Tuesday, March 30, 2004
How Hewitt Could Im_ _ _ _ _ Me
Few coaches this year have done as a good job as Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt. Among the Jackets' secrets to success has been Hewitt's emphasis on oft-changing defensive schemes. As was evident in the Elite Eight, Tech's multiple defensive looks confused Kansas, preventing the Jayhawks from ever getting into a rhythm.But what if Hewitt finds a scheme that works? Or knows from the get-go that one scheme is likely to be more effective? From yesterday's Tulsa World:
Press corps: Not since losing to Syracuse in last year's NCAA Tournament have the Cowboys struggled with a full-court press like they did in the first half Saturday.
St. Joe's zone press used traps to force OSU to speed up its tempo and left the Cowboys out of rhythm. The result was 10 first-half turnovers and 41 percent shooting. "I thought we were too passive on our press break," Sutton said.
In the second half, Martelli switched to a less aggressive man-to-man press, which offered no traps, but used token pressure and allowed the Cowboys to either get their transition game going or set up their offense. The Cowboys committed just three turnovers and shot 54 percent in the second half.
"We kind of froze up a little bit; our brains froze up," Martelli said. "You know, I'll go into next October now thinking that maybe one more zone press might have done the trick."
Food for thought, eh?
