Notre Dame successfully screens the bottom of the zone

I have had several posts highlighting how screening a zone can be a successful action against the zone (see here and here). One screen that is under-utilized is screening in a shooter in the corner. I briefly touched on it here with Belmont but Notre Dame ran it beautifully tonight.

Coming off an offensive rebound, Ben Hansbrough reset the Irish offense against a 2-3 zone. He called for a ball screen on Maalik Wayns on the right wing, which would be set by Scott Martin. Villanova (mainly Corey Fisher) realizes what is coming and calls out the shooter running baseline to the corner.

A new wrinkle in Pitt’s pick and roll defense

We saw earlier this season the struggles Pitt had with the pick and roll defense (see here). I saw them throw in a new wrinkle with their pick and roll defense against Villanova, which seemed to work pretty well. It involves Gary McGhee hedging on the screen, with the help defender rotating to the roll man, instead of forcing McGhee to recover back to the roll man.

Here we see Mouphtaou Yarou setting the screen for Maalik Wayns. McGhee hedges on the screen and this is where the wrinkle comes in to the defense. McGhee has struggled with recovering to the roll man in the past, so Pitt has worked harder to rotate the help man over to the roll man.

The pick and roll defense of Deniz Kilicli

One of the staples of the Villanova offense is the pick and roll, which they run with several of their guards. West Virginia is a team set up well to defend the pick and roll, as their big men are athletic enough to switch the screen. Here is a clip from early in the game that shows Cam Thoroughman switching the pick and roll and picking up Corey Fisher as he drives to the basket. Thoroughman can move his feet and stay with Fisher and not allow him to get a shot off.

However, Deniz Kilicli is not quite on the same level as Thoroughman or John Flowers in terms of perimeter defense. He makes an early mistake on the pick and roll but makes a nice adjustment later in the game.

Antonio Pena beats Syracuse double team

Syracuse forces a ton of turnovers and bad possessions by trapping out of the zone in the deep corner. Antonio Pena found himself in this situation but a great individual play (with some help from his teammates) still gave Villanova an open 3.