Part I-B-a in the "I'm Still Avoiding Rewatching the Wake Game" series

So I went and watched the Clemson-Virginia OT game, and here's what I decided:

1) It's inaccurate to call Trevor Booker a center and Raymond Sykes a forward. When they're both in, Booker sticks to the paint and Sykes roams, but each of them spends significant time as Clemson's defensive post presence. This makes the difference in their rebounding splits more significant.

2) Clemson full court presses after every made basket. What's more, they usually use a big man as one of the pressers. Sykes does this more than Booker, but they both do it some. When the press is broken, they do not have a half court defense set up, which leads to offensive players getting better position and more rebounds. I believe that this is part of the reason why Clemson defensively rebounds poorly. However, FSU doesn't press, so we don't have this excuse.

3) Clemson uses an aggressive help line on defense. For example, picture the following situation. Clemson's opponent has the ball on one of the wings (call this side the strong side). The man that Sykes (or Booker) is guarding stands on the other side of the court (the weak side), just outside of the paint. To prevent the man with the ball from driving, Clemson will have Sykes leave his man, and come all the way to the edge of the paint on the strong side. This ensures that if the man with the ball does drive, Sykes will be in a perfect position to block his shot. If, however, a shot is taken before Sykes can get back to his man, that man (usually a good rebounder) will become the responsibility of another (smaller) Clemson defender. What's more, he will have perfect position on the weak side. All teams use help defense, but many teams only have the help man come to the middle of the paint, putting him in less good position to block a shot but closer to his original man. This is one of the trade-offs coaches make which can have a large effect on their team's statistics. I'm slightly ashamed to admit this, but I've never taken note of where FSU puts their help line. I don't know if the Noles' help line positioning is relevant to their defensive rebounding problems.

4) There is indeed a noticeable difference between the way Booker (the good defensive rebounder) and Sykes (the bad defensive rebounder) position themselves. With Booker, his boxout begins the moment his man gets within ten feet of his basket. He makes contact, diagnosis where his man wants to go (it's pretty obvious: near the basket), and continuously gets in his way. When a shot goes up, Booker already knows where his man is (he's very often touching him), and is able to immediately box him out, a good distance from the basket - he never even lets him get close. Sykes on the other hand always plays slightly off his man. He stands half facing him, perhaps two feet away, and follows both his man and the ball out of the corners of his eyes. He does a good job (at least in this game) of diagnosing play, and preventing the ball from ever coming in to the man he is defending, but he doesn't really use his body. He allows his man to take up any position he wants as long as he doesn't have the ball. He only moves to box out once the ball is in the air, so ends up in many more situations where both he and his man have equal position, and it is merely an athletic contest for the ball. He approaches offensive and defensive rebounds essentially the same way, and collects them at almost identical rates.

The differences that I noted between Booker and Sykes are essentially what I expect to find between Uche Echefu and Chris Singleton, an inexperienced but athletic player who excels at getting offensive rebounds. However, I don't think that Solomon will fall into the same category. I expect his problems (I use the word very relatively) to have more to do with leg strength. He has decent technique and gives good effort, but he's simply not strong enough at this point to dominate the same way that Uche or Booker do. As for Ryan Reid, I really have not a clue why he fails to dominate the defensive boards, while performing well on the offensive ones. He's not the active athlete Sykes or Singleton is (which allows them to get offensive boards), but he is experienced (a junior) as well as strong. I am sure he doesn't shy away from contact.

Miami comes to the Tucker Center tomorrow. Barring another blowout, I'll pay special attention to our help line and all of our bigs, especially Reid.