Coach- Why Don't You?

For years our staple was to play half court man to man defense. People, my brother mainly, would say, "Why don't you play a little zone to throw people off." My stock answer was, "Because we can't play zone."

You are what you are as a team. Our teams were man to man teams. Our counter to half court mm defense was to do some run and jump in the half court, and to do a lot of full court pressing. But the bottom line is you can only do so many things in basketball. I found the more defenses we tried to play, the worse our mm defense got.



After Wisconsin's loss to Syracuse, someone said, "I think Wisconsin needs to fast break a little to just get some things vs. a zone." You can't go away from what you are. Could Wisconsin have run a fastbreak and gotten some open looks? Probably. But to this, it would need to have been what they have practiced all year. You don't try to change who you are in championship games.

But it is just not easy to mess with your basic identity as a team. If Bo Ryan decided to run "just a little," the price could be going from averaging 8 turnovers to 12 turnovers. The price could be having the scores go from being in 50's to being in the 70's. You have to live with who you are.

In football, people will watch a high school team running a pro style. A fan will say,"They should just run the option a couple times and surprise them."  You can't just throw an option offense in without being willing to spend hours practicing it. There simply are not enough hours available to practice to do everything.

As we run "the system", sometimes people will say, why don't you just play some half court mm to throw them off. Man to man defense is not something you just do, it has to be something you really work at in practice. For now, we are a pressing and trapping team. The more we work on mm defense, the less we will work on our pressure defense-- and the less effective we will be.

You become a championship team by knowing who you are, and sticking with it.