Do we run zone tonight vs Wyo?

Without reviewing the tape, I felt like Weir was trying to kill some clock around the 5-6 minute mark and that's when they quit attacking. Two coaching decisions went our way.

The zone was huge, in more ways than one.

We have tremendous length with that 1-3-1 zone. With 6'8" Bairstow at the top, 6'5" Merrill on one wing, 6'5" Brito on the other, 6'8" Bean in the middle and 7'0" Queta protecting the basket, it makes it difficult to even pass around the zone. That's a lot of long arms getting in the way. Plus Brito, Bean and Bairstow are very active. If a team has a cold spell shooting over the top of the zone (and those shots are usually at least a foot behind the arc), it is difficult to crack.

The other advantage last night was it protected Merrill. In his own words, he was "able to sit in the corner and not do anything". This allowed him to conserve energy and greatly reduce the chance of picking up that fifth foul. Dan Dickou noticed at least two times that Merrill didn't box out on the weak side. His guy got the rebound and put back on one of them and got the rebound and got fouled on the other one. The action was out of the TV screen so I couldn't confirm.

SectionBAggie wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 10:44 am

At 9:40, when Sam came back in and the defense switched to a zone, UNM came apart. At that time, Sam had four fouls. Bairstow had four fouls. Queta had 3 fouls (soon to get his fourth). And UNM settled for 10 3-point shots - mostly with the lead. Most of those possessions never challenged the perimeter even though there was a foul trouble advantage. They made 2 of those 10.

By contrast they made 3 of 4 inside the arc.

The only FTs that they shot in the last 9+ minutes was on Queta's tangle with Jackson (the logic of that call is for another discussion).

The zone completely changed the direction of the game.

On the offensive side, the first four minutes after Sam returned weren't stellar - just better than UNM. 2-4 FTs. 2 TOs. 3-8 on 2-point shots and 1-1 on threes. Then things clicked.

The next 8 possessions all produced points. 6-6 FTs. 3-3 2pts. 2-2 3Pts. It was clinical.

Craig Smith won the coaching battle. Weir had no control over trying to answer the run.

We also stopped turning the ball over when Merrill returned to the game. UNM was getting cheap points off our turnovers. Even if we weren't making baskets, simply getting the ball into the frontcourt and running offense for 25 seconds and not turning it over killed their momentum.

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 12:27 pm

SectionBAggie wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 10:44 am

At 9:40, when Sam came back in and the defense switched to a zone, UNM came apart. At that time, Sam had four fouls. Bairstow had four fouls. Queta had 3 fouls (soon to get his fourth). And UNM settled for 10 3-point shots - mostly with the lead. Most of those possessions never challenged the perimeter even though there was a foul trouble advantage. They made 2 of those 10.

By contrast they made 3 of 4 inside the arc.

The only FTs that they shot in the last 9+ minutes was on Queta's tangle with Jackson (the logic of that call is for another discussion).

The zone completely changed the direction of the game.

On the offensive side, the first four minutes after Sam returned weren't stellar - just better than UNM. 2-4 FTs. 2 TOs. 3-8 on 2-point shots and 1-1 on threes. Then things clicked.

The next 8 possessions all produced points. 6-6 FTs. 3-3 2pts. 2-2 3Pts. It was clinical.

Craig Smith won the coaching battle. Weir had no control over trying to answer the run.

We also stopped turning the ball over when Merrill returned to the game. SDSU was getting cheap points off our turnovers. Even if we weren't making baskets, simply getting the ball into the frontcourt and running offense for 25 seconds and not turning it over killed their momentum.

While I'm sure you meant UNM, it just has well of been SDSU. There were a couple errant Aggie passes there that wen 3 or 4 rows up into the crowd. They could very well have been caught by SDSU players watching the game.

Yossarian wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 12:37 pm

FloridaAggie13 wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 12:27 pm

SectionBAggie wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 10:44 am

At 9:40, when Sam came back in and the defense switched to a zone, UNM came apart. At that time, Sam had four fouls. Bairstow had four fouls. Queta had 3 fouls (soon to get his fourth). And UNM settled for 10 3-point shots - mostly with the lead. Most of those possessions never challenged the perimeter even though there was a foul trouble advantage. They made 2 of those 10.

By contrast they made 3 of 4 inside the arc.

The only FTs that they shot in the last 9+ minutes was on Queta's tangle with Jackson (the logic of that call is for another discussion).

The zone completely changed the direction of the game.

On the offensive side, the first four minutes after Sam returned weren't stellar - just better than UNM. 2-4 FTs. 2 TOs. 3-8 on 2-point shots and 1-1 on threes. Then things clicked.

The next 8 possessions all produced points. 6-6 FTs. 3-3 2pts. 2-2 3Pts. It was clinical.

Craig Smith won the coaching battle. Weir had no control over trying to answer the run.

We also stopped turning the ball over when Merrill returned to the game. SDSU was getting cheap points off our turnovers. Even if we weren't making baskets, simply getting the ball into the frontcourt and running offense for 25 seconds and not turning it over killed their momentum.

While I'm sure you meant UNM, it just has well of been SDSU. There were a couple errant Aggie passes there that wen 3 or 4 rows up into the crowd. They could very well have been caught by SDSU players watching the game.

Thanks! Changed it.

I think Brito threw one along the Aggie bench that was so far off target no one even bothered to reach for it.

Bank Shot wrote: ↑

March 6th, 2020, 11:35 am

Without reviewing the tape, I felt like Weir was trying to kill some clock around the 5-6 minute mark and that's when they quit attacking. Two coaching decisions went our way.

Actually, that is when we started putting a little "token pressure" on them. Something I wish we did more of.

Merrill isn’t the only hold over from the Duryea years. We’ve kept the philosophy of watching a run get to double digits before calling a timeout to settle things down. But yeah, the zone helped a lot too.


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