Biorhythms for Carolina @Virginia: Post-Game Discussion

BillOfRights said:
"I hate that people try to blame Hubert for our lapses," Caleb Wilson said. "Our coaches are teaching us the right things. It's all about our effort and playing as hard as we can. Coach can only do so much."
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I mean..what is he gonna say? he clearly disagreed on the coach about one team running the same play over and over again... but he's not gonna come out and say "the coaches are wrong".

Also that kid has a special drive... and it's a great coaching to recruit kids like that. They get props for prioritizing and successfully landing this kid and Big V.
superrific said:
To build on Centerpiece's point, I'm not sure people fully appreciate that "knowing where to be" isn't just a coaching issue. It's a player talent.

Look at the recent past in the NBA. Remember teams picking up ancient fossils like 39 year old Kurt Thomas because he would help them defensively in the playoffs? Kurt could barely jump, lol. But he knew where to be, and how to defend the post. That's why he lasted in the league as long as he did.

Look at the best defenders in the NBA today. Guys like Alex Caruso. He was undrafted in 2016. Now he's considered one of the best defensive players in the whole league. Why? Did everyone miss his tremendous athleticism and amazing strength? No. They just couldn't evaluate -- perhaps because it's hard to observe or maybe people weren't looking -- his ability to know where to be at all times. It's his reads.

It's like this in football too. Some QBs always make the right read. Others struggle to identify the defense and make the right decisions. In fact, you could argue that talent was what separates Drake Maye from Mitch Trubisky. It's not the coaches' fault in most situations. It's that "[sport] IQ" is a fundamental quality of sports players.
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Who evaluates the players?
 
thebruinbleedstarheelblue said:
Who evaluates the players?
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What is your point? Does every post have to bear on the issue of "is HD a good coach overall or not"?

I'm not saying anything about whether HD is or isn't a good coach, or whether he should be our coach. I'm simply saying that:

1. if you assume the team is talented enough to play better defense than they are, you're begging an important question: do they have the talent for team defense? It's just incorrect to blame the coach's defensive system or defensive instruction for a team's defensive lapses. More is needed. And maybe you have more; I'm not addressing that.

But, for instance, how do we know Caleb is a talented defensive player? There are LOTS of guys who were effective defenders in college and then when they get to the NBA defense becomes a liability. Because what we can most easily see are the athletic plays, the individual defense, etc. It's much harder to evaluate the players' IQ based skills in fairly small sample sizes.

2. It seems useful to distinguish between various coach functions if we are going to be criticizing on that level. If your only interest is an overall thumbs up or thumbs down, that's fine but in that case why bother with anything analysis more granular than W/L.
 
superrific said:
1. if you assume the team is talented enough to play better defense than they are, you're begging an important question: do they have the talent for team defense?
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The second half of the Virginia game shows that the team has the ability to play solid to good defense, at a minimum, for extended periods of time.
 
SnoopRob said:
The second half of the Virginia game shows that the team has the ability to play solid to good defense, at a minimum, for extended periods of time.
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20 minutes is not an extended period of time. And that same argument could also be applied to HD being able to coach good defense.
 
superrific said:
20 minutes is not an extended period of time. And that same argument could also be applied to HD being able to coach good defense.
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20 minutes is certainly an extended period of time to play defense in terms of determining basic ability.

And, yes, we can say that HD has the basic ability to coach good defense.
 
SnoopRob said:
20 minutes is certainly an extended period of time to play defense in terms of determining basic ability.

And, yes, we can say that HD has the basic ability to coach good defense.
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No it's not. Look at KenPom's defensive ratings. They are based on defensive efficiency per 100 possessions. The difference between the #1 team and the #31 team is about 10 points per 100. In other words, dunks versus contested jumpshots on 6-7% of possessions (assuming even contested jumpshots sometimes go in).

There were about 60 possessions in the game. 30 possessions per half, let's say. The difference between the best team and a decent team is about 3 points. In other words, one or two defensive breakdowns that happens for the #31 team but not the #1 team.

So if the team plays a half with no defensive breakdowns, that's better than mediocre defense on the basis of about two plays on average. And when you are talking about variance, two plays is nothing.

Playing good defense for 20 minutes is no different from shooting 8-15 from 3 in a half. It says almost nothing about the team's overall ability in either case. I know I have oversimplified the defensive model here a bit, because our data set is very limited, but I'm confident the point is the same either way. The difference between great defenses and average ones are a couple of lapses here or there. It's easy for the defense to look good for a half even if, over the course of a season, it's not that good.
 
This team currently isn't top 50 in KP defensive efficiency

That is hard to fathom with or without Trimble in the lineup

Teams currently ranked ahead: Boston College, DePaul, California
 
Heelsandeers said:
This team currently isn't top 50 in KP defensive efficiency

That is hard to fathom with or without Trimble in the lineup

Teams currently ranked ahead: Boston College, DePaul, California
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If someone wants to run the numbers, i would guess Carolina’s defense has been worse with Trimble in the lineup, which is shocking.
 
Going back to the lulls in level of play. It's not just starting slow and getting into a big hole, which HD's teams have done repeatedly throughout the season, every season. It's also getting a comfortable lead (through playing well) then allowing teams to claw back into the game (by playing poorly). As Rell points out, one of the most frustrating things with HD-coached teams is the consistent inconsistency in level of play. We'll come out not focused, get down big, fight back to make it a close game, then either peter out and lose a close game or close out a close win. Or, we'll come out focused, get a comfortable lead, lose focus, let the team back into the game, then either close out a close win or end up losing the game. We've seen this play out again and again, including these past few weeks.
 
SnoopRob said:
The second half of the Virginia game shows that the team has the ability to play solid to good defense, at a minimum, for extended periods of time.
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It also shows the level of play that this team is capable of, and the level that they should be playing at. For the most part, two-thirds of the way through the season, and this team has greatly underperformed their actual level.
 
stankeylegjones said:
It also shows the level of play that this team is capable of,
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I am 100% confident that you are smarter than that. Surely you have students who score high on some exams and lower on others. Are they just underachieving because they don't do as well on all exams as they did on one?
 
BillOfRights said:
The coaches can't close out on shooters. The coaches can't communicate on every screen. The coaches can't make free throws or knock down open threes.

Before January first, the players were playing good defense the way the coaches taught it. I don't know if it was a holiday hangover, or what, but the players were not performing as expected. It's up to the coaching staff to fix that, and based off the last two games, I think the coaching staff has helped the players make progress.

If the defense had been poor since the beginning of the season, there would be questions about the problem. Since this is a recent occurrence after fourteen games of good defense, with no obvious coaching changes in scheme, it seems obvious that the problem is the player's not executing.
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It is the coach's job to make sure players do all of that. If the players are not performing correctly, that is ALWAYS the coach's fault. It may also be the player's fault. But it ALWAYS the coach's fault.

No team is going to play perfect every game -- that is the nature of sport. But the coach's job is to teach, practice and prepare his team to perform at the best possible level. If the team fails to do that, it is ALWAYS a failing of the coach.

And I'm 100% confident that Dean Smith would agree with every word I just typed.
 
When it clicks for Hubert's teams to play physical basketball, that's when they become good. '24 was like this, and the '22 run was like this when they decided to guard more physically.

And this team has a bunch of skilled but not physically imposing guards, and one guard who is coming off a broken wrist. And when they actually decide to start rebounding from the 1,2,3 spots, or even simply foul more on the perimeter, then they can play to their potential.
 
superrific said:
I am 100% confident that you are smarter than that. Surely you have students who score high on some exams and lower on others. Are they just underachieving because they don't do as well on all exams as they did on one?
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Of course sometimes students just get scores that they typically don't. I think it's not apples to oranges though, as topics/concepts change, some people find certain things easier than others, so there is much more to consider in an academic setting than on the court. What I'm trying to say is that this team should be playing closer to the level we saw against UVA than the level they've currently been playing at. After 2/3 of the season, this team is playing around a fringe top-25 team. The talent is too great on this team to be playing that poorly.
 
stankeylegjones said:
Of course sometimes students just get scores that they typically don't. I think it's not apples to oranges though, as topics/concepts change, some people find certain things easier than others, so there is much more to consider in an academic setting than on the court. What I'm trying to say is that this team should be playing closer to the level we saw against UVA than the level they've currently been playing at. After 2/3 of the season, this team is playing around a fringe top-25 team. The talent is too great on this team to be playing that poorly.
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OK, that's fine, but it's not the same thing as saying that the 20 minutes against VA show that we're really a good defensive team being coached down.

You're bringing in the other games -- i.e. the 2/3 of the season. Which is fine. In fact, it's unavoidable in reasonable discussion. But that's the right perspective, not that these 20 minutes somehow prove something. So it's as I said, you weren't that stupid. You know how to think about this, but sometimes get carried away.
 
One of Hubert Davis' biggest detractors among the loyal fanbase (this person's loyalty cannot be questioned) believes that he is "too nice."
 
Calheel said:
It is the coach's job to make sure players do all of that. If the players are not performing correctly, that is ALWAYS the coach's fault. It may also be the player's fault. But it ALWAYS the coach's fault.
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This is true only in a "buck stops here" sense. It isn't actually the coaches' fault, not always. Your statement is one of accountability, not actual fact. Just like CEOs can be fired when the company's performance is poor, even though it probably wasn't the CEO's fault (sometimes it is, sometimes not).
 
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