Interesting article on Saul Phillips by Jason Whitlock

[ndsubison1]

Whitlock called out Phillips for not using a zone... Any thoughts on this provocative article?


North Dakota State coach’s rigid style costly against KU

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/1098848.html

[NDSUFan_Sav]

Whitlock called out Phillips for not using a zone... Any thoughts on this provocative article?



http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/1098848.html

well like I said and even after watching this game i feel if we would of ran a 2-3 it would of helped down low and it would of helped when they drove the lane when one of our guys would help stop the drive and they would dish off for a dunk but when you do 2-3 its harder to attack like that.

[Mr. Burgundy]

Yep, and when Syracuse loses, I hope he tells Jimmy to get out of that crappy 2-3 zone they play and get to man. Monday Morning QB's suck.

[walknroehl]

That article is complete bullsh**

He's a reporter and his opinion should be taken as such. No real basketball knowledge whatsoever.

[westnodak93bison]

Did we ever play zone all year?

[Tatanka]

negatory.
whitlock is an asshat

[westnodak93bison]

Bobby Knight never played zone in his whole career that I know of and very few question Bobby Knight.

[NDSU_grad]

Most of Aldrich's points were scored off of penetration or off. rebounds. If we go zone, we don't have enought length, and Kansas starts lobbing the ball to Aldrich on every possession. He probably has 15 dunks instead of 8.
IMO, telling a bball team to switch to zone from man-to-man is like telling a football team to switch from the spread to the wishbone.

[BisBison]

Most of Aldrich's points were scored off of penetration or off. rebounds. If we go zone, we don't have enought length, and Kansas starts lobbing the ball to Aldrich on every possession. He probably has 15 dunks instead of 8.
IMO, telling a bball team to switch to zone from man-to-man is like telling a football team to switch from the spread to the wishbone.

Well said grad rep to you. KU's offense did not run through Aldrich, he got garbage baskets and passes off of penetration, that's it. A zone would not have stopped that.

[aces1180]

Whitlock is like McFeely...Just gets paid to be negative all the time...As far as I am concerned, he can take a leap into a lake, as the journalism world wouldn't miss him one bit...He got canned from ESPN.com, so its no surprise this dribble comes out of him.

[Bison69]

Just a note on the USC/Ku game. Aldrich got his points against a very athletic team but looked tired. If Kansas would have played like they did on Sunday against us we might have beat them. They missed a ton of free throws and Collins didn't have the best shooting game. I think Collins really liked the big crowd we brought. Last note is the Kansas fans were very complementary about NDSU and they are very knowlegable. No a zone would have only gave them a blowout.

[BisManBison]

Just a note on the USC/Ku game. Aldrich got his points against a very athletic team but looked tired. If Kansas would have played like they did on Sunday against us we might have beat them. They missed a ton of free throws and Collins didn't have the best shooting game. I think Collins really liked the big crowd we brought. Last note is the Kansas fans were very complementary about NDSU and they are very knowlegable. No a zone would have only gave them a blowout.

Aldrich had one of only 6 triple doubles in NCAA tournament history, so he still played pretty well. Although he didn't score as much as he did against us, but that could be because Dayton (not USC) may have played better defense than we did making it more difficult for Collins to get him the easy looks he got against us. It's no secret our formula for success this year was to outscore teams rather than rely on a stiffling defense.

Agree completely with you on the Kansas fans. They were all very knowledgeable about their team and the game and had nothing but good things to say about NDSU and our team. Several KU fans got introduced to a "Chuck Norris".

Chuck Norris' 1 KU Fans 0 :D .

[mebisonII]

Total BS. See this part:


Phillips’ ego prevented the Bison from winning the game.

If there's one thing that jumps out at me from listening to Saul's press conferences and interviews, its enormous ego, conceit, and putting himself first.

[/sarcasm]

Perhaps if there's excessive ego in this, it belongs to the guy who thinks that by watching one BB game, he knows how to get more out of these players than a guy who's spent 5 years coaching them.

Put Whitlock in charge of this team and they were watching the NCAAs from their living rooms last Friday.

[NDSUFan_Sav]

not saying we should of did zone the whole game or but some zone or a press might of led to turnovers against KU, they were inexperienced and that causes turnovers under pressure.

I've watched 3/4 of KU's games this year and when they faced a zone or a matchup zone they had numerous turnovers in the half court offense or it caused them to shoot and shoot from the outside and were frustrated so didn't shoot well.

You really think it would of led to more dunks??? so when you run a 2-3 you have a guy in the middle and 2 outside if they drive the lane middle guy would then step up and stop that and other guys would have dropped down by then to stop the pass and if they pass it the guy will have position and there comes a charge.

Also just to inform everyone....look at S'cuse's line-up their tallest guy is 6'9 they run a 2-3 zone defense and they beat Uconn they beat KU...so I don't get what you guys are saying by 2-3 is bad to run.

Syracuse caused KU to have 17 turnovers

Baylor ran a zone and caused 11 turnovers so thats not to bad, but they still defeated them

Mizzou caused 26 turnovers and held KU to shoot for 13% for 3's

They should have practiced it for certain situations to throw teams off and give them a different look...you are trying to tell me you want to plan a man-to-man against an athletic team with a good big man???

why not even throw a box and 1 in there....great grand wonderful man-to-man got you there, so what we could have used a zone or some sort of zone from time to time.

[Bison bison]

NDSU should really practice the Princeton offense too. It might come in handy some time....

[NDSUFan_Sav]

something else I noticed we didn't do that well against Kansas, was the spacing, there were times players would bump into each other as they were moving without the ball.

[jugular]

Yep, and when Syracuse loses, I hope he tells Jimmy to get out of that crappy 2-3 zone they play and get to man. Monday Morning QB's suck.

Welcome to the world according to Whitlock. This would be the same writer that thought both Bill Callahan and Ron Prince were good hires. I will say that Whitlock is a good writer, but HIS ego often gets in the way. Often.

[Bison bison]

This Whitlock fellow makes McFeely look like the love-child of Henriette Kissinger and Norman Einstein.

[bisonmike2]

I'm not a great basketball mind in any way but I do know we were competitive the whole game by not using a zone. If somebody want's to make an argument of how we would have won the game by switching to a defense we didn't use all year against the most talented team we've ever faced, I'll listen. I just don't know if I'll buy it or not.

[ndsubison1]

yeah why didnt we switch our offense while we were at it too...

[CarolinaBisonFan]

I'm not a great basketball mind in any way but I do know we were competitive the whole game by not using a zone. If somebody want's to make an argument of how we would have won the game by switching to a defense we didn't use all year against the most talented team we've ever faced, I'll listen. I just don't know if I'll buy it or not.

Agree 100%, you just can't put in a zone into practice one week and expect it to be effective immediately. We played man all year and had a pretty darn good record. Also - its tougher to rebound in a zone defense because you don't have a man assigned to you to box out. If KU owns the boards, which they really didn't - its a blowout. I think we all just need to come to grips with the fact that Kansas played really really well and we lost to a really good team.

Jason Whitlock is an idiot. I have never agreed with anything he's ever written that I've seen. Saul has forgotten more basketball that Jason Whitlock knows.

[NDSUstudent]

I read the Whitlock article a day or so ago and I couldn't believe it.

If Saul runs a zone doesn't that destroy the confidence he has tried to build defensively for the past two seasons? I think the last thing you want to do going into a huge game is to try implement some new scheme that nobody is familiar with. Besides that point the team had been playing solid defense over the past few months and no you tell them they aren't good enough?

Also this team wasn't even a very good man team a year ago, and while having the zone would be nice the team needed to focus on just being a good team playing man. Saul didn't have the luxury to be able to experiment, the team had to improve their man defense or we never would have played Kansas in the first place.

What really killed us against Kansas was foul trouble. Losing Tveidt and Luke just killed the early momentum the team had built and while we did claw back, I think it would have been a different story had they played most of the first half.

That said, I guess Saul can say he is bigtime now since a major sports columnist ripped him. I hope his ego doesn't expand too much more. :p ;)

[onbison09]

Whitlock is the guy the nets call in when they need a talking head whose ego matches their girth. It's a tough statement but it's the truth.

[SUBISON247]

Bobby Knight never played zone in his whole career that I know of and very few question Bobby Knight.

If they did question him then they would've got the ass beaten

[ndsubison1]

I usually enjoy reading Whitlock's articles, but this is one of the first ones that I haven't...

[NorthernBison]

I read quite a bit of Whitlock's columns. He has a real tendency to say what he thinks regardless of who it angers. Sometimes I agree with him and sometimes I just sit back and watch people get all foaming at the mouth mad at him. The columns are often entertaining if you don't take them too seriously. Usually race plays a role in his columns and I've seen him called an "Uncle Tom" more than once. I don't usually read his columns looking for the obvious, I'm looking to find out who or what he's trying to stick a knife in this time.

I have noticed that he is not a big fan of Kansas Basketball. He is really not that impressed with Sherron Collins. I think he probably has some good feelings for NDSU but he really doesn't care what anybody in North Dakota thinks of his columns.

That's why I had a different feeling the first time I read this piece. I took most of what he said as a compliment to the Bison. Deep down, I think he was really saying that Kansas should have lost that game (he would have loved that). That they really aren't as good as some people think. Yeah, I know he said that coach's ego got in the way and he should have played zone. Saul can take that as criticism from somebody that has never coached a game in his life. Who really cares about that? What Jason said is that this Bison team was good enough to beat Kansas last Thursday so I'll choose to remember that.

[BisonBlogger]

All you needed to say about this guy's cred is he doesn't think much of Sherron Collins. Pretty uninformed about Basketball if that is his opinion of this All-American guard.

[BisonAccountant44]

why not even throw a box and 1 in there....great grand wonderful man-to-man got you there, so what we could have used a zone or some sort of zone from time to time.

Didn't we chase Derozan for a while at USC? I swear we did so I was a little surprised we didn't chase Collins for at least part of the game to get them off their game a bit, but the man-to-man was the best option for the game. I think a 2-3 would've been torn apart if we played it all game.

[bisonmike2]

All you needed to say about this guy's cred is he doesn't think much of Sherron Collins. Pretty uninformed about Basketball if that is his opinion of this All-American guard.

No kidding. I re-watched the game last night and if Collins is having an off night we win that game. He consistently was making some very tough shots- off balance, defenders in his face. It's not that Nelson was defending him that badly, Collins just put down some very tough shots.

[Herd]

I'm not sure that a zone was in order for Kansas, that is debatable. But, I called Saul out for not going to the zone against SUU in Fargo. IMO, the game in Fargo was begging for a zone. I didn't feel that was necessarily vs. Kansas.

Would a zone have helped versus the inside game against Kansas - maybe?
Would the zone have helped on the perimter was Kansas - No

[BisonBlogger]

IMO you don't use a zone as a base defense but only to slow down a team temporarily to change momentum. Make them stop to adjust. Other than that, there is nothing about a zone you can't do with your man to man if you choose to like jump screens to trap etc.

The way Saul wants his man defense to function, as far as I know, is to try to guard people without fouling to force them into contested shots if possible and have the off the ball defenders trying to deny driving and passing lanes. Where we failed against Kansas is the off the ball defenders did not close off passing lanes in order to limit assists for easy baskets. Too many lobs into the big guy where the defender could not deny the pass or the weak side help did not get there in time. Another part of that denying the lobs is pressuring the pass on the perimeter which is a problem when you have a blow by guard like Collins.

Easier said then done against a quality team but that is what needed to happen. Teams that don't play zone all the time tend to stand around too much.

[CarolinaBisonFan]

IMO you don't use a zone as a base defense but only to slow down a team temporarily to change momentum. Make them stop to adjust. Other than that, there is nothing about a zone you can't do with your man to man if you choose to like jump screens to trap etc.

The way Saul wants his man defense to function, as far as I know, is to try to guard people without fouling to force them into contested shots if possible and have the off the ball defenders trying to deny driving and passing lanes. Where we failed against Kansas is the off the ball defenders did not close off passing lanes in order to limit assists for easy baskets. Too many lobs into the big guy where the defender could not deny the pass or the weak side help did not get there in time. Another part of that denying the lobs is pressuring the pass on the perimeter which is a problem when you have a blow by guard like Collins.

Easier said then done against a quality team but that is what needed to happen. Teams that don't play zone all the time tend to stand around too much.

That's a great take.

[unbison]

I agree with the article! I believe that you have to have to use all the tools in the bag. And the right tool for the right job! Not ever using a zone defense, is like only playing in the nickel formation in football! just my opinion

[Golden_Jayhawk]

Whitlock makes some good points. A team who is actually ran by the coach and not the point guard would have been to make a change like this. Unfortunately those days wont start until the first game next year for NDSU.

[*Bisonrube]

I agree with the article! I believe that you have to have to use all the tools in the bag. And the right tool for the right job! Not ever using a zone defense, is like only playing in the nickel formation in football! just my opinion


AGREE++++ It was a great season...there is no way to ever know if zone would have helped. BUT, with our lack of depth, foul troubles and not being as athletic in every position would sure be major reasons to employ a zone. I think it was asinine not to EVER run a zone all year, hopefully next year Saul will adjust and not allow 9 dunks from one player in a game.