"Good offense beats good defense."
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
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Who knows but this is bit of a tired subject for me.
Everyone has their own preferences. All I care about ultimately is that my team scores more than the other team however it can be done.
Clearly Pitt needs scorers don’t get me wrong. And hopefully Trey and Xavier have already started getting shots up as they can be a big part of the solution.
Everyone has their own preferences. All I care about ultimately is that my team scores more than the other team however it can be done.
Clearly Pitt needs scorers don’t get me wrong. And hopefully Trey and Xavier have already started getting shots up as they can be a big part of the solution.
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Similarly, Dakich said yesterday that an NCAA Tourney has never been won by a team that can’t make jumpshots.
Of course it is correct. The problem is finding the right guys.
I agree but many on here, think defense is most important. You need to be good at both but it's more important to be able to score
Jamie Dixon proved that elite defense can't work in the biggest games if you can't shoot and score. Think back to some of his losses, 50-48 type games, with great D and poor shooting all around.
BB I’ll take the good offense.
FB I’d probably take the good/dominant defense.
Pitt scored 1.25 and 1.18 points per possession in 2011 postseason losses to UConn and Butler, our 2nd and 4th best offensive outputs of the season against P5 opponents.
They gave up 1.28 and 1.20, UConn’s best and Butler’s 2nd best.
NOBODY thinks defense is most important. Plenty have suggested that it’s half as important.
If I was a coach, I would want the best offensive players I could find and try to teach them to play defense rather than find the best defenders I could find and teach them how to shoot and how to beat guys off the dribble.
Sure ... this is a perfectly reasonable and logical take. One that many, perhaps even myself, could agree with to some extent. But it’s a completely different take than saying offense is more important than defense.
It may indeed be easier to teach and coach up defense as opposed to offensive skills. However, this take also acknowledges that there is indeed an importance to defense.
Its pretty simple really. Your defense needs to be as good as your offense is not and vice versa.
But as basketball goes, often the more casual watcher only focuses on offense and many here on this board see this as folly.
In the past 4 years, 3 teams with top 12 offenses have won the championship with defenses ranked over 100. All 3 teams that lost in the championship game had top 12 defenses with the 176th, 16th, and 53rd ranked offense.
But in 2016 the 57th offense and 15th defense beat the 10th ranked offense with 126th ranked defense.
This by no means proves anything, but I found it interesting. The results are less clear when looking at Offensive Rating, or other advanced metrics, rather than strictly points per game. For example 2015 Wisconsin had the 53rd ranked scoring offense and 12th best scoring defense, but had the highest offensive rating in the country and the 82nd highest defensive rating.
Also, the results get more mixed the further back you go.
But Dixon rarely had a truly elite defense, so he's not really a great test case for this. He had a top 5 defense (in efficiency) in his first few seasons and then, I think, never had a top 20 defense again outside of the 2009 team, which was still more gifted offensively.
I agree that we would have done better in those tournaments if we had a dynamic, lottery pick type of offensive show stopper to take over. Sign me up for one of those players every time. But our defense was rarely elite under Dixon. It was always good (except the CBI year). It has been documented that most national champions are top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and Dixon's defenses fell in the top 20 only a few times.
Good info for sure.
I do believe it’s possible, if not even likely, that a good offensive team, but not great defensive team, can turn things up on the defensive end come tournament time.
Ultimately it comes down to talent for the most part. Blue bloods win because of that. I think great defensive teams give themselves the best odds when they dont have the offensive talent.
Times have changed. Defense has changed. In the past defense could win a championship. If you drove into the paint, expect to be picking your butt off the floor possibly with no foul called. A player could draw charges anywhere on the court. Hand checks were the norm. You could blow up screens by running through the screen. Now the emphasis is on scoring. Just look at the NBA. Very little defense. "Olay" defense on drives to basket. So yes, offense has become much more important. In order to win championships, you must have players who can score and play decent defense.
Reminds me of one of my favorite baseball- player quotes. Former Pirate pitcher Bob Veale once said in a post-game interview: “Good pitching stops good hitting. And vice versa.”
Go Pitt.
Thinking that you need 5 great defensive players on the court at all times is just downright stupid . Having 5 guys on the court that can’t shoot will guarantee you one thing you’re going to lose !
The fact that some people think that you can just ignore half of the game is hilarious. Ask any coach if he thinks defense is important, and literally every single one of them would say something like "of course it is". And yet we have people on this board who have said that they don't think you should even consider defense when picking a lineup.
Because the raw number of points scored and points allowed isn't how you should be measuring good offenses or good defenses. A team that scores 70 points in a 75 possession game does not have a better offense than a team that scores 68 points in a 63 possession game.
Says the guy who said that he wouldn't even consider defense when deciding who should play.
The last time I looked there were five guys on each team . All 5 guys need not process every skill . It’s not necessary to have 5 great defenders , 5 great shooters , 5 great rebounders ,5 great ball handlers , 5 great shot blockers etc . I know that concept is too difficult for you to understand .
Other than the person who said that they wouldn't even consider defense when deciding who to play no one else has said that all five guys need to be the same. Since you know that guy intimately, remind us all again why someone would say that?
The point of the game isn't to score points, it's to score MORE points than the other guys do.
I’m done with your stupidity , I never said defense isn’t important , but you can’t understand that so you have a nice night .
You said that you wouldn't consider it when deciding who to play. If you think it's important then why wouldn't you consider it?
Or is this another one of those things that you realize later after you've said it's so dumb you need to disavow it?
This debate has grown tiresome...
Now is the time on Spockets when we dance!!
Now is the time on Spockets when we dance!!
Were I a D1 coach I would design my program or philosophy around these "truths" .
1. Basketball is by its nature an offensive game(in my lifetime)
2. Therefore great offense beats great defense over time, possession by possession.
3. Therefore, to reduce the efficiency of the opponents offense(pts. / poss.) there must be great effort in putting together a great team defense.
4. One additional benefit of prioritizing great team defense, is the team building aspect of communication, taking a charge, diving on the ball, etc, that shows a commitment to the team and winning
5. Rebounding is the most important part of defense.
This would not only affect my schemes and strategy but my recruiting as well
1. Basketball is by its nature an offensive game(in my lifetime)
2. Therefore great offense beats great defense over time, possession by possession.
3. Therefore, to reduce the efficiency of the opponents offense(pts. / poss.) there must be great effort in putting together a great team defense.
4. One additional benefit of prioritizing great team defense, is the team building aspect of communication, taking a charge, diving on the ball, etc, that shows a commitment to the team and winning
5. Rebounding is the most important part of defense.
This would not only affect my schemes and strategy but my recruiting as well
One facet of “defense” is being adaptable. Consider how Dixon routinely attacked the notorious Syracuse zone. After 10+ years of losing, Boeheim would still pretty much roll out the same exact defensive gameplan every time he played Pitt.
I think there’s definitely an argument to be made that defensive-minded teams like Dixon-Pitt and Bennett-Virginia can be very good defensively, but have a hard time recovering when that defense fails.
I think there’s definitely an argument to be made that defensive-minded teams like Dixon-Pitt and Bennett-Virginia can be very good defensively, but have a hard time recovering when that defense fails.
That's not the argument and you are making a strawman defense as you are usually want to do. It is "more important". We love to paint everything as all or nothing. Of course defense is important. But the teams that win championships are the teams who can score and shoot with consistency. UVa is the latest example of what we have seen at Pitt a decade ago, a great team who blitzes through the regular season then comes post season fizzle out.
It is okay, and this is not an indictment of a previous coach as some will take it. If he had a chance to have a DWade or someone like that, I am sure he would have loved to have someone like that. X and Trey if they develop a consistent outside shot will be two guys who can beat defenders over the top or on the blow by. We haven't had that.
The OP is also making a straw man, IMo, and trying to drum up controversy where there is none.
Also. Wont not want.
I pretty much agree with what you said here. My question to you would be do you think that X and Trey can develop that shot? Mostly because they don't have prototypical form. Both of them have their shot originate from to low and it is a long and slow release. Good shooters are quick release and the shot starts at the shoulder or above the head.
Thanks......I was wondering about that. Nonetheless, it is okay to agree with me. I am not the boogeyman. Do you not agree a good offense beats a good defense?
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Did you notice the other side was a straw man as well?
I did it before so I'm not going to bother getting the numbers again, but over the last 15 or so years the team that won the national championship finished outside the top 15 in defense once, and outside the top 11 twice.
Teams that wins championships are almost always top level offensive and defensive teams. Teams do not win championships with the number one offense and the number 100 defense anymore than they win championships with the number one defense and the number 100 offense.
Purdue has the number 5 offense this year. They are unlikely to win the championship because they have the number 32 defense. Wisconsin has the number 3 defense this year. They are unlikely to win the championship because they have the number 47 offense. Duke is the clear favorite (assuming everyone is healthy) because their offense is number 6 and their defense is number 6.
The fact of the matter, and it most certainly is a fact, is that teams generally do not win championships without being very good at both offense and defense. I get that you'd like to pretend that saying that is a strawman because you really wish it wasn't so, but that doesn't change the facts. Teams that win championships aren't simply teams that score and shoot with consistency. Teams that win championship are teams that score and shoot with consistency while playing high level defense. Either one without the other basically never works. As history shows, year after year after year.
Of course you need both, however, simply looking at stats isn't going to tell the full story. Teams with really great offenses are almost always going to have at least above average defensive statistics, if nothing more than for the fact that they are going to often take the other team out of their own offensive rhythm and force them to play keep-up.
If you're a great offensive team, you force the other team to adjust their own offensive game plan, in many cases, and play a style they aren't accustomed to, which can make your own defensive stats better, even if you're not necessarily a great defense in the traditional, knees bent, hands-up sense.
I agree with that, but of course the converse is true as well. I mean surely we can agree that most teams have to adjust what they do on offense to be able to efficiently attack the Virginia defense, right? And that what a team does to try to play well offensively against Virginia really isn't the best way to attack the Syracuse zone, especially in years when they have played it at a very high level, right?
The best teams are the best teams because they can adjust their offense and their defense to best match up with what the other guys do and don't do so well.
How many regular season losses to Dixon prevented Syracuse from going far in March? Zero. Pointless.
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