I know his offense was bad last night but his defense was even worse how many times can he come off his man and go into the lane and leave Kopp wide open for 3 pointers he does this time and time again not only last night but in many other games really cost us in the first half
Paul's Defense
- Thread starter richthedentist
- Start date
Tell me you don’t know basketball without telling me you don’t know basketball
Love the guy! He seemed to be struggling with the mental part of his game last night.
I believe he will have a bounce back MVP like performance against Illinois
Paul overhelps way too often. Many times when it's completely unnecessary
Definitely hurt yesterday and as Op said , he does it too often . I could have lived with TJD scoring 20 or even 25 if Kopp had 6 instead of 18. We win the game 8 out of 10 times. The minute we got it to 3 at the half , I thought we were going to win. Paul gave up 2 Kopp threes early on the second half that were killers because we shut them down except for TJD the rest of the game.
Paul plays basketball like jekyll and hyde. When he plays with confidence and wants to assert himself, you see what he can do on both sides of the court. When he doesnt assert himself, he gets down himself and he starts reacting to everything late...
You have to know who you are guarding. You can't be in the lane for no real reason and lose complete track of your man if you are covering a 3 point sniper like Kopp
If you are covering a low percentage shooter then sure, over help. Be in the lane. The ball would be on the other side of the court and Paul is in the lane. Kopp slides to the corner and they skip an easy pass to him wide open for the 3. Can't let that happen
DING DING DING!!! I put it a little differently in a group chat, last night, but THIS is spot-on.
@SirScarlet @PatrickRU92 @Scarlet Shack
The help needs to come from whoever is guarding Trey and Race, not Kopp
It would be like them over helping off Cam and not Caleb
The one guy you can’t leave on that team is Kopp but not sure it was Paul all the time. Would need to watch again but no interest in doing that. Haha
It‘s easy to blame Paul, but this is the system Pike runs. When you overplay the ball you leave guys open and good shooters will kill you if you get the ball to them. You never see our players just staying with their own man, but sometimes that is exactly what you need to do when your base defense is being abused.
I really hope Pike's gameplan wasn't for Paul to leave Kopp open for 3. The help needs to be coming off Trey and Race. Make their worse offensive players beat you
We leave good shooters open for threes all the time, we never adjust. If the other team doesn’t panic when we double the ball and passes to the open shooter, we always have trouble. Our defenders never stay on good shooters on the perimeter when they don’t have the ball.
It wasn't only him. It wasn't his defense that was bad, it was Cliff's. TJD was beating him off the dribble causing other players to leave their man to help. Cliff got dominated last night.
That’s a great point Scangg. Let Galloway and Thompson take open threes not Kopp. It was even worse because Kopp had 21 of the 48 points they scored in the first meeting and hit 3-4 threes in that game as well. So he cannot say he didn’t know. Total mental collapse by Paul.
Maybe emotional win at Garden took more out of Caleb and Paul than people want to admit?
Maybe Izzo sending post game smoke wasn’t Izzo being so complimentary but setting RU up for a fall?
Maybe quick turn around after Garden and MSU getting nice cozy home game and Indy getting home game and RU getting three games away from the RAC in a week was a danger sign that some fans were ripped from seeing a mile away? B1G always has RU’s best interest at heart right? I mean after all it was just “logistics”.
RU fan crazy to suggest the obvious inequities? Hmmmmmmmm. SMH
Maybe Izzo sending post game smoke wasn’t Izzo being so complimentary but setting RU up for a fall?
Maybe quick turn around after Garden and MSU getting nice cozy home game and Indy getting home game and RU getting three games away from the RAC in a week was a danger sign that some fans were ripped from seeing a mile away? B1G always has RU’s best interest at heart right? I mean after all it was just “logistics”.
RU fan crazy to suggest the obvious inequities? Hmmmmmmmm. SMH
Last edited:
After a missed free throw by Paul, announcer says, ‘ a rare miss by Mulchahy’. I really like Paul, but that miss wasn’t so rare. He missed 4 against Mich State.
Our own worst offensive player beat us, not Kopp or TJD, but there’s another thread about that.
It was almost all due to Trace. Cliff needed help or else it was a layup/dunk every play. When you rotate to Cliff someone else needs to rotate over to the next perimeter shooter. As Indiana rotated the ball along the perimeter it caused other guys to be open. We didn’t get beat because of the perimeter shooting of Indiana. We got beat because Indiana got east points and we didn’t
The gameplan needs to be to not rotate and help off Kopp though. Let others take open 3's instead
Not even close , watch again. TJD made like a skip pass to Kopp in the deep corner 2x and Paul was no where close to him. I am referencing the 2 early second half threes Kopp hit that were killers. In the first half , he hit 1 or 2 when we were in zone but also on Paul’s side. After the way Kopp lit us up scoring 21 of their 48 in the first meeting including 5-9 from 3 , it was a total mental failure on Paul’s end. Overall , offensively , defensively , ball handling , lack of assists , foul shooting , one of his tougher games of the year to watch , in a crucial spot.