Defense Wins Championships?

[Dave in Green]

Not as much love for Ohio's offense as disdain for Georgetown's poor defensive effort. KD will read all of this and be vigorously nodding his head up and down:

The reason the unthinkable happened is simple: The Hoyas got lazy defensively. Ohio players could've broken a clavicle and would still hotly pursue. Not the Hoyas. The way Georgetown played defense against Ohio typified the Big East's difficulty in the first round this year. The defensive intimidation they displayed against each other all season so far has mostly vanished. The Hoyas allowed Ohio to take wide-open jump shots the entire game. In the second half, Ohio shot 71 percent from 3-point range and 66 percent from the field. The Hoyas looked like they wanted no part of anything physical.

CBS Sports Link

This might have been the worst defensive effort Georgetown had all season. The Hoyas never could stop ball and didn’t look like they made the attempt.

ESPN Link

But ultimately, it came down to defense and effort.

Fox Sports Link

[Blue & Gold]

Not as much love for Ohio's offense as disdain for Georgetown's poor defensive effort. KD will read all of this and be vigorously nodding his head up and down:

The reason the unthinkable happened is simple: The Hoyas got lazy defensively. Ohio players could've broken a clavicle and would still hotly pursue. Not the Hoyas. The way Georgetown played defense against Ohio typified the Big East's difficulty in the first round this year. The defensive intimidation they displayed against each other all season so far has mostly vanished. The Hoyas allowed Ohio to take wide-open jump shots the entire game. In the second half, Ohio shot 71 percent from 3-point range and 66 percent from the field. The Hoyas looked like they wanted no part of anything physical.

CBS Sports Link

This might have been the worst defensive effort Georgetown had all season. The Hoyas never could stop ball and didn't look like they made the attempt.

ESPN Link

But ultimately, it came down to defense and effort.

Fox Sports Link

Thanks for those links. Those are examples of excuses; not good reasons. I don't know how many times I heard the "analysts" say last night that GTown played poorly. Rarely did they admit that OU is simply a very good team and flatly just took it to the Hoyas. Nobody wants to upset the BCS cart and call a spade a spade. They just want to believe that GTown played poorly, not that OU played excellently.

GTown didn't know what to do with OU last night. OU was scoring inside and out. The Hoyas didn't know which way to turn. No excuses about poor defense, thank you very much. The Emporer has no clothes and OU kicked GTown's ass. ESPN doesn't want to admit as much.

[g-mann17]

Thanks for those links. Those are examples of excuses; not good reasons. I don't know how many times I heard the "analysts" say last night that GTown played poorly. Rarely did they admit that OU is simply a very good team and flatly just took it to the Hoyas. Nobody wants to upset the BCS cart and call a spade a spade. They just want to believe that GTown played poorly, not that OU played excellently.

GTown didn't know what to do with OU last night. OU was scoring inside and out. The Hoyas didn't know which way to turn. No excuses about poor defense, thank you very much. The Emporer has no clothes and OU kicked GTown's ass. ESPN doesn't want to admit as much.

Hmm...

Georgetown didn't know what to do, OU was scoring inside and out, Hoyas didn't know which way to turn...

That sounds like you admitting that they played bad defense to me.

[w00t]

Thanks for those links. Those are examples of excuses; not good reasons. I don't know how many times I heard the "analysts" say last night that GTown played poorly. Rarely did they admit that OU is simply a very good team and flatly just took it to the Hoyas. Nobody wants to upset the BCS cart and call a spade a spade. They just want to believe that GTown played poorly, not that OU played excellently.

GTown didn't know what to do with OU last night. OU was scoring inside and out. The Hoyas didn't know which way to turn. No excuses about poor defense, thank you very much. The Emporer has no clothes and OU kicked GTown's ass. ESPN doesn't want to admit as much.

Hmm...

Georgetown didn't know what to do, OU was scoring inside and out, Hoyas didn't know which way to turn...

That sounds like you admitting that they played bad defense to me.

Sounds like you're saying that every time a team scores it's because the other team played bad defense. Why can't it be that OU played good offense?

OU won that game because they continued to attack for 40 minutes. They didn't get a 15-point lead and go into a shell and run 32 seconds of shot clock on every play and pray that the defense held up.

[Captain Kangaroo]

Sounds like you're saying that every time a team scores it's because the other team played bad defense. Why can't it be that OU played good offense?

OU won that game because they continued to attack for 40 minutes. They didn't get a 15-point lead and go into a shell and run 32 seconds of shot clock on every play and pray that the defense held up.

+1

[w00t]

Defense Wins Championships? , Not Really...

What wins championships is scoring more points than your opponents in successive games. Very few teams do it by employing the late 80's Loyola Marymount strategy, and very few teams do it by employing the Miami Redsweaters strategy... most championship teams are pretty competent on both ends of the floor.

I don't really care what strategy KD uses as long as it's a winning one. Our defense generally looks competent enough, but our offense struggles mightily sometimes, and for long stretches.

[g-mann17]

Thanks for those links. Those are examples of excuses; not good reasons. I don't know how many times I heard the "analysts" say last night that GTown played poorly. Rarely did they admit that OU is simply a very good team and flatly just took it to the Hoyas. Nobody wants to upset the BCS cart and call a spade a spade. They just want to believe that GTown played poorly, not that OU played excellently.

GTown didn't know what to do with OU last night. OU was scoring inside and out. The Hoyas didn't know which way to turn. No excuses about poor defense, thank you very much. The Emporer has no clothes and OU kicked GTown's ass. ESPN doesn't want to admit as much.

Hmm...

Georgetown didn't know what to do, OU was scoring inside and out, Hoyas didn't know which way to turn...

That sounds like you admitting that they played bad defense to me.

Sounds like you're saying that every time a team scores it's because the other team played bad defense. Why can't it be that OU played good offense?

OU won that game because they continued to attack for 40 minutes. They didn't get a 15-point lead and go into a shell and run 32 seconds of shot clock on every play and pray that the defense held up.

I never said that, OU scored a lot and easily and shot a very high percentage. Why? Because they got open looks and were able to set up their shot. Now how does that happen? Well because they ran an offense that set up ball screens (designed to get open looks). How does that happen consistantly? Because the defense doesn't adjust. Thus, poor defense.

OU made their shots, they deserved to win, but that was the worst defensive performance I've seen in a long time. No adjustment was made, no tempo change, nothing. Let's not forget that good defense on OU's part gave them a lot of fast break points at very critical moments.

[Blue & Gold]

<br />

Sounds like you're saying that every time a team scores it's because the other team played bad defense. Why can't it be that OU played good offense? <br /><br />OU won that game because they continued to attack for 40 minutes. They didn't get a 15-point lead and go into a shell and run 32 seconds of shot clock on every play and pray that the defense held up.

<br />+1<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Ummmm... yeah. Actually, that's precisely what my post was getting at. Lol

[Dave in Green]

For every offensive play, there are multiple defensive adjustment options.

For every defensive adjustment, there are multiple offensive adjustment options.

For every offense and defense, you keep running what works until the other team makes an effective adjustment, and then you readjust.

It goes back and forth, cat and mouse, as long as teams are smart and talented enough to make effective adjustments.

One-dimensional teams will look good until they run into an adjustment that neutralizes all they've got.

The best multi-dimensional teams will move on and eventually play for the national championship.

[Dave in Green]

Today's Ohio-Tennessee game was more indicative of what happens when a high-powered offense goes up against a team with a good balance of defense and offense.

A high-powered offense can only put pressure on another team by shooting at a high percentage. Even the best high-powered offenses cannot consistently put the ball through the hoop game after game, especially when facing a tough defense.

Today, against a tough Tennessee defense, Ohio shot 37.9% FG, 38.5% 3-pt, and 53.8% FT.

While Ohio deserves all the credit in the world for upsetting Georgetown, they did it with an unreal and unsustainable shooting percentage.

Today, the reality of what a good defense can do to a good offense came home to roost.

[Dave in Green]

Proof point #2 in favor of defense:

Underdog Northern Iowa leads consensus #1 team Kansas at the half, 36-28.

The announcers made the point that Northern Iowa is the #2 defensive team in the country, and that "they hang their hat on defense."

Listen, like everyone else here, I prefer watching a high-powered offense over a stifling defense. But as long as the rules are set up and enforced the way they are in college basketball, a good defense will beat a good offense more often than vice versa. You still need to have a decent offense to score points. But defense is king.

It's just the way it is.

[ZachTheZip]

Proof point #2 in favor of defense:

Underdog Northern Iowa leads consensus #1 team Kansas at the half, 36-28.

The announcers made the point that Northern Iowa is the #2 defensive team in the country, and that "they hang their hat on defense."

Listen, like everyone else here, I prefer watching a high-powered offense over a stifling defense. But as long as the rules are set up and enforced the way they are in college basketball, a good defense will beat a good offense more often than vice versa. You still need to have a decent offense to score points. But defense is king.

It's just the way it is.

They may be the #2 defensive team in the country, but they were able to score 36 points on Kansas in one half. It doesn't matter if Akron is the #1 defensive team when we have such a terrible offense.

[w00t]

Proof point #2 in favor of defense:

Underdog Northern Iowa leads consensus #1 team Kansas at the half, 36-28.

The announcers made the point that Northern Iowa is the #2 defensive team in the country, and that "they hang their hat on defense."

Listen, like everyone else here, I prefer watching a high-powered offense over a stifling defense. But as long as the rules are set up and enforced the way they are in college basketball, a good defense will beat a good offense more often than vice versa. You still need to have a decent offense to score points. But defense is king.

It's just the way it is.

So you think NIU will still be playing after next weekend is said and done? Give me a break, you make a pretty wild general statement based on two lousy games.

Take a look at the last ten national champions and then tell me how many of them demonstrate that defense is "king".

Scoring more points than your opponents is king. That's actually the way it is.

[Dave in Green]

I thought I used some pretty clear English there. But let me use a little bolding and underlining for those who apparently read right over a couple of the main points:

Proof point #2 in favor of defense:

Underdog Northern Iowa leads consensus #1 team Kansas at the half, 36-28.

The announcers made the point that Northern Iowa is the #2 defensive team in the country, and that "they hang their hat on defense."

Listen, like everyone else here, I prefer watching a high-powered offense over a stifling defense. But as long as the rules are set up and enforced the way they are in college basketball, a good defense will beat a good offense more often than vice versa. You still need to have a decent offense to score points. But defense is king.

It's just the way it is.

Oh, and by the way, the little mid-major with the #2 defense in the country just beat the #1 overall team in the country.

[w00t]

I love clear English, I also love statistics...

Ken Pomeroy's defensive EFFICIENCY rating for today's contestants (y'know, the defensive stat that matters, any team can take 30 seconds on every OFFENSIVE possession and hold their opponents under 60).

Kansas #5

UNI #18

Last Six National Champions (per the thread title) offensive EFFICIENCY...

2004 - Connecticut #4 (#5 defense)

2005 - UNC #1 (#5 defense)

2006 - Florida #2 (#5 defense)

2007 - Florida #1 (#12 defense)

2008 - Kansas #2 (#1 defense)

2009 - UNC #1 (#16 defense)

Your clearly underlined and bolded assertion is dubious at best.

[GP1]

But as long as the rules are set up and enforced the way they are in college basketball, a good defense will beat a good offense more often than vice versa. You still need to have a decent offense to score points. But defense is king.

I spent 15 years watching Bill Cowher lose big game after big game with his defensive mentality. It wasn't until he had players who could make key offense plays at key points in games did he finally get over the hump.

All defense does is get the ball to the offense. If the offense can't score, it doesn't matter what the defense does.

If the offense is struggling, it is up to defense to hold them in the game until they figure their offense. If the offense never figures it out in a 40 minute game, they are not going to win.

Northern Iowa won yesterday because they had a good team whose offense made key shots at key points in the game. They got a lead on KS, put pressure on them to score and KS didn't respond to the pressure enough to win. The last time I checked, NIU's offense made a huge three pointer with 35 seconds remaining. NIU's big guy had a huge put back late in the game. None of that had anything to do with defense.

NIU is a good team in any conference. They only lost four games all year. They play in a much better conference than the MAC. While the game was an upset, it isn't as much of an upset as it looks on the surface. The truth is, NIU was seeded to low.

BTW, did everyone notice the KS player doing his best Adam Morrison post game "look at me crying" imitation. The guy still had his warm-ups on top to bottom so I guess that was the only way he was going to get any air time. I'm so sick of watching these guys cry and even worse yet, the network putting it on TV. His coach should have kicked him when he walked by. BTW, I told you guys how many years ago not Adam Morrison was a crybaby and would never pan out in the NBA. How is career going? Man, some of you really defended that stiff.

[GP1]

2004 - Connecticut #4 (#5 defense)

2005 - UNC #1 (#5 defense)

2006 - Florida #2 (#5 defense)

2007 - Florida #1 (#12 defense)

2008 - Kansas #2 (#1 defense)

2009 - UNC #1 (#16 defense)

Great stats.

All of these teams have a tradition of being fast paced teams that score a lot of points. If you force the fast pace with offense, you force other teams into your style of play which may make them uncomfortable and your defense is better. Score a lot of points and other teams fold. Seems simple to me.

Another key note, players win games. These schools also turn out one NBA player after another. Talent certainly helps offensive efficiency.

[GP1]

One other thing about NIU. They had wins this year against East Carolina (CUSA), Boston College (ACC/Big East), Iowa State (Big 12) and Iowa (Big Ten). If you don't play them, you can't beat them.

Nobody should be surprised about their win yesterday.

[Dave in Green]

Good statistical analysis, w00t. Sorry I didn't have time to do it last night and just relied on the TV announcers saying Northern Iowa was #2 in defense. Turns out that's just scoring defense, which of course is affected by game tempo.

Your citing of the Pomeroy numbers points out the fallacy of trying to make any point on the basis of a game or two, whether in favor of offense, defense or any other statistical category. Statistical reality plays out over time in all games.

Stats must also be properly interpreted in context. For example, there's raw offensive efficiency (points scored per 100 offensive possessions) and defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 defensive possessions). The stats you quote are Pomeroy's "adjusted" efficiency ratings, which applies a proprietary formula to the raw numbers.

The variables of comparing some stats are monumental. In college basketball, all teams do not play each other. Some coaches tend to run up scores while some tend to back off. A team with both good offense and defense might be shooting well and jump out to such a big lead that they relax on defense, or the same team might be shooting so poorly that it will buckle down on defense to make up for its lack of scoring. Some teams are steady throughout the season while others peak early or late, skewing their statistical summary for the season. And ultimately we're measuring the performance of many imperfect humans working together, which always produces wildly fluctuating results.

The best all-around teams with the best combination of offense and defense over the course of a season usually win, but not always. By most measurements, Georgetown was a better overall team this season than Ohio, and Kansas was a better overall team than Northern Iowa. But not in those two games.

I know of no absolute way to document a laboratory analysis of whether offense or defense is more important than the other. Each can work better in certain situations. But ultimately you have to have both. It's up to each coach to decide which balance best suits the coach's style and the abilities of his individual players.

I do know that most basketball players enjoy playing offense more than defense because offense is more like fun and defense is more like work. In the absence of good coaching, most players will try to shoot the lights out and put less effort into defense, as in the NBA All Star game. So coaches generally have to put extra focus on defense, and that's why so many coaches tell their players and the media that defense is king.

[MDZip]

Trying to help Dave's case ...

From Luke Winn on the SI Site:

http://www.kenpom.com/stats.php

"In the six years kenpom.com has tracked tempo-free statistics, no Final Four team has been ranked outside the top 25 in adjusted defensive efficiency*. And only two Elite Eight teams in the past six years have ranked outside the top 50 in adjusted defensive efficiency. Having a decent offense matters, too, but the data shows just how unlikely it is for a non-elite defensive team to make a deep tournament run".

However, in a later posting

"It’s my nature to try to find some kind of numerical explanation for what happened in the Cornell-Temple game, so I settled on this: Highly efficient defensive teams with really bad offenses — like the Owls — have not been good of late in the dance"

You just can't win (I guess unless you have a good offense coupled with a stout defense - hey, that makes sense )

[Dave in Green]

If two "perfect" defensive teams play each other, no one ever scores and the game goes into infinite overtime at 0-0.

If two "perfect" offensive teams play each other, they both make every shot, but one eventually wins because it gets one more shot than the other team before the regulation time or an overtime final buzzer.

What happens when the "perfect' defensive team meets the "perfect" offensive team, when one team can't miss a shot and the other can't be scored on?

[OZoner]

My head hurts. Akron produced points better than any other team in the conference this season and better than 200+ teams in the country. Frankly, the offense outperformed the defense this year.

[Zip Watcher]

My head hurts. Akron produced points better than any other team in the conference this season and better than 200+ teams in the country. Frankly, the offense outperformed the defense this year.

+1

[Captain Kangaroo]

My head hurts.

+1. Join the club. The Notorious D.I.G. claims another victim.

[MDZip]

My head hurts. Akron produced points better than any other team in the conference this season and better than 200+ teams in the country. Frankly, the offense outperformed the defense this year.

+1

Hold on, so that does mean that defense wins championships (or not)? My head hurts worse! Arrgghh!