Breaking the Press: It's not that hard, is it?
by Jake Bertalotto on Mar 2, 2009 8:00 AM PST
in Oregon State Men's Basketball
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PrintThe Beavers lost to the Ducks in the Civil War 79-69. In case you missed it, you can read my game story here.
If you're Coach Robinson, you know that your team imposed their will for about the first 24 minutes of the game. The Beavers led by ten at halftime, then came out and put more distance between themselves and the Ducks with five straight points from Seth Tarver.
But then, the Oregon full-court press changed everything. The Beavers seemed to stay calm-- which I liked-- but they let the Ducks impose their will for the remainder of the game. Oregon forced 12 Oregon State turnovers in the final 20 minutes, and scored 12 points off of those turnovers. Meanwhile, the Ducks only turned the ball over once.
So what, really, went wrong? From my vantage point, the Beavers just got reluctant. They knew not to force things and push the tempo against the press, but they didn't do what they needed to do in order to swing the mometum back. And they also made mistakes-- 12 second-half turnovers worth.
Craig Robinson talked after the game about how it's partially due to the fact that the Beavers have been winning so many games. I think he's right-- the Beavers have actually gotten used to winning-- they'd won seven of their last eight before yesterday. When the Ducks began to swing the tide of the game, the Beavers just didn't rise to the occasion and play with a sense of urgency.
"We pretty much just stopped executing,'' Calvin Haynes told reporters after the game. "We stopped doing what was working for us.''
The Beaver offense, which looked so good in the first half with back-cut after back-cut, went MIA for most of the second half, and the Ducks took over.
"There's no excuse,'' said Haynes. "We didn't do what we needed to do. They were down 14 on their own court, and discouraged, and we did not punch them in the mouth when we had to.''
The Ducks went on a 19-0 run over a five minute stretch of the second half, and the game was never the same.
The press should be outlawed...
--Jake (jake.buildingthedam@gmail.com)
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You know poop happens...
And at least we didn’t make the front page of Yahoo.
Embarrassing goal
-RVM
Seriously though
Craig Robinson talked after the game about how it’s partially due to the fact that the Beavers have been winning so many games. I think he’s right— the Beavers have actually gotten used to winning— they’d won seven of their last eight before yesterday. When the Ducks began to swing the tide of the game, the Beavers just didn’t rise to the occasion and play with a sense of urgency.
At first glance this comment by Jake and C. Robinson might seem a bit silly, “used to winning?” “How can that be a negative thing?!” But think about it and how they looked when Oregon cranked it up. The Ducks played that second half exactly like you would expect them to being down at home and being a team that only had one conference up to this point: with aggressive go for broke abandon. The Beavs? Well Calvin flipped the switch but no one seemed to follow (that must have killed him!) and he can’t do it all himself. They had that shot clock violation threw very lazy passes in the backcourt, and so on. Prime example was Roeland and those long shots were ridiculous and just looked like “hey, no problem, I have made this type of shot before in the CW.” Well, no comment.
By all this I don’t think they needed to get into the Oregon game and definitely don’t panic, but at the very least breaking the press much much quicker would have gone a long way last night, instead of going back on our heels expecting to win. IMO, I think that if we could have cranked it up during that 19-0 run and scored at least 6 to 8 points we come out with a W (a hard fought and down to the wire W, but we escape).
So I agree with Jake here, but also water under the bridge (as long as the team learned from this).
-RVM
Learn from history
If I had Robinson’s ear, I’d be inclined to suggest that he dig through the bowels of Gill Coliseum, and pull some old game tapes from say 1980-1983. If he sat the team down in front of that “vintage” footage, they would experience the elegance of breaking down the press. To watch a Ralph Miller team maintain control of the tempo of the game, even under pressure, was a thing of beauty.
Opponents will continue to be frustrated by the methodical, ball control style of play, and the press will come … either, as a now-proven tactic against our offense, or out of desperation. Ample time during the next week of practice getting the ball up court should be a priority.
- dsp
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Pacific-12 Conference Standings
(updated 1.2.2012 at 11:12 PM PST)
| North | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
Oregon Ducks
|
8 | 1 | 12 | 2 |
|
Stanford Cardinal
|
8 | 1 | 11 | 2 |
|
Washington Huskies
|
5 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
|
California Golden Bears
|
4 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
|
Oregon St. Beavers
|
3 | 6 | 3 | 9 |
|
Washington St. Cougars
|
2 | 7 | 4 | 8 |
| South | Conf | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
|
USC Trojans
|
7 | 2 | 10 | 2 |
|
UCLA Bruins
|
5 | 4 | 6 | 8 |
|
Utah Utes
|
4 | 5 | 8 | 5 |
|
Arizona St. Sun Devils
|
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|
Arizona Wildcats
|
2 | 7 | 4 | 8 |
|
Colorado Buffaloes
|
2 | 7 | 3 | 10 |
Pacific-12 Conference Standings
(updated 2.6.2012 at 10:39 PM PST)
| Conf | Overall | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W | L | |
|
Washington Huskies
|
9 | 2 | 16 | 7 |
|
California Golden Bears
|
8 | 3 | 18 | 6 |
|
Colorado Buffaloes
|
8 | 3 | 16 | 7 |
|
Oregon Ducks
|
7 | 4 | 16 | 7 |
|
Arizona Wildcats
|
7 | 4 | 16 | 8 |
|
Stanford Cardinal
|
6 | 5 | 16 | 7 |
|
UCLA Bruins
|
6 | 5 | 13 | 10 |
|
Oregon St. Beavers
|
5 | 6 | 15 | 8 |
|
Washington St. Cougars
|
4 | 7 | 12 | 11 |
|
Arizona St. Sun Devils
|
3 | 8 | 7 | 16 |
|
Utah Utes
|
2 | 9 | 5 | 18 |
|
USC Trojans
|
1 | 10 | 6 | 18 |
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