physicality is a core tenants of Sampsons ststem… as coogman91 noted its not that we need to stop being physical, but that our new guys arent doing it correctly
Uzan is way too handsy
You put your hands on a player and if their body moves back at all it’ll be called a foul
his 5th foul vs sdsu was too obvious
His 3rd and 5th Foul vs Bama are obvious fouls…
look at shead, he was physical with his body, these are rarely ever called, he rarely used his hands on the defenders body but was still very physical
but its a learning process, sampson said uzan wasnt physical at all when he first came here…he is just going about it the wrong way, i think he’ll learn on how to be physical without getting called as he continues to learn…
This has been the most disappointing thing for me. We’ve had double digit second half leads in all 3 of our losses. Losing all 3 is inexcusable. We need defensive stoppers and haven’t had that this year (so far).
The other really frustrating aspect of our defense is how our guards can’t get over the top on picks. Shead and Corey Davis were elite at this. None of our current guys are even close to as good in that regard. We can’t have Sharp and LJ constantly getting stuck on screens, or God forbid, going under them.
Great stuff…in Uzan’s defense, though, he is nowhere near as quick as Shead was (is) laterally, resulting in feeling the need to uses his hands more (you can see that pretty easily in the clips). Lots of times, when guys foul, they are essentially admitting to not being able to keep up with their opposition. In that regard, I don’t know if I would consider Uzan a ‘true’ point guard. He’s never really gotten great defensive marks anyway. He’s really more of a shooter/slasher to me. Shead was perfect in Sampson’s system because he was a quick, defensive-minded facilitator first – not to mention, the ultimate leader – all qualities you need in a point guard. But given more time, Uzan’s defense will improve. Playing for Sampson, it’ll have to because he’ll have no choice!
Great post as always, hope you keep posting with regularity.
Agree with all of it. The biggest head scratcher to me is what the heck happened to Roberts. He flat-out stinks this year. Doesn’t seem to be playing with much fire, either. Wonder what’s going on with him
He was banged up most of last year, wasn’t he? I’m not making a guess that he is hurt again, but he is certainly playing soft like one might if they WERE hurt. Hope not.
Man i was wondering where @pesik was. Always looked forward to his pre-game match up breakdowns of the opposition and really missed it! Had no idea you got some haters! Lol there’s too much to life to do that.
It makes a lot of sense on Pesik’s observation on the difference with Uzan & Shead. This team had so many momentum swings last year with Shead getting the opposing side getting called for offensive fouls and would disrupt the flow of their offense by guarding with physicality and without the use of hands. Now the opposing PG has been able to find more open shots along with our players getting more in foul trouble. Mylik seems to defend well but is more of a liability on offense…its good we are witnessing this early though, Im sure Sampson will be making adjustments on this…
Good point especially since Shead disrupted the flow of the PG running the offense, our big men are now being tested more and have not produced on the offensive side for the most part…
Doesn’t the staff have to adjust the defense and offense to fit the personnel as well? Uzan was never going to be Shead on defense so hopefully we see some adjustments.
