I've really appreciated the two Film Room pieces on the site, and there are some good comments in this thread. I was also in Denver last week and was impressed by the number and knowledge of Cyclone fans. A few notes:
If Morris can disrupt Perrantes, Brogdon will bring the ball up the court. Perrantes is nominally the point guard, but I bet Brogdon brings it up just as often. This seems to have become more the case as the season has progressed and Perrantes' improved 3-point shooting has held up (led the ACC in 3-pt %, 48% in conference play). Perrantes, like almost all players, is much better at catch-and-shoot instead of the pull-up. I know Morris plays a lot; we will be happy to try to have him spend most of his day running through screens.
We set way more off-the-ball screens than ball screens. As LuckyWahoo notes, our blocker-mover offense is often designed to get Brogdon or Perrantes the ball coming off a screen. One of Brogdon's great strengths is reading the screens and knowing when to cut hard, shoot a J off the curl, or step back for a 3.
A big aspect of our game is the mental component. We run a slow pace; that's often frustrating for us Virginia fans as well. But as bawbie notes above, the guys are moving all the time. We are betting that we like playing defense more than you do. When you get the ball back after an extended period playing defense, the hope is that you will be so excited to be back on offense that you will rush and do something foolish. While time of possession doesn't matter much in basketball, I think it's a big part of Hoos' strategy, or at least a nice byproduct of it. LuckyWahoo notes that we wear you down; that's a result of having to play tough defense for a disproportionate amount of time.
The other mental part of our game is that when you are on offense, we want you to be thinking about doing things you don't normally do instead of reacting instinctively. Many of the strategies noted in this thread will work against the pack-line D; the key is whether you can execute it quickly. The gif of Brice Johnson hitting the cutter in the original article is a good example. That play is going to be open. But the window for that pass is pretty small, and if the big who catches the ball is thinking, "OK, where's the double coming from? Now where's my cutter or the doubling guy's man? Bounce or lob?", then it may be too late. Are the bigs used to making skip passes to the far corner through a double-team? When we played UNC the first time, Brice got frustrated and more or less checked out in the second half. He was much better the second time around in the championship game.
Of course, I would expect cool, veteran teams to be less affected by much of this, and Niang could have a great, great day. And we have struggled with teams that can put 4 3-pt shooters on the floor.
The other thing to watch for when you're on offense is how you handle the hard hedge on screen. I worry that Morris will split the hedge, as some quicker point guards have been able to do and get to the basket. When the screener rolls, that is another pass that will be open but the window can be so small, and we are betting that if the hedger can get the ball-handler bumped out farther than normal, he is not used to making that pass from that far back or at that angle. The second Louisville game is a good example of this, where they got several layups off the pick-and-roll, but most of the time it looked like they were trying to remember exactly what to do instead of just playing.
On offense, the two guys that could use a little more discussion are Mike Tobey and Marial Shayok. Tobey can be great when he's aggressive; the question for him is whether he can hang with your guys on defense. He is pretty skilled for a big man; we will run a play or two to get him isolated on the block and also don't mind him shooting from the free throw line. Shayok has had a nice few games lately; he is the best on the team after Brogdon at creating his own shot. He seems to have a few No-No-No-YES plays every game, along with a couple No-No-NO!!! plays as well. I think we need one of those 2 to have a big game. If the team, or those 2 guys especially, are shooting some long 2s early, as we are occasionally wont to do, it could be a long night.
