agree with you that I think he deserves and should get one more year. BUT my question is what would he need to do next year to keep his job for a 4th year? Obviously bringing in some good recruits would help. But from the standpoint of how many wins or what kind of improvement would we need to see from the team next year in order for him to stay on for a 4th year?
Next year for me would need to be close to .500 ball in the ACC and win at least .700 in the OOC slate to have him continue to a fourth year. Is that a significant improvement over this year? Yes, but they will have at least five new players in between the recruiting class, Kirby and Mueller and get Smith and Emelogu back from injury for more of the season. That effects depth and talent. They lose Eddie and Raines, possibly Wood if the rumors are true. I think its a positive because we no longer will be focused on one player to deliver and the result hinge on whether that happens or not.
I agree, next year has to be at least a winning record and signs of progress.
I'd say this....a .500ish season with no major upsets would probably give a 4th year. A .500 season with a major upset or anything at all above .500 will guarantee him a 4th year. That's if I was a betting man though