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Scouting Memphis

Posted by Trips Right on March 29th, 2008 under Basketball

Starting Personnel

Derrick Rose 6-3 PG. 14.3 ppg 4.3 rpg 4.5 apg. Big physical lottery pick caliber lead guard that can get a shot for himself or a teammate virtually anytime and anywhere. His strength allows him to ward off smaller defenders for midrange looks. His quickness allows him to get by bigger defenders. One weakness is he disappears at times given the abundance of talent around him. It’s important to note that he struggled in the two “showcase” matchups vs. Arizona and USC. Finished with just 12 points and 6 turnovers against the Wildcats. Against USC and a triangle and two, he was held to 9 points on 3-9 shooting with 5 turnovers.

Chris Douglass Roberts 6-7 Guard 17.5 ppg 4.5 rpg. The best pure scorer in America. He’s long and quick and can get to the cup against bigger defenders. Has an unmatched midrange game, and shoots an ungodly 41% from 3. He’s the Tigers’ go to guy. Sometimes dominates the basketball which gets his team out of rhythm. Defensively he’s a nightmare getting into passing lanes for deflections and steals.

Reporter
The top scoring backcourt in the nation.

Antonio Anderson 6-6 Guard 8 ppg 3.7 rpg 3.5 apg. He’s Justin Mason wearing blue. Defensive stopper and stat sheet stuffer. A bit bigger so he can guard perimeter shooters and hybrid forwards alike. Weakness like many of the Tigers is FT shooting. Shoots just under 60%.

Robert Dozier 6-9 Forward 9.4 ppg 6.8 68% FT shooter. He’s Jay Bilas’ wet dream. Long with sick athleticism. He’ll play in the league if he can get stronger. Blocks two shots a game and hits the occasional deep bomb. Can be bodied a bit and is prone to foul trouble if you attack him.

Joey Dorsey 6-9 F-C 7 ppg 9.5 ppg 37% FT. He’s the unselfish finisher in Calipari’s Dribble Drive Motion (DDM) offense. He’ll dominate the weak block looking for dishes and weakside rebounds off of penetration. He doesn’t post much at all. Horrible foul shooter. Defensively he’s a shotblocking force inside but is also prone to foul trouble if attacked because he doesn’t have elite size. He’s fouled out 5 times on the year.

The Bench
Shawn Taggert- another long athletic forward that spells Dorsey or Dozier. He’s tougher than HenryJames because he has a tattoo on his larynx and doesn’t listen to Nickelback.
Doneal Mack – big guard that can shoot it. 37% from deep.
Willie Kemp – another perimeter specialist to shoot teams out of zones designed to stop the DDM. 38% from deep.
Andre Allen – water bug guard used to come in to spell Rose.

Attacking the Tigers

The Tigers will put an ultra-athletic, long team on the floor, so passing the basketball becomes problematic. Teams must do a good job of meeting the basketball and using the proper spacing to keep these racehorses out of passing lanes and on to easy dunks. Memphis’ wing denial and fierce pressure is similar to that of Kansas, but they bring more length and less discipline to the table than the Jayhawks. They’ll gamble on you so you have to take care of the basketball and attack accordingly. Their interior isn’t nearly as physical as Kansas’ but they are more athletic, so penetrators/cutters must take the ball right at the shotblocker and attack the rim. Weak minded layups and floaters will likely be sent into the third row. Go to dunk the ball or don’t go. So how do we attack Memphis’ pressure?

Backcuts
Texas can take advantage of the respect Memphis will have for Atchley and James’ perimeter skills by vacating the paint or lifting Memphis’ big men, and then backcutting the Tigers’ overplaying wings for easy layups. Essentially you take Dozier and Dorsey to the perimeter just before you attack backdoor.

Dribble Penetration
It sounds like an oversimplification, but DJ using a high ball screen vs. Rose or even Mason taking Anderson off of the bounce will exploit the lack of dribble penetration help the Tigers lend. Penetration lanes should be available because of the heavy pressure Memphis puts on the wings.

Guard exchanges
If we’re having trouble reversing the basketball via the pass because of overplays, guard exchanges or dribble handoffs will work well to flip the floor and catch Dorsey or Dozier out of position. Our guards need to remember to keep the dribble alive and not make a forced pass because Memphis does such a good job of getting into passing lanes.

Reporter
Bennett’s defense is tailormade for Memphis’ DDM

Defending Memphis

As mentioned before, the Tigers run what’s called the Dribble Drive Motion (DDM) offense. It’s an offense that John Calipari calls Princeton on steroids. First let me try to explain the crux of any motion offense, just in case you’re like Sailer Ripley and not only do you hate Bob Knight, but you’ve spent your entire basketball life trying to gain street cred after calling a charge in your local pickup game. The traditional motion offense gives its players a variety of screens from pass and pick away on the perimeter, to down screens on the wings, to cross screens from post to post. Each player using these types of screens and the many variations of screening and cutting in general, must read his defender to decide what is the appopriate action. My defender is trailing me, so I curl around the screen. My defender goes underneath the screen so I fade for a perimeter shot. My defender is trying to fight through the screen so I catch and shoot or pump fake and go. My defender is overplaying the screen, so I test step and backdoor. And each screener has a read, with dives, slips, screens and rescreens etc. In a nutshell, you have a lot of moving parts unlike set plays.

Now the dribble drive motion takes the passing element of the motion offense and minimizes it as a means to move the basketball. Instead the emphasis is placed on driving or penetrating the basketball to move the defense and hopefully execute your offense with an open shot. That’s not to say passing is non-existent, it’s just not the focal point to get defenses to move. A typical Memphis possession will have an initial penetration which makes the defense help and recover followed by a pass to the recovering defender’s man. Then penetration from that player and a pass to the next recovering defender’s man who will be a bit more out of position than the first. Rinse. Repeat. Until you’ve loosened the D for an easy layup, an easy dish, or an easy kick for an open 3. It’s like chewing food, the more you penetrate, the more you break down the defense. The key is you’ve got to have 3 or 4 skilled players that can penetrate, pass, and shoot. Here’s a great preview with some more information on the DDM. So how do you defend it?

Stay in front of the ball
It’s a lot like a phalanx. Once the first man gets beat, it’s probably all she wrote. As long as you can effectively prevent penetration, you can avoid breaking down by having to help and recover. The good news is Texas does an excellent job of on ball defense 1 through 4.

Switch Screens
There really isn’t much difference between Texas’ 3 guards, so it makes sense to limit damage created by having to hedge ball screens or exchanges by just switching every guard to guard screen. Sure, you might get a Douglass Roberts on AJ Abrams, but that’s certainly something that can be managed unlike a dunk or a Brook Lopez 4 footer.

Play soft on the Wings
Texas should take a page out of Tony Bennett’s pack-line defense and play our wings soft to dissuade dribble penetration from the point. It’ll also help any recovery back to the wing after penetration because it’s a shorter distance to just recover than having to help then recover. The tradeoff is you’ll give up some open wing jumpers, put I’ll take that tradeoff with certain Tiger players.

Keep your bigs on the glass
Memphis’ DDM also gets bigs out of position helping and this results in Dorsey with an easy finish from a dish or an offensive board. Maintaining our perimeter shell will help Connor and James rebound defensively.

Reporter
Offensive foul.

Zone
It seems like a no-brainer, but the downside is rebounding against an athletic team like Memphis considering there aren’t any blockout assignments. They can slash and get to longer rebounds making it tough to close out possessions even if you force a miss. I’d suspect wholesale personnel changes if we do decide to zone, going more for a larger back line.

Prediction

I think Texas has a shooter’s chance in this game. We’ll have to hit better than 40% from deep, and focus on resting our backcourt throughout the game, because Memphis’ perimeter is Kansas-deep. The frequent tournament time-out structure will help, but I’m very worried about tired legs from DJ and AJ at the end. Our one ace in the hole is Memphis’ foul shooting. If we can take advantage of their undisciplined play and maintain contact in the last 5 minutes we can exploit their weakness at the line. I’m a bit concerned that their talent will simply overwhelm us if we get down at any point in the contest. Hopefully the crowd can help in that respect. Still, I’ll try to stay objective and call it 78 to 73 Memphis in a very entertaining game. Then I’ll go home and kick my dog for jinxing Dogus Balbay’s knee. We could use him tomorrow.

Hook ‘EM

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24 Responses

  1. Horn said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    Just outstanding. This should be laminated and sent to Barnes.

  2. comeonminers said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    Great explanation of the the DDM here trips. should be a very entertaining game to watch.
    five weeks ago i would not have given texas much of a chance but they have certainly gelled beautifully and are now playing very solid defense .. both denying the post and denying penetration. difference between stanford guards quickness and athleticism and that of memphis is pretty large however, as is their ability to knock down open three pointers. Cannot wait to watch this game , by far the most intriguing of the weekend. Cannot say enough about how rock solid your analysis of these match-ups have been. keep up the excellent columns and enhoy the game, trips.

  3. Bob in Houston said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    The Balbay injury hurt this team all season.

  4. Matt ATX said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Thanks for some great analysis and commentary. It’s appreciated. -M

  5. Kafka said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

    Barnes will probably try to play zone as much as possible. Rick is great at teaching kids how to block out and rebound from a zone. The zone could work if Memphis happens to have a poor shooting night. I seriously doubt Barnes will make large personnel changes, even if if he opts for the zone. Barnes plays who he plays.

    Memphis has superior depth and athleticism and Barnes wants to shorten the game as much as possible (i.e. milk the clock all game long).

    Having kept the ball in Augustin’s hands most of the time almost all season long, the horns are not a good passing team. I am guessing Rick puts the ball in Augustin’s hands most of the game.

    Calipari is smart enough that he will pressure Augustin and Abrams relentlessly (especially trying to deny Augustin the ball and get it out of his hands as soon as possible) when he does get the ball. Calipari will attack Augustin when the horns are on D. This will fatigue Augustin over the course of the game and may get into his head. Calipari will take his chances with Damion and Connor shooting outside and will attempt to force Mason to shoot the ball as much as possible.

    Memphis probably wins but the horns can win if they are hitting their 3’s and Memphis isn’t. I suggest the horns foul memphis a bunch.

  6. Mike Schroeppel said:

    March 29th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    Its hard to believe a team with only 5 turnovers against Mississippi State, and 9 turns against Michigan State, could be thought of as undisciplined.

  7. Longhorn Road Trip » Longhorns hope to erase the chalk said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 3:57 am

    [...] game previews Barking Carnival Burnt Orange Nation Jim Masilak of Memphis’ Commercial Appeal Kirk Bohls of the Austin [...]

  8. Trips Right said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am

    Kafka, I just meant he’d have to get Mason off the back line of the zone and go to a more traditional look 1 through 5.

    Mike, when you get to pick the context I suppose you’re right. I was typing about Memphis’ undisciplined play on the defensive end. They gamble a bunch and teams can take advantage of that. I had nothing but glowing remarks about Memphis’ offense.

  9. Trips Right said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 7:20 am

    LRT, that’s a great preview especially as it relates to the DDM. Top Notch. I’ll link it.

  10. RansomStoddard said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 7:28 am

    I’m thinking Memphis has not played a defense as good as Texas. Horns by 4

  11. CBT said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 10:04 am

    great write up. go horns!

  12. hiphopopotamus said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    Posting this at halftime – that was huge for Texas to close on a mini-run to keep it manageable.

    If they’re going to make it all the way back they need to figure out how to keep James/Atchley on the court and spread out Memphis’ D. And on defense, (as you mentioned above), they need to either figure out how to keep their man in front of them or rebound out of this zone they’re trying to play.

  13. Halftime said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 11:11 am

    That was huge & it has to be huge. If we come back and beat this team – we are very good. Damn they are big, … and fast, … and good.

  14. KC said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Did anyone notice how pathetic the crowd in orange was at the Memphis game?

    I’m talking about the ones sitting around Memphis’s goal during the second half.

    Texas was not completely demoralized and still had a chance.

    Then whenever they sent Memphis to the line, the crowd in burnt orange just sat there picking their noses. Not yelling, not standing. Sitting. The only noise to be heard was the Texas cheerleader squad yelling like they AND the crowd AND pep band SHOULD. Didn’t even hear the pep band – and granted it was at a giant Reliant Stadium venue, I still didn’t hear them.

    I’m ashamed.

  15. jonboy said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    the one thing i noticed was how scared augustin was. he just dribbled at the top of the key until someone else took the ball. granted he was blocked on just about every drive but when we were down by 15+ throughout the second half i thought it might have been a good idea to start the offense with more than 10 seconds on the shot clock.

  16. Trips Right said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

    Really and truly, I could see this one coming. Memphis’ perimeter size really plays well against our undersized guards when it comes to contesting shots. This caused some panic and hesitancy which led to turnovers and some runouts. 9 turnovers in the first half wasn’t Texas-like.

    We made a run in the second half going to some box and 1 with Mason on CDR, who was their zone killer in the lane and high post. The junk D led to several empty possessions but we couldn’t hit shots on the other end to get closer. A missed 3 by AJ in transition to cut the game to four was our 1 last chance.

    The better team won today, and I think the game is a pretty good benchmark of what and who you need to be to win it all. It really is tough to win games when you’re so perimeter dominated, have a hard time finishing at the rim, and no post game to speak of. That’s not say this team didn’t accomplish elite goals. It did. It’s just not a team that’s built to win a championship. I think if you added the junior version of Dex or the junior versions of Alexis Wangmane, Clint Chapman, and Gary Johnson to it, it might be.

    We ran in to a buzzsaw today, and that buzzsaw has better players at virtually every position.

  17. Kafka said:

    March 30th, 2008 at 8:02 pm

    I agree with everyting you said.

    The horns were overmatched and did pretty well, all things considered. Memphis was a lot bigger and more athletic (and maybe more talented, too).

    You can recruit guys who are athletic and try to teach them basketball or you can can recruit guys who are excellent basketball players and try to make them more athletic. The horns need more tall fast guys. Dex, Connor, and Chapman were/are all projects from an athletic perspective. Abrams and Augustin are tiny guys. Gary Johnson is really small for a power forward.

    The only horns who are really athletic and have decent size for their position are Damion and Mason (if Mason is playing guard and Damion is playing small forward).

    Barnes has done a good job of developing his players (physically and skills), coaching D, and getting the most out of his guys.

    The next step is to hire an offensive coordinator who can create an offense that is more balanced and generates easy shots. Barnes also needs to recruit bigger, more athletic guys. The state of Texas has a bunch of these guys, Barnes just needs to persuade some of them to go to UT.

    The horns rarely full court pressed this year and didn’t fast break that much (probably because of a lack of depth, size and athleticism). Next year I hope Barnes plays more guys and plays a faster paced game.

  18. Nordberg said:

    March 31st, 2008 at 7:10 am

    “The horns need more tall fast guys.”

    No shit. Who doesn’t? They don’t exactly grow on fucking trees you know.

  19. Kafka said:

    March 31st, 2008 at 12:39 pm

    Nordberg:

    The horns are particularly short at both guard positions and at small forward (with Mason at small forward). Connor is quite light for a big time program. Even Damion James is not real big at power forward. There is no reason for the horns to be this small.

    There are lots of tall fast guys in Houston and the rest of Texas. The question is why isn’t UT recruiting more of them. UT is now a fine basketball program in a great city which should be picking and choosing when it comes to recruits.

    My point is to place greater stress on athleticism (as opposed to current skills level) when recruiting.

  20. Trips Right said:

    March 31st, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    We’ve had plenty of misses, Kafka. Lewis, Winder and Harrison Smith come to mind. It would have been nice if Dion Dowell would have been patient.

  21. HenryJames said:

    March 31st, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    There a couple of big guards playing college ball on the West Coast that we passed on.

  22. Nordberg said:

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    We’ll “grow” a bit next year with the additions of Brown and Balbay. Plus hopefully James will spend considerably more time on the wing, where he put up Durant-ish numbers every game.

    That’s the frustrating part of it for me. James excels at the 3. One way or another I hope we see him there most of the time with two other bigs.

  23. Jere Dausch said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    Entertaining site. My friends and I were just discussing this the other evening. Also your post looks good on my old laptop. Now thats uncommon. Nice work.

  24. Nelly Dilling said:

    January 15th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

    It is good that you took your time to write all this up; it’s inspiring to hear another’s opinion. I respect your work on this page, and I’ll return for more info.

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