Just watched a small portion of the game last night and it was the first I've watched all year. Two observations: 1. We looked totally lost against the press. It appeared to be a 1-2-2 or really just a 1-2 press but it totally mystified us. 2. Why do half of our players look like Sylvia Fowles?
Either Ole Miss or Auburn (or maybe both, I can't remember) pressed us a lot, too, and we didn't look much better then. That is definitely something that will have to be corrected.
They actually broke the press better last night than those other games. It looked sloppy but there was more success.
Actually from a "how to break" the press, they seemed to be standing in the right places and knew what they were supposed to do. But, I noticed two things, sometimes when to pass is a matter of instinct and feel. Whether you pass sooner or later, how long do you dribble. Sometimes Stringer and Hickey wait too long to pass, or don't dribble attack authoritatively enough. Watch when Bass was in and he seemed to have more feel for it. the other thing is the height on our guards. When a 6'5"/6'4" quick guard is on you and you dribble too deep into the double team, and you're not tall enough to pass over the incoming trap, your passes get tipped or don't have enough zip. Several turn overs were of this variety. We need to get Isaac involved on the press break or Stringer and Hickey need to be more instinctual on their cuts and passes when they know they have less length than the other team.
You've got to attack the press once in a while. Spend the whole night walking into it gets you no where.
