South Carolina's Personnel Driven Defense vs. Paige Bueckers & Hailey Van Lith
"KYP" Know Your Personnel & The Role Of Scouting
In today’s newsletter we are going to take a deep dive into South Carolina’s defensive success throughout the NCAA tournament, focusing on the Final Four and National Championship games. Of the 6 games the Gamecocks played in the tournament, UNC’s 61 points in the round of 32 was the the most allowed in route to their 2nd national championship. Not including their tournament opener against Howard in which they held the bison to 21 points - yes you read that right, 21 points, the 5 remaining opponents averaged only 50 PPG with the leading scorers for each of those teams falling short of their season averages. South Carolina’s defensive dominance can be attributed to superb individual efforts coupled with high level team defense consisting of constant communication, personnel driven decision making and relentless physicality.
THE ROLE OF SCOUTING
Throughout the last few seasons there have been a number of instances in which Dawn Staley has publicly given credit to her assistant coaches for their preparation when it comes to scouting reports. The significance of a well prepared and even more crucial, a well presented scouting report cannot be undermined.
A typical scouting report at the Division 1 level is generally made up of the following things (keep in mind every school does things differently)
Many, many hours of watching game film and analyzing box scores, statistics etc.
Creating the written report and diagramming plays (not every team prepares a physical report these days)
Gathering play calls, lineup patterns and substitution tendencies
Brainstorming how to defend each individual player/action: essentially creating the actual game plan
Study, study, & study some more so you know the other team’s stuff better than they know themselves
Oh and just when you think you’ve got it all figured out and have an unbelievable defensive game plan, you then remember that you also need to figure out how you’re going to score on them.
Of course every program organizes and generates their scouting reports differently depending on numerous factors such as number of staff members, available resources, individual strengths/weaknesses of staff members, number of days leading up to the game, etc. At the end of the day when it comes to the NCAA tournament any little advantage a coach can dig up on their opponent can be the difference between moving on to the next round or being sent home.
South Carolina Team Defense
With so much switching occurring in today’s game, teams like South Carolina who are built for the switch thanks to having great length and versatility at almost every position, it is essential that all 5 defenders on the floor are aware of who they are guarding throughout a possession in order to force lower percentage shots.
The possession below shows South Carolina’s versatility to switch on ball actions 1 through 5 in order to take away any advantage in terms of angles or space for the offense to operate.
The switch allows the other 3 defenders not involved in the action to stay out of help rotations. When Destanni Henderson gets switched onto Olivia Nelson-Ododa in the second clip, the triple switch is perfectly executed with Victoria Saxton taking Nelson-Ododa on the roll allowing for Henderson to stay out on the perimeter to eventually switch back onto Bueckers, her original matchup at the start of the possession. This is a tremendous example of awareness, communication and connectivity from the Gamecocks.
In the next clip team defense is once again on display as Henderson’s pressure and deny defense forces Paige Bueckers to cut backdoor and catch a difficult pass, only to meet 6 foot 7 center Kamilla Cardoso right at the rim.
Because Cardoso knows that her matchup Edwards isn’t a long range shooting threat, she can be off to help and clog the paint on cuts like these. If she didn’t play with personnel in mind and was two steps closer to Edwards, the back cut would’ve resulted in an easy two points.
Where Player Personnel & Scouting Meet
Brea Beal drew the defensive assignment in consecutive games of defending the opponents top scoring threats in Louisville standout Hailey Van Lith and Uconn’s Paige Bueckers. Beal did a phenomenal job pressuring the ball and forcing tough shots that analytically speaking, were the right ones to give up.
Brea Beal’s first priority when defending HVL was to take away her left hand. In the clip above Beal cuts off the drive going left, forcing HVL to use the screen going right. She then stays on her hip as she attacks downhill daring her to finish with her weak hand. Whether or not Beal remembered in the moment that HVL loves a step thru move to get back to her left hand when the defense cuts her off, the split second decision to stay on that hip and force a right handed finish instead of trying to fully recover was brilliant.
I can almost guarantee that one of the first things on the scouting report emphasized the fact that Van Lith is a dead eye lefty shooter and anytime she puts the ball on the floor to drive it, she’s trying to go left. See the statistics below from Synergy Sports.
Credit goes to to the South Carolina coaching staff on the clip below for the defensive strategy of guarding this baseline out of bounds play for HVL to curl towards the ball for a quick catch and shoot. Again it’s Beal coming up with the big stop using her left hand to block the shot after switching out with Destanni Henderson. This is yet another example of a team being fully prepared for their opponent and knowing exactly how they are going to defend a particular action. Execution, spot on!
Continuing the KYP conversation, let’s shift to defending arguably the most skilled guard in the country, Paige Bueckers. The chart below displays her field goal percentage over the last 10 games of the season. The darker the red, the better she is shooting from that area on the floor, whereas the blue represents poor shooting. As you can see, Paige was shooting the lights out from just about every spot on the floor. It is also important to take into account the number of attempts she has from each spot. For example, her 0.0% 3pt shooting from the right corner doesn’t necessarily mean she is a poor 3pt shooter from that spot because the sample size is so small having only taken 1 shot from that corner.
Big picture take away from her shot chart above is that you want to keep her outside of the paint, preferably forcing long contested mid range shots above the break in which she is shooting less than 50%. That’s exactly the shot that South Carolina forces in the clip below.
Uconn’s offense relies on a ton of handoffs and pass and chase type actions (also commonly referred to as “get action”) like you see here with Bueckers coming tight off of Edwards for the shot. Instead of allowing Bueckers to come off and see daylight for her signature two dribble paint pull up that she knocks down at a high clip, South Carolina’s post players in this case Victoria Saxton, are nice and high on the show for an early contest. Destanni Henderson is able to maintain a tight chase on Bueckers putting some heat on her to get that shot off more quickly than usual in a narrow window. This possession is a win for the Gamecocks.
Just for fun, here’s that deadly paint pull up I was referring to just now from Bueckers. This was one of the few defensive breakdowns South Carolina had in terms of not being in the right position on this ball screen coverage, and Paige Bueckers made them pay. This shot is practically automatic for her.
Hopefully, I was able to adequately show the significance of knowing player personnel when it comes to scouting and building a defensive game plan. It starts with the coaching staff diving into the analytics, shot charts, etc. and watching for tendencies that will give their team an edge or make the opponent even slightly uncomfortable. The ability to create buy in and belief from players to execute the plan in the heat of the moment is what the elite teams such as South Carolina are able to do at a high level game in and game out.
It’s pretty cool that we have all of these resources at our disposal that allow us as coaches to scheme and prepare in more detail each and every year, but at the end of the day we know that the best players just have a knack for making plays when the game is on the line!