Alijah Martin Committed To Gators

I don’t think anyone who really watched Walter in college can argue with your take. As a coach what I see is Walter lacks a great feel for the game as it relates to getting others looks and making the right pass. He does absolutely have a knack for getting himself looks.

I would expect us to be better defensively, but be a team that turn it over more and maybe has less assists. I do think Martin gets downhill a little better than Pullin in that he creates more space between himself and the defender. This typically creates an opportunity for an assist by requiring more help from the defense to stop. Martin thinks he will be able to make plays for others, but just wasn’t given the chance at FAU to do so very often. Will be interesting to see what we run when the clock is low or we need a bucket. Who will be the primary ball handler not in getting it up the floor but during half court action. My guess is it’s Walter early in the season, but if he doesn’t handle it well I would expect us to give Martin and Aberdeen a shot to be that half court guy.

all of this assumes Clayton comes back of course.

 

There is alot of nuance to the Clayton defense question. He was a flat out poor defender last year. Knowing Pitino and how he coaches defense he really emphasizes ball pressure and I think Clayton played way too close to the ball handlers often leading to him getting blown by. My guess is at Iona he was superior athletically to guys and was able to hold up pressuring the ball like that. Unfortunately in the SEC not so much. The key to defense if your going to pressure is you must stay what I call connected. Once the offensive player has his shoulders by you the entire defense breaks down. Someone must come help which leaves to rotations and open 3’s, fouls on bigs and open layups.

In addition, Clayton needs to learn just because the other team is trying to screen you doesn’t mean you have to be screened. The best example of this in college basketball was Shead for Houston. He is soooooo hard to screen and why he was the best perimeter defender in the county last year. With that said this can be it’s own thread cause it’s not just Clayton, it was almost all our perimeter defenders and when you add in the fact we play almost entirely drop coverage you get what we saw. A team that was pretty bad defensively many nights.

Defenders absolutely have to cut off direct access to the basket. When a player uses a screen you have to stay connected fight to get back to a position putting you between the ball and the basket. The doesn’t mean necessarily in front of the ball. Often times let’s say the ball handler gets a screen going right. The defender has to fight over the screen and then stay between the ball and the hoop. So stay even with the ball and not giving an angle to the hoop.

This takes tons and tons of practice and demand from the coaches. We stink at it in general. Coach said the other day we didn’t work nearly as much on defense as we did on offense in practice and it really showed. Have to believe that changes this year. Golden said it was intentional as he wanted to play an exciting brand of hoops but he knows what it takes to start winning games in the tourney.

The next part could be it’s own thread so maybe I will start one and everyone can discuss it.