Meyer on Morris Link
Moon Township, Pa. – Dec. 11, 2013 – Robert Morris was in a zone against Toledo Saturday at the Charles L. Sewall Center.
You might think after reading that sentence that the Colonials probably did well against Toledo.
Alas, not true.
The defensively-challenged Colonials scrapped their sieve-like man-to-man defense and unveiled their 2-3 zone defense as pretty much of a last resort against an offensive machine.
The results were sort of mixed, but the final result wasn't. Toledo turned back the Colonials, 80-77, handing RMU its fifth consecutive defeat and becoming the seventh straight foe to singe the Colonials for at least 80 points.
"It was effective,'' senior guard
Karvel Anderson said of the zone, "but we gave up 80 and we lost.''
"It was working for us,'' junior forward
Lucky Jones said. "We're just going to get better at it.''
Sounds as if the Colonials, who hadn't played a zone defense for an entire game in who knows how long, will stay in their zone Saturday at Duquesne – another good offensive squad.
After that?
"Maybe it's something we can get better at if we continue to work at it,'' Colonial coach
Andrew Toole said, "We do have to figure out a way to try and stop people. To be a good defensive team now (because of the new foul rules), you have to be a quick-thinking, well-conditioned, urgent team. When you are out of position now in man-to-man defense, you get exposed. I'm not sure they're going to let us play with six people on the court to try to stop people, so I don't know what the answer is in terms of being able to continually get some stops, but we're going to continue to search.''
The short-term search, which began immediately after the Colonials lost at Youngstown State, 84-76, Dec. 4, discovered the zone as a possible solution against Toledo.
"Toledo runs so much stuff and are so efficient offensively that it would have been ugly if we would have played man-to-man,'' Toole said. "I thought (the zone) gave us our best chance to try and win the game.''
Unbeaten Toledo entered the game last Saturday at the Charles L. Sewall Center averaging 92 points a game. The Colonials held them 12 points under that average. The Rockets also came into the Sewall Center shooting 52.3 percent from the floor. The Colonials "held'' them to 50 percent from the field.
So maybe the RMU zone defense was sort of, kind of effective.
More importantly, the Colonials really had only two days of practice to work on it.
"We'd practiced it, but we kind of accelerated our (work),'' Toole said. "It was an accelerated class. I don't know if it was a crash course, but it was accelerated.''
Kind of like cramming for semester exams, which Robert Morris is in the midst of this week.
"Correct,'' Toole said, managing a small smile. "We were up all night cramming.''
With a week off from games during exam week, the Colonials could use that time to polish their zone defense and maybe add some stuff to it.
"We would have liked to have three-quarter-court pressed a little more (against Toledo), but you can't ask too much, I guess,'' Toole said. "We forgot to do it about seven of the first nine possessions of the game, so we then had to back up and stay in the zone.''
Perhaps, too, the Colonials this week took more looks at their porous man-to-man defense and worked hard at trying to improve it.
"We're trying to be creative and figure out a way to hide some of our warts,'' Toole said. "We might have to do it with mixing defenses and mixing lineups depending on game-to-game situations and figure out how we're going to hold the other team.''
"We can't really play man-to-man defense, so we had to figure out something that was going to help us out and try and get stops,'' Jones said. "It's something we're going to try to stick with and go back and forth. Whatever works for us during the game, I guess that's what we're going to stick with. We just have to continue to fight, pull together and just get stops. We can get a bucket every time – at will – but we have to get stops and get rebounds. At the end of the day, we just have to finish (defensive) possessions.''
There's little question the Colonials used their zone against Toledo out of necessity. However, there are aspects of using a zone that could help Robert Morris if Toole decides to use it exclusively or mix it in liberally during upcoming games. Because the Colonials are trying to get six new players acclimated to playing defense the way Toole desires, the zone can provide a buffer and help RMU control tempo, keep some people out of foul trouble (especially the front-court players) and simplify defensive matters.
"In some of those zone situations, guys have three or four responsibilities versus 10 or 12 that you could be involved in in a given time playing man,'' Toole said. "We just thought it was the way to go (against Toledo), and we'll see what we liked from it and see what we can take from it and see if maybe there's a balance we can find.''
The Colonials had a bit of a balance in their performance against Toledo.
"I thought we did a lot of good things to put ourselves in a position to win the game,'' Toole said. "Unfortunately, it always comes down to a handful of plays that either they make or you make. In this case, I think they made some of the plays, and I think in some cases they got some really big assists from us to make those plays. If you're going to beat a good team, you have to clean those things up. Every time we relaxed, every time we didn't communicate, every time we made an error, they capitalized on it. That's what good teams do, and so in order to beat a good team you can't give them opportunities to beat you. Like I said, I liked a lot of the things we did, but we have a long way to go if we're going to become a good team.''
The Colonials against Toledo did shoot 63.3 percent from the floor, and they shot spectacularly from beyond the arc, making 10 of their 14 casts from international waters. When a team shoots that well, it should win – except when its defense is suspect.
While RMU's use of a zone defense against Toledo was stunning, equally eyebrow-raising was Toole's distribution of minutes to his players.
In a perfect basketball world – in which Toole lived for much of his first three seasons at RMU – he'd play his starters for 28 to 30 minutes each in a game. Bench players each would usually get 14 to 20 minutes on the floor depending on the situation.
Against Toledo, three of the players who started the game played at least 32 minutes. Jones played 35 minutes, while Anderson logged 34. Jeremiah Worthem just missed the 30-minute mark with 29 minutes.
Of the bench players,
Kavon Stewart was the only reserve to play double-digit minutes. The freshman point guard played 18 minutes, scoring six points and dishing four assists.
The other five reserves played a total of 27 minutes, an average of just over five minutes per player. None of them scored. Combined, those five had one rebound and two turnovers.
Midway through the first half, Robert Morris constructed a 16-10 lead. Toole went to his bench to give his starters a rest. Less than two minutes later, the Rockets led, 19-17.
In short, the bench other than Stewart provided no help.
That's another aspect of this 3-7 team that bothers Toole.
"We're up 16-10. They go into the game and we're down 19-17 like that,'' Toole said. "The game just started. You can't be tired. You just got into the game. You should be excited. You should be urgent. You should be ready to play. OK, maybe it's not 27-10 when we go back to the first group, but maybe it's like instead of being up seven we're up five. Or four. Is that so hard? Like they don't score every single possession they have the ball and we don't score every possession we have the ball. And then we take guys out and they're like, 'I don't get enough opportunity.' It's frustrating.
"When you go on the floor, not only do you have to be productive, but you also can't kill our squad, either, and we have to get some guys on that page.''
Effective bench play and stifling defense were key components in Toole's first three seasons, which produced 68 victories. Neither is presently in the mix on this Colonial team.
"Guys have to come in and be trusted,'' Toole said. "Everybody says they don't get enough opportunities. We practice anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours a day. That seems like a lot of opportunity to me. Then, when you get the opportunity to go into a game you have to provide something positive.
"We go play some teams on the road and they have guys who play three minutes and get two rebounds and a bucket, and that's just the stat stuff. Some of the other stuff that happens that we do -- defensive breakdowns and things like that -- just add to it. It's hard to put guys out there that you're not sure if they're going to be engaged or executing the plan. We don't have a very large margin of error -- clearly.
"It's crazy. You ask yourself the question, "Is a tired Lucky better than a fresh Player X? Is a tired Jeremiah Worthem better than (a fresh) Player Y?' Those are the decisions you have to make. It's really difficult as a coach to look into your crystal ball while warm-ups are going on and figure out who's going to be able to contribute because we've had certain games where they've contributed really well and then we have other games where they don't get enough opportunity. But you usually make your own opportunity. We're trying to get that concept.''
Toole thinks that isn't a difficult concept for a player to grasp.
"Know what's expected of you and go out and try to perform to the best of your ability,'' he said. "Nobody's going to play perfectly, but you can always bring some energy and intensity to the game, and we need some guys coming off our bench who can do that to help out everybody else.''
Maybe exam week provided some players the opportunity to study that concept more deeply – and learn it.
"Guys will have plenty of opportunity this week to try to prove their point that they should be on the floor more -- if that's what they decide they want to do,'' Toole said.
