NCAA Tournament Playalong Thread

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Crown@club

Exactly what happened. I just don't get it when they slowed the pace against Louisville, picked up the pace against UConn, but not slow it back down against UNC.

You slow it down against Louisville because the Cardinals are a team that has trouble scoring. They have good athletes though so you want to contain them and not let them get out on runouts and get easy baskets. You want to make them play the halfcourt game and that's not their strength. Against UConn, you don't want to slow it down because that plays to their strength which is their halfcourt defense. You have no chance consistently trying to score baskets in the halfcourt against Thabeet and Adrien so you want to force the issue with them and try to get them scrambling around and out of position. Against UNC, you don't have either option. They have size and speed. You try to slow it down but they invite you to shoot because they'll leave you open opportunities. It's reminiscent of a Paul Westhead kind of defense where he'll give you some shots just so he can have the opportunity to get the ball back. He used to preach how he'd give you a layup so that you'd take it and he'd get the ball back to shoot three's and even if you had every intention of trying to slow it down, those open looks would get too inviting. Next thing you know, you are playing at a faster pace than you want to and UNC has jumped out on one of those 12-2 or 18-4 runs and now you HAVE to up your tempo and come of out your game plan because you have score more.