Defense

The "pack line defense" is the scheme BYU is playing this year. It's a variation of man to man. So far the numbers tend to indicate it's working. Opponents are only shooting 34% against BYU so far. Points allowed per possession, which is the one defensive stat the gurus these days seem to think is most important, is much improved over last year. Granted, it's early and most of the opposition hasn't been very good yet. The signs are good so far though. It's been BYU's offense that has really been the issue so far, and that seems to have resolved itself a lot in the last game. Hopefully that continues.



http://www.basketballforcoaches.com/pack-line-defense/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting, appreciate the insight. The team does seem to be hustling more on defense than last year.

Is this Quincy Lewis' contribution? Regardless, I think it's better. We'll see. I don't think it will ever be lights out. I do think that Nick is an improvement on perimeter. And we have more rim protectors. Im really looking forward to see how we fare vs utah. Seems like ye are down a bit this year from last without Delon Wright.

Cougs_Rule wrote:
Is this Quincy Lewis' contribution? Regardless, I think it's better. We'll see. I don't think it will ever be lights out. I do think that Nick is an improvement on perimeter. And we have more rim protectors. Im really looking forward to see how we fare vs utah. Seems like ye are down a bit this year from last without Delon Wright.

I've read that it is pretty similar to what Lewis was doing at Lone Peak. Utah's defense is not nearly as good this year as in years past, and the numbers seem to support that idea. On offense Loveridge and Poeltl have mostly been good but most of their guards have been beyond awful so far. Taylor and Wright have been shooting even worse than Chase Fischer has been. Lorenzo Bonam has been better. Our defense has improved and we have some talent this season to give them some trouble by the basket. Like it said in the article, the one possible weakness with this defensive scheme is if the opponent starts to shoot lights out from three. So far Utah's players haven't been able to do that. We'll see.

BYULV wrote:
Interesting, appreciate the insight. The team does seem to be hustling more on defense than last year.

last year they were getting out of position a lot . This scheme seems to keep them where they should be a lot better. If you watch the games this year they are doing a better job protecting the area around the basket. Of course having better bigs has a lot to do with that as well.

Both KC and Nick did a pretty good job sticking to hm after that was clearly the defensive adjustment.

So far the numbers say BYU's defense is improving. Now, in any game you can easily point out specific plays here and there where someone was out of position or an opponent got an easy shot, or whatever, to try to back up the claim that the defense still sucks, if that is what you want to argue.



However, the numbers are still important. All of sports is being analyzed now in a "moneyball" type of way, and Ken Pomeroy is more or less the leading guru of that for college basketball. The main thing he's identified as the best measure of how good a defense is in regards to how it affects winning and losing is points allowed per possession. As far as that measure goes, BYU has clearly improved over last year when we were ranked #160 by the end of the season, which was the worst at BYU since Rose has been here. So far this year we've moved up to #79. However, the offense has come down this year, although it was much more efficent in the Weber State game. I think the offense will come around and KC gets used to the team he's playing with this year.