The Defense That NO One Can Score On

They might be the best defensive team I've ever seen. Let's start with some numbers: There have been over 125,000 ball screens this season that have directly led to a shot or turnover 46% of the time, the ball handler himself has called his own number and made the shot on 19% of the time the ball ended up in the roller's hands and the other 35% the ball was passed to one of the other three players who did not immediately participate D on the screen now stay with me on the plays where the roller receives the pass his team

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s an average of 1.04 points per play when one of the three not participating in the screen receives a pass the NCAA average is 0.88 points per play and when the ball handler calls his own number the average decreases at just 0.79 Now we're looking at the mathematical reason why drop coverage has become so popular at the college level.

On the drop, the idea is to keep the big man guarding the blocker leaning into the paint, basically daring the ball handler to hit a jumper or floater. in other words, entice the offense to take those 79 shots, teams like Kraton and Purdue have built strong

defense

s by playing their 7t drop centers, the math makes sense long before you answer, let me introduce you to the Houston Cougars, currently Houston. has one of the most efficient

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s of any team this century and they are doing it with basically the opposite of everything I just told you, not only does Houston not use drop coverage, they aggressively attack ball handlers by taking it out from your hands, in fact, remember. how I said 46% of all shots come through the handle of the ball against Houston's defense, that number is only 29%, which is the lowest of any top team;

In other words, the Cougars actively prevent teams from taking those inefficient shots, but even though they lead. the whole country in defensive efficiency what's going on here well let's go to the film and find out for ourselves the first thing we need to do is come up with a name for Houston's ball screen coverage it's not exactly what I would call a coverage Virginia is a team known for guarding and noting how the defender is on his side with his chest parallel to the sideline, which is different than the technique Houston uses. They have the defender square the ball handler with his chest toward the opponent's chest.

Most of the announcers on television called this a trap. I mean that seems like a pretty accurate way to describe what's going on here, but head coach Kelvin Samson insists that a trap isn't the right term either in an article written by A's CJ Moore last year. He was quoted as saying that we never caught Samson. Whenever we stick to the line of scrimmage, that line of scrimmage is created by the offensive player who is setting the screen on an imaginary line that is drawn based on where the guard's top foot is located. Here you can see that the line of scrimmage is created right behind him. the three point line, that means jvier francis's job is to get to the line, get his chest in front of the ball and stop the ball;

However, Houston's bigs regularly go beyond the line of scrimmage to put additional pressure on the ball handlers and To be honest, I think Kelvin Samson and I may have different definitions of the term trap because some of them sure make me They look like traps, but to avoid confusion I'll use Blitz terminology throughout the video, we'll say Houston. blocks the ball Now you might be thinking how the Cougars get away with committing two players to the ball without giving up drives to the basket or three-pointers if you freeze their possessions while a ball screen occurs, the roller often It seems pretty open on film, we as coaches can pause the film and say, well, this pass will be open, but in real life there are no pauses.

The first key for Houston is his ability to push Handler into the middle of the court. are on the blitz, a tsen player is open on the baseline, but look how far away the ball carrier is, the pass has to travel about 45 feet to get to the open man, leaving enough time for Houston to recover. Here's another example later. In that same game, the tsen player is open under the rim, but the ball pressure is too overwhelming. I like to look at where the offense sets the screen, like here on Iowa State's right wing, and then compare that to where they actually handle the ball. it ends after the Blitz and it is also difficult for opponents to even think about making the pass to the corner for a three again.

It's too long a pass to do consistently when facing the blitz, many guards really don't do it. they have the ability to scan and dissect the defense they're basically just trying to survive this is a spot you'll see a lot against Houston the ball handler with his back to the blitz just trying not to turn the ball over it's hard to make a play when your back is turned to all the action in front of you when Houston gets more aggressive they won't even wait for the ball screen watch here how Jojo Tuger leaves his man and just attacks Handler at the line of scrimmage hasn't Technically not set, but the Cougars press the ball first and worry about the rest later.

The Bigs are also very good at recovering at the right angle when Iowa State passes the blocker. It might seem like there's a driving lane here, but Jaan Roberts. he recovers in time to chest the shot and alter the shot, as you can see the five man has a lot of responsibility within Kelvin Samson's defense on this play, just look at Francis, he attacks the ball screen immediately doubles the post as the ball enters the roller and then As the play continues to develop, he is in the correct position to block the shot to The Rim after the backdoor cut.

Now, of course, the on-ball guard has responsibilities as well. One thing I've noticed is that Houston's guards are extremely good at, while the big one is. blitzing is jumping in the air and receiving deflections. Look how Emanuel Sharp has both hands in the air, almost as if he were blocking a volleyball. Spike's ability to jump in the air and deflect passes makes it even more difficult for opposing guards to throw passes over the top. to the roller or the handles. I especially like this example here because again you can see Sharp jumping as high as he can, but you can also see a trainer on the bench with his hands up, clearly showing that this is a technique that Houston teaches with a purpose. , now we can start putting everything together.

You see here how Roberts is attacking and LJ Crier has his hands up looking for a deflection, protecting a ball screen is not a Twan job, it's a five man job, the whole team has to work in unison on this. play Damien dun is the tagger, he's tagging in the blocker to give Roberts time to recover with his man while that happens. Sharp is in charge of protecting two on the weak side, but we've already established how difficult that is. for the offensive players to make the pass to the opposite corner as the play develops, Montana again gets into another ball screen and dun again becomes the tagger, this time Francis is guarding two and, although Montana makes a pretty good pass, Francis has plenty of time to recover and contest watch here how Dun anticipates his touch, sees the ball screen approaching, so he attacks the roller that meets him on the three point line, his man is pretty open, but this is one of those situations where the ball handler is just trying.

To survive, he turns his back on the play and simply makes a desperate pass to get out of the situation. In this play, the space is more or less the same with the town crier in charge of the tag. Utah sees the court better this time and jumps over it. of the defense, but Pror still has plenty of time to recover with his man because the pass is out. Target makes a mental note of that pass because we'll talk about it again in a moment. There may also be early labeling. and a late tag on the same play here, Jamal Shed is the early tag, but when the roller enters the paint, Ramone Walker takes that responsibility because he is the short man when the offense can get the ball to the big man off the pick . and rolling that big man out he better be able to process the defense and make a play quickly.

Watch here as Texas A&M gets to the middle of the paint but the passer can't locate the open man as the town crier drops in to help and on this play I want you to look at number 13, Nick Spinoso in the pen, as he catches the ball . He has a potential cutter open, but Sharp quickly takes away that pass and then, after recovering the ball, watch as he struggles to locate the open man again. It's just difficult. The task for big men who aren't elite passers is to process the game quickly enough to beat Houston's rotations.

There have been many times this season where the opponent hits the key man only for Houston to then steal the next pass or at least generate a deflection. The pick and pop is something that should theoretically give Houston's Blitz coverage some problems here, The corner is completely empty, so Penn can pop for a three, but believe it or not, Houston's opponents have only made four pick-and-pop threes all season, according to data from Synergy Sports. There aren't as many colleges that can make you pay consistently from deep as you might think. In general, the Cougar defense allows a lot of three-point attempts. 43% of opponent shot attempts have been from behind the goal this season, which ranks 328th in the NCAA, but for the sixth straight season, Houston is currently holding teams under 30% shooting on those three-point attempts.

Kelvin Samson has developed the secret formula for making opponents miss his jump shots. A key to your three-point defense is the flyover. Houston doesn't shut down shooters with the traditional stab-foot technique, they fly toward the shooter by jumping in the air. You can see examples of those flybys here. Another thing that I think is key. One of the main advantages of his three-point defense is his ability to force Target passes. I already showed you this pass earlier in the video. Houston makes it so difficult to get over them that when a pass does make it through, it's often not on the clock.

The aim makes it more difficult for the shooter to get a clear view. Watch the shooter catch the ball below the shooting pocket here. I suspect that influences the expected shooting percentage of the shot, so how do you

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against the blitz? One idea would be to just don't set ball screens, they can't blitz you if there are no screens in the first place, the problem with that is the alternative will probably lead to one on one isolations or posting UPS, Houston's guards are great. in defending one-on-one on the perimeter and if you throw the ball in the post they will probably attack you anyway Kelvin Samson refers to it as his monstrous defense TCU had the most success of any opponent against the Blitz in the In the second half against Houston , they went on the roller for an easy layup and then made some really good passes for open threes that most teams are often not able to make, something you'll see a lot from opponents against Houston.

Cougs are big men who slide across the screen to try to quickly beat the blitz before it can fully set up, which could rob you of an easy basket or two, but I should note that Houston will also make adjustments to their scheme if you make something that harms them. Check out this example from the UCF game. UCF was running what is called a Veer display. They had their big man run out like he was going to set a ball screen only to turn to the corner to set a pin. Instead, notice how Francis doesn't do it.

He doesn't fall into the fake ball screen when coming into his Blitz coverage, instead he is targeting the corner knowing the play is actually designed for that pin against BYU Houston decided to move away from the blitz entirely. BYU takes the most 3-pointers of any High Major. team in the country and all that shooting was giving the blitz some problems, so Samson decided to change the ball screens, which he talked about after the game. We were willing to give away some two-zone shifts versus those guys who nailed those blitz-good threes. For Houston, his ability to change coverage depending on the opponent is a very useful tool.

To conclude this video, I want to highlight two Houston players that especially caught my attention when I watched the film. The first player is just a freshman, JoJo. tuger tuger comes off the bench but has a 7' 6 wingspan and is putting up historic steel and blocking numbersfor a freshman. He's blocked nearly 11% of opponent shots and gotten steals on about 4% of possessions, putting him in rare territory with Other freshmen like Anthony Davis and Joel MB on this play watch what mobile which is charging up to the sideline and then recovering towards his man to stop the advance.

Here he is literally in the paint while his man catches the ball and still blocks the three point attempt in this blitz he loses his balance and stumbles back but gets back into the play he cuts the drive and then blocks the shot to help the defense here He initially makes a mistake by letting the ball handler get ahead he's not chest to chest like he should be and he still has the speed to keep up with the quick guards which is impressive for someone his size and finally this is my favorite play instead of bombing the screen, it feels like a slip is coming. and he uses that long wingspan to create the steel and keep it from going out of bounds.

The last player I want to talk about is Houston's leader, Jamal Shed. He won all-conference defensive player last year and has only gotten better as a senior. 1 point guard is a phenomenal defender on the ball Defender with great anticipation and instincts when it comes to protecting the ball. There's really only one play from Jamal that needs to be demonstrated that perfectly captures not only his defense but Houston as a whole. The play begins with Shed on offense. in the restricted area when Dayton bursts into the transition shed Sprints back to back touches the ball and then avoids it out of bounds the ball returns to Dayton's hands only so she can steal it once again it's a play that encapsulates totally like Houston and that's why their defense is ranked number one in the country