2014-2015 Defense

Lots of chatter on the board about the offensive skill sets of the players on this year’s team based off of some recent practice video. I’d like to start a discussion on what we can expect on the defensive end this coming year.

Known facts:

  1. We lost our entire frontcourt, including the defensive anchor of last year’s team
  2. Last year’s defense was woeful, both to the eye, and according to stats
  3. Man defense was the primary set. Few instances of zone occurred throughout the season to flip tempo or to stop bleeding.

Questions for this year:

  1. Hard to see how our frontcourt defense can match last year’s due to the current inexperience. The hope is that the backcourt defense will be improved. Do these two assumptions lead to a better defensive unit, worse, or the same?
  2. Due to the makeup of this year’s team, should we expect to see more zone? Seems like we have a bit more length all around, so more 131 or 23 seems plausible.
  3. Who will be our main defensive stopper for explosive guards and wings–Caris? Zak? Kam?
  4. Lastly, at the end of the year, will this squad be a better defensive squad than last year’s, or the same/worse?

Thoughts?

Better perimeter D, interior D will most likely regress. Walton and Caris will be your “stoppers”. Hopefully Irvin is improved on D

Thought it was interesting that Beilein mentioned Irvin as a potential defensive stopper.

“Zak is taking the ball to the basket better, he’s rebounding more — he did not rebound last year, and he’s becoming a defensive stopper. He has some ability to do that. I don’t think he’s proven that in games yet, but most freshmen don’t.”

I sure hope so, if Irvin has improved his lateral movement and it translates to game situations, I think that could be a huge boost to a team with such an inexperienced frontcourt.

Thought it was interesting that Beilein mentioned Irvin as a potential defensive stopper.

“Zak is taking the ball to the basket better, he’s rebounding more — he did not rebound last year, and he’s becoming a defensive stopper. He has some ability to do that. I don’t think he’s proven that in games yet, but most freshmen don’t.”

I’ve always thought Irvin had a good defensive mentality (M2M) but lacked the lateral quickness to use it much last year. Coming out of high school, I thought his defense was a big plus in my book.

With his size, I think he can be a really good defender in the Big 10.