The Bluejay Underground: A Creighton Sports Message Board

Matta during the timeout: “we can get whatever we want on that end” (O end). On the broadcast during a timeout.

I think the point was just try it. It may not have worked, but just trying it might have thrown them off. Not sure how it could have been worse for 3 or 4 possessions. They scored on like 11/12 straight possessions with our drop coverage, non double the ball defense. If they make 3 more threes in a row against a zone, tip your cap. At least trying to switch what they see and maybe shake their insane confidence on attacking our D may have been worthwhile. Easy to play armchair QB, but I think it was maybe worth it last night with such an anomaly in offensive onslaught on our base D.

jaysfor3 wrote:
One other observation, the crowd was booing on the Butler injuries due to I heard several around me saying they're faking it so that they can stop the clock and get in their sets and/or get in the bonus. Not sure if that's true, again, need to watch the replay.

I wouldn’t normally yell about injuries but the one guy sat there on the ground for 2-3 min holding his leg and then miraculously gets up and walks off without even the slightest limp. And the other guy got poked in the eye yet remained on the court for several min. Either he goes to the line and shoots FT or gets off the court and allows someone else to shoot, no need to stand there for so long.

All in all both situations may have helped the Jays though with having no depth and getting time to catch our breath.

I also agree with everyone else, would have been nice to at least attempt to switch up d. Trying the same thing several times and still failing is not going to work, but credit to Butler for stepping up and knocking down shot after shot after shot.

TrueBlueJay wrote:For all those calling for a zone - you do realize Butler shot 60% from three point land last night. How do you break a zone? Shoot the other team out of it.

I don't really think this is true for the kind of zone the Jays have run in the past. Shooting people out of the zone works against those Baylor and Syracuse zones of old. The Jays (at least last year) did a 1-3-1 "show me" zone that was prefaced on applying some pressure at mid court, maybe going for one or two steals via a trap on the first pass from the PG, before dropping back into man. It's a totally different concept, the goal not being to sit in and play a zone per se. Rather, the goal is to knock the other team out of rhythm and get them into the middle of the shot clock before really getting into the offensive set. I don't believe we have gone to it once this year, when we used it frequently last to break up offensive runs.

I'll add that maybe why we haven't gone to it at all is because we just don't have the athletes at the wings to not get torched off the dribble on any sort of crisp ball movement between mid court and the 3-pt line, which would be the main way to neutralize the defensive approach here. Kaluma may have been a big difference maker there

From Mac’s lips:

We thought about switching to a zone but we wanted to give them tough 2’s rather than open 3s.

Mac is Mr Moneyball. All about the analytics. To the grave.

Our defense has allowed opponents to shoot 390 three point attempts over 22 games. That’s about 18 a game average.

Opponents have made 124 three pointers. Over 22 games that’s about 6 per game. Teams hit about 32 percent over the course of a season.

Last night we allowed 22, about 4 more than normal. They hit double what we are used to, 13 versus 6 or 59% versus 32%.

I’ve been hearing that we try to limit 3 point attempts. Our average allowance is 18 and we were 4 over since they took 22 from three point land

blueblood wrote:Mac is Mr Moneyball. All about the analytics. To the grave.

100% this. He has a system. He believes in the system. The system generally is very successful. But the system is imperfect. He will not deviate in response to some aberrational performance. He was probably thinking what I was throughout the game - Butler can’t keep this up and the Jays will pull it out. Reasonable thing to believe. Butler didn’t cooperate.

3ontheway wrote:

SeattleJay wrote:I had a similar thought that Traudt would have looked better at the back up 5 against these guys last night for a few minutes. Fred had a tough night.

It seemed to work for Motta with his third string center hitting 2 threes

Don't think I'd consider 95 seconds by Fred a "night". Did Mac ever say Traudt was sick or unavailable? Weird game last night. Tough to watch, albeit a crazy entertaining game, a team without their PG have 9 guys light us up and we have 4 points from bench and a 6 man roster... shit happens, short memory, move on.

Guarding Telefort... Miller was too light. Telefort banged him into the 3rd row every time he got the ball. Traudt obviously would have been too slow to deal with Telefort. Baylor was the best choice. Telefort just had it goin last night... just like EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE BUTLER TEAM IT SEEMED LIKE. I honestly don't recall another team coming into our house and lighting up the scoreboard like they did. It was truly stunning.