Watched the game on pluto...
over the years coaching basketball maybe the most frustrating defense to face, outside of a matchup zone, is a packed in man defense. North Dakota State is great at defending below the free throw line, and they did an excellent job in the first half at cutting off dribble drive. They had help everywhere. The outcome is a lot of muddled possessions, turnovers and jump shots. We just haven't had in a number of years the ability to play on the perimeter and shoot teams out of those compressed defensive sets. There was a lot of brutal waste 20 seconds of the shot clock and get marginal shots. That was an problem in teh Irvine game as well.
For me to beat teams like that you have to show patience and move the ball horizontally. The best dribble drives against this type of defense is after a quick reversal or skip pass. Not taking the first angled drive, because you have to kick it back out or you have to reverse dribble out.The ball really bogs down to the one side and your spacing the pits. By sitting on the wing waiting for Akoh to get possession. Part of the philosophy is that coaches like to get the ball to the post because it forces compression of the defense, and you try to skip opposite out of it, but to me on a 30 second shot clock you are spending 10 seconds of it trying to get a post look that absolutely won't result in a good shot, and will be kicked back out. In an ideal world you get the post on the ball reversal rather than on a post or a post reset.
I think is why Falls saw so much time in the second half. He's great off ball at finding angles, and he is willing to skip it to the opposite side to force the defense to slide over. He's a beast for the off ball guard to defend because he does move to creases, and he closes distance really well.
The rotations have no continuity, and it seems like Dorsey and Manuel are a bit adrift at this point. Neither seem to have taken to the Pridgett role from last year. They shouldn't be just space takers on the floor considering their talent level, yet right now they are a bit adrift. I was thinking last night, the team from a continuity standpoint might be better with Dorsey or Manuel starting in Pridgett's position. Pridgett knows that role, thrives in it, but those two just seem like they need more time, more action to tap their full ability.