Perimeter defense

[wizard1]

I hope that prior to next season our coaches can clean up our perimeter defense. We continue to play away from the opponent and give them lots of room to move around and free up for open and unmolested 3 point shots.How about a little "belly button" defense on the perimeter that shuts down open "looks" for opponent 3 pointers? Also, we need to cut back on long cross- court skip passes which are high turnover risks and don't really do much for our offense.
Wizard

[Da Coach]

Wiz, why are you suggesting the perimeter defense needs work? Loyola was 7-17 from three, which is a little better that their usual averages per game, but that is not what cost Bradley the game, IMO.
Loyola scored 36 points in the paint (Bradley had 18 ). They had 27 total baskets, and 16 of them were layups (they were 16-21 on layups according to official stats). That is an excessive number of layups by one team in a game. Bradley only made 6-13 layups. Loyola also was 20-23 from the FT line, and most of those FTs came as a result of fouls near the basket. So IMO, Bradley's greatest weakness was defending inside.

[wizard1]

Coach....My point is that not closely defending the perimeter can cause several things to happen and they are all bad. First of all, you are correct in Loyola shooting 7 of 17 in 3s. BUT, 7 of 17 is 41% which is far too high. 41% in threes is the equivalent of over 60% in 2 point shooting which is too high to allow an opponent. Secondly, loose perimeter defenses can allow much better entry passing to players inside who can then make easy, high percentage shots. Clearly Loyola did this and as you correctly said, this was a major problem for BU. And finally, my point about perimeter defense was not just for the Loyola game. As you know, I have been commenting about this for most of the year. We are a good basketball team but our perimeter defense has been a problem for most of the year, IMO. You are quite correct in that Bradleys greatest weakness is defending inside. However we allow very good pinpoint passes inside by our opponents with our weak perimeter defense.
Wizard