Can UC's defense shut down a player?

[TheLongHaul]

Going back to the Huggins' years (don't want to start that debate), UC's teams always seemed to have a stopper. Considering how this UC team is supposedly so good on defense and we have the reigning DPOY and the other best defender in the conference according to Mick (which I don't buy), it seems like UC has no ability to shut down a player. Since the XU game it has seemed like at least one guy has blown up against us. So I went back and looked at the games since XU to identify the leading scorer for the other team:

XU: 40
USF: 17
Tulsa:13
UConn: 20
UCF: 14
SMU: 18
USF: 19
Tulsa: 22
Memphis: 23
UCF: 27

Seems like someone always has a career day against us with a few exceptions mixed in. I'm sorry, but if we supposedly have a stopper at the SG position there shouldn't be wing players lighting us up. Either that or the defensive philosophy doesn't allow for the defense to focus enough on a single player. If this trend continues I can easily see a player shooting us right out of the NCAAs.

 

[cincyguy13]

Someone has to score. The other team isn't going to score 30 total points. If a team scores 50-60 points, someone will have 20. Do u expect no one to score double digits?

 

[cincyguy13]

The defense helps and switches everytime down the floor, it isn't like one guy stays on another guy the whole time. Maybe you are saying they should. I don't know

 

[IDC]

It seems like they've been pretty good shutting down the other teams best player until recently.

 

[Nayers]

They still generally hold teams below their average. I don't care if their leading scorer scores 25 if we hold them to 55 pts, problem is not our defense.

 

[juckerrules]

Going back to the Huggins' years (don't want to start that debate), UC's teams always seemed to have a stopper. Considering how this UC team is supposedly so good on defense and we have the reigning DPOY and the other best defender in the conference according to Mick (which I don't buy), it seems like UC has no ability to shut down a player. Since the XU game it has seemed like at least one guy has blown up against us. So I went back and looked at the games since XU to identify the leading scorer for the other team:

XU: 40
USF: 17
Tulsa:13
UConn: 20
UCF: 14
SMU: 18
USF: 19
Tulsa: 22
Memphis: 23
UCF: 27

Seems like someone always has a career day against us with a few exceptions mixed in. I'm sorry, but if we supposedly have a stopper at the SG position there shouldn't be wing players lighting us up. Either that or the defensive philosophy doesn't allow for the defense to focus enough on a single player. If this trend continues I can easily see a player shooting us right out of the NCAAs.

The problem is that during that same stretch, we have scored 55, 60, 51, 68, 49

 

[Cin City]

I feel as though someone on the opposing team always steps up because we generally do a good job of taking at least one contributor out of his game. Against X Sumner had 6. Against UConn Adams had 8. Both UCF games we held Williams to 8 and 3. I could cherry pick the rest of the schedule too but the point, as mentioned above, is that someone has to score.

 

[waterhead]

Going back to the Huggins' years (don't want to start that debate), UC's teams always seemed to have a stopper. Considering how this UC team is supposedly so good on defense and we have the reigning DPOY and the other best defender in the conference according to Mick (which I don't buy), it seems like UC has no ability to shut down a player. Since the XU game it has seemed like at least one guy has blown up against us. So I went back and looked at the games since XU to identify the leading scorer for the other team:

XU: 40
USF: 17
Tulsa:13
UConn: 20
UCF: 14
SMU: 18
USF: 19
Tulsa: 22
Memphis: 23
UCF: 27

Seems like someone always has a career day against us with a few exceptions mixed in. I'm sorry, but if we supposedly have a stopper at the SG position there shouldn't be wing players lighting us up. Either that or the defensive philosophy doesn't allow for the defense to focus enough on a single player. If this trend continues I can easily see a player shooting us right out of the NCAAs.

I think when a player gets ultra hot (Blueitt, Taylor, etc) we need to deny them the ball on any part of the court...shadow them everywhere. We cannot lose them on D. Once they get the ball and they are making shots with a hand in the face we can't do much more. Other than that our D has to stop the other team from scoring points...and we do a very good job of that.

 

[cincycpaw]

This is a good defensive team...but they do lack that shutdown defender 1:1. It's something UC has had a lot over time, but it's missing on this team

As someone mentioned, when an opposing player gets hot, we do not have the ability to stick someone on him and change the game back in our favor.

 

[justinhub2003]

Very rarely does a single player shut you down.

If a team only has 1 prolific scorer, it's much easier to make him alone beat you and just focus on the other guys not having good games to beat you.

Blueitt scored 40 and they lost
Dedric Lawson scored well and they lost
Semi oejele scored only scored 12 but we still won.
Monte Morris scored 15 points and we won.
Rob gray scored 21 and they lost

So it's not about the best player scoring a lot. It's about the role players
Not scoring

 

[cincyguy13]

This is a good defensive team...but they do lack that shutdown defender 1:1. It's something UC has had a lot over time, but it's missing on this team

As someone mentioned, when an opposing player gets hot, we do not have the ability to stick someone on him and change the game back in our favor.

I think Evans and Clark are great defenders but we have a couple guys that are not. It's hard to stay on your guy if someone gets beat, you have to help. WHen you don't get those 5 star guys that can do it all (offense and defense) you get guys that can only do one of those. I think that's why we suffer from time to time, overall we do alright

 

[waterhead]

I think Evans and Clark are great defenders but we have a couple guys that are not. It's hard to stay on your guy if someone gets beat, you have to help. WHen you don't get those 5 star guys that can do it all (offense and defense) you get guys that can only do one of those. I think that's why we suffer from time to time, overall we do alright

We have enough top level defenders in Clark, Evans and KJ to play top 10 D overall. Caupain isn't bad from a deflection standpoint and he knows the defense well. Washington and Cumberland are still learning but getting better. Cumberland has a nose for the ball which may not be appreciated as much as on ball defense but he gets his hands in there and disrupts things pretty well. Kyle can block a shot or two but needs to work on footwork a little.

Defense is not our issue. We can hold most good teams to 60 or under with a great team effort. This is why we have to be able to score 65 outside of our gym. If we could just do that...we can win some games in March.