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Scramble defense

Gables Canes

Gables Canes

Freshman
Joined
Jan 10, 2017
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There’s no denying that this team is absolutely abysmal defensively. An awful Louisville team just hung 80 on us. FIU also scored 80. Kentucky, Colorado, and wake all scored near or at 90. Our defensive ranking in Kenpom is now 125 after tonight’s loss.

Why haven’t we tried anything different? This team may lack depth, but we’re pretty quick and athletic. Why don’t we at least try to run some scramble D? Get the opponent uncomfortable and out of their rhythm. Our offense is at its best in transition. Creating turnovers from the scramble and traps could lead to fast break opportunities.

Now there’s a chance we just aren’t good at it, but I don’t understand why we haven’t tried it. We need to do SOMETHING different defensively. There’s no excuse to be this horrendous every night on that end.
 
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Gables Canes said:
There’s no denying that this team is absolutely abysmal defensively. An awful Louisville team just hung 80 on us. FIU also scored 80. Kentucky, Colorado, and wake all scored near or at 90. Our defensive ranking in Kenpom is now 125 after tonight’s loss.

Why haven’t we tried anything different? This team may lack depth, but we’re pretty quick and athletic. Why don’t we at least try to run some scramble D? Get the opponent uncomfortable and out of their rhythm. Our offense is at its best in transition. Creating turnovers from the scramble and traps could lead to fast break opportunities.

Now there’s a chance we just aren’t good at it, but I don’t understand why we haven’t tried it. We need to do SOMETHING different defensively. There’s no excuse to be this horrendous every night on that end.
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K
 
Gables Canes said:
There’s no denying that this team is absolutely abysmal defensively. An awful Louisville team just hung 80 on us. FIU also scored 80. Kentucky, Colorado, and wake all scored near or at 90. Our defensive ranking in Kenpom is now 125 after tonight’s loss.

Why haven’t we tried anything different? This team may lack depth, but we’re pretty quick and athletic. Why don’t we at least try to run some scramble D? Get the opponent uncomfortable and out of their rhythm. Our offense is at its best in transition. Creating turnovers from the scramble and traps could lead to fast break opportunities.

Now there’s a chance we just aren’t good at it, but I don’t understand why we haven’t tried it. We need to do SOMETHING different defensively. There’s no excuse to be this horrendous every night on that end.
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Agree 1000%. Been thinking same since Kentucky loss. Nothing changes. We were way better on D last year. Coach L isn't changing much yet but he has to now. This is rock bottom.
 
The funny thing is, Coach L has hung his hat defensively on the Scramble Defense. Brought it to Miami from his days at George Mason. Springing traps, forcing TOs and being disruptive have historically been his team's trademark. To be fair to Coach L though, I have major concerns with running it however. I mean, with our depth issues, propensity to foul (particularly Omier) and our guards' inability to slide their feet, I don't think playing Scramble D is a viable option for this group. I do agree with you that our reluctance to try anything besides a man-to-man tonight was baffling to say the least. Just didn't seem like we made any adjustments defensively. Looked like we were just hoping they'd go cold from the outside but it never really happened. I get it. They shot the **** out the ball. But I wouldn't have mind seeing Nwoko in the middle of a zone and seeing what happens. Their big guy (Huntley-Hatfield) who had a career high tonight had a 5-6 inch advantage on Omier. Who knows what would've happened had we given him a different look with a guy his same size in Nwoko. Guess we'll never know.
 
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The defense is most games lazy and disorganized, and rebounding efforts weak and sub-standard. Maybe they are afraid of strenuous effort or fouls, or just more interested in NIL and NBA enhancing offensive performance. Maybe zone is needed, if the heart and soul for scramble is mostly non-existent.

Offense is in itself up and down, with not driving the basket, hitting the open man, and hero-ball too frequent. Casey, among others, does not get the pass when open that Wong would, for good reason i guess but its not a good situation. And Omier is hardly ever under the basket waiting lately. When the outside shooting is sorta wild and not dropping, we can (and will) lose to anyone in ACC.
 
King of Allapattah said:
The funny thing is, Coach L has hung his hat defensively on the Scramble Defense. Brought it to Miami from his days at George Mason. Springing traps, forcing TOs and being disruptive have historically been his team's hallmark. To be fair to Coach L though, I have major concerns with running it however. I mean, with our depth issues, propensity to foul (particularly Omier) and our guards' inability to slide their feet, I don't think playing Scramble D is a viable option for this group. I do agree with you that our reluctance to try anything besides a man-to-man tonight was baffling to say the least. Just didn't seem like we made any adjustments defensively. Looked like we were just hoping they'd go cold from the outside but it never really happened. I get it. They shot the **** out the ball. But I wouldn't have mind seeing Nwoko in the middle of a zone and seeing what happens. Their big guy (Huntley-Hatfield) who had a career high tonight had a 5-6 inch advantage on Omier. Who knows what would've happened had we given him a different look with a guy his same size in Nwoko. Guess we'll never know.
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Most people who are deep into an incredibly successful career are very stubborn (for good reason).
 
The Colorado game should have been the one where something needed to change. Can’t have back to back atrocious second halves against solid teams and since then a loss to Wake which Miami had every chance to win and an atrocious loss to Louisville.

Bring me that defense from 2021-2022 that got us to the Elite 8.
 
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L uses the scramble when he can, but he isn't going to go the well too much. Why? Because the scramble is exhausting and if you don't have the bodies, you run the risk of your team running out of gas late in the season. This team doesn't have the depth to run that night in and night out. Last year, Miami would do it at key moments, to create the run that usually put games away. That said, as the team gets deeper into the conference slate and the bigger games go down, I wouldn't be shocked if L ran it more often.
 
Canedude08 said:
L uses the scramble when he can, but he isn't going to go the well too much. Why? Because the scramble is exhausting and if you don't have the bodies, you run the risk of your team running out of gas late in the season. This team doesn't have the depth to run that night in and night out. Last year, Miami would do it at key moments, to create the run that usually put games away. That said, as the team gets deeper into the conference slate and the bigger games go down, I wouldn't be shocked if L ran it more often.
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We didn’t scramble much tonight but if you notice, we ran more double teams and traps aon the perimeter. And while Pedulla absolutely torched us, we forced VT into 15 turnovers.
 
Canedude08 said:
L uses the scramble when he can, but he isn't going to go the well too much. Why? Because the scramble is exhausting and if you don't have the bodies, you run the risk of your team running out of gas late in the season. This team doesn't have the depth to run that night in and night out. Last year, Miami would do it at key moments, to create the run that usually put games away. That said, as the team gets deeper into the conference slate and the bigger games go down, I wouldn't be shocked if L ran it more often.
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The 2022 ran the scramble defense very often and deep into March, and somehow had even less depth than this team.
 
I think the problem is Omier. I don't think he's as effective trapping as Sam. He's obviously much more athletic than Sam was, but Sam was a lot taller and was a very smart player (not that Omier isn't smart)
 
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King of Allapattah said:
The funny thing is, Coach L has hung his hat defensively on the Scramble Defense. Brought it to Miami from his days at George Mason. Springing traps, forcing TOs and being disruptive have historically been his team's trademark. To be fair to Coach L though, I have major concerns with running it however. I mean, with our depth issues, propensity to foul (particularly Omier) and our guards' inability to slide their feet, I don't think playing Scramble D is a viable option for this group. I do agree with you that our reluctance to try anything besides a man-to-man tonight was baffling to say the least. Just didn't seem like we made any adjustments defensively. Looked like we were just hoping they'd go cold from the outside but it never really happened. I get it. They shot the **** out the ball. But I wouldn't have mind seeing Nwoko in the middle of a zone and seeing what happens. Their big guy (Huntley-Hatfield) who had a career high tonight had a 5-6 inch advantage on Omier. Who knows what would've happened had we given him a different look with a guy his same size in Nwoko. Guess we'll never know.
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Depth issues , lacking quick / explosive athletes with no length.
 
Gables Canes said:
We didn’t scramble much tonight but if you notice, we ran more double teams and traps aon the perimeter. And while Pedulla absolutely torched us, we forced VT into 15 turnovers.
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Hard to scramble when we are only playing 7. And Casey only played 9 minutes. King killed us because Omier can't afford to be in foul trouble. Plus, we guarded the Oklahoma kid tightly in the second half and he still made a couple of ridiculous 3s.

One thing for sure. Whomever we play they are going to give us their best effort.
 
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Cribby said:
Depth issues , lacking quick / explosive athletes with no length.
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The depth issues fall on L. I find it hard to believe there wasn’t a big in the portal who wasn’t willing to be one of the first guys off the bench for us.

Also, we’ve had a string of HS bigs who haven’t panned out - Gak, Rodney Miller, Anthony Walker, and it looks like Casey and Nwoko are heading down that same path.
 
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Gables Canes said:
The depth issues fall on L. I find it hard to believe there wasn’t a big in the portal who wasn’t willing to be one of the first guys off the bench for us.

Also, we’ve had a string of HS bigs who haven’t panned out - Gak, Rodney Miller, Anthony Walker, and it looks like Casey and Nwoko are heading down that same path.
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How so with Nwoko? You can easily say he is on the Jekiri or Izundu path. Casey's issue is he needs to increase his upper body strength. Does he portal out after this season? Probable, but I believe Larranaga thought they would get more production. We just need a solid 10 from him. A lot of season left.

Everybody on this board **** all over Walker for 4 years. He is giving IU valuable minutes in his 5th year.
 
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ALLoverCANE said:
So our 2022 team was deep, athletic, and long? Lol
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Wong and Miller were big losses especially on the defensive side . Pack and BJ is a tiny back court and not athletic / explosive. It’s one thing to be small as **** but it’s another to be small and lacking athleticism. That’s why I’ve been yelling about starting George at some point. This team will go as far as the three ball and out scoring people will take them.
 
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Cribby said:
Wong and Miller were big losses especially on the defensive side . Pack and BJ is a tiny back court and not athletic / explosive. It’s one thing to be small as **** but it’s another to be small and lacking athleticism. That’s why I’ve been yelling about starting George at some point. This team will go as far as the three ball and out scoring people will take them.
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I definitely agree those were huge losses and bigger than I originally anticipated. If you don’t mind that I ask why haven’t we been as aggressive as other teams in recruiting as well as the portal ? I definitely thought with our NIL backing we would be a big factor recruiting guys and have classes with more than 2-3 guys.
 
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