Film Session: Little Rock

  • 11/24/2022 11:10 am in

While Indiana won comfortably against Little Rock and still held the Trojans under a point per possession (.910), its defense wasn’t always at a high level on Wednesday night. Little Rock likes to get out and run, even after a made basket, and the Hoosiers got burned a few times. Some communication and pick-and-roll coverage issues popped up as well.

We’ll take a look at these defensive miscues in the latest edition of Film Session:

After a Jordan Geronimo putback, Little Rock advances it up the floor quickly. Myron Gardner gets ahead of Indiana’s defense and the ball is advanced to him near the basket. Race Thompson does a nice job of shutting him down at the rim. But as that’s happening, CJ Gunn hangs on the left wing watching the action, instead of heading to the left corner to pick up an open Jordan Jefferson. So Gardner makes the pass to Jefferson and he connects on the 3-pointer.

Gunn got caught watching the paint dry on this one.

Here’s another play where Litte Rock’s quick work after a make bested the Hoosiers. After a Miller Kopp 3-pointer, the Trojans advance the ball up the court. With Indiana scrambling to pick up individually on defense, it leads to a mismatch. Tamar Bates has to contend with Garnder down low while Thompson has DJ Smith on the perimeter. So Smith wisely enters it into Garnder.

Here’s where things break down for the Hoosiers.

Thompson digs down while Kopp shades over in the lane for extra help. So there are now essentially three Hoosiers guarding Gardner. Meanwhile, Bates calls out the open Smith while Xavier Johnson calls for Bates to watch a cutting Trojan behind him.

From there, Garnder simply needs to pass it back out to Smith, who knocks down the 3-pointer.

Lack of awareness cost the Hoosiers on this one.

On a baseline out-of-bounds play in the second half, Chris Walker sets a screen for Gardner, who has just inbounded the ball. Kopp switches onto Gardner, but Jordan Geronimo continues to chase Garnder around the screen and the Hoosiers suddenly have sent two to the ball. This allows the screener, Walker, to leak out to the left corner, receive the pass and knock down a 3-pointer.

Lack of communication cost the Hoosiers on this one.

On our last play, Indiana defended Little Rock’s high ball screen action like they did several times in this game with the weak side coming over to stop the ball handler’s drive. While it worked on several occasions, there were some instances like below where Bates simply had too much ground to make up on his recovery back to his man and the Trojans were able to take a relatively uncontested 3-pointer, which Walker knocks down here.

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